By Merle D. Kellerhals, Jr.
Washington File staff writer

Washington -- Coalition forces in Iraq are pressing ahead with organized searches for weapons of mass destruction, while eliminating remaining pockets of armed resistance, hunting down key regime leaders and increasing military contributions to humanitarian assistance, a U.S. Central Command briefing officer says.

"Removing weapons of mass destruction from this regime's hands, and eliminating the threats from emerging again in the future are part of this operation," Army Brigadier General Vincent Brooks said April 15 at the daily CENTCOM briefing outside Doha, Qatar. "The efforts to get it done are ongoing, and we believe that we'll be successful in that. The fact that they have not been used yet is a success story." Weapons of mass destruction (WMD) include nuclear weapons and those using chemical or biological agents.

Brooks also said at the briefing that the focus of coalition operations over the preceding 24 hours had been on eliminating the remaining pockets of armed resistance, locating key regime leaders, and increasing military contributions to humanitarian assistance.

"Special operations forces have been active in expanding security in the northern Iraq areas of Mosul, Irbill and Kirkuk," he said.

On the search for WMD, Brooks said the coalition knows that there are people who have direct knowledge of Iraq's advanced weapons programs and that it will take time to gain access to them. Brooks said coalition forces, at the unit level, are using detectors and monitoring equipment to inspect specific locations.

"That may give the first indication that maybe there's something that's chemical, maybe there's something that's radiological," he said. "We then take it to another level. We have other organizations that have been brought in, military units that have the capability to do a more detailed examination and confirm an agent.

"An entire brigade has been devoted to that, an artillery brigade -- changed from its normal mission of delivering fire support, trained to do site exploitations in small teams," he said. "So we can cover a number of areas. But the key part is that we have to get information that leads us to the areas for the work to be done," Brooks said.

Brooks said some initial examinations did not, in the final analysis, provide any WMD weapons. He said the efforts by the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein to hide WMD weapons have been very deliberate and have been going on a long time.

"I think we have to be very patient as we do our work to find these things," Brooks said. "The advantage we have is that we can enter a place by force if need be, and we have already done that in some areas."

Brooks said that to illustrate the point, coalition forces have already found jet fighter aircraft buried in the desert.

"We remain convinced that there are weapons of mass destruction inside of Iraq, and we remain unwavering in our view of that. We know there are systems that could deliver it -- many of those have been destroyed," Brooks said.

He also announced at the briefing that all of the oil fields in northern Iraq have been secured, and that an oil well fire reported April 14 has been extinguished. "At this point, there are no burning oil wells in Iraq," Brooks said.