More on WMDs
It's pretty much official; there were no WMDs in Iraq in 2002 or early 2003. It seems the Bush Administration has quietly admitted this, and has given up searching; although Colin Powell is [link=http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/09/politics/09POWE.html? ex=1074229200&en=0bedf01f1ee25ad3&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE] keeping up[/link] a loyal, increasingly pathetic, "message".
There are more details. For example, it has always been confusing to speak of all WMDs as if they are the same--of course, the Bush Administration has contributed to this confusion. Saddam's chemical weapons probably lost their potency in 1991; there was "no convincing evidence" that Iraq had re-constituted its nuclear program. On the other hand, "uncertainties" were greater regarding biological weapons, and there was probably a capacity to re-constitute both chemical and biological weapons. This would have taken time, and there is no proof there were plans in place either to produce weapons or to make them available to terrorists. Again, the U.S. has repeatedly suggested that producing them would somehow be identical to offering them to terrorists.
There was a lot of deliberate exaggeration of the threat, and this was directed from the political level, through the Office of Special Plans in the Pentagon, created in 2002. On the other hand, Clinton continues to say he believed Saddam had some WMDs in 2002--so there must have been some more or less solid evidence to this effect. [Update: For a while Clinton had a close working relationship with Ahmed Chalabi--until the fiasco of a "Bay of Pigs" operation in 1996. Perhaps Clinton continued to rely on Chalabi, and Chalabi's usual gang of defectors, for information until 2001. Gen. Anthony Zinni, who has made news recently for criticizing the U.S. operation in Iraq, has had a low opinion of Chalabi for some years because of the events described here.]
It seems that no credible person, anywhere, believed that Saddam had nukes. Perhaps we can even say that was an invention of Dick Cheney personally. There was more debate about chemical and biological weapons. Again, however, even if the White House believed in all honesty that Saddam had this stuff, or could produce it quickly, it did not follow that it would be made readily available to terrorists, or indeed that it was any more of a threat to anyone than it is in the many countries where it exists today.
The other continuing "non story," of course, is that there is no known link between Saddam and Al Qaeda; Powell responds to that in the article linked above, as well. (See Cheney here, where he doesn't mention nukes).
The Washington Post confirms that Iraq was developing new missile technology, and this fits with the story about an attempted purchase from North Korea--not of WMDs, but of long-range missiles, in contravention of the limits that had been placed on Iraq.
There are still questions about the sequence of events. If Saddam had no weapons to speak of, why did he not simply demonstrate that fact? When exactly did each type of WMD go out of production, or become unavailable, in Iraq?
I think the most interesting revelations are in the Post article. Scientists and others with actual experience in high-tech facilities in Iraq have testified in great detail. In some cases, there was a promising development of nukes or whatever until the invasion of Kuwait in 1991, and nothing since. In other cases, facilities were destroyed before UN Inspectors were able to look at them--no later than 1995 or 1996.
Above all, there was a lot of deception both within Iraq, and in the way information was disseminated to the world. Iraqis would deliberately deceive Saddam, always giving him good news--such as a facility is working, we will have weapons soon--in order to get funding, or to keep from being imprisoned or killed. UN sanctions did impose poverty on the country, and there was intense competition for scarce dollars. In many cases, people became sophisticated at diverting "oil for food" dollars for their pet projects.
So Saddam may not have known what was going on. He also wanted to appear as tough as possible. Blix now says: it can be useful to have a "Beware of Dog" sign on your door, even if you don't have a dog. Somewhat weirdly, the defectors upon whom the Bush White House relied for information (led and perhaps guided by Ahmed Chalabi), may have largely fallen for information that was fabricated or distorted either by scientists and others trying to build their empires, or by Saddam.
My question again is: why was the U.S., with its vast intelligence resources, unable to figure this out? Does the President have a daily intelligence briefing just so the experts can say: your guess is as good as mine?
Some conclusions: Iraq's invasion of Kuwait was a disaster for Saddam. Perhaps obvious, but there are some new wrinkles here. Saddam put dollars into this ordinary military invasion, and halted more WMD-type programs. Then, in the aftermath, the money never existed to start everything up again. I still think the invasion was not purely crazy: lots of people think the national borders imposed by the Europeans make no sense; there is no sign anyone really cares about the Kuwaitis, and Saddam probably thought he had a nudge and a wink from the U.S. Ambassador, April Glaspie. But to the extent that the U.S. did encourage him, they inadvertently weakened all of his weapons programs from that point forward, and hastened his downfall.
Another conclusion: UN sanctions worked. Maybe even UN weapons inspections, to a greater extent than the war hawks have been willing to admit.
Questions about U.S. messages. The flight-suit photo op has been done to death. Changing the schedule for a carrier returning home, simply for the photo op, may be a bit much, but it might seem par for the course if you accept the analogy to World War II and the Cold War. Someone who's not really a pilot, dressing up like a pilot? I've been inclined to say Eisenhower, who was a real general, never appeared in uniform while he was president, but that may not be quite true. When he visited troops he may have appeared in some kind of army fatigues. At any rate, the President is Commander in Chief, not a Commandante. Glenn Reynolds, who is pro-war, said the event was a bit too "Third World."
The low point that has not been discussed much is Colin Powell waving a vial of powder at the UN Security Council. He did not exactly hasten to explain what the powder was; only later did he say, of course he would not have carried any poison around like that, it was icing sugar or something. So he was trying to demonstrate that a small amount of powder can be very dangerous? Doesn't that make the point that anyone can make this stuff in their bathtub, and taking out sovereign governments may be more or less beside the point?
There is a similarity to Adlai Stevenson speaking at the General Assembly, showing photos of Soviet missile silos during the Missile Crisis. But to me, waving a vial is bit too much like that nasty kid in kindergarten, trying to scare everyone.
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