My Middle East Obsession
I'm really going to have to write on something else soon, but here are a few thoughts for today.
The one Middle East file that has been important for every president since the 50s is "Israel vs the Palestinians." As of late yesterday I still thought Bush had done pretty well on the "road map." This piece suggests the major parties were prepared to start another 90-day cease-fire. What I especially like is the idea that Israel would identify leaders who, according to their investigations, were about to attack Israelis, but rather than simply attack pre-emptively, Israel would give the Palestinian authority a certain amount of time to get these individuals off the street.
Today the articles on the web are gloomy and gloomier. Israel has apparently identified all Hamas leaders as targets, whether or not they are somehow "moderate." They have killed another leader who was apparently not a moderate.
One school of thought says the Israeli approach will radicalize Hamas, reinforce the view among the Palestinians that Israel only understands violence, and help Hamas and the other terrorist groups with recruiting. There is still an optimistic view that Israel is taking some tough steps that must be taken in order for negotiations to be meaningful, and the Palestinian Authority had proved itself unable to take these steps.
Within the PA itself, Abbas is apparently in serious trouble, and Arafat is making some kind of return, even though the U.S. has said they will refuse to negotiate with him.
In Iraq, another massive bombing. At a minimum, the U.S. will probably have to speed up its timetable to get Iraqis in charge of internal security.
Meanwhile the WMDs issue, or more generally, the issue of the reasons that were given for a U.S. and allied invasion of Iraq, is not going away.
On the one hand, Washington is still saying officially that claims to the effect that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction were and are true. "We're finding WMDs, and we'll report on some--just you wait and see." (A report from David Kay is expected within days). On the other hand, a full-scale re-examination of the alleged defectors from Saddam's regime, along with other sources who told about WMDs, is under way. Why? Because it's possible all, or almost all, of their claims about WMDs, including those that were heavily reported in the New York Times, were lies. (See Jack Shafer in Slate and Josh Marshall, both linking to the L.A. Times). (Marshall also has a link to the Boston Globe, as discussed below).
The natural question is: who would have gone to all this trouble to make decision-makers believe lies about WMDs in Iraq? The answer we're getting is: Saddam. The alleged defectors either were working for him, or were themselves duped by agents of Saddam. Wait a minute. Saddam wanted the U.S. to believe he had WMDs? Even though this was likely to provoke a U.S. invasion, with or without UN sanctions, and thus the end of Saddam? I don't know--no one ever accused Saddam of being suicidal.
Shafer has an answer for this: Saddam had a consistent policy of maintaining "ambiguity" as to his exact state of military preparedness. He wanted to frighten his immediate neighbours, while providing some reassurance to the international community that he wasn't an immediate threat. I say again: if Saddam actually conspired in 2002 and 2003 to deliver messages to the U.S. on the ridiculously high side as to what weapons he had, that was suicidal.
(This is also the problem with saying that Saddam was part of the planning for 9/11. At 8:00 a.m. Eastern on 9/11, Saddam had everything his way. He had kicked out the UN inspectors, he apparently could develop WMDs if he wanted to (most observers thought he did want to), the sanctions were hurting his people but not him, and it looked like the U.S. would leave him alone indefinitely. By noon he was toast. Wouldn't he have anticipated this result?)
Marshall seems to be working his way towards a different answer, although he doesn't spell it out. The only way for Ahmed Chalabi to have his ambitions realized in Iraq was to get some some U.S. and other Western forces in there, and topple Saddam. How were the "defectors" identified, brought forward, and introduced to U.S. officials? Usually, it seems, Chalabi was the intermediary. It's hard to believe he made up the whole thing himself, but the whole story is taking on a Monty Python quality. (For more on Chalabi in Marshall see here. In this piece, Marshall cites some of the growing suggestions from Bush supporters that Chalabi should have been supported more, not less, in the pre-war phase. See also here.)
Shafer still thinks that although a specific subset of claims that Saddam had WMDs might turn out to be entirely untrue, it still might be true that WMDs are going to be found.
Marshall, on the other hand, cites a report in the Boston Globe that seems to be based on an advance copy of David Kay's report. Saddam had "parts and plans" of weapons, spread throughout Iraq. The implication (not spelled out): he may not have had any actual weapons. All the "programs" were supposedly "intended" to be pulled together quickly. Admittedly, nuclear weapons might take longer: "many months, if not years."
As Marshall shows, there is an attempt here to show that what has already been found, even if it's only a centrifuge that could have peaceful purposes, really counts for something; it's part of a "program." At the same time, there is a barely concealed admission that no weapons have been found, and even parts of weapons are very hard to find and/or may be non-existent. What we can say existed, with some confidence, is "programs." Marshall says indications are the programs were actually "shuttered," but there was a knowledge base being kept on ice. Saddam would only have built actual weapons if sanctions were lifted.
Apparently, then, even this report won't say Saddam was an imminent threat to any other country--certainly not to the U.S. The repeated suggestion will be that Saddam intended to build actual weapons as soon as sanctions were lifted, and that he was keeping a knowledge base, along with odds and ends of "dual-use" parts, to allow for this. The ingenious part is that the more one says "but there's virtually no actual evidence of this," the more the answer is "you see how clever he was?"
Marshall has also dealt with the same L.A. Times story that Shafer discusses. Besides the business about "defectors" and Chalabi, the Times piece has this nugget, apparently also based on David Kay's report:
"Evidence collected over the last two months suggests that Saddam's regime abandoned large-scale weapons development and production programs in favor of a much smaller, "just in time" operation that could churn out poison gas or germ agents if they were suddenly needed. The transition supposedly took place between 1996 and 2000. But...the weapons hunters have yet to find proof that any chemical or bio-warfare agents were produced after 1991."
My questions: how exactly did U.S. intelligence work in the preparation for Gulf War II? Did they simply question the guys that Chalabi rounded up for them, then put a phone call in to the Brits, and hope for the best? Does all this reveal the terrible truth of the admission shortly after 9/11 that the U.S. is short of employees who speak either Farsi or Arabic? Did they tell Bush (and Blair) what they wanted to hear? Was there a bureaucratic struggle (as many have speculated) between the CIA/State view and the Rumsfeld/Rice/White House view? Did Bush, in the end, go against the weight of evidence and advice from the CIA, and rely on much skimpier and less reliable evidence that Rumsfeld, Cheney and Wolfowitz had from their friend Chalabi? (See here and here).
Finally, on Al Qaeda. Glenn Reynolds is still suggesting that every time a member of Al Queda is rounded up in Iraq now, this is confirmation that Saddam had a working relationship with Al Qaeda before March 2003. From all we are hearing, it is possible that there were few or no members of Al Qaeda in Iraq until after the U.S. invaded. Ansar al-Islam (Chalabi's preferred enemy) is a different story.
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