From The Economist (the link is old):
Conspiracy theorists should remember that much of the evidence against Mr Hussein came not from the American and British governments or their spies, but from two unimpeachable sources. They were the United Nations weapons inspectors, and Mr Hussein himself.
Mr Hussein had what police call form. He made and used chemical weapons in the 1980s. Throughout the 1990s, he strove to hide his WMD programme from Unscom, the un inspectorate then responsible for dismantling it. In this endeavour he enjoyed much success, though Iraqi defectors helped the inspectors to uncover, among other things, the extent of Iraq’s biological weapons programme, and its manufacture of VX, a nerve gas.
On the basis of Iraq’s known imports and discrepancies in its record-keeping, Unscom and Unmovic (the latter-day inspection body, led by Hans Blix) made some frightening calculations about the chemical and biological agents and munitions potentially at Mr Hussein’s disposal. On the eve of the war, Unmovic reported a “strong presumption” that around 10,000 litres of Iraqi anthrax might still exist.
Mr Hussein’s form continued until the end. His regime failed to co-operate with Mr Blix’s team in the way that UN resolution 1441, passed last November, demanded. Some Iraqi scientists refused to be interviewed privately, and the names of others were withheld, along with important documents. Though Iraq made some concessions, going so far as to destroy some proscribed missiles, its compliance with resolution 1441 remained lacklustre. This recalcitrance, as America and Britain now sophistically aver, was the legal pretext for the war.
Sophistically, because the resolution was premised on the notion that Mr Hussein’s WMD constituted an imminent threat to his region and to the world. The inspectors’ accumulated findings, and Mr Hussein’s own behaviour, certainly suggested that he was a menace. But George Bush and Tony Blair went further than the speculative conclusions of Unscom and Unmovic, whose reports were always a little too recondite to sway the masses.
Mr Bush and Mr Blair argued that the threat was imminent, adding some specific and alarming allegations. Unusually, and to the discomfort of British spooks, Mr Blair published an intelligence dossier that claimed some of Iraq’s WMD could be ready within 45 minutes of an order to use them. Mr Bush eschewed the subjunctives that punctuated the inspectors’ reports: citing American intelligence, he stated that Mr Hussein retained hideous agents and various means of delivering them. In February, Colin Powell, Mr Bush’s secretary of state, told the UN that biological warheads had been distributed across western Iraq.
Surprising, then, that despite the efforts of America’s own inspection teams, no actual WMD have been unearthed: none. It is especially surprising that those weapons which, according to intelligence reports, had been deployed to southern Iraq for use against the invaders haven’t been found. There are plausible explanations for why Mr Hussein did not use his WMD during the war: political considerations, the pace of the American advance, and so on. But it would be very odd if he hadn’t at least made some of them ready, assuming he had any. Raymond Zilinskas, a former inspector, says Mr Blair’s infamous 45-minute claim “now seems close to absurd”.
In fact, the only important finds thus far have been what the Americans say may be three mobile biological-weapons laboratories, two of which are said to correspond closely to the sort described by Mr Powell, on the basis of reports from defectors, in his seminal presentation to the UN. After a series of “false positives” in their search for WMD, which have circulated as swiftly as did some battlefield rumours before being embarrassingly scotched, the Americans have been understandably cautious in their claims about the mobile labs. Still, they are convinced that they could have had no other, innocent purpose. On the other hand, no actual biological agents have been detected in the suspect vehicles....
....Still, given all the evidence available, it remains likeliest that Mr Hussein did indeed have some sort of WMD programme, if not the serried ranks of illegal munitions portrayed by Mr Blair and Mr Bush. So another, equally pressing question requires an urgent answer: where is it?
After repeated, ignored warnings to the Americans, a team from the IAEA, the nuclear inspectorate, is imminently to revisit Iraq to assess the possible loss and looting of radiological material from its main nuclear centre. But chemical and biological kit and agents may also have gone astray. So, just as importantly, may some of the scientists who designed them. Some material and boffins may have left the country—perhaps to Syria, as intelligence reports have suggested. Some may still be in the hands of die-hard Baathists. As the CIA once warned might happen if Iraq were attacked, some may even have fallen into the hands of terrorists. The bungled hunt for Iraq’s WMD could yet turn out to be worse than an embarrassment.
economist.com |
