Hi Hawkmoon; Re: "And it's not like Iran is gaining anything at this point by claiming that Iraq had WMDs, especially with the friction going on."
Try to look at this from the point of view of an intelligence professional instead of an anile old woman who shudders at every little noise in the night. Or a Jamaican peasant who flees in fear of a possible "three wheeled coffin" that's been rumored to be near certain villages but never actually seen. Hell, you could probably dig up plenty of Jamaicans who would swear that they had humint to the effect that the thing existed, but that they hadn't seen it themselves, LOL.
The article you linked to was just another piece of humint that would, in a real intelligence agency, have to be balanced against huge piles of other humint. Instead, what Bush did was to believe only the humint sources that said the things that he wanted (or maybe feared) to believe, the ones that said that Iraq had WMDs.
And for that matter, probably the most important quote from the article is this one:
"We have people coming to Tehran from Baghdad with catalogs of items [stolen from the Iraqi government] offering them for sale." So far, the official said, no chemical, biological or related weapons have turned up."
In other words, the direct evidence that guy has is also to the effect that Iraq did not have WMDs.
I really don't think that Bush lied. Instead, like the Iranian official, he was deluded. And the delusion was the standard one that defense agencies make, to assume the worst case.
I could quote you plenty of articles quoting humint indicating that Iraq did not, in fact, have any WMDs. Former Iraqi officials, now in US custody, are saying this. But that pile of humint carries no weight with you because you want to believe in those WMDs. This is despite the undeniable fact that the absence of WMDs is compatible with the humint that said that there wasn't any, and not terribly compatible with the humint that said that Iraq was loaded to the gills with the stuff, that Saddam had given his troops authorization to use them, that they were present near Baghdad, and that they could be used on a 45 minute warning.
In the actual event, the US not only didn't get any WMDs fired at it, it didn't find a single one. Nor did Iran have any offered to it from over the border, if your source is to be believed.
-- Carl |
