Questions of Mass Destruction
From the June 23, 2003 issue: . . . for hawks and doves alike.
by Stephen F. Hayes
06/23/2003, Volume 008, Issue 40
MUCH HAS BEEN SAID and written in recent weeks about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. As the methodical search for those weapons continues in Iraq, the back-and-forth in the United States and Europe about their whereabouts has gone ballistic--with hysterical, unfounded accusations leveled by critics of the war and increasing defensiveness by the Bush administration.
There are two elements to the current debate: substance and politics. Sometimes it's hard to separate the two, as Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Pat Roberts noted last week in dismissing Democratic calls for a formal investigation. And as the nation slowly turns its attention to the 2004 presidential campaign, the politics of the war will be inescapable.
But first, the substance. There are serious questions the Bush administration will have to answer:
*How did a forged document about Iraq's pursuit of uranium make it into the State of the Union address?
*Why would President Bush tell the world that "we have found weapons of mass destruction," when quite plainly we have not?
*Before the war, the administration rightly focused on interrogating Iraqi scientists about WMD. What are the scientists in U.S. custody saying today?
*Is it possible that some of Saddam's WMD have already been distributed to terrorist networks?
These and other concerns deserve a full hearing--in Congress or elsewhere. As the president's critics point out, nothing is more serious than taking a nation to war, and the American people properly expect a full accounting of the Bush administration's reasons for doing so.
Many of those who argued for regime change in Iraq believed a compelling case for war existed before the Bush administration's attempt to make it last fall, and it even pre-existed the Bush administration itself. For seven years following the Gulf War cease-fire, Saddam Hussein claimed he did not possess weapons of mass destruction. And for seven years he lied. The routine, as described in detail by U.N. weapons inspectors, was simple: Iraqis told inspectors they had no mustard agent and then expressed their profound shock when quantities of mustard were found; Iraqis told inspectors they had never weaponized VX nerve agent and then feigned surprise when inspectors found weaponized VX nerve agent. And on it went. In the process, we learned that Saddam Hussein had constructed elaborate concealment mechanisms--the Iraqi regime spent a decade working to ensure that prohibited weapons' production was kept quiet. Still, black market procurement efforts continued unabated, and when inspectors were kicked out in 1998, the Iraqi regime had failed to account for vast quantities of its WMD stockpiles.
Here is what President Bill Clinton had to say about that, on February 17, 1998:
Iraq repeatedly made false declarations about the weapons that it had left in its possession after the Gulf War. When UNSCOM would then uncover evidence that gave the lie to those declarations, Iraq would simply amend the reports. For example, Iraq revised its nuclear declarations four times within just 14 months and it has submitted six different biological warfare declarations, each of which has been rejected by UNSCOM. In 1995, Hussein Kamal, Saddam's son-in-law, and chief organizer of Iraq's weapons-of-mass-destruction program, defected to Jordan. He revealed that Iraq was continuing to conceal weapons and missiles and the capacity to build many more. Then and only then did Iraq admit to developing numbers of weapons in significant quantities and weapon stocks. Previously, it had vehemently denied the very thing it just simply admitted once Saddam Hussein's son-in-law defected to Jordan and told the truth.
Clinton wasn't finished.
Now listen to this: What did it admit? It admitted, among other things, an offensive biological warfare capability--notably 5,000 gallons of botulinum, which causes botulism; 2,000 gallons of anthrax; 25 biological-filled Scud warheads; and 157 aerial bombs. And might I say--UNSCOM inspectors believe that Iraq has actually greatly understated its production.
On November 8, 2002, after nearly four years without U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq, the world formally registered its belief that Iraq possessed WMD with a unanimous vote on Resolution 1441 at the U.N. Security Council. Four days later, speaking on French radio, French foreign minister Dominique de Villepin told his countrymen, "If Saddam Hussein does not comply, if he does not satisfy his obligations, there will obviously be a use of force," later adding, "the security of the Americans is under threat from people like Saddam Hussein who are capable of using chemical and biological weapons."
Later that same month, 19 nations attending NATO's Prague Summit signed a statement backing Resolution 1441, which affords "Iraq a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations under relevant resolutions of the Council."
That consensus held in the months leading up to war. With a few exceptions, disputes about Iraq centered not on whether Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction but on the best way to disarm him.
All of this was on the public record. To believe Saddam Hussein's Iraq was WMD-free required logical gymnastics difficult even for the most limber of the antiwar contortionists--that Saddam Hussein lied about his WMD programs for seven years with U.N. inspectors in Iraq and then suddenly, when inspectors left, disarmed unilaterally. One also had to believe that after he got rid of these weapons--weapons that led directly to U.N. sanctions that crippled his country--he chose not to notify the international bodies who could have lifted sanctions if Iraq had demonstrated compliance.
This wasn't a serious argument before the war, and it's not a serious argument now. And if the Bush administration faces some difficult questions as the search for WMD continues, so do its critics:
*Why would a regime without weapons of mass destruction manufacture mobile laboratories to make such weapons?
*Numerous defectors, many with recent, firsthand knowledge of Iraq's WMD programs, have detailed elaborate production and concealment efforts. Were they all lying?
*Colin Powell's February 5, 2003, presentation to the U.N. contained telephone intercepts between senior Iraqi military officers discussing concealment of proscribed weapons. He reported on a conversation that took place on January 30, 2003.
"They're inspecting the ammunition you have, yes."
"Yes."
"For the possibility there are forbidden ammo."
"For the possibility there is by chance forbidden ammo?"
"Yes."
"And we sent you a message yesterday to clean out all of the areas, the scrap areas, the abandoned areas. Make sure there is nothing there."
"After you have carried out what is contained in this message, destroy the message because I don't want anyone to see this message."
"Okay?"
"Okay."
Would it be necessary to "clean out all of the areas" if "forbidden ammo" didn't exist? How do you explain these comments? Were the intercepts faked?
*Doesn't it seem odd that the Bush administration would "hype" or "fabricate" WMD reports knowing full well that such claims would be tested once the Iraqi regime fell?
Many of the loudest administration critics have avoided answering those questions. They have called for an investigation but claim they already know its conclusion: Bush lied. This is politics, pure and simple. In fact, many of the same voices screeching about the Bush administration's "alarmist" interpretation of intelligence today are the same ones who were faulting the administration for ignoring alarms before September 11.
Over the past several days, the Nation's Eric Alterman has accused the president of lying before the war; his boss, Katrina vanden Heuvel, hinted that Bush administration deception might be an impeachable offense; New York Times columnist Paul Krugman suggested that the administration lied not only about the WMD but also about the presence of al Qaeda in Iraq. (How does he know? Two al Qaeda leaders have denied links, and Krugman apparently believes the world's top terrorists are more credible than President Bush.)
Liberal politicians are gleefully joining the fray. Jan Schakowsky, a member of the Democratic leadership in the House, said on CNN's "Crossfire" last week that the administration could be "lying" about WMD. (Struggling to contain her enthusiasm about her own cleverness, Schakowsky couldn't hold back a grin as she expressed concern that the world might believe the United States was "crying Wolfowitz.") After breezing past some of the difficult questions, Schakowsky said this: "If there are intelligence failures, let's find out about it. If not, why politically did we hear about this drumbeat to go to war when in fact those weapons--we may have had intelligence. In fact, we know that there was no reliable evidence."
No reliable evidence? That's not what she believed last fall, when she cited weapons of mass destruction as a reason to contain, rather than disarm Saddam Hussein.
"Once an attack on Iraq is launched complete with hundreds of thousands of ground troops," Schakowsky said in a statement September 6, 2002, "Saddam Hussein will have no incentive to refrain from using his chemical and biological as well as conventional weapons against our troops and Israel."
Two months later, on November 27, 2002, she wrote to defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld to register her "concern that if President Bush decides to deploy U.S. military forces against Iraq, the service men and women who are sent into battle may not be adequately protected against chemical and biological attacks."
Schakowsky was right to have been concerned about WMD last fall. The entire world shared her concern. And the fact that U.S. troops have not yet turned up these weapons raises serious questions today. The most troubling of those is one that should be the center of the Bush administration's agenda today:
*Is it possible that some of the WMD has already been distributed to terrorist networks?
Stephen F. Hayes is a staff writer at The Weekly Standard.
URL:http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/002/805cwcjg.asp |
