To death and taxes, add lies
February 14, 2004
IN February 2001, Colin Powell told the world that Saddam Hussein "has not developed any significant capability in respect of weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours."
The weapons inspectors agreed. As did Powell’s colleague, Condoleezza Rice. "We are able to keep arms from him," she said. "His military forces have not been rebuilt."
Then the Bush regime changed its mind. Here’s what Bush had to say in Cincinnati in October 2002: "The Iraqi regime . . . possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons. It has given shelter and support to terrorism. The danger is already significant, and it grows worse with time. If we know Saddam Hussein has dangerous weapons today – and we do – it doesn’t make any sense for the world to wait . . . for the final proof, the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud."
Obediently, the CIA reports ran hot: "The Iraqis possess chemical warfare, bulk fills for missiles, biological warfare programs are active and are larger and more advanced than they were before the Gulf War. Iraq has begun renewed production of mustard (gas), Saran and other chemical weapons."
The claims from the White House got more detailed and specific. Nothing is merely suspected. Everything is known. Here’s an extract from Bush’s State of the Union message, January 2003: "Iraq has 500 tonnes of chemical weapons, 25,000 litres of anthrax, 38,000 litres of botulinum toxin, 30,000 prohibited bombs and warheads . . . the British Government has learnt that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
Powell talked to the UN Security Council a few weeks later. "My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. We are giving you facts and conclusions based on solid evidence . . . I cannot tell you everything that we know, but what I can share with you . . . is deeply troubling . . . Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tonnes of chemical weapons agents . . . Iraq retains a covert force of up to a few dozen scud-variant ballistic missiles . . . Iraq has illegally imported 380 SA2 rocket engines . . . Iraqi intelligence agents are driving around the countryside in cars full of key files from military and scientific establishments . . . Baghdad has dispersed rocket launches and warheads containing biological warfare agent . . . to various locations in Western Iraq . . . hidden in large groves of palm trees . . . Should we take the risk that he will not some day use these weapons at a time of his choosing? The United States cannot run that risk to the American people."
Paul Wolfowitz, the Principal Deputy to the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, added "undisputable facts" of his own: "The CIA has collected solid facts about a decade of senior level contacts between Iraq and al-Qa’ida, facts about training of al-Qa’ida people, including in chemical and biological weapons, and facts about providing sanctuary for al-Qa’ida people, including senior al-Qa’ida people, including in Baghdad . . . I believe those facts more than justify the concern the President has expressed that this regime is too dangerous to be left with the world’s most dangerous weapons in its hands."
The CIA National Intelligence Estimate was less emphatic, admitting it didn’t know everything. But this didn’t matter because what it didn’t know only intensified the problem: "Iraq is continuing and in some areas expanding its programs for WMDs; that we are not detecting portions of these weapons programs means it could be worse than we think; Iraq could make a nuclear weapon in a year if it had fissionable material."
Misinformation, disinformation, exaggerations, fantasies, fictions, propaganda and lies were all used to justify the war in Iraq. Thomas Powers, author of Intelligence Wars: American Secret History from Hitler to al-Qaeda, documents it thoroughly, quietly pointing out that none of the foregoing was true.
I was one of the many who believed that the threat from Iraq was being overstated by orders of magnitude. Though convinced that most of the weapons – and weapons programs – had been destroyed in Gulf War I or, as weapons inspections had demonstrated, subsequently dismantled, I accepted there’d be some nasty weapons deployed by Saddam, or at least found. The fact that a year of desperate searching yielded nothing is a devastating indictment of both the nonsense we were fed and the willingness, the enthusiasm, of the Howard Government to believe it. And to act on it, taking us into a war that put our troops in harm’s way while exposing Australia to escalating danger in the aftermath.
All those specific details, known facts, things beyond doubt and dispute turned out to be tosh. We have lived through, been part of, party to, one of the greatest acts of mass deception in history.
In the United States, many distinguished Republicans protested at the way they were being railroaded into the war. In Britain, Blair’s government was all but torn apart by internal dissent. And in Australia? Total, abject surrender to Howard’s echoing of the White House line, taking us into the first war of the 21st century. Does anyone have the slightest doubt that we wouldn’t fall for it again? Do it again? We’ll do it simply because they want us to do it. Such is their power. Such is our craven weakness.
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