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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Michael Watkins who wrote (149866)	10/29/2004 4:43:10 PM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

10/8/04 The Duelfer report's case for war in Iraq By Michael Barone "U.S. 'Almost All Wrong' on Weapons" read the headline on the October 7 Washington Post. "Report on Iraq Contradicts Bush Administration Claims" read the subhead. But these headlines conceal the real news in the report of Iraq Survey Group head Charles Duelfer. For the report makes it plain that George W. Bush had good reason to go to war in Iraq and end the regime of Saddam Hussein. First of all, Saddam retained the capability to manufacture weapons of mass destruction. On chemical weapons, "Saddam sought to sustain the requisite knowledge base to restart the program eventually and, to the extent it did not threaten the Iraqi efforts to get out from under sanctions, to sustain the inherent capability to produce such weapons as circumstances permitted in the future." On nuclear weapons, "Saddam did not abandon his nuclear ambitions. . . . Those around Saddam seemed quite convinced that once sanctions were ended, and all other things being equal, Saddam would renew his efforts in this field." Moreover, Duelfer concluded that Saddam in his missile program was developing missiles that exceeded the range limits set in U.N. Security Council Resolution 687. Duelfer also reported that Saddam asked subordinates how long it would take to develop chemical weapons once sanctions ended. One Iraqi chemical weapons expert said it would require only a few days to develop mustard gas. Former Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz said that Iraq could have had a WMD capacity within two years after the end of sanctions. If the weapons inspectors had been given more time to conduct inspections, as John Kerry has on occasion advocated, we now know they would not have found any WMDs. Nor does it seem possible that they would have uncovered Saddam's attempts to maintain WMD capability. There would have been heavy pressure then from France, Russia, and China—whose companies were given kickbacks and windfall profits from the Saddam-administered U.N. Oil for Food program, Duelfer reports—to disband U.S. military forces in the Middle East and to end sanctions. And once sanctions were gone, there would have been nothing to stop Saddam from developing WMDs. In other words, we were facing a brutal dictator with the capability to develop WMDs and the proven willingness to use them. A dictator whose regime had had, as the 9/11 Commission has documented, frequent contacts with al Qaeda. We have no conclusive evidence that he collaborated with al Qaeda on 9/11—but also no conclusive evidence that he did not. Under those circumstances, George W. Bush acted prudently in deciding to remove this regime. He would have been imprudent not to have done so. One more thing needs to be said. There was, despite the headlines and charges to the contrary, no "intelligence failure" here. How were U.S. intelligence agencies—or those of other serious countries, who reached the same conclusion—to learn that Saddam was not currently actively developing WMDs? How could they do that when even high officials in Saddam's government did not know whether such programs were ongoing or not? This was a secretive regime, not given to public announcements of its weapons development, not subject to a Freedom of Information Act. Even if we had had human intelligence sources at the top levels of the Saddam regime who assured us WMD programs were not ongoing, how could we have prudently relied on them? Intelligence is an inexact business. It deals with things that cannot be known for sure. In this case, it dealt with something that even an ideal intelligence agency could not determine for certain. Our intelligence agencies and those of other countries that concluded that Saddam had WMDs turned out to have erred, but they erred on the proper side, on the side of pessimism, as they had to—because the man had a record of developing WMDs and using them. And he had a record, we now know thanks to Charles Duelfer, of maintaining the capability of using WMDs again. The world and the United States are safer with Saddam in prison. usnews.com

To: Michael Watkins who wrote (149866)	10/29/2004 4:47:14 PM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

The Real News in the Duelfer Report by Helle Dale WebMemo #583 October 7, 2004 \| printer-friendly format \| The political spin machines went into high gear Wednesday with the publication of the report from the Iraq Survey Group on Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The group’s finding that Saddam Hussein did not have a functional program for the production of weapons of mass destruction, nor any known stockpiles of the same, was treated as big news. In the context of a heated election campaign, the news was played as a devastating blow to President Bush’s case for the war in Iraq. But this represents a serious distortion. There is news in the report, to be sure, but it lies in the detailed disclosure and documentation of how far France, Russia, and China had benefited from the United Nation’s corrupt Oil-for-Food program. These, of course, were the three countries most supportive of Iraq on the U.N. Security Council. That’s what the headlines should have been all about. The Survey Group, headed by chief U.S. weapons inspector Charles A. Duelfer, only confirmed what weapons inspector David Kay had previously stated before Congress at the interim publication of the report: that Saddam Hussein did not at the time of the invasion have a major program for the production of weapons of mass destruction. If this is news, it is only because of the countdown to the presidential election. What has been played down in the news coverage—but shouldn’t be, as it is of crucial importance—is that Saddam retained the capacity and the intent to restart his production of WMDs once the U.N. sanctions regime had finally crumbled. In this he was clearly in breach of U.N. resolution 1441. The Iraqi Intelligence Service maintained a set of undeclared laboratories to research and test chemical and biological weapons, including through human tests. He had the capacity to produce, within six months, sulfur mustard and, within two years, nerve agents. The Survey Group also concluded that Saddam still had dreams of acquiring nuclear weapons and that he intended to resume his missile programs, potentially for the delivery of WMD. Amazingly, opponents of the war always seem to assume that had we not invaded Iraq, Saddam would have been content with the status quo, sitting in his box, as former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright liked to put it. But that would have been totally out of character. This is the Iraqi dictator who started wars against Iran and Kuwait, threatened Saudi Arabia, and constantly tested the U.S. and British fighter planes that were enforcing the no-fly zones over Iraq. Nor let us forget that he gassed his own Kurdish citizenry. Saddam was as restless as he was ruthless. Nor were the U.N. sanctions doing the job of denying him weapons. Throughout the 1990s, Saddam was able to amass an estimated $11 billion in revenue outside U.N.- approved methods. Furthermore, as has been amply documented in the work of Heritage analysts Nile Gardiner and James Phillips, the U.N. Oil-for-Food program was fraudulent and horribly corrupt in itself. As confirmed in the Duelfer report, Saddam bought support, particularly among French, Russian, and Chinese officials to whom he would donate oil “vouchers” that could be resold for large profits. One recipient was Benon Sevan, former U.N. officials in charge of humanitarian relief and the Oil-for-Food program itself. The scandal has gone all the way to the top, to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan’s son. Needless to say, the countries that benefited most from these vouchers were also the countries that were most adamantly opposed to the Iraq invasion. Those who criticize the actions taken by President Bush and his team should answer the question what they would have done in the face of the outrageous bluff attempted by Saddam Hussein. He deliberately tried to make the world believe he had WMD, harassing U.N. inspectors and destroying monitoring equipment, and he succeeded. President Bush had every reason not to take a chance that could leave the American people exposed to the dangers of an Iraq armed with WMD. In the post-9/11 world, the stakes in the game Saddam was playing were simply too high. heritage.org