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The Doomsday Scenario Update: Continued (and Largely Ignored) News on the Iraq WMD FrontIt seems to be common knowledge that there are no WMDs in Iraq and that Iraq had no ties to Al Qaeda before the U.S.-led invasion last year. Most people believe that the inability of the Iraq Survey Group to find large stockpiles of WMDs is evidence of woefully inept intelligence-gathering capabilities around the world. Many take it even further and claim that this is proof positive that President Bush lied when he used the threat of WMDs as part of his justifications for going to war.It seems that the people who truly believe what the world-wide intelligence community and common sense told us a few years ago--that Iraq possessed and was deftly trying to acquire more WMDs--have been pushed into a silenced minority. It seems that most people have put the debate behind them and are unwilling to listen to any more on the subject. But there is definitely more on the subject, and I don’t think we will be able to ignore what is going on, just beneath the surface of an ignorant worldwide media campaign to close the lid on the issue, for much longer. In other words, it’s possible that even denser stormclouds are forming as a direct result of Iraq’s alleged clandestine WMD production and ties with terrorism, and we’d better be prepared for it. Here are a handful of recent news events, events you probably haven’t seen discussed much in the mainstream press, that illustrate my point. In the 2003 State of the Union address, President Bush stated that British intelligence had ascertained that Iraq had gone to Africa in search of yellowcake uranium ore (ore that, when refined, is used to build nuclear bombs). Later, Joe Wilson, former ambassador to Iraq and a man who spent a week “sipping mint tea” in Niger while investigating the intelligence that pointed there, would raise a fuss, professing the president’s claim to be an irresponsible lie (the scandal didn’t end there, of course, but I discuss the continued saga elsewhere on this site). Again, the lid seemed to shut on the debate, and it is now common knowledge that Iraq was not seeking yellowcake uranium from Africa. The president only avoided impeachment for his “blatant lie” by citing British intelligence as his source, thereby getting off on a technicality. The technicality, which isn’t discussed, is that British intelligence, even today, stands by its original assessment, despite the hard work of Joe Wilson and his week of unbelievably diligent research in Niger. But then, on December 16, 2003, small amounts of yellowcake uranium (as well as prohibited missile parts) were found on shipments of scrap metal at Rotterdam harbor. The shipments came from Jordan, and the amount of yellowcake was minimal, but the IAEA confirmed after a month-long investigation that the likely point of origin for the substance was Iraq. While the uranium seems to have been mined in Iraq, it does point to the central argument that President Bush was making in his State of the Union address, that Iraq possessed components for building WMDs and was actively looking for more. This highlights the danger of the common knowledge assumption. The assumption tells us to disbelieve intelligence-gathering agencies and presidents, but to believe the speculations of partisan politics, the limp-wristed equivocations of the U.N., and the skewed perspective of sensationalist news outlets. By this logic, Iraq had dismantled its WMD programs and had not sought to purchase any uranium from anyone. At least the first part of the argument, though, is directly refuted by the findings in Rotterdam. As to the second half, how can it be anything but an assumption that goes against everything we were told (before 2003) about Iraq? There is something about international weapons inspectors who work for the U.N.: they can’t seem to stick to the same story for very long. First there was Scott Ritter, an American, who penned UNSCOM’s final report in 1998. Ritter in 1998 was so convincing in his arguments about the danger posed by Iraq, her WMD production, and her lack of cooperation with the U.N. that President Clinton authorized Desert Fox, a massive bombing campaign on Iraq. Four years later, after a vacuum of information in Iraq, Ritter became one of the most vocal opponents of the argument that Iraq possessed WMDs, claiming that there was no evidence whatsoever to conclude that it was even possible. Next came Hans Blix. Blix, who headed UNMOVIC in late 2002 and early 2003, wrote a report last year that detailed several clusters of unresolved disarmament issues in Iraq. This report painted a picture of a hostile, deceptive, and uncooperative regime that could easily possess large amounts of WMDs and probably did. Blix’s report, in many respects, was like Ritter’s in that it sped up preparations for an attack. Today, Blix is saying that he is not at all surprised that the Iraq Survey Group has not found WMDs, that he knew all along that Iraq did not possess them, and that the United States couldn’t have been more wrong. One can debate the reasons for Ritter’s and Blix’s apparent waffling on this issue until the end of the world and not come to a satisfying answer. There are several conspiracy theories about Ritter, some that claim he was forced to make the conclusions he made in 1998 and some that claim he became corrupt after that report. But for Blix, it seems to be more about saving face. Indeed, for both of them, one can argue that they are trying to wash their hands of wars that they helped put in motion. But now we can add Mohammed ElBaradei, Inspector General of the IAEA, to the list of U.N. inspectors who have suddenly changed their minds about Iraq. However, ElBaradei’s change of tune does not mimic Ritter’s or Blix’s. Rather, ElBaradei was quite convincing a little over a year ago when he argued that Iraq’s nuclear weapons programs were completely inactive and dismantled, so convincing that the argument focused more on chemical and biological weapons. But now, ElBaradei is telling a completely different story. In a letter sent to the U.N. Security Council last week, ElBaradei has pointed to grave concerns that equipment, some of which was “contaminated,” and entire buildings in Iraq, all dealing with Iraq’s supposedly inactive nuclear program, have quite conspicuously vanished from the face of the Earth. ElBaradei raises the possibility of a serious proliferation problem and the inability of the IAEA to adequately determine the extent of the nuclear programs that existed in Iraq before the U.S.-led invasion. Wait a minute. If the IAEA knew of these buildings and this equipment before the invasion, and if their disappearance poses a nuclear proliferation threat, how come ElBaradei was unequivocal about the lack of a nuclear proliferation threat posed by Iraq last year? This material and these buildings may have been dormant or inactive, but their disappearance seriously rejects that assumption and brings rise to any number of frightening possibilities, possibilities that the IAEA had previously written off as speculative. Buildings, especially ones housing nuclear technology and material, do not just disappear without cause. In his letter, ElBaradei went on to write that components of the missing items have turned up in European scrap yards. While it’s easy to conjecture that perhaps certain European nations have made discreet deals to help cover up the existence of such material and while it’s easy to say that there isn’t enough material being uncovered to constitute a massive threat, it’s impossible to argue that this material simply does not exist. In effect, ElBaradei has answered the challenge being posed by those skeptical enough to believe that there were no illicit materials in Iraq (this list of skeptics, of course, includes ElBaradei himself, just over one year ago). I have, over the course of the last year, considered the likes of Ritter and Blix to be discredited. And one might expect me to do the same for ElBaradei. If I don’t, I run the risk of playing a double standard. However, I think the justifications for ElBaradei changing his mind are far more logical than those for either Ritter or Blix. Also, I see nothing in ElBaradei’s recent announcements that indicates that he claims to have known about this stuff all along. Ritter and Blix deny that there is a conflict between their blatantly opposing statements, but ElBaradei has not yet done the same. Regardless of his validity, though, his letter, like the reports that Ritter and Blix submitted before it, raises questions that are too frightening to ignore or write off. I reserve my judgment on the man’s credibility, but the point he raises remains unchanged in either case. The question that both sides of this debate are asking is, “Where are the WMDs?” Some claim that they don’t exist. Either they were dismantled, they degraded beyond use, or they never existed in the first place. I find this hypothesis to be lacking, because in order to accept it, one has to ignore or disbelieve several pieces of information. The nuclear centrifuge, the deliberate destruction of evidence, the possible mobile labs, the reports of UNSCOM and UNMOVIC, the recent discovery in Rotterdam, the thousands of testimonials, the mountain of evidence gathered both before and after the war, and the insistence of the ISG that programs were running even when the bombs were falling all have to be discredited in order for the claim that there were no WMDs in Iraq to be true. Others claim that the WMDs are still there, but that they’ve been hidden. The ISG insists that its work is nowhere near finished and that it has only been able to look into a small fraction of what it wants to and that more and more information becomes available faster than it can follow the leads. Most of us can remember the statistics given to us during the inspections that pointed out Iraq is a country the size of California, speckled with underground bunkers. We found a nuclear centrifuge buried in a scientist’s backyard, and we found it only because the scientist came forward, and it took us several months to track down Saddam Hussein in a hole in the ground, so is it really that much of a stretch to say that these things are hard to find? The weapons inspectors took years to find anything useful, and they weren’t working under the restrictions of warfare, so the claim that the ISG should have found something by now is dubious. Still others claim that the WMDs have been moved, and popular belief points to Syria. This may be the most frightening scenario, because it places them in the one place from which we were trying to keep them: within the grasp of international terrorists. This may be a doomsday scenario, but there is evidence to believe that it is the most likely of the three options. Between Lebanon and Syria, near Beirut, is a 75 kilometer-long strip of land called the Bekaa Valley. For years, it has been the home of many Syrian troops, one of the most active training camps for Hezbollah terrorists, and a key transit and refining point for opium and other drugs. About the worst that the middle east has to offer in terms of law and peace, it is not a nice place to visit. Here, claim many intelligence reports, is where Iraq’s WMDs are today. It makes sense. Syria and the pre-invasion Iraq were close allies and had a working relationship when it came to weapons. Firas Tlas, the son of the Syrian Defense Minister, made a living selling oil, drugs, and weapons to and from Iraq, with the help of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad. In addition, it is well-known that Hussein gave money to the families of suicide bombers, as well as to Hamas and Hezbollah, through Syria and the Bekaa Valley. David Kay, former head of the ISG, pointed to Syria as the likely place to find Iraqi WMDs, and in early 2003, U.S. intelligence caught sight of huge caravans of tractor-trailers moving from Iraq into Lebanon and Syria. While Kay was reluctant to draw conclusions about the trucks, one of his top advisers called it “unquestionable” that they contained Iraq’s missing weapons. And Israeli intelligence puts WMDs not just in the Bekaa Valley, but only 15 miles away from the border to Israel. It takes little imagination to think of Hezbollah terrorists plotting a massive chemical attack on Israel; the Hezbollah charter lists the elimination of Israel as its primary goal, and Hezbollah terrorists attack the country so often that the world has become desensitized to it. But even if Hezbollah isn’t planning on using WMDs in a terrorist strike, it would seem that, if Syria possesses Iraq’s WMDs, as many credible sources seem to think, it’s only a matter of time before terrorists try to use them, assuming that they haven’t already done so. Very recently, Jordanian officials thwarted a terrorist strike in Amman. However, this was not a run-of-the-mill, ordinary terrorist strike in the middle east like we’ve been seeing on the evening news every night. King Abdullah called the strike a “crime never before seen,” and estimates place the body count, had it been successful, somewhere around 20,000. A number of people have been arrested, including Palestinians tied to Al Qaeda, after the discovery of three trucks, believed to be heading from the northern border with Syria, carrying a deadly and sophisticated chemical agent. The plan was to bomb hotels, the American embassy, and the office of the Jordanian Prime Minister, using a chemical bomb that would saturate an area larger than half of a square mile. In other words, this was a planned WMD terrorist attack. And the chemical weapon, the WMD, seems to have come from Syria. The implications speak for themselves, so I will not dwell on them. The point that all of this should elucidate for you is that those who are quick to assume that WMDs did not exist in Iraq before the build-up to invasion are not working with all of the facts. These people, for the most part, are ignoring huge chunks of them. I’m willing to admit that there are several things that I have not brought up either, things that might lead you to believe that the worries about WMDs in Iraq are a fairytale. However, if it boils down to an unanswerable question, a 50/50 possibility, then which side should be given the benefit of the doubt? I’ll let you answer that yourself. But I don’t think it’s a 50/50 proposition. I think the odds are far more unbalanced. After well over a year of research, I find it almost impossible that there were no WMDs in Iraq just before the war. Common sense, the evidence available even to the layman, and the way things are playing out point far from that conclusion. Perhaps the lesson here is that President Bush took too long. Perhaps by wasting his time at the U.N. and giving Saddam Hussein over a year to prepare, he created the exact situation he was seeking to avoid. If you, like every reporter approaching him, want to see fault and mistake in President Bush’s actions, this is where you can look. Invading Iraq was the right move, but it should have been done a long time ago, preferably before 9/11. (This list does not represent the entirety of my research on this subject) -e. magill, 4/21/2004 |
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