Iraqi WMD claims spun? (Christian Science Monitor with sources)
Date: Thu, 29 May 2003
Iraqi WMD claims spun?
Two trailers found in post-war Iraq are probably mobile bioweapons
production plants. So says a Bush administration assessment summarized
in a report released Wednesday.
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/iraqi_mobile_plants/index.html
"We're highly confident" of the assessment because
of the similarity between the physical evidence and the testimony
of Iraqi sources, an American official told reporters. However,
investigators discovered neither biological agents nor evidence
the equipment had been put to nefarious use.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/29/international/worldspecial/29LABS.html
News editors at major US newspapers didn't hitch their trucks to the trailers, however. The story got generally low placement. But the Bush administration can consider themselves fortunate compared to the British media drubbing Tony Blair took today over the elusive weapons of mass destruction.
Simmering impatience with the weapons hunt boiled over after
a senior British intelligence official told the BBC that the British
government's dossier on Iraq's WMD was rewritten to make it "sexier."
The official said that Downing Street ordered a transformation
of the report a week before publication, angering intelligence
agents who felt the final version "didn't reflect the considered
view they were putting forward." The official denounced in
particular the dramatic claim that Iraq could use its WMD within
45 minutes. "Most things in the dossier were double source
but that was single source and we believe that the source was
wrong," the official said.
http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page271.asp
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2945996.stm
The revelation, denied by Downing Street, crested an upsurge
of British outrage over a comment Tuesday by US Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld. "We don't know what happened," Mr.
Rumsfeld said, referring to WMD in Iraq. "It is also possible
that [Saddam Hussein's government] decided that they would destroy
them prior to a conflict." Little noted in America, the comment
drew headlines in Britain, where the Blair government relied more
heavily on the WMD issue to gain domestic support for the war.
The UK Independent garnished their account of Rumsfeld's remarks
with a timeline of the official claims made of WMD leading up
to the war.
http://www.cfr.org/publication.php?id=6001
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=410468
The Washington Post points out that Rumsfeld's comment echoes
other senior Bush administration officials who are now "hedging"
on the issue.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51355-2003May28.html?nav=hptop_tb
Robin Cook, who resigned from Blair's cabinet to protest the
impending Iraq war, called the Rumsfeld statement "breathtaking":
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2857637.stm
"Saying that they can't find the weapons, and they may
never find the weapons, blows an enormous gaping hole through
the case for war that was made on both sides of the Atlantic.
... We were told Saddam had weapons ready for use within 45 minutes.
It's now 45 days since the war finished and we still have not
found anything ... We could have avoided this war."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,966007,00.html
Mr. Cook suggested the need for a Parliamentary inquiry into
the matter, and pressure on Blair is expected to mount from leftwing
Labour MPs when the commons reconvenes next week. Responding to
the crisis, Blair stuck to his guns. "I have said throughout
and I repeat I have absolutely no doubt about the existence of
weapons of mass destruction," he said. And Armed Forces minister
Adam Ingram led the government defense in an interview on BBC
Radio 4, saying, "[A] single source who has not been corroborated
... said that this report had been concocted under pressure from
No. 10.... There was no pressure from Number 10." Read the
full transcript.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2946456.stm
Meanwhile, Blair is using his tour of Iraq to reassure the
British public that the war was for the good. In a speech thanking
troops in Basra, Blair said: "You can see in relation to
countries like Syria and Iran where there are big issues we need
to discuss with them and resolve with them, that we can do that
in a completely different atmosphere than was possible a few months
ago."
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=410495
But the questions surrounding the quality and use of intelligence
surrounding the Iraq war will likely linger for quite some time.
CBS News reports that the opening strike of the war may have floundered
on bad intelligence. The US struck a compound near Baghdad with
a surprise barrage in an attempt to decapitate the regime based
on intelligence reports that Saddam Hussein was in an underground
bunker complex. However, searches of the site have found no such
bunker. "No underground facilities, no bodies," said
US Army Col. Tim Madere.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/05/28/eveningnews/main555948.shtml
The Economist cautions "conspiracy theorists" that
the evidence the US and UK used against Hussein "came not
from the American and British governments or their spies, but
from two unimpeachable sources." Who were the sources? UN
weapons inspectors and Saddam Hussein.
http://www.economist.com/agenda/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1816878
Mr. Hussein had what police call form. He made and used chemical
weapons in the 1980s. Throughout the 1990s, he strove to hide
his WMD programme from UNSCOM, the UN inspectorate then responsible
for dismantling it. In this endeavour he enjoyed much success,
though Iraqi defectors helped the inspectors to uncover, among
other things, the extent of Iraq's biological weapons programme,
and its manufacture of VX, a nerve gas. ... Mr Hussein's form
continued until the end. Regardless of the intelligence source,
the buck ultimately stops with Bush, argues Mark Bowden, the author
of "Black Hawk Down":
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/5937888.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp
When the President of the United States addresses the nation and the world, I expect the spinning to stop. He represents not just a party or a cause, but the American people. ... When a president lies or exaggerates in making an argument for war, when he spins the facts to sell his case, he betrays his public trust, and he diminishes the credibility of his office and our country. We are at war. What we lost in this may yet end up being far more important than what we gained.