Posted on 08/09/2003 3:41:37 PM PDT by hemogoblin
(DROPCAP)The most detailed U.S. case for invading Iraq was laid out Feb. 5 in a U.N. address by Secretary of State Colin Powell. Six months later, months of war and revelation, the Powell case can be examined in a new light, analyzed here by a journalist who watched from a nervous, skeptical Iraqi capital.
By CHARLES J. HANLEY
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
On a Baghdad evening in February, in a stiflingly warm conference room high above the city’s streets, Iraqi bureaucrats, European envoys and foreign reporters crowded before a half dozen television screens to hear the reading of an indictment.
“There are many smoking guns,” Colin Powell would say afterward.
For 80 minutes in a hushed U.N. Security Council chamber in New York, the U.S. secretary of state unleashed an avalanche of allegations: The Iraqis were hiding chemical and biological weapons, were secretly working to make more banned arms, were reviving their nuclear bomb project. He spoke of “the gravity of the threat that Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction pose to the world.”
It was the most comprehensive presentation of the U.S. case for war. Powell marshaled what were described as intercepted Iraqi conversations, reconnaissance photos of Iraqi sites, accounts of defectors, and other intelligence sources.
The defectors and other sources went unidentified. The audiotapes were uncorroborated, as were the photo interpretations. No other supporting documents were presented. Little was independently verifiable. Still, in the United States, Powell’s sober speech was galvanizing. “Compelling,” “powerful,” “irrefutable” were adjectives used by both pundits and opposition Democratic politicians. Editor & Publisher magazine found that prowar sentiment among editorial writers doubled overnight, to three-quarters of large U.S. newspapers.
Powell’s “thick intelligence file,” as he called it, had won them over. Since 1998, he told fellow foreign ministers, “we have amassed much intelligence indicating that Iraq is continuing to make these weapons.”
But in Baghdad, when the satellite broadcast ended, presidential science adviser Lt. Gen. Amer al-Saadi appeared before the audience and dismissed the U.S. case as “stunts” aimed at swaying the uninformed. Some outside observers also sounded unimpressed. “War can be avoided. Colin Powell came up with absolutely nothing,” said Denmark’s Ulla Sandbaek, a visiting European Parliament member.
Six months after that Feb. 5 appearance, the file does look thin.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told U.S. senators last month that the Bush administration actually had no “dramatic new evidence” before ordering the Iraq invasion.
“We acted because we saw the existing evidence in a new light through the prism of our experience on Sept. 11,” Rumsfeld said.
Much happened between Powell’s February presentation and Rumsfeld’s statement in July.
That Baghdad conference room was turned into an ash-filled shell, like countless rooms in countless buildings across the bombed and looted capital. Many were killed, including thousands of Iraqi civilians and at least 170 U.S. soldiers. Al-Saadi and hundreds of other Iraqi functionaries were hauled off in American handcuffs to secret imprisonment. And the U.S. force that invaded in March has found no weapons of mass destruction.
Meanwhile, President Bush’s credibility has come under attack from his opponents because he cited, in his State of the Union address, a British report that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger. That allegation, which Powell left out of his own speech, has been challenged by U.S. intelligence officials.
How does Powell’s U.S. indictment look from the vantage point of today? Powell has said several times since February that he stands by it, the State Department said Wednesday. Here is an Associated Press review of the major counts, based on both what was known in February and what has been learned since:
Satellite photos
Powell presented satellite photos of industrial buildings, bunkers and trucks, and suggested they showed Iraqis surreptitiously moving prohibited missiles and chemical and biological weapons to hide them. At two sites, he said, trucks were “decontamination vehicles” associated with chemical weapons.
But these and other sites had undergone 500 inspections in recent months. Chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix, a day earlier, had said his well-equipped experts had found no contraband in their inspections and no sign that items had been moved. Nothing has been reported found since.
Addressing the Security Council a week after Powell, Blix used one photo scenario as an example and said it could be showing routine, as easily as illicit, activity. Journalists visiting photographed sites hours after the Powell speech found similar activity to be routine.
Norwegian inspector Jorn Siljeholm said on March 19 that “decontamination vehicles” U.N. teams were led to by U.S. information invariably turned out to be simple water or fire trucks. On June 24, Blix said of the entire Powell photo package, “We were not impressed with that particular evidence.”
Amid Powell’s warnings, a critical fact was lost: Iraq’s military industries were to have remained under strict, on-site U.N. monitoring for years to come, guarding against the rebuilding of weapons programs.
[SUBHEAD11]Audiotapes
Powell played three audiotapes of men speaking in Arabic of a mysterious “modified vehicle,” “forbidden ammo” and “the expression ‘nerve agents’” — tapes said to be intercepts of Iraqi army officers discussing concealment.
Two of the brief, anonymous tapes, otherwise not authenticated, provided little context for judging their meaning. It couldn’t be known whether the mystery vehicle, however modified, was even banned. A listener could only speculate over the cryptic mention of “nerve agents.”
The third tape, meanwhile, seemed natural, an order to inspect scrap areas for “forbidden ammo.” The Iraqis had just told U.N. inspectors they would search ammunition dumps for stray, empty chemical warheads left over from years earlier. They later turned four over to inspectors.
Powell’s rendition of the third conversation made it more incriminating, by saying an officer ordered that the area be “cleared out.” The voice on the tape didn’t say that, but only that the area be “inspected,” according to the official U.S. translation.
[SUBHEAD11]Hidden documents
Powell said “classified” documents found at a nuclear scientist’s Baghdad home were “dramatic confirmation” of intelligence saying prohibited items were concealed this way.
U.N. nuclear inspectors later said the documents were old and “irrelevant” — some administrative material, some from a failed and well-known uranium-enrichment program of the 1980s.
[SUBHEAD11]Desert weapons
According to Powell, unidentified sources said the Iraqis dispersed rocket launchers and warheads holding biological weapons to the western desert, hiding them in palm groves and moving them every one to four weeks.
Nothing has been reported found, after months of searching by U.S. and Australian troops in the near-empty desert. Al-Saadi suggested the story of palm groves and weekly-to-monthly movement was lifted whole from an Iraqi general’s written account of hiding missiles in the 1991 war.
[SUBHEAD11]U-2s, scientists
Powell said Iraq was violating a U.N. resolution by rejecting U-2 reconnaissance flights and barring private interviews with scientists. He suggested that only fear of the Saddam Hussein regime kept scientists from exposing secret weapons programs.
On Feb. 17, U-2 flights began. By early March, 12 scientists had submitted to private interviews. In postwar interviews, with Saddam no longer in power, no Iraqi scientist is known to have confirmed any revived weapons program.
[SUBHEAD11]Anthrax
Powell noted that Iraq had declared it produced 8,500 liters of the biological agent anthrax before 1991, but U.N. inspectors estimated that it could have made up to 25,000 liters. None has been “verifiably accounted for,” he said.
No anthrax has been reported found. The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), in a confidential report last September, recently disclosed, said that although it believed Iraq had biological weapons, it didn’t know their nature, amounts or condition.
Three weeks before the invasion, an Iraqi report of scientific soil sampling supported the regime’s contention that it had destroyed its anthrax stocks at a known site, the U.N. inspection agency said May 30. Iraq also presented a list of witnesses to verify amounts, the agency said. It was too late for inspectors to interview them; the war soon began.
[SUBHEAD11]Bioweapons trailers
Powell said defectors had told of “biological weapons factories” on trucks and in train cars. He displayed artists’ conceptions of such vehicles.
After the invasion, U.S. authorities said they found two such truck trailers in Iraq, and the CIA said it concluded that they were part of a bioweapons production line. But no trace of biological agents was found on them,
Iraqis said the equipment made hydrogen for weather balloons, and State Department intelligence balked at the CIA’s conclusion. The British defense minister, Geoffrey Hoon, has said the vehicles aren’t a “smoking gun.”
The trailers have not been submitted to U.N. inspection for verification. No “bioweapons railcars” have been reported found.
[SUBHEAD11]Unmanned aircraft
Powell showed video of an Iraqi F-1 Mirage jet spraying “simulated anthrax.” He said four such spray tanks were unaccounted for, and Iraq was building small unmanned aircraft “well suited for dispensing chemical and biological weapons.”
According to U.N. inspectors’ reports, the video predated the 1991 Gulf War, when the Mirage was said to have been destroyed, and three of the four spray tanks were destroyed in the 1990s.
No small drones or other planes with chemical-biological capability have been reported found in Iraq since the invasion. Iraq also gave inspectors details on its drone program, but the U.S. bombing intervened before U.N. teams could follow up.
[SUBHEAD11]‘Four tons’ of VX
Powell said Iraq produced four tons of the nerve agent VX. “A single drop of VX on the skin will kill in minutes. Four tons,” he said.
Powell didn’t note that most of that four tons was destroyed in the 1990s under U.N. supervision. Before the invasion, the Iraqis made a “considerable effort” to prove they had destroyed the rest, doing chemical analysis of the ground where inspectors confirmed VX had been dumped, the U.N. inspection agency reported May 30. Experts at Britain’s International Institute of Strategic Studies said any pre-1991 VX most likely would have degraded anyway. No VX has been reported found since the invasion.
[SUBHEAD11]‘Embedded’ capability
“We know that Iraq has embedded key portions of its illicit chemical weapons infrastructure within its legitimate civilian industry,” Powell said.
No “chemical weapons infrastructure” has been reported found. The newly disclosed DIA report of September said there was “no reliable information” on “where Iraq has — or will — establish its chemical warfare agent-production facilities.”
Many countries’ civilian chemical industries are capable of making weapons agents, and Iraq’s was under close U.N. oversight. The DIA report suggested that international inspections, swept aside by the U.S. invasion six months later, would be able to keep Iraq from rebuilding a chemical weapons program.
[SUBHEAD11]‘500 tons’ of chemical agent
“Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agent,” Powell said.
Powell gave no basis for the assertion, and no such agents have been reported found. An unclassified CIA report last October made a similar assertion without citing concrete evidence, saying only that Iraq “probably” concealed precursor chemicals to make such weapons.
The DIA reported confidentially in September that there “is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons.”
[SUBHEAD11]Chemical warheads
Powell said 122 mm chemical warheads found by U.N. inspectors in January might be the “tip of an iceberg.” The warheads were empty, a fact Powell didn’t note. Blix said on June 16 that the dozen stray rocket warheads, never uncrated, were apparently “debris from the past,” the 1980s. No others have been reported found since the invasion.
[SUBHEAD11]Deployed weapons
“Saddam Hussein has chemical weapons. … And we have sources who tell us that he recently has authorized his field commanders to use them,” Powell said.
No such weapons were used and none was reported found after the U.S. and allied military units overran Iraqi field commands and ammunition dumps. Even before Powell spoke, U.N. inspectors had found no such weapons at Iraqi military bases.
[SUBHEAD11]Revived nuclear program
“We have no indication that Saddam Hussein has ever abandoned his nuclear weapons program,” Powell said.
Chief U.N. nuclear inspector Mohamed ElBaradei told the council two weeks before the U.S. invasion, “We have to date found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons program in Iraq.” On July 24, Foreign Minister Ana Palacio of Spain, a U.S. ally on Iraq, said there were “no evidences, no proof” of a nuclear bomb program before the war. No such evidence has been reported found since the invasion.
[SUBHEAD11]Aluminum tubes
Powell said “most United States experts” believe aluminum tubes sought by Iraq were intended for use as centrifuge cylinders for enriching uranium for nuclear bombs.
Energy Department experts and Powell’s own State Department intelligence bureau had already dissented from this CIA view, and on March 7 the U.N. nuclear agency’s ElBaradei said his experts found convincing documentation — and no contrary evidence — that Iraq was using the tubes to make artillery rockets. Powell’s scenario was “highly unlikely,” he said. No centrifuge program has been reported found.
[SUBHEAD11]Magnets
Powell said “intelligence from multiple sources” reported Iraq was trying to buy magnets and a production line for magnets of “the same weight” as those used in uranium centrifuges.
The U.N. nuclear agency traced a dozen types of imported magnets to their Iraqi end users, and none was usable for centrifuges, ElBaradei told the council March 7. “Weight is not enough; you don’t have a centrifuge magnet because it’s 20 grams,” ElBaradei deputy Jacques Baute told AP on July 11. No centrifuge program has been found.
[SUBHEAD11]Scuds, new missiles
Powell said “intelligence sources” indicate Iraq had a secret force of up to a few dozen prohibited Scud-type missiles. He said it also had a program to build newer, 600-mile-range missiles, and had put a roof over a test facility to block the view of spy satellites.
No Scud-type missiles have been reported found. In the 1990s, U.N. inspectors had reported accounting for all but two of these missiles. No program for long-range missiles has been uncovered.
Powell didn’t note that U.N. teams were repeatedly inspecting missile facilities, including looking under that roof, and reporting no Iraqi violations of U.N. resolutions.
“There are many smoking guns,” the secretary of state said in a CBS interview later that Wednesday in February. “Leaving Saddam Hussein in possession of weapons of mass destruction for a few more months or years is not an option.”
The U.S. bombing began 43 days later, and on April 12 al-Saadi, the science adviser, handed himself over to the U.S. troops who seized Baghdad. His wife has not seen him since.
As I recall, an Iraqi medical study (for what that's worth) purported to have found there were as many as 3400 civilian deaths around Iraq - though it admitted a difficulty in discrning between Fedayeen and civilians in many cases, as well as attacks BY Fedayeen on civilians.
Here's what I find very troubling about the reporting of this:
The International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) estimated 48,000 and 260,000 civilian and combatant deaths in first 3 months of invasion in their report Collateral Damage: The Health and Environmental Costs of War on Iraq
The UN estimated 500,000 potential direct and indirect casualties (overall population) and up to 1.45 million refugees in their report Integrated Humanitarian Contingency Plan for Iraq and Neighbouring Countries.
By all measures, the Coalition forces were successful in reducing the Iraqi casualties and suffering to unprecedented levels - both civilian and military - in deposing Saddam. This has allowed the anti-Coalition forces around the world to:
1. Sit on their hands and do nothing since there has not been a humanitarian crisis, while criticizing the less than perfect circumstances in Iraq - which are arguably better from a social justice and humanitarian perspective than before the war.
2. Promote the anti-Americanism and retro-liberalism of the Vietnam generation to minimize the opportunity for Iraq to become a modernized constitutional republic, and its implications on the surrounding countries - instead strengthening pan-Arab tyranny for a weakened USA in hopes of multilateralism and multipolar power sharing.
This is the first time I've heard either of those two laughably-inflated claims. The left is losing its ability to get its lies message out.
Wasn't in mine at all.
Not that I care either way about Powell's speech to the UN. They're a fraudulent organization dedicated to serving themselves and hurting the United States. Even if Powell intentionally and blatantly lied in his speech (which he didn't, because his ego is totally based on what these sleazy diplomats think of him), I couldn't care less. The UN was merely a PR hurdle to be jumped, and in the end it turned out we shouldn't even have bothered trying. Our reasons for invading Iraq go back years and are not in any way equivalent to the arguments we put forth in a needless attempt to bring around a bunch of America-haters to our side.
Maybe he should title the article "Powell's War with NO Gun's or WMD."
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