Illicit Arms Kept Till Eve of War, an Iraqi Scientist Is Said to Assert

The NY Times ^ | 042103 | JUDITH MILLER

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Now we are making hay!

Thanks for posting this!

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[Publius6961]

The failure to find such weapons has become a political issue in Washington.

Not quite correct.
This has become an issue with Washington wanna-bes, Hollywood morons and other useful idiots.

[Publius6961]

We are facing a catastrophy if we do not find the weapons that were the only reason for this war.

In your limited mind, perhaps.

[BagCamAddict]

and other useful idiots

Ummm... oxymoron?

[The Great Satan]

The issue is not finding all the WMD. There is no way they can ever all be found -- for certain, anyway. They issue is what is the incentive structure for the people who know their location. That was the problem that had to be solved. And, I strongly suspect that it has been solved, at least w.r.t. to the problem at hand, i.e. that Saddam and the other members of the Iraqi regime who might know where the bioweapons are cached are not at large, but are essentially our hostages. The exact nature of that solution remains unrevealed, probably because that would involve the prestige-threatening revelation that we can be blackmailed with those weapons. The issue of biological WMD will not go away with Saddam, of course. That is being addressed long-term by Cheney's Project Bioshield. The short-term issue was Saddam because he was no longer in his box, but was rather leveraging his WMD capability to strike the US. Apart from Iraq, we're basically at peace with every other country in the world and, with the exception of Serbia, have been for a while, so there should be no other imminent threats. Assuming Saddam has taken an exile, other potential trouble-makers will take from recent events that (a) the US can be intimidated by WMD -- which of course is simply a given, since we are not magicians or miracle workers, and remained in a stalemate with the Soviets for decades, and are still stalemated with China, and (b) that we will aggressively pursue anybody who tries to leverage that threat to threaten the security to the United States, up to everything short of killing the leaders who threaten us. Under the circumstances, that is about as good as we can get.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Ping -- Just in case you haven't seen this!

[over3Owithabrain]

I personally cannot wait until the WMDs are proven to be found. An old friend who has become a Michael Moore lefty has been carping for months. He falsely predicted the war results and has nothing left but the "NO WMD" line. I have held my fire for the most part and let him rant. But I will not let him off the hook this time. He will forever be reminded how wrong he was if he dare spew his bilge in my presence again.

[MEG33]

Think we might want this on our thread.

[George W. Bush]

This is good news but it's also scary news.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Ping!

[MEG33]

Syria and the local Rotary Club of Terrorists having access to these weapons is scary.

[leftiesareloonie]

Hate to disappoint you all. But read this more carefully and compare it to what Powell and others were claiming was the state of Iraq's WMD programs before the war. Powell talked as if there were stockpiles of ready to use or easily to assemble WMD. But if this article represents the entire story, then basically Bush and company seem to have gotten quite a bit ahead of the game. Don't know how that would play in international circles or whether it ultimately matters. Maybe it's enough. Who knows.

The article says:

...They said the scientist led Americans to a supply of material that proved to be the building blocks of illegal weapons, which he claimed to have buried as evidence of Iraq's illicit weapons programs....

Buliding blocks aren't weapons. Were these things weaponized or not? Were they deliverable? Were there only laboratory quantities? Suppose they were never weaponized? Would that make Iraq a "grave and gathering danger" justifying a pre-emptive war?

Read some more.

The Americans said the scientist told them that President Saddam Hussein's government had destroyed some stockpiles of deadly agents as early as the mid-1990's, transferred others to Syria, and had recently focused its efforts instead on research and development projects that are virtually impervious to detection by international inspectors, and even American forces on the ground combing through Iraq's giant weapons plants.

This SOUNDS omininous, I admit. But notice what "recent activity" is said to be about. It's really pretty vague actually. What's unclear is whether we're talking basic science or weapons development. There's a world of difference.

If we're talking basic science, they could have been decades away from weapons development.

Notice too that the article says that stuff was destroyed in the mid-nineties, verifying a frequent pre-war claim by the Iraqis.

Moreover, notice what was actually found:

... the material unearthed over the last three days at sites to which he led them had proved to be precursors for a toxic agent that is banned by chemical weapons treaties.

One or more "precursors" for a "toxic agent that is banned by chemical weapons treaties"

The obvious question. Were some or all of the precursor or precursors banned? Were some or all of them (or it) dual use? Were the next steps ever taken?

I'm not denying the potential of this. But don't make too much of it just yet.

Indeed, its perfectly consistent with this story that the Iraqis were telling the truth - but not the whole truth - before the war. It may be that they abandoned all their previous WMD programs, as having already been discovered, breeched by the US and the earlier inspection regimes. They were probably only at early stages of redevelopment of new programs and never weaponized anything. So strictly speaking they had no stockpile of WMDs. In 10 years they might have new improved weapons.

Would that be a murky outcome? Crystal clear justification for the war? Enough ammo for opponents to hammer Bush with?

At this point, I wouldn't venture a guess either way.

[DB]

You were saying?

[truth_seeker]

"Buliding blocks aren't weapons. Were these things weaponized or not? Were they deliverable? Were there only laboratory quantities? Suppose they were never weaponized? Would that make Iraq a "grave and gathering danger" justifying a pre-emptive war?"

Listening to several leading sources, we should redefine "pre-emptive" to mean "prevention."

Following a "prevention" model, could have avoided 9/11/2001.

In the run-up to attacking Iraq, I believe this was the logic. Regardless of the degree of development, the time had come to put a STOP to 12 years of playing games with Saddam.

The technical details don't matter much to me. The risk was (and is) that the materials could fall into very hostile hands.

I believe "prevention" is the correct paradigm. I further believe the US alone SHOULD decide, not waiting for France and the UN to approve whether or not a sufficiently "grave and present danger" exists.

[MEG33]

Here's the original

[Chunga]

The threat of Saddam's WMD was the linchpin of the argument used by the Bush administration to attempt to persuade the UN Security Council to threaten the multilateral use of force to drive Saddam from power.

The link between Saddam and Al Qaeda was all the justification we needed to retaliate after 9/11.

[FreedomPoster]

I've been visualizing a great big news conference/event, run by Powell, at the UN, for some time now. I think you are spot on.

[joesbucks]

Let's see where this goes. But even if transferred to Syria in the mid-90's, then Iraq had disarmed. They no longer were in possession of them.

I simply can't believe that just days before a war they knew were coming they would disarm. Rememember, these are nutcases that would have used, not hid, arms to stay in power

[alnick]

Despite the "Weapons of Mass Destruction" moniker it's unlikely that Iraq using Chemical weapons would have killed many coalition soldiers or slowed down the fall of Baghdad by much.

Simply not that great if you have trouble delivering them effectively, and you're delivering them against troops trained in chemical warfare and with plenty of protective suits.

That makes sense. It explains why the regime would have destroyed them right before the war rather than try to use them against us.

Still though, I got very nervous whenever an air raid siren would go off in Kuwait.

[Credo]

Most of the finds so far have been dismissed as "pesticides" or "agricultural use only". How big of an agriculture industry did Iraq have? Why were these "pesticides" found with military equipment?

I think that Centcom & the administration are keeping a lid on it until it's all found and accounted for. WMD is not the prime reason for taking Hussein out; terrorism is. WMD just makes it a more deadly brew. I think there's something to the stories that Blair kept the brakes on Bush going after Iraq immediately after 9/11. The UN circus enabled our force build up. We went when we were ready with or without the UN.