Chasing a Mirage

Time ^ | Sep. 28, 2003 | Nancy Gibbs and Michael Ware

[Dan Evans]

If Saddam may not have known the true nature of his own arsenal, it is no wonder that Western intelligence services were picking up so many clues about so many weapons systems. But it helps answer one logical argument that the Administration has been making ever since the weapons failed to appear after the war ended: why, if Saddam had nothing to hide, did he endure billions of dollars in sanctions and ultimately prompt his own destruction? Perhaps because even he was mistaken about what was really at stake in this fight.

[Dan Evans]

Think about it -- Saddam tells you he wants you to finish making that atom bomb by next Thursday or he's going to throw you in vat of battery acid. But there's no way you can do it. So when next Thursday rolls around, what are you going to tell him?

I love it, this is funnier than hammered snot.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Twisted Logic 101 from TIME, a magazine that no longer matters.

[Thebaddog]

My question is that if it all looks like elaborate lies to hear these genius' tell us about it, why is it now that we are going to believe these new stories from the same liars that the WMD's never existed?

I do believe that Saddam underestimated American resolve, but WMD's are easy to make and store as in poor man's nukes. It is easier to believe that he did have them but then destroyed them.

And there was a runup to the war and he had elaborate survival plans. Surely he would do something with the WMD's to hide them or destroy them.

[Dan Evans]

My question is that if it all looks like elaborate lies to hear these genius' tell us about it, why is it now that we are going to believe these new stories from the same liars that the WMD's never existed? And there was a runup to the war and he had elaborate survival plans. Surely he would do something with the WMD's to hide them or destroy them. .

Maybe all those things and more. He had twelve years to hide them, bury them, and/or ship them to Syria. His coherts were just as evil as he was so they may have had their own WMD program.

The chance we will get the truth out of all this is nil.

You know, they say that the difference between Israeli and American airport security is that they look for terrorists and we look for weapons. Maybe we should have applied this principle to Iraq. We knew what kind of guy Saddam was. Why make WMDs an issue? Just get rid of him because of who he is.

[Rolland]

because you need an legal reason to attack another country, thats why WMD's are so important.

[Dan Evans]

you need an legal reason to attack another country, thats why WMD's are so important.

We went to war against Panama, Grenada, Serbia, Somalia, Haiti and Afganistan and they didn't have WMDs.

We had already been at war with Iraq for 12 years after he invaded Kuwait. And then liberals critized Bush for not getting invading Bagdad. The only reason we stopped was a cease-fire (which he violated). He ignored dozens of U.N. resolutions. We were just finishing the job we started.

Sounds legal enough for me.

[Dan Evans]

President Bush made WMD's the issue. He sent Colin Powell to the UN with the claim that we had "proof" of WMD's in Iraq. Ok, if we can't find the WMD's then just show us the proof instead. .

The proof was on the news (all those gassed Kurds) and that didn't mean that all those other issues went away. The brand new issue is that international terorrism is now a direct threat to American citizens. And we have a right to defend ourselves however as we see fit

[solzhenitsyn]

A former mic official insists that this view is mistaken. "In Iraq we don't write everything," he says. The claim that Saddam would destroy his most dangerous weapons of his own accord and not retain the means to prove it seems a stretch. But a captain in the Mukhabarat, the main Iraqi intelligence service, says he was a witness to just such an exercise. In July 1991, he says, he traveled into the Nibai desert in a caravan of trucks carrying 25 missiles loaded with biological agents. First the bulldozers took a week to bury them. It took three more weeks to evacuate the area. Then the missiles were exploded. No one kept any kind of documentation, the captain says. "We just did it." This meant that when weapons inspectors came demanding verification, the Iraqis could not prove what or how much had been destroyed.

Sa'ad al-rawi contends that the men who carried out such missions were junior level, sergeants and first sergeants. "They are not educated men," he says. "You order them to do something, they do it ...

I'm struggling to imagine how this might have worked. A Iraqi general calls a young captain and group of enlisted kids together one morning, and says, "Men, here's the keys to over a million bucks worth of trucks and bulldozers. Oh, by the way, the trucks have fully assembled missiles on them, with biological warheads. Don't ask me why these things are fully assembled ... but anyhow, here's what you gotta do:

”Go drive this stuff out into the desert and find a good place to bury the missiles. Make sure there are no buried utilities in the area, and do it on land that doesn't look like it might be owned by any Baathist bigshots, because they sure wouldn't want anthrax on their land. It's up to you how to figure out what's a good location, because we can't do any site planning or prep for you -- if we did, we'd know where the missiles were buried, and it's supposed to be secret."

"So you're just on the honor system. Drive this stuff out into the desert, and we'll trust you not to steal or at least strip all the vehicles the moment you're out of sight, even though your families are starving."

"You've got to bury these missiles with the warheads still in them. Don't try to destroy the warheads separately, because that could be so much safer and more reliable. Okay, you bury the missiles with these explosive charges. This is C4 plastique, and it's up to you fellows to figure out exactly how much of it to use and where. Oh, and this is a detonator. The captain's seen one before. So you just destroy all these missiles out in the desert, and then bring all the vehicles back, without telling anyone where you've been. We're only destroying the missiles because the UN's making us do it, so we gotta be sure we can't prove we did it."

[solzhenitsyn]

Darn, you have to go and blow a hole in a perfect scenario!

[Thebaddog]

I'm listening to Patrick Leahy on C-span right now blowing hard about his view of our fight in the Arab world. We need to find the WMD stash or proof of them to make him go away as a political force. The WMD thing is purely a partisan democratic issue.

[Dan Evans]

Do you think most people are buying this WMD argument? I thought the polls indicated it wasn't an issue. Most Iraqi people say it was a good thing we invaded and if they don't think it's an issue then why should we?

[Dan Evans]

I seriously doubt they destroyed anything. Very likely they buried everything intact just like they did with those MIGs. And spy satellites have a limited field of view. They can't watch the entire country simultaneously.

[Thebaddog]

As the election season heats up, the media will use the issue as a stick to beat Bush with. They've already obscured and turned his words regarding the iminent threat claims before the war. The media can turn popular opinion with a steady drumbeat of half-truths or outright lies in a set battle of an election campaign. If WMD's are found, the demos will be out of power for thirty years, in my opinion. It would be extremely helpful if something were to turn up.

[Rolland]

I'm not commenting the political side of this, just purly the legal side.
There are strict rules under international law as to when military action can be and cannot be used. This iraq case is a little difficult, since on one side, the security concil did threathen with "severe" consequences, on the other side all the members didn't agree to take to action.

And with regards to some of your examples, I don't know of all of those petty islands you mention, but as for Serbia there it was legal for NATO to attack because of the on going ethnic cleansing by the regime in Beograd.
I can give you more examples of when you can or cannot attack a sourverign state, but I'll keep them for later.

[Tatze]

I think we had UN authority under UNSC Res. 660, 678 & 687 - 1441. I would welcome a legal interpretation of those, but it seems clear to me. Then again, Im not a lawyer.

As for Serbia, the intelligence against Milsovic was wildly exaggerated to create justification, yet intelligence was pared down after the war from 100,000 to 10,000 and only 2,200 bodies have ever been found. Not quite the 'genocide' it was hyped to be.

And if the UN is so necessary to legitimize an attack on a sovereign nation, why was the UN never even consulted on Bosnia? Clinton just completey bypassed the UN and went to NATO and noone made a peep about the UN then.

[Rolland]

With regards to the Bosnia thing, you mean Kosovo? UN did sanction the operations in Bosnia I think, there were blue helmets soldiers there. Not everyone did their job of course, for example the Dutch soldiers handing over people in the socalled "free zone" to the serbs, which then again shot them.

As for the legal interpreation of the UN res. my feeling is that different countries have different interpreations.
It has been procedure to have another res. in the UN before taking direct action. The administraion did not ask for one, since they knew it would be vetoed by the other powers, hence the legality issues.

Another point on the NATO jugoslavia case, I remember the former NATO Gen Sec.(a british lad) had an outcry "what have they done to my organization". He did not like the out of area operations by NATO I guess. But times have changed, it seems to me that the territorial defence forces of the NATO countries are being scaled down in favour of more elite forces that are capable of rapid deployment.

[Tatze]

Sorry, I did mean Kosovo.

[Rutles4Ever]

I'm not sure why there's negativity about this article. i read it as letting Bush off the hook. For crying out loud, If Saddam's own scientists could fool him, if Saddam can turn around and run a "hide and seek" operation from the U.N. on merchandise that didn't exist, how can Bush, Blair, et al. possibly be at fault for assuming it to be true, as well? The article clearly agrees that the weapons existed at one point. Now, if these sources are correct in their assertion they played a ruse with Saddam, himself, the President's decision is unimpeachable...