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May 28, 2003 WMD HUNT UPDATE....Jeez, I almost forgot to link to the latest
administration speculation from Donald Rumsfeld about the missing WMD.
For the record, here are the theories so far, along with their authors:
Am I missing any? From now on I will just refer to these theories by number, OK? It ought to speed up future posts. If everyone else could standardize on this system too, that would be great. It should save us all a lot of time. Posted by Kevin Drum at May 28, 2003 10:12 PM | TrackBackComments
6. They were there, but because of Rumsfeld's and Franks' incompetence in planning, the evidence of the program was largely destroyed and the weapons moved off to god knows where. Posted by: Alex Knapp at May 28, 2003 10:17 PM | PERMALINKI was a proponent of 1 before we even went into Iraq. eing said proponent, I think there are a lot of countries we should be looking at before Iran. Posted by: Justene at May 28, 2003 10:24 PM | PERMALINKAlex, your #6 sounds like a generalization of Kevin's #2. Posted by: Avram at May 28, 2003 10:33 PM | PERMALINK7. They were in Iraqi facilities secured, until during the invasion and corresponding breakdown of Saddam's power the low-level Iraqis sold them to terrorists for cash. This one should be grounds for impeachment. Posted by: rumsfEld at May 28, 2003 11:23 PM | PERMALINK8. "CIA convinced truck-trailers held bioweapons labs" (Scroll to the earlier posts for a short-but-exclusive interview with Sid Blumenthal). Posted by: Lonewacko at May 28, 2003 11:30 PM | PERMALINKRegarding (2), while Sharon may believe they moved to Syria, I gotta tell you it looks like pretty soon we're going to be hearing stories about how they were actually moved to Iran. Posted by: Maynard Handley at May 28, 2003 11:49 PM | PERMALINK"Hussein Kamel, the highest-ranking Iraqi official ever to defect from Saddam Hussein's inner circle, told CIA and British intelligence officers and U.N. inspectors in the summer of 1995 that after the gulf war, Iraq destroyed all its chemical and biological weapons stocks and the missiles to deliver them. Kamel was Saddam Hussein's son-in-law and had direct knowledge of what he claimed: for 10 years he had run Iraq's nuclear, chemical, biological and missile programs" - John Barry, Newsweek, March 03 "I am beginning to suspect there possibly were none" - Hans Blix, Guardian, May 24 "This is the smoking gun we have been looking for. We have known all along that Saddam was desperate to develop a delivery system for his mass destruction weapons, and this missile would undoubtedly have given him that capability" - David Kay, former United Nations weapons inspector, Daily Telegraph, May 25 Posted by: Ben at May 29, 2003 12:46 AM | PERMALINKRonald Dumsfeld: "Saddam destroyed all his WMD before the war." Well, he probably did. But "before the war" could be any time before the universe began up to an instant before the bombs started dropping. What a dumb statement on his part. "Ariel Sharon and Richard Perle (among others): Saddam surreptitiously moved the WMD to Syria before the war." Ah, another excuse to broaden the war to a war against Syria. They (at least Perle) lied about WOMDs in Iraq. (To his personal profit, of course) Why should anyone believe him now? Posted by: raj at May 29, 2003 03:10 AM | PERMALINK10. Paul Wolfowitz: It wasn't about WMD; we just needed to move our troops out of Saudi Arabia. Brazen, shameless, and a completely piss-poor reason for invading a country, levelling its infrastructure, and killing at least 5000 civillians. Idiot/Savant The NY Times today has a story that two trailers are stongly believed by the administration to be weapons labs - but there are caveats and no conclusive evidence. But if they are labs? And they believe strongly that they really really are - then those trailers could have produced stuff to kill THOUSANDS! So there's your reason to invade. Everyone can rest easy now. For the record, I believe strongly that the Mets will rally this season and face, oh let's say the A's in the World Series. Posted by: casadelogo at May 29, 2003 04:12 AM | PERMALINKHere's the real story. Saddam never had WMD, ever. All that subterfuge about letting inspectors in, expelling them, letting them back in, not allowing Iraqi scientists to be interviewed was a ploy to...... Wait. Let me think about it. Sorry. Never mind. Posted by: melk at May 29, 2003 04:34 AM | PERMALINKSave face, not let out (domestically) that he had destroyed the WMD's, and to restrict what a bunch of US spies could see in his country. Posted by: Barry at May 29, 2003 04:37 AM | PERMALINKThe Republican posts starting this thread are PATHETIC. "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction." Dick Cheney, 8/26/02. "Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons. " Drunk Who Stole His Job, 9/12/03 "We know for a fact that there are weapons there." Ari Air Force One Is A Target Fliescher, 1/9/03. Go over to Billmon for all the rest. Lots more outrageous lying so our boys could be killed--and continue to be killed. Pathetic lying killers. How proud the republicans can be. Got any U-238 or plunder of the oil fields to mix in? Thanks! Posted by: paradox at May 29, 2003 06:04 AM | PERMALINKOne thing I found interesting about Lacey's theory (#3) is that I didn't see it floated by opponents of the war beforehand. I'm not convinced yet as to what the real truth here is, but #3 would have been a semi-plausible argument for opponents of the war, on the WMD point (which was never the main reason for war, in my opinion, although it was certainly a big part of the public justification). Why wasn't it raised? My suspicion is that most opponents of the war were unwilling to make an argument that was premised upon the totalitarian nature of Saddam's regime and that placed blame for any possible misinformation on that regime. At the end of the day, what we do need to know is what our intelligence agencies knew, and if they were wrong, why they were wrong. Posted by: Crank at May 29, 2003 06:41 AM | PERMALINKHeres a few. Michael Schrage in the Washington post said it was because saddam was "ambigouos" about whether or not he had them. And that was enough to invade. Kathleen Parker in the Chicago Tribune says saddam could have had them estroyed in the desert and then killed hte troops to cover up the crime (no kidding, she really said this) My favorite ois Peter rooks from the Heritage Foundation who said that Saddam was using France and Germany as "dupes" to stall the US so he could destroy them and avoid being indicted by the U.N. That one gets points for sheer balls. Posted by: Ed Hill at May 29, 2003 06:44 AM | PERMALINKChris- Damnit! I was going to suggest: 10. A lion ate them. Bonus points for anyone who catches the reference. Posted by: Mev at May 29, 2003 06:53 AM | PERMALINKTheb there's #11. So what? You'll do what you're told, mister! Posted by: The Fool at May 29, 2003 07:19 AM | PERMALINKOf course, all the leftist posturing over the "lies about WMD" miss an important point: if Saddam didn't have WMD (he destroyed them, he never had them, or reason #11: he gave them to Goodwill), why did he act as if he did? After all, the quickest, surest way to remove the sanctions that were preventing him from doing what he wanted to do would have been to throw the gates open to Hans Blix & Co. -- y'all come on down now, y'hear? -- and cooperate with the inspectors. Hans would have dutifully reported to the UNSC that Iraq had no weapons (or "no more weapons"), and the sanctions would have been lifted. The US/UK could not have stopped that. Instead, Iraq blocked inspectors at every opportunity, threatened other countries with WMD, played word games over WMD, reneged on several promises concerning inspectors, and scrambled to buy components for WMD programs on the global market. With cookie crumbs all over their mouths, they asked us to believe that they had never, ever been in the cookie jar. All in all, one certainly could have come to the conclusion that Iraq had a WMD program, because the Iraqis ACTED AS IF THEY DID. This act convinced not only the Bush administration, but the Clinton administration as well -- something commenters here should reflect on. Pres. Clinton and his key administrators all were confident that they "knew" that Saddam possessed WMD, and largely on the same information that the Bush administration had. A number of commenters here have the usual scorn over the actions of the Bush administration in regards to WMD. They should have even more scorn for the actions of Saddam and his henchmen: either they were guility as all hell, or they were too stupid to be allowed to continue. Posted by: Steve White at May 29, 2003 07:28 AM | PERMALINKWell, let's see. In 1998, Bill Clinton and the Democratic leadership and the UN all agreed that Saddam had large chemical and biological weapons stocks, and an active nuclear weapons program. Had Saddam destroyed the weapons and programs, and made available to the UN evidence that he had done so, the sanctions would have been lifted and the threat of force would have evaporated, notwithstanding the moral reasons for war. So to believe the rationales of many of the comments here, you would have to believe that Saddam destroyed weapons and programs which he had previously admitted to, and which were unquestioned by the Democrats and the UN; and though knowing that proving he had done this would be to his immediate and immense benefit, Saddam nonetheless not only refused to prove that he had destroyed the weapons, but lied, prevaricated and obstructed inspections which would have vindicated him. That's just insane really. The problem is, of course, that it's possible that Saddam was insane. I'm beginning to think that it's equally possible that some of the commentors here are beyond the reach of reason or possibly even sentient thought: "Rumsfeld's and Franks' incompetence in planning" "They (at least Perle) lied about WOMDs [sic] in Iraq. (To his personal profit, of course)" "outrageous lying so our boys could be killed--and continue to be killed. Pathetic lying killers. How proud the republicans can be. Got any U-238 or plunder of the oil fields to mix in? Thanks!" Also, you missed theory 0: they're there, but well-concealed, and we'll find them eventually. What the truth is I do not know, but I am convinced that we went into Iraq with good reason, did an excellent job with minimal destruction, and will leave Iraq in much better shape than it was when we got there. Posted by: Jeff Medcalf at May 29, 2003 07:42 AM | PERMALINKApparently, Jeff, you remain convinced in spite of no evidence in your favor, and plenty against. Mev: Monty Python, The Meaning of Life "woke up this morning, one sock too many." So it would appear that Saddam was part of the vast conspiracy/lie about WMD that was the basis for our war in Iraq. His complicity in this case can only be judged versus the risks. By allowing the world to believe he had WMD when he didn't he got: Political and Economic Sanctions, the enmity of the civilized world, Pariah status, and WAR. What exactly did he stand to gain in exchange for this risk? Well there was... or then again there is... But of course there might have been... Actually it appears there was nothing to gain. Sheesh only a crazy man would... Posted by: Steve at May 29, 2003 07:50 AM | PERMALINK6 (or is it 7): Saddam had WMD; they're still there; everyone wanted to give the inspectors months to find them; why can't we have as long? Posted by: denise at May 29, 2003 07:51 AM | PERMALINKIdiot/Savant (emphasizing characteristics in the correct order, says: 10. Paul Wolfowitz: It wasn't about WMD; we just needed to move our troops out of Saudi Arabia. Brazen, shameless, and a completely piss-poor reason for invading a
country, levelling its infrastructure, and killing at least 5000
civillians. (it was a short article; there weren't many points made) Posted by: Jeff Medcalf at May 29, 2003 07:53 AM | PERMALINKdenise, because GWB said we knew exactly how many liters, how many warheads, how many missiles and how many portable labs Saddam had. how can you know all of this with confidence but have no idea where it could be? did the people who said "yes, he has 10,000 liters of Vx!" not offer any proof? did we not ask? the time it's taking to find them makes GWB's confidence about the amounts and apparent concern about the immediate danger seem a little sketchy. add this to things like the aspirin factory, the chinese embassy, the fact that there was no bunker at the location of the bunker we bombed the first night of the Iraq war, the 9/11 failures, the fact that GWB and Rumsfeld reportedly set up their own intel group when they figured out they didn't like what the CIA was telling them, the fact that the CIA is now investigating itself, etc., and it really makes you think "can i believe anything the government says?" Posted by: ChrisL at May 29, 2003 07:58 AM | PERMALINKAnother prominent Iraqi defector suggests Saddam destroyed the weapons--in 1991. I keep waiting for right-wing commentators (some representatives here today) and the entire Administration from Thief Executive down to Undersecretary at Defense to place a big, wet kiss between the bare ass cheeks of Scott Ritter, who helpfully pointed out that chemicals and biotoxins created that evaded the last round of inspections (1998) would be harmless goo now. Also, there has never been any--let's write that again--any evidence of the "reconstituted" Iraqi nuclear program that Dick Cheney (four times!) threatened us with on Tim Russert's show in mid-March. None now, none then. No purchases of raw uranium, or enrichment equipment, plutonium, whatever. Rocket plans? Whoa! There's a threat for you--the most powerful nation in the world trembles in fear of: a rolled-up set of drawings, some computer disks, and a couple of cost estimates. A couple of trucks, which may have never been used (or flat not work) to make toxins that may not be genuinely threatening to an industrialized nation, not to mention there being no evident method by which Saddam might have gotten them here. What happened to all that al-Qaida connection crap? Someone call Bill Bennett and have him read Junior, "The Boy Who Cried Wolf(owitz)." Not to belabor the obvious, but if Saddam was sitting on all these weapons, and we were massing on his borders, intent on killing him and his colleagues, wouldn't that be the time a real madman would secure his weapons and use them, his back to the wall? Even if he had the material, he didn't use them, even in extreme circumstances. He was deterrable, forever. Nothing, but nothing that has happened since Robin Cook's speech has undermined the logic of it. Bush sold this war like he sells everything else: decide what you're going to do, and then throw reasons at it until one sort of sticks. The spin continues today for a war that killed hundreds (so far) of Americans, thousands (so far) of Iraqis, and won us a sand trap seething with anti-American looters that will drain a busted economy for years to come. I somehow picture the rest of the world kicking back, opening a can of beer, and laughing its ass off at us, when not shaking its head sadly. Posted by: Brian C.B. at May 29, 2003 08:04 AM | PERMALINKSo here's a Gedanken experiment for you WMD mavens. You get taken to a special room in the Iraqi desert. You are alone and you have a choice of two buttons to push. The correct one will yield $10m from Uday's special stash. The wrong one unfortunately exposes you to any WMD found in Iraq in the next 12 months. You do not have to push either button. So....... Posted by: melk at May 29, 2003 08:08 AM | PERMALINKBy the way, Saddam consistently denied having banned weapons. That he disliked inspections--a threat to his sovereignty and his hero-martyr status in the Arab world--is understandable, but extreme. But he and his cohorts denied having them, period. He was never ambiguous about possessing them. Untrustworthy, sure, although I'll have to note that, regarding banned weapons and a connection to al-Qaida, his word is looking awful good compared to that of the American dictator. Posted by: Brian C.B. at May 29, 2003 08:08 AM | PERMALINKI've been receiving messages through my tin-foil radiation prevention helmet that space-aliens, in league with Barbara Streisand, Tim Robbins and the Dixie chicks have dematerialised the WMD and have them stored for safe keeping in a small Lebanese restaurant just off Rue George V in Paris. This seems no more unreasonable than some of the other theories... Posted by: Mark at May 29, 2003 08:19 AM | PERMALINKElvis (the real one, NOT elvis56) ate them! Posted by: pessimist at May 29, 2003 08:36 AM | PERMALINKI love #3 - "Don't tell Dad but we spent the money he gave us for WMD's on some girls . . ." Posted by: Claude Muncey at May 29, 2003 08:44 AM | PERMALINKKevin, You have left out Ken Pollack's prewar estimate of Iraqi WMD capacity from _The Threatening Storm_ Posted by: mark safranski at May 29, 2003 08:59 AM | PERMALINKBTW Jeff, I would suggest you check out some other reports of what Wolfowitz said to Vanity Fair (not the BBC) -- one report has him saying: For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on Yep, Wolfowitz did talk about WMD's, and those remarks could easily be seen as supporting I/S. How about checking sources before opening mouth next time? Posted by: Claude Muncey at May 29, 2003 08:59 AM | PERMALINKSomeone on Daily Kos commented on the "We got to leave Saudi Arabia this way" explanation. He said basically "Does that mean we just appeased Bin Laden?" As I blogged later: Yep. And we went one further. We knocked off his biggest local enemy. Maybe now he'll stop hating us.... Like it or not, Wolfowitz just admitted that obeying one of Bin Laden's demands was a "huge but unnannounced" reason. Oh, and the Saudi's didn't start telling us that they wanted us to withdraw our troops permanently until after we'd made it clear we were invading Iraq, UN authority or not... Posted by: Morat at May 29, 2003 09:27 AM | PERMALINKSteve White: You may want to be careful about the "too stupid to be allowed to continue" foreign policy paradigm. Now, redirect your attention to the fine timeline of Administration quotes over at billmon's site. I don't think you get many "Well, he sure acts like he's got them" comments from the Administration-- they are, instead, affirmative statements that x amount of materials exists, it gives cities where they'll be found, etc. etc. This is, of course, the whole point of having "Operation Shifting Rationale". Didn't you realize that the justification was being shifted when the statue-toppling event was staged? Posted by: Norbizness at May 29, 2003 09:44 AM | PERMALINKThe New Jersey Star Ledger reports that "CIA concludes two Iraqi trailers were probably bioweapons labs," but adds that "the Iraqis had a motivation to inefficiently produce a biological agent," said one intelligence official. "They had no motivation to inefficiently produce anything else." The Iraqis may have had the capability to produce biological weapons, but they were inefficient ones? Maybe they should have dug up the ones in Ft. Detrick. Here's a link to the CIA report Posted by: Trish Wilson at May 29, 2003 09:58 AM | PERMALINK"We lied, and you suckers fell for it." George Bush. Posted by: markg at May 29, 2003 10:05 AM | PERMALINKI've been saying #4 for months. And Crank's silly (and insulting) rationale that anti-war proponents somehow wanted to hide the nature of Saddam's totalitarian regime is just silly. It wasn't an argument that you could make before the war with any validity, precisely because it was impossible to know. Also, we knew from our own actions that Saddam at one point had WMD, and his totalitarian nature would lead one to presume that he kept the WMD as a method of intimidation against his countrymen and neighbors. The problem is, the one thing that's missing from this was the lynchpin (and yes, despite all the spinning that it wasn't, it was) of the invasion case - actual WMD. We have two trailers, empty and with no proof whatsoever that they actually produced a single gram of WMD, and that's pretty much what the case for tearing apart international precedent and setting an example that's having India make war motions towards Pakistan is resting on. Lonewacko might want to go back to pushing Mecha, I'm sure they had something to do with it. Posted by: jesse at May 29, 2003 10:19 AM | PERMALINKWhy didn't Saddam state that he had destroyed his WMD's, and get the sanctions lifted/war prevented? The obvious answer is that it would be impossible to convince anybody who didn't want to be convinced - 'Iraq is a large area...'. Another would be that it wouldn't have worked. He made a good enemny - evil but weak. The stated policy of the US, from around 1996(?) was to remove him from power. Posted by: Barry at May 29, 2003 10:23 AM | PERMALINKRevisionism... how fast it operates these days! Iraq blocked inspectors at every opportunity, threatened other countries with WMD, played word games over WMD, reneged on several promises concerning inspectors, and scrambled to buy components for WMD programs on the global market. As far as I can tell, every last word of the above sentence is false. Moreover, these claims were self-evidently false, at the time, to everyone who paid attention to events as they happened rather than uncritically trusting the Bush administration's PR spin of the day. Doesn't anyone else remember the flimsy "guilty until proven innocent, go ahead, prove a negative, heads I win, tails you lose" character of the American WMD charges? Posted by: Canadian Reader at May 29, 2003 10:46 AM | PERMALINKSteve White wrote: The problem with this statement is that (iirc - can someone come up with the sources?) Bush Sr., Albright and Bush Jr. had all stated that even if Iraq disarmed, they would not support removing the sanctions as long as Saddam was in charge . As long as it appeared to Saddam that the US government's policy was that complying with the UN resolutions would not lift the sanctions unless the regime changed, Saddam had no incentive to work with the UN. Posted by: chris bond at May 29, 2003 01:07 PM | PERMALINKSome comments in reply: Chris Bond wonders why Saddam would have complied with UN resolutions given that the "US government policy" was in favor of regime change. First, as we all saw Saddam had more leverage in the UNSC than anyone thought. If he had put on a really good show of compliance, the French, Germans, Syrians, Russians and Chinese could have pushed very hard on a vote to lift sanctions: while the US and UK could have vetoed, a 13-2 vote (US/UK against) would have been deeply embarrassing to us. Particularly before 9/11, such a prospect could have forced the US and UK to agree to a substantial compromise. That would have suited Saddam just fine. Second, in the early part of the sanctions process, the US policy was not "regime change": that didn't come until the late 1990s and the 'Desert Fox' initiative. Prompt action by a seemingly contrite Saddam (in English of course, he'd have different words for the Arab street) could have turned the tables on the US and UK and have crippled sanctions. Brian CB makes several points about the threat Saddam posed. On buying or processing uranium, there is no evidence Saddam tried to buy raw uranium in the 1990s. He did, however, have an active buying program for parts and components useful in refining uranium and extracting U-235. This suggests (doesn't prove) an active nuclear weapons program. Saddam also had an active rocketry program as evidenced by the home-grown, short-range missiles the Iraqi armed forces had. Once you can build a missile that flies a hundred miles, learning to build one that can fly a thousand miles is just a matter of engineering and practice. Since threat = capability x intent, the increasing capability of someone like Saddam increases the threat, since the intent is there. Brian also states that Saddam and his regime always denied having WMD. This is manifestly untrue, as his government explicitly and implicitly threatened to use WMD in the run-up to the war. Finally Brian notes comments made by Scott Ritter, who unfortunately has little credibility. Some chemical/biological agents are short-lived. Others, like anthrax and aflatoxin, can be stored for long periods of time and then used effectively. Barry opines on the difficult convincing those who didn't want to be convinced (a compelling argument for all on the political scene, in every topic) that Saddam didn't have WMD. I note that while Saddam would not have convinced the US, that would not have been required to achieve his goal of lifting sanctions. He needed to destabilize the UNSC, and even in 2003 that almost worked. 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