One Threat Removed

[bfp]

by Terry Eastland
12/18/2003 12:00:00 AM

IN HIS INITIAL COMMENTS on Saddam Hussein's capture, President Bush didn't mention the main reason we went after the brutal dictator in the first place. Not that Bush needed to go into the principal justification for invading Iraq. But the matter is worth bringing up--especially since Howard Dean, whose candidacy has been fueled by his opposition to the president's decision to go to war, is the odds-on favorite to capture the Democratic presidential nomination.

Bill Kristol and Bob Kagan have succinctly captured, the main reason for the war--"the strategic threat posed by Saddam Hussein because of his proven record of aggression and barbarity, his admitted possession of weapons of mass destruction, and the certain knowledge of his programs to build more." Hussein was a threat to the Middle East but also to our allies and to us.

Now, Hussein didn't only recently become such a threat. Indeed, his possession of chemical and biological weapons had been an intense concern since 1991, when, as a condition for ending the Persian Gulf war, Hussein had agreed to reveal and destroy all such weapons. Years of diplomacy ensued in which the United Nations Security Council passed all manner of resolutions and hundreds of weapons inspectors went to Iraq to oversee the disarmament. To no avail.

By 1998, on the basis of Iraq's own admissions, the world knew that Iraq had VX, a deadly nerve gas; anthrax; bombs fitted with parachutes designed to deliver poison gas or germ payloads; artillery shells filled with mustard gas; aerial
bombs filled with germ agents; and missile warheads containing such germ agents as anthrax and botulinum.

Yet Hussein's regime had failed adequately to account for those weapons. Most, it said, had been "secretly" destroyed. But no evidence was offered to support that claim. And when Iraq limited the movement of U.N weapons inspectors, refusing a request for full access to the "palaces," the only fair inference was that the regime had something to hide.

President Bill Clinton was prepared to use force. "It is obvious," he said in February 1998, "that there is an attempt here . . . to protect whatever remains of [Hussein's] capacity to produce weapons of mass destruction, the missiles to deliver them, and the feed stocks necessary to produce them. . . . What if he fails to comply and we fail to act, or we take some ambiguous third route, which gives him yet more opportunities to develop . . . weapons of mass destruction?"

Raising the possibility that Saddam Hussein might provide weapons to terrorist groups, Clinton said the Iraqi dictator was a threat to "the safety of his people, the stability of his region and the security of all the rest of us." He warned, "Some day, some way, I guarantee you, he'll use the arsenal."

President Clinton eventually ordered a missile and bombing attack on suspected facilities and stockpiles--after which Hussein closed the door to further inspections. What he did with his weapons programs wasn't and indeed, with the inspectors shut out, couldn't be known.

Four years later, Bush essentially perceived Iraq as the same strategic threat Clinton had. Yet because of September 11, he was determined not to let Saddam Hussein off the hook. Bush worked the United Nations, whose Security Council passed Resolution 1441. The resolution found Iraq in material breach of its obligations and vowed serious consequences if it failed to fully and immediately disarm. But the Security Council, as we know, was unwilling to act.

[Adam D]

I can't recall anytime the US actually felt concerned that Iraq was a security threat to us.


It's funny that Kristol and Kagan would talk about "aggression and barbarity" and "possession of weapons of mass destruction, and the certain knowledge of his programs to build more".

[bfp]

"When I left office, there was a substantial amount of biological and chemical material unaccounted for. That is, at the end of the first Gulf War, we knew what he had. We knew what was destroyed in all the inspection processes and that was a lot. And then we bombed with the British for four days in 1998. We might have gotten it all; we might have gotten half of it; we might have gotten none of it. But we didn't know. So I thought it was prudent for the president to go to the U.N. and for the U.N. to say you got to let these inspectors in, and this time if you don't cooperate the penalty could be regime change, not just continued sanctions."
--Bill Clinton, July 22, 2003


FORMER PRESIDENT CLINTON is right about what he and the whole world knew about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction programs. And most of what everyone knew about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction had nothing to do with this or any other government's intelligence collection and analysis. Had there never been a Central Intelligence Agency--an idea we admit sounds more attractive all the time--the case for war against Iraq would have been rock solid. Almost everything we knew about Saddam's weapons programs and stockpiles, we knew because the Iraqis themselves admitted it.

Here's a little history that seems to have been completely forgotten in the frenzy of the past few months. Shortly after the first Gulf War in 1991, U.N. inspectors
discovered the existence of a surprisingly advanced Iraqi nuclear weapons program. In addition, by Iraq's own admission and U.N. inspection efforts, Saddam's regime possessed thousands of chemical weapons and tons of chemical weapon agents. Were it not for the 1995 defection of senior Iraqi officials, the U.N. would never have made the further discovery that Iraq had manufactured and equipped weapons with the deadly chemical nerve agent VX and had an extensive biological warfare program.

Here is what was known by 1998 based on Iraq's own admissions:

* That in the years immediately prior to the first Gulf War, Iraq produced at least 3.9 tons of VX, a deadly nerve gas, and acquired 805 tons of precursor ingredients for the production of more VX.

* That Iraq had produced or imported some 4,000 tons of ingredients to produce other types of poison gas.

* That Iraq had produced 8,500 liters of anthrax.

* That Iraq had produced 500 bombs fitted with parachutes for the purpose of delivering poison gas or germ payloads.

* That Iraq had produced 550 artillery shells filled with mustard gas.

* That Iraq had produced or imported 107,500 casings for chemical weapons.

* That Iraq had produced at least 157 aerial bombs filled with germ agents.

* That Iraq had produced 25 missile warheads containing germ agents (anthrax, aflatoxin, and botulinum).

Again, this list of weapons of mass destruction is not what the Iraqi government was suspected of producing. (That would be a longer list, including an Iraqi nuclear program that the German intelligence service had concluded in 2001 might produce a bomb within three years.) It was what the Iraqis admitted producing. And it is this list of weapons--not any CIA analysis under either the Clinton or Bush administrations--that has been at the heart of the Iraq crisis.

[Adam D]

And UN inspectors determined all of it to have been destroyed in the years immediately following the first war.

Originally posted by Adam D
And UN inspectors determined all of it to have been destroyed in the years immediately following the first war.

That's odd - My understanding was that Blix repeatedly noted that there were large amounts of unaccounted for chem/biological weapons. Was that not part of the point of him being there? He was trying to find records/evidence/proof of the destruction of previously UN Weapons inspector confirmed weapons?

[bfp]

Originally posted by Adam D
And UN inspectors determined all of it to have been destroyed in the years immediately following the first war.

No they didn't.

[Adam D]

Originally posted by bfp
No they didn't.

I forgot you rewrote history.

seriously - what is the reality of this? I was under the impression that the UN had verified X amount of certain weapons as recently as....date Y

It was the failure of Saddam to account for either the location or to verify the detruction of these weapons that caused such stress.

The UN discussions at no point focused on the legitamacy of the claims of WMD - the UN had verified the existence of same.

so - - what's the deal?

[bfp]

Originally posted by Adam D
I forgot you rewrote history.

No, I just studied it.

[c double]

if the arsenal's still out there, then the threat hasn't really been removed.

and if it really has been destroyed, then Saddam wasn't really a threat in the first place.

So I don't see how the war has really removed any threat (which most of us never felt there was anyway).

[bfp]

Originally posted by c double
if the arsenal's still out there, then the threat hasn't really been removed.

and if it really has been destroyed, then Saddam wasn't really a threat in the first place.

So I don't see how the war has really removed any threat (which most of us never felt there was anyway).

[Adam D]

Originally posted by c double
if the arsenal's still out there, then the threat hasn't really been removed.

and if it really has been destroyed, then Saddam wasn't really a threat in the first place.

So I don't see how the war has really removed any threat (which most of us never felt there was anyway).

good point.

Originally posted by c double
if the arsenal's still out there, then the threat hasn't really been removed.

and if it really has been destroyed, then Saddam wasn't really a threat in the first place.

So I don't see how the war has really removed any threat (which most of us never felt there was anyway).

Let's say Saddam moved them to Syria - would that be a threat?

[gatecrasher]

Please change the thread title, it is not about Osama.

[bfp]

Originally posted by Adam D
good point.

No, it's not.