Duelfer Report Supports Iraq War
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by Michael Barone U.S. News and World Report
U.S. 'Almost All Wrong' on Weapons" read the headline on the October 7 Washington Post. "Report on Iraq Contradicts Bush Administration Claims" read the subhead. But these headlines conceal the real news in the report of Iraq Survey Group head Charles Duelfer. For the report makes it plain that George W. Bush had good reason to go to war in Iraq and end the regime of Saddam Hussein.
First of all, Saddam retained the capability to manufacture weapons of mass destruction. On chemical weapons, "Saddam sought to sustain the requisite knowledge base to restart the program eventually and, to the extent it did not threaten the Iraqi efforts to get out from under sanctions, to sustain the inherent capability to produce such weapons as circumstances permitted in the future." On nuclear weapons, "Saddam did not abandon his nuclear ambitions. . . . Those around Saddam seemed quite convinced that once sanctions were ended, and all other things being equal, Saddam would renew his efforts in this field." Moreover, Duelfer concluded that Saddam in his missile program was developing missiles that exceeded the range limits set in U.N. Security Council Resolution 687.
Duelfer also reported that Saddam asked subordinates how long it would take to develop chemical weapons once sanctions ended. One Iraqi chemical weapons expert said it would require only a few days to develop mustard gas. Former Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz said that Iraq could have had a WMD capacity within two years after the end of sanctions.
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If the weapons inspectors had been given more time to conduct inspections, as John Kerry has on occasion advocated, we now know they would not have found any WMDs. Nor does it seem possible that they would have uncovered Saddam's attempts to maintain WMD capability. There would have been heavy pressure then from France, Russia, and China—whose companies were given kickbacks and windfall profits from the Saddam-administered U.N. Oil for Food program, Duelfer reports—to disband U.S. military forces in the Middle East and to end sanctions. And once sanctions were gone, there would have been nothing to stop Saddam from developing WMDs.
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In other words, we were facing a brutal dictator with the capability to develop WMDs and the proven willingness to use them. A dictator whose regime had had, as the 9/11 Commission has documented, frequent contacts with al Qaeda. We have no conclusive evidence that he collaborated with al Qaeda on 9/11—but also no conclusive evidence that he did not. Under those circumstances, George W. Bush acted prudently in deciding to remove this regime. He would have been imprudent not to have done so.
One more thing needs to be said. There was, despite the headlines and charges to the contrary, no "intelligence failure" here.
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How were U.S. intelligence agencies—or those of other serious countries, who reached the same conclusion—to learn that Saddam was not currently actively developing WMDs? How could they do that when even high officials in Saddam's government did not know whether such programs were ongoing or not? This was a secretive regime, not given to public announcements of its weapons development, not subject to a Freedom of Information Act. Even if we had had human intelligence sources at the top levels of the Saddam regime who assured us WMD programs were not ongoing, how could we have prudently relied on them?
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Intelligence is an inexact business. It deals with things that cannot be known for sure. In this case, it dealt with something that even an ideal intelligence agency could not determine for certain. Our intelligence agencies and those of other countries that concluded that Saddam had WMDs turned out to have erred, but they erred on the proper side, on the side of pessimism, as they had to—because the man had a record of developing WMDs and using them. And he had a record, we now know thanks to Charles Duelfer, of maintaining the capability of using WMDs again. The world and the United States are safer with Saddam in prison.
___________________________
by Michael Barone U.S. News and World Report
U.S. 'Almost All Wrong' on Weapons" read the headline on the October 7 Washington Post. "Report on Iraq Contradicts Bush Administration Claims" read the subhead. But these headlines conceal the real news in the report of Iraq Survey Group head Charles Duelfer. For the report makes it plain that George W. Bush had good reason to go to war in Iraq and end the regime of Saddam Hussein.
First of all, Saddam retained the capability to manufacture weapons of mass destruction. On chemical weapons, "Saddam sought to sustain the requisite knowledge base to restart the program eventually and, to the extent it did not threaten the Iraqi efforts to get out from under sanctions, to sustain the inherent capability to produce such weapons as circumstances permitted in the future." On nuclear weapons, "Saddam did not abandon his nuclear ambitions. . . . Those around Saddam seemed quite convinced that once sanctions were ended, and all other things being equal, Saddam would renew his efforts in this field." Moreover, Duelfer concluded that Saddam in his missile program was developing missiles that exceeded the range limits set in U.N. Security Council Resolution 687.
Duelfer also reported that Saddam asked subordinates how long it would take to develop chemical weapons once sanctions ended. One Iraqi chemical weapons expert said it would require only a few days to develop mustard gas. Former Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz said that Iraq could have had a WMD capacity within two years after the end of sanctions.
_________________________________________
If the weapons inspectors had been given more time to conduct inspections, as John Kerry has on occasion advocated, we now know they would not have found any WMDs. Nor does it seem possible that they would have uncovered Saddam's attempts to maintain WMD capability. There would have been heavy pressure then from France, Russia, and China—whose companies were given kickbacks and windfall profits from the Saddam-administered U.N. Oil for Food program, Duelfer reports—to disband U.S. military forces in the Middle East and to end sanctions. And once sanctions were gone, there would have been nothing to stop Saddam from developing WMDs.
_________________________________________
In other words, we were facing a brutal dictator with the capability to develop WMDs and the proven willingness to use them. A dictator whose regime had had, as the 9/11 Commission has documented, frequent contacts with al Qaeda. We have no conclusive evidence that he collaborated with al Qaeda on 9/11—but also no conclusive evidence that he did not. Under those circumstances, George W. Bush acted prudently in deciding to remove this regime. He would have been imprudent not to have done so.
One more thing needs to be said. There was, despite the headlines and charges to the contrary, no "intelligence failure" here.
___________________________________
How were U.S. intelligence agencies—or those of other serious countries, who reached the same conclusion—to learn that Saddam was not currently actively developing WMDs? How could they do that when even high officials in Saddam's government did not know whether such programs were ongoing or not? This was a secretive regime, not given to public announcements of its weapons development, not subject to a Freedom of Information Act. Even if we had had human intelligence sources at the top levels of the Saddam regime who assured us WMD programs were not ongoing, how could we have prudently relied on them?
___________________________________
Intelligence is an inexact business. It deals with things that cannot be known for sure. In this case, it dealt with something that even an ideal intelligence agency could not determine for certain. Our intelligence agencies and those of other countries that concluded that Saddam had WMDs turned out to have erred, but they erred on the proper side, on the side of pessimism, as they had to—because the man had a record of developing WMDs and using them. And he had a record, we now know thanks to Charles Duelfer, of maintaining the capability of using WMDs again. The world and the United States are safer with Saddam in prison.
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Comments
You are never going to sell this bunk to me or any other thinking person.
The administration lied, out right lied to Congress, to the American public, and the United Nations about the WMD's.
Any two chemistry students at Berkeley could cook up WDM's in a couple of days. To produce tons and tons of them and weaponize them would take years.
Frequently, little men can't admit that their man lied to the public. Lord knows I didn't want to believe that Clinton was lying about sex.. (Though perhaps a more excusable offense). The right wing, with moral indignation called us apollogists for Clinton, and we were, until finally it came down to whether the lie was an impeachable offense.
You, and those like you, will go down with your ship as we did. History will look back, and it will not be kind to SHRUB for this grand deception.
Remember, there were no-fly zones, sanctions and weapons inspectors. It might not have lasted for ever, but, apparently these programs were working.
Remember. War should be a last resort. Bush wanted war with Iraq more than Osama. Remember also that when Clinton bombed Afghanistan and the Sudan, the Republicans cried "WAG THE DOG". The bullshit in trashing Bill Clinton was more important than getting OBL. After all, OBL proved to be a minor problem in 2001. Frankly, the Republicans in Congress, the right wing news media, and the other Clinton haters might reflect on whether they indirectly caused 9/11.
So Bob, you can go on all day with this stuff, but until they find the weapons that Saddam buried in Syria or sold to OBL...... you are just farting in the wind.
Bob Replies:
The Fact that one reason (stores of WMD) given for going to war with Iraq was mistaken does not logically lead to the conclusion that there weren't other very good reasons to go to war with Iraq. Your refusal to even consider other reasons, and your vulgar language, tends to show that your reaction is more emotional than logical. I hate to say it but your emotionalism seems to me typical of Democrats, like Edward's remark blaming Bush that families are sitting down to dinner with places missing filled by young men at war. Obviously no one wants to die, or see his family members die. But how do you defend yourself or fight a war on terror without some people being missing and off to war? At other times, Edwards promises that he will hunt down and kill terrorists. How is he going to do that with out creating a few open places at American tables?
The thrust of the arguments in these two articles is that Hussein had decided as a strategical maneuver, not to accumulate WMD, but to retain the capacity to do so in the future, after he had gotten rid of the inspectors and the UN sanctions. This meant he needed to be stopped, even without storehouses of WMD, given his history and resources. Bush has admitted that he was in error about the WMD storehouses. What he argues is that given what we now know, the decision to take Hussein out was still prudent. Whining that Bush is changing his justification, while true, does not respond to the meat of the argument.
I still suspect that the Democrats ultimate fall back position is a simple, irrational, feeling based pacifism. All War is bad. All Peace is Good.
The Kerry claim that he would only go to war as a "last resort" is a code phrase meaning 'never go to war', as there are always further conditions pacifists can dream up which have not yet occurred. We can always wait a little longer for "sanctions to work" or the "inspectors" to do their job.
Another very good reason why the wimpy, wishy-washy Kerry/Edwards cannot be entrusted to lead the war on terror (Fundamentalist Wacko Islam).
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I hope your conservative stance developed after Watergate. I remember the pathetically staunch Republicans defending Nixon right though his resignation.
I don't think the sting of this has ever dissipated with those alive and aware of this awful period of US history. Those on the right felt robbed and never accepted their man had been driven from office. I detested the little man from Witter because of his lying and his attempt to subvert the American political process. Even I felt Nixon wasn't a bad president in several regards. The strength to impose wage and price controls during a real economic crisis. The China policy shift. But Watergate was unforgivable.
I see the same tactic used by you in defending Bush in the way you side step the issue of lying to the public. Did this administration lie to the American public or not. If your response is no, because "he relied on the same information Congress and the UK did", this is just so much spin. The administration selected the intelligence given to the public and Congress. Both the "yellow cake" intelligence and the aluminum tube intelligence were badly flawed. The administration knew it but used it anyway.
My point, and the sentiments of many many Americans is that Shrub is unfit for office because he and his administration deliberately mislead or exaggerated evidence to whip up fear of Iraq in the post 9/11 environment. Even if I believed the US was better off without Saddam, that is no excuse whatsoever to this abuse of executive power.
You have seen from the objective facts I have previously expounded upon ad nauseum, the neo-cons wanted war with Iraq (Project for a New American Century). This was announced in 1998. While the Bush campaign of 2000 was against Clinton's "nation building", you now endorse the "world is a better place without Saddam" argument. This predisposition to go after Iraq was further documented in the Paul O'Neil book "Price of Loyalty" and of course the testimony and book by Richard Clarke.
It is patently obvious you don't care if your president lies to you, if he considers it in the nation's interest.
I think the Clinton lies were of a personal nature and of a totally different quality. And no I wasn't happy about those lies either, but prinicipally because they resulted in putting the Clinton administration in a hole for the last couple of years of its administration. In retrospect, it probably curtailed the war on terrorism. (Refer to Richard Clarke).
So Bob, let's move to the domestic adgenda to debate, because everyone reading this has probably has either excused or dammned Shrub over this issue.