Kristol: About Those Iraqi Weapons . . .

From the May 31, 2004 issue: The inspectors never were able to account for all of Saddam's weapons. So the question is, what happened to them?
by William Kristol
05/31/2004, Volume 009, Issue 36

"A year after the war began, Americans are questioning why the administration went to war in Iraq when Iraq was not an imminent threat, when it had no nuclear weapons, no persuasive links to al Qaeda, no connection to the terrorist attacks of September 11, and no stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons."

--Edward M. Kennedy, April 5, 2004


"There were no weapons of mass destruction."

--Howard Dean, April 4, 2004

SENATOR KENNEDY and Governor Dean speak as Democrats. They speak as opponents of the war in Iraq. But on the issue of Saddam Hussein's weapons capabilities--the tyrant's development, possession, and threatened use of chemical, biological, and nuclear arms--they also speak as standard-bearers of the conventional wisdom. Over the last several months, ever since David Kay stepped down as head of the Iraq Survey Group and told us that "we were almost all wrong" about Saddam's arsenal, what was once a universally accepted truth (Saddam had weapons of mass destruction) became an apparently self-evident fiction (Saddam had no such weapons). It seems the whole world now agrees that Saddam rid his country of weapons stockpiles shortly after the first Gulf War ended in 1991. With respect to weapons of mass destruction (WMD), at least, there was really nothing to worry about.

But what if that judgment, too, is wrong? Just as wrong, in fact, as was the assumption that Iraqi WMD would be found quickly and easily? Senator John Kerry, interestingly, has been cautious. As recently as April 27 he commented, "Who knows
if a month from now, three months from now, you find some weapons? You may."

The truth is Kennedy is right, at least in one regard: There are many questions that deserve answers. Here are a few we would like to pose--both to those who, like Kennedy and Dean, are so certain Saddam was weaponless in March 2003, and also to the Bush administration, which has been virtually mute, and has not explained what it has found and what it now believes to have been the truth about Iraqi WMD.

* Where did the sarin come from? Last week the Pentagon reported that two U.S. servicemen were hospitalized in Baghdad for exposure to nerve agents. The soldiers were part of an American convoy that came across an unmarked 155 millimeter shell lying on the side of a Baghdad street. When the soldiers attempted to disarm the makeshift bomb, it exploded, spilling out part of its poisonous contents. The shell later tested positive for sarin, the poison developed by the Nazis and used by Saddam against the Kurds in Halabjah in 1988.

The shell in question appears to have been made prior to the first Gulf War. The terrorists who planted the bomb may not have known it contained the deadly poison. But the claim always was that Saddam had not fully relinquished or done away with his pre-Gulf War arsenal. And if the terrorists didn't know the bomb contained sarin, because the casing had no distinctive markings, doesn't that suggest an effort at deception? Doesn't it also suggest that there could have been--and could be--many more of these shells around?

(more)

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/124nbgug.asp

a WMD (weapon of mass deception).

Scott Ritter on the shell. Someone who has actually BEEN to Iraq.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0521-06.htm

and this quote The Bush administration can answer, or can begin to answer, all these questions. But having professed such certainty about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction before the war, the administration now seems intimidated by the new conventional wisdom that Saddam had done away with his WMD is just plain bull--

the neocons have NEVER been intimidated by anything

I can see why Billy is pissed, Kennedy and Dean certainly do represent conventional wisdom. As opposed to the raving of Kristol!

cache of WMDs is found. It's his life and they're his fingers. But his article doesn't address the wonderful list of nasty things that Colin Powell read out at the United Nations: specific agents, specific quantities, and -- it was strongly implied -- the US had specific locations. Just where did all these compelling details come from -- and where did they go?

As to finding random armaments: After nearly 100 years, people are still finding live shells and canisters of highly unstable mustard gas in parts of Belgium and France. Belgium still runs a very sophisticated and very busy disposal facility for the mustard gas canisters.

Bush's State of the Union also spoke of mass quantiies of specific weapons.

Bill Kristol is implying that if Saddam has one Sarin bomb, which he didn't even know about, that justifies the war.

Powell showed PHOTOGRAPHS... had particular trucks and facilities
and shit all picked out. These things cannot disappear. The
facilities' location is well known by intelligence. They were wrong.
If they find a hundred shells filled with Sarin from BEFORE the
first Gulf War, that doesn't matter. Sarin does not have a infinite
shelf life, 100 shells does not an immanent threat make. Saddam
was well HATED by Osama Bin Laden (in fact, one of the prime reasons
that Osama started hating the US is that the Saudi royal family
turned HIM and his Majuhadeen down for the job of defending the
holy land from Saddam, and turning to the infidels from the west
- that would be us - to stop Saddam in the first Gulf War). Saddam
would never have given WMDs to OBL, he would be much too afraid that
OBL would use them AGAINST Iraq!

In any case, if there are stockpiles of old chemical warheads around,
this does not, and never did make a case for preemptive war. 9/11
didn't change that.

Kristol and the PNACers are rabid anti-Islamic and anti-Arab. Their
fear is that the shells would be used against Israel, not the US.
And it's the Israelis fault for not making the effort to accommodate
the Palestinians (and somewhat the PLOs fault for being dogmatic
in their claims as well). The PNAC is a neocon movement formed by
Americans whose PRIMARY loyalty is to Likud and Israel, not the
United States.

The $200 Billion spent on this war (and the billions more to come)
could have (I'm writing a paper that proves this) COMPLETELY replaced
the 600 Gigawatt's of electrical generation produced by hydrocarbons
with Solar power... (OK, maybe $500 billion, all of the costs have
not been computed yet... but still, only a factor of two or three
Iraq wars.)

Anyway, Kristol is full of shit. One old warhead, no matter what's
in it, is not worth $200 Billion plus 800 coalition plus 10,000+
Iraqis plus the incalculable loss of American prestige and good will
from other countries. We have to share this planet with 5.7 billion
other souls, we should be humble and helpful, not arrogant and deceitful!

Powell should have resigned long ago (as soon as it was clear to
him that the photos and intercepts were a pack of lies). He has
zero credibility with anyone. Paul O'Neill did the right and
honorable thing.

"The $200 Billion spent on this war (and the billions more to come)
could have (I'm writing a paper that proves this) COMPLETELY replaced
the 600 Gigawatt's of electrical generation produced by hydrocarbons
with Solar power...."

Please post link to your paper when it's ready -- would really like to read it. I commented elsewhere that for what we're paying to fund the Iraq War every adult American could be driving a hydrogen fuel cell car and every roof in American could have solar panels. An exaggeration, I guess -- but you understand my point.

I would like to see how the serious calculations work out.

Repeat after me, Mr. Kristol: There was no biochemical arsenal in the spring of 2003. You are a liar and so are Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Powell.

The difference, Mr. Kristol, is that they are in government and you are not. That is the difference between being a war criminal and two bit propagandist.

For example, the genocidaires who ran the radio broadcasts in Rwanda urging "Hutu Power" to use mass murder aginst Tutsis were prosecuted. If I remember correctly.

First, advocating genocide is a pretty clearcut case of wrongdoing. On what possible grounds could one defend oneself? It's only tolerated when there is no immediate danger of genocide, in which case its free speech. Then the remedy is to censure, not censor. In the case of Rwanda, there was genocide in progress.

Kristol could defend himself against such charges by stating that he believed that Iraq had WMDs as Rumsfeld and Powell said during the run up to the war. Rumsfeld and Powell would have a weaker defense, since they had access to the intelligence that was cooked; Rumsfeld, in fact, had to know it was being cooked. However, Kristol isn't in that position. Since one could argue that if Saddam had the kind of biochemical arsenal that the junta claimed he had then the war was justified, Kristol gets off the hook.

Second, before we decide whether someone like Kristol or the other PNAC propagandists should stand trial for war crimes, perhaps we should concentrate on convincing more people that leading figures in the junta should. I believe the case against them is cut and dried, but many Americans do not want to believe that they are capable of tolerating leaders are capable of crimes on the order of some of those committed by Hitler, Milosevich and, ironically, Saddam.

As a corollary to point number two, what journalists should we prosecute? Judith Miller? Tom Friedman? Fox News anchors? Again, that isn't something we need to discuss now. Nevertheless, one should be aware that it would be easy to get excessive prosecuting those who had no real power but advocated for those who did. In the end, that would do more harm than good.

Just observing that you don't have to be in the government to be prosecuted.

Agree with you completely overall.

The last I have heard is that the shell supposedly containing Sarin tested positive using an inaccurate field test that has a tendency towards false positive. As of yet, I have not heard anything about verification from the more accurate lab testing. Has anyone else heard anything about verification?

Say WHAT???

Kristol jumps from describing this thing as lying by the side of the road to
slipping those wiley "terrorists" into the equation completely unqualified.

Here's a question that deserves an answer Bill:
Where do you get off making a statement like that?

"we know where they are"? He then went on to name a few areas around Tikrit and there abouts.

These people don't know anything except how to line their own pockets and lie.

Not to defend Saddam but if I was in his place and just lost the third or fourth largest military in the world, in Gulf War I, I would not want my neighbors, who I have been at war with for years to think I was defenseless so I would lead them to believe I still had many nasty surprises waiting if anyone invaded.

With open borders and no real security, who knows where this canister came from.

This stuff has a shelf life when stored properly. Left laying around in the desert could not be good for it. I await the tests but if it doesn't prove to be active we won't hear the results without prodding and a court order.

KL

credibility as Chalabi. Before the war he said "They better find them" (the WMDs). Now he is grasping at straws just like sack of shit Safire - making a big deal out of ONE old artillary shell that MAY have contained Sarin - I certainly haven't heard about any definitive tests as yet.