U.S. Inspector: Iraq had no WMDs, and little ability to make them

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/07/politics/07intel.html?hp

ASHINGTON, Oct. 6 - Iraq had destroyed its illicit weapons stockpiles within months after the Persian Gulf war of 1991, and its ability to produce such weapons had significantly eroded by the time of the American invasion in 2003, the top American inspector for Iraq said in a report made public Wednesday.

The report by the inspector, Charles A. Duelfer, intended to offer a near-final judgment about Iraq and its weapons, said Iraq, while under pressure from the United Nations, had "essentially destroyed'' its illicit weapons ability by the end of 1991, with its last secret factory, a biological weapons plant, eliminated in 1996.

Mr. Duelfer said that even during those years, Saddam Hussein had aimed at "preserving the capability to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction when sanctions were lifted.'' But he said he had found no evidence of any concerted effort by Iraq to restart the programs.

The findings uphold Iraq's prewar insistence that it did not possess chemical or biological weapons. They also show the enormous distance between the Bush administration's own prewar assertions, based on reports by American intelligence agencies, and what a 15-month inquiry by American investigators found since the war.

Mr. Duelfer said he had concluded that between 1991 and 2003, Mr. Hussein had in effect sacrificed Iraq's illicit weapons to the larger goal of winning an end to United Nations sanctions. But he also argued that Mr. Hussein had used the period to try to exploit avenues opened by the sanctions, especially the oil-for-food program, to lay the groundwork for a plan to resume weapons production if sanctions were lifted.

In addition, the report concluded that Mr. Hussein had deliberately sought to maintain ambiguity about whether it had illicit weapons, mainly as a deterrent to Iran, its rival.

Here's a good follow-up analysis of the week's trauma for the Bush team:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13150-2004Oct6.html

By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 7, 2004; Page A35


One by one, official reports by government investigators, statements by former administration officials and internal CIA analyses have combined to undermine many of the central rationales of the administration's case for war with Iraq -- and its handling of the post-invasion occupation.

The release of yesterday's definitive account on Iraq's weapons -- and its conclusion that Iraq no longer had weapons of mass destruction years before the U.S.-led invasion -- is only the latest in a series of damaging blows to the White House's strategy of portraying the war in Iraq as being on the cusp of success.

The report also comes just a few weeks after Democratic presidential challenger John F. Kerry gave new life to his campaign by emphasizing what he asserts is the gap between the president's rhetoric and the realities in Iraq.

This week, President Bush's former administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, broke with the administration to say officials had sent too few troops to Iraq and had allowed a culture of lawlessness to develop. The CIA, using information gathered after the invasion, cast doubt last week on whether Saddam Hussein aided Abu Musab Zarqawi, an al Qaeda associate, as the administration repeatedly alleged before the war.

The CIA over the summer delivered an analysis that Iraq could be expected, in the best-case scenario, to achieve a "tenuous stability" over the next 18 months and, in the worst case, to dissolve into civil war. The July assessment was similar to one produced before the war and another in late 2003 that were more pessimistic in tone than the administration's portrayal of the resistance to the U.S. occupation.

The risk for the Bush campaign is that the drip-drip of the revelations will slowly erode the advantage that the president has held among voters for his handling of the Iraq war and especially the struggle against terrorism. Despite growing misgivings about the violence in Iraq, Bush has held a commanding lead on whether he would better protect the country from terrorists.

But in the first two candidates' debates, Kerry and his running mate, John Edwards, have worked to separate the two issues. They have charged that Bush bungled the war on terrorism -- especially against al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who is still at large -- through what they have described as a needless diversion into Iraq.

And just to show you how out of touch with reality the Bush Administration is, Cheney now is saying that the inspector's report provides justification for the Iraq war.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=703&e=1&u=/ap/20041007/ap_on_el_pr/cheney

MIAMI - Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) asserted on Thursday that a finding by the chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq (news - web sites) that Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s government produced no weapons of mass destruction after 1991 justifies rather than undermines President Bush (news - web sites)'s decision to go to war.

The report shows that "delay, defer, wait wasn't an option," Cheney told a town hall-style meeting.

While Democrats pointed to the new report by Charles Duelfer to bolster their case that invading Iraq was a mistake, Cheney focused on portions that were more favorable to the administration's case.

"The headlines all say no weapons of mass destruction stockpiled in Baghdad. We already knew that," Cheney said.

He said other parts of the report were "more intriguing."

Cheney's comments reflect a GOP strategy to use portions of the report, including abuses of Iraq's "fuel for food" program, to try to move discussion away from the central conclusions on the absence of weapons of mass destruction.

Although the report says Saddam's weapons program had deteriorated since the 1991 Gulf War (news - web sites) and did not pose a threat to the world in 2003, it also says Saddam's main goal was the removal of international sanctions.

"As soon as the sanctions were lifted he had every intention of going back" to his weapons program, Cheney said.

That's all good and well. So Iraq may not have had WMD, but the UN resolutions on which the US acted were still not met by Sadaam. He may not have had them, but he never lived up to the mandates that he & the weapons inspectors verify that that was the case.

He had a 10 year history of manipulating and misleading the weapons inspectors. He had more than enough chances to maintain the sovereignty of his country by meeting the terms of the UN mandates, but he refused. We would never have known what we know today had Bush not done what he did.

It's nice to say that we shouldn't have gone to war based on what we know now, but we simply didn't know it. Based on what we knew at the time both Bush & Kerry agreed that it was what we needed to do. Both have said since that even without WMD it was still the right thing to do.

One thing this article doesn't mention is two other areas the report does not resolve:

One outstanding issue, an official said, is whether Iraq shipped any stockpiles of weapons outside of the country. Another issue, he said, is mobile biological weapons labs, a matter on which he said "there is still useful work to do."

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http://cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/06/iraq.wmd.report/index.html

The war in Iraq was about so much more than just WMD. Of course that was part of it, and a very valid part, but that was not all. We are in the midst of a global war on terrorism. It didn't start in Iraq, and it won't end in Iraq, but the US is safer & more secure since the removal of Sadaam Hussein from power. He may not have had the large stockpiles we thought he had (not that terrorists need large stockpiles to kill thousands). He still had intent and was preserving capability to produce them and was working very hard to fulfill those intents (see the oil-for-food program).

[quote name='mathrandir']It's nice to say that we shouldn't have gone to war based on what we know now, but we simply didn't know it. Based on what we knew at the time both Bush & Kerry agreed that it was what we needed to do.[/quote]

WRONG. Kerry voted to give Bush the authority to use force as a means of making Saddam comply. The Congress did NOT give Bush a blank check to go to war. He just acted like they did.

Had Bush given the weapons inspectors time to complete their work, we would have known what we know now, and without more than 1,000 American soldiers dead.

The war in Iraq was about so much more than just WMD. Of course that was part of it, and a very valid part, but that was not all. We are in the midst of a global war on terrorism. It didn't start in Iraq, and it won't end in Iraq, but the US is safer & more secure since the removal of Sadaam Hussein from power. He may not have had the large stockpiles we thought he had (not that terrorists need large stockpiles to kill thousands). He still had intent and was preserving capability to produce them and was working very hard to fulfill those intents (see the oil-for-food program).

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I strongly disagree that we are safer. Iraq under Saddam was no threat, and certainly no hotbed of Islamic fundamentalism. They were contained, as the report has shown. In fact, Saddam and the Islamicists pretty much hated each other.

Now Iraq is a lawless shambles in which terrorists are free to bomb at will. Every Iraqi we imprison, wound or kill is another recruiting tool for the terrorists. And if you don't think all the hatred we're creating will come back home to roost, you've got another think coming.

Safer? Use your head.

I absolutely love the arguments that the Bush administration put forward to defend the ever-worsening situation in Iraq. Failure is no longer failure - its proof of success. The constantly increasing fighting and divisiveness in Iraq? Proof that democracy is taking hold and that the region will soon be stable and peace-loving. The constant attacks against Americans in the area? Proof that most of the people in Iraq love America and are grateful for their freedom. A complete lack of WMDs in Iraq, and no means to produce them? Proof that it was essential that we acted when we did because surely if Saddam didn't have any, he would have aquired them soon. Absolutely no provable connections between Iraq and Al-Qaeda? It is, of course, proof that Iraq's connections to terrist organizations are deeper than previously believed -why else would they have kept it so secret?

I think we need to start applying this logic to every-day life. When a child fails all his classes in school, its because he's learned so much that it can no longer be measured by standardized testing. When someone gets a speeding tickets, its evidence of how much they respect the driving laws. My vote against Bush, merely proof of how much I support and respect his policies.

[quote name='Drocket']I absolutely love the arguments that the Bush administration put forward to defend the ever-worsening situation in Iraq. Failure is no longer failure - its proof of success. The constantly increasing fighting and divisiveness in Iraq? Proof that democracy is taking hold and that the region will soon be stable and peace-loving. The constant attacks against Americans in the area? Proof that most of the people in Iraq love America and are grateful for their freedom. A complete lack of WMDs in Iraq, and no means to produce them? Proof that it was essential that we acted when we did because surely if Saddam didn't have any, he would have aquired them soon. Absolutely no provable connections between Iraq and Al-Qaeda? It is, of course, proof that Iraq's connections to terrist organizations are deeper than previously believed -why else would they have kept it so secret?

I think we need to start applying this logic to every-day life. When a child fails all his classes in school, its because he's learned so much that it can no longer be measured by standardized testing. When someone gets a speeding tickets, its evidence of how much they respect the driving laws. My vote against Bush, merely proof of how much I support and respect his policies.[/quote]

This paragraph in a Newsweek article by Howard Fineman sums it all up:

As things now stand, Bush is left with only one argument and justification for having launched a war that has cost 1,000 lives, $150 billion and whatever goodwill America had won in the aftermath of 9/11. His last-resort reason: Saddam Hussein might have developed weapons that he might have given to terrorists that might attack the United States. And even that reasoning is undermined by the new report of the Iraq Survey Group, which says that Saddam's capacities, whatever they might have been, were withering, not "gathering," under the weight of inspections.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6200854/

Some quotes to put it all in perspective, regarding the Bush team's disconnect with reality:

Duelfer Report on Iraqi WMD:
"The former regime had no formal written strategy or plan for the revival of WMD after sanctions. Neither was there an identifiable group of WMD policymakers or planners separate from Saddam."

President Bush:
"The Duelfer report showed that Saddam was systematically gaming the system … He was doing so with the intent of restarting his weapons program once the world looked away."

Vice President Cheney:
The report shows "delay, defer, wasn't an option."

John Edwards:
"They are willing to say left is right and up is down. The vice president, Dick Cheney, and the president need to recognize that the earth is actually round and that the sun is rising in the east."

WRONG. Kerry voted to give Bush the authority to use force as a means of making Saddam comply. The Congress did NOT give Bush a blank check to go to war. He just acted like they did.

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He authorized the use of force, and Bush made good on that threat.

Had Bush given the weapons inspectors time to complete their work, we would have known what we know now, and without more than 1,000 American soldiers dead.

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I simply disagree. The weapons inspections had been going for TEN years (well minus the couple of years when Saddam expelled them from Iraq altogether). There were constant reports of Saddam harassing & deterring their efforts. There is no indication that allowing the charade to continue would have produced any meaningful results.

I strongly disagree that we are safer. Iraq under Saddam was no threat, and certainly no hotbed of Islamic fundamentalism. They were contained, as the report has shown.

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Whether or not we're safer is a matter of opinion, and we'll never know what might have happened either way had Bush not done what he did. But you can find quote after quote from 1995 to 2004 by Clinton, Kerry, Bush & Cheney that clearly states that Saddam was a threat. I think you can argue how that threat is best dealt with, but to claim he was not a threat is a pretty hard sell.

Every Iraqi we imprison, wound or kill is another recruiting tool for the terrorists. And if you don't think all the hatred we're creating will come back home to roost, you've got another think coming.

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I guess this comes down to a fundamental difference of opinion as well. I don't believe we are fighting Iraqi's anymore. I believe we are fighting terrorists. If it really were Iraqi's that were sincere in their desire for a soveirgn Iraq they would not be killing children and civilians. If they are simply interested in American's leaving their country then let peace be established & let the democratic process go forward. Their fight makes no sense if they truly are "freedom fighters".

I believe every terrorist we imprison, wound or kill is one less that is available to attack us. I believe that the only way to win the war against terror is to stay on the offensive, and to plant democracy in the Middle East.

I'm sure you disagree. We're both entitled to our opinions, and we're free to be able to express and discuss them.

[quote name='mathrandir']I simply disagree. The weapons inspections had been going for TEN years (well minus the couple of years when Saddam expelled them from Iraq altogether). There were constant reports of Saddam harassing & deterring their efforts. There is no indication that allowing the charade to continue would have produced any meaningful results.[/quote]

Have you been paying any attention at all to the news? The U.S. inspector's report released this week concludes that weapons inspections HAD succeeded in bottling up Saddam. Iraq had no WMDs, and Saddam's capability of even restarting his WMD programs had significantly deteriorated.

There is EVERY indication that weapons inspections were working. This comes from the mouth and pen of Bush's own inspector. Stop parroting GOP talking points and do some reading.

Here's a link to get you started:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16133-2004Oct7.html

Iraq Amnesia

877 words
8 October 2004
The Wall Street Journal
A16
English
(Copyright (c) 2004, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)

Judging from the current Iraq debate, you might think Saddam Hussein didn't use poison gas on the Kurds and the Iranians in the 1980s. Or that 500,000 American troops hadn't been sent to the Gulf in 1990-91 to reverse his invasion of Kuwait. Or that Saddam hadn't tried to assassinate former President George H.W. Bush in 1993, or long harbored one of the bombers who attacked the World Trade Center that year.

It might also be easy to forget that Saddam never came clean about his weapons of mass destruction, resulting in Bill Clinton's Desert Fox bombing of 1998 and the ejection of U.N. inspectors. Or that he necessitated a huge U.S. troop presence in the region, which Osama bin Laden cited in his 1998 fatwa as one of his primary grievances against America.

It's clear why John Kerry doesn't want to talk about these things, having decided for now that Iraq was "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time." Count us a bit mystified, however, that the incumbent hasn't done a better job putting his Iraq policy in this context. Fortunately for President Bush, Congressional Oil for Food hearings and Charles Duelfer's final weapons inspections report for the CIA have come along this week to remind us all that the "containment" of Saddam was neither as blissful as certain partisans remember it, nor even sustainable.

"By 2000-2001, Saddam had managed to mitigate many of the effects of sanctions and undermine their international support," Mr. Duelfer writes. "Iraq was within striking distance of a de facto end to the sanctions regime."

We realize that some of our media friends think the salient news here is the old news: that Saddam did not possess large stockpiles of WMDs when Coalition forces invaded in March 2003. But Mr. Duelfer explicitly rejects the facile conclusion that therefore sanctions were working. Among his other findings, based in part on interviews with Saddam himself and other senior regime figures:

-- Saddam believed weapons of mass destruction were essential to the preservation of his power, especially during the Iran-Iraq and 1991 Gulf wars.

-- He engaged in strategic deception intended to suggest that he retained WMD.

-- He fully intended to resume real WMD production after the expected lifting of U.N. sanctions, and he maintained weapons programs that put him in "material breach" of U.N. resolutions including 1441.

-- And he instituted an epic bribery scheme aimed primarily at three of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, with the intent of having them help lift those sanctions.

"Saddam personally approved and removed all names of voucher recipients," under the Oil for Food program, Mr. Duelfer writes. Alleged beneficiaries of such bribes include individuals in China, as well as some with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin and French President Jacques Chirac.

As Congressmen Chris Shays's House International Relations Committee heard in testimony on Tuesday, France, Russia and China did in fact work hard to help Saddam skirt and escape sanctions. One Iraqi intelligence report uncovered by Mr. Duelfer says that a French politician assured Saddam in a letter that France would use its U.N. veto against any U.S. effort to attack Iraq -- as indeed France later threatened to do.

Evidence also continues to mount that U.N. Oil for Food Program director Benon Sevan was among those on Saddam's payroll. (He denies it.) And contrary to earlier claims that Secretary General Kofi Annan's son Kojo severed connections with the Swiss-based firm Cotecna prior to it winning its Oil for Food inspections contract, we now know that Kojo was kept on the company payroll for another year. We eagerly await the promised interim report from the U.N.'s Paul Volcker-led Oil for Food review panel, and hope in the interests of an informed electorate that it can be delivered soon.

But there are already plenty of facts on the table to support one conclusion. To wit: Even if one accepts the desirability of some kind of "global test" before America acts militarily, U.N. Security Council approval can't be it. There was never any chance that this "coalition of the bribed" was going to explicitly endorse regime change, or the presumed alternative of another 12 years of economic sanctions. "Politically," writes Mr. Duelfer, "the Iraqis were losing their stigma" by 2001.

The sanctions-were-working crowd also ignores that Saddam never would have readmitted weapons inspectors without the kind of U.S. troop mobilization that isn't feasible with any frequency. For President Bush to have backed off in 2003 without unambiguous disarmament would have meant the end once and for all of any real threat of force behind "containment."

Senator John McCain summed it up well at the Republican Convention: "Those who criticize that decision [to go to war in Iraq] would have us believe that the choice was between a status quo that was well enough left alone and war. But there was no status quo to be left alone." Supporters of his Iraq policy are hoping that Mr. Bush finds a similar voice tonight.

A few thoughts re: the WSJ editorial you posted, CTL:

(1) The Duelfer report proves that sanctions were working. Saddam had no weapons, only a really good bluff to keep Iran from attacking.
(2) Congress gave Bush the power to use force if Saddam didn't let the inspectors in, and it worked -- the inspectors got in and were combing the countryside.
(3) Rather than let the inspectors do their job -- and possibly head off a war -- Bush yanked them out and attacked Iraq with little international support.

So, first the rationale was that Saddam had nukes, then WMDs, then WMD programs, then that mistreated his people. Now, we attacked because he was gaming a UN Food-for-Oil program that might have led to sanctions being withdrawn, which then might have given Saddam the opportunity to rebuild his weapons programs.

Say Bush had gone to the Congress and asked for permission to use force against Iraq because it was gaming a UN Food-for-Oil program that might have led to sanctions being withdrawn, which then might have given Saddam the opportunity to rebuild his weapons programs. Do you really think Congress would have given him the power to act militarily?