The story of Saddam’s phantom mobile biolabs is a useful primer for anybody who wondered what the British meant when they said that the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy (1,2,3, via Armchair Generalist).
It may be that we can trace back the idea of a mobile BW laboratory to Scott Ritter during his tour of duty in Iraq in 1998 with UNSCOM. Ritter was trying to obtain information from the Iraqi National Congress, specifically on Iraq’s intelligence agencies and WMD program. In 1998, he talked to Ahmed Chalabi about his suspicion that Saddam may have had mobile chemical or biological weapons labs, which would explain the UNSCOM’s lack of success in finding any evidence. In late 1999-2000, Curveball – the brother of a top lieutenant to Ahmed Chalabi – starts talking to the German intelligence about mobile Iraqi BW labs, who forwards this information to the CIA. At the same time, Chalabi is talking to Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Feith about the danger of Iraq’s “WMD program.”
So here we have a rumor started by a former U.S. marine supporting a UN inspection team, where he passes the idea to Chalabi, who passes it to German intel and U.S. defense officials, both of whom pass the story to the CIA. The agency develops graphics drawn by a U.S. contractor based on Curveball’s story and might have known of the mock-up BW lab built for SOCOM, both of which “confirms” the concept that Iraqi mobile BW labs exist, which leads to SecState Powell’s speech at the UN in February 2003 and the media’s echo chamber agreeing with the president that there’s enough evidence to go to war against Iraq.
Just how cynical do you have to be to stay ahead of these guys? Really.
Tsulagi
I’ve always thought Powell probably smiles to himself thinking “I should have seen this one coming” given Curveball was the name of the Chalabi supplied defector giving the mobile biolabs intel. Then after smiling, maybe he gets a little pissed knowing that he wasn’t told German intelligence had already determined Curveball was almost certainly lying and that our own DIA had branded him a “fabricator” before giving his sales presentation at the U.N.
Given the “honor and integrity” of the retardocons, he should have seen they would set up and use the only person in the admin with any credibility. Your bad, Powell.
Sadie
Also remember the strange fact that Steven Hatfill (person of interest in the anthrax investigation) helped to design a replica of a mobile BW lab for the Pentagon.
Pb
Let’s see… pretty cynical?
Really cynical?
Somewhere in there, I guess. I’m pretty cynical anyhow–for example, I was cynical enough to actually want some evidence *before* we invaded Iraq in 2003. And as far as the Bush administration is concerned, I’ve only gotten more cynical since. So far, it hasn’t steered me wrong. :(
BlogReeder
What’s next? Are you going to post how the towers were brought down by controlled demolition?
Aren’t you doing the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy? You believe that the administration was lying about WMDs (because Saddam said so) and you scramble to fit the facts to your belief.
Tom in Texas
Fortunately, it’s easy to reconcile the fact that we didn’t believe Saddam had weapons worth invading over with the fact that he didn’t.
Pb
BlogReeder,
This is pretty simple, so I’m going to explain it once, just in case you were in a coma for the past four years or something.
Back in 2002, the Bush administration went on a campaign to start a war with Iraq. This eventually came to a head, what with the weapons inspectors there, and officials making speeches telling us they were secretly hiding WMDs, and they had proof, etc.
And I said, ok, I’m skeptical of this, so find the WMDs, and show me the proof.
And they said, we can’t find the WMDs because Saddam is hiding them, and that’s *proof* and we can’t tell you anything else because that’s classified.
And I said, that’s bullshit, and not nearly enough to go to war over, and what about North Korea, aren’t you worried about them? And North Korea said, we’re building nukes, we’re crazy, we could flip out right now!
And the administration’s answer was… we have to invade Iraq! And invade Iraq we did, despite the lack of evidence, planning, or necessity, and despite the largest protests *ever*.
And then it all went to hell, and we found out just how badly they had botched this. There was no mushroom cloud. There was no smoking gun. There were no WMDs. There was no proof. And if we could have seen that ‘classified’ intelligence of theirs, we would have laughed ourselves sick.
In the meantime, we’re bleeding on the order of thousands of American soldiers, hundreds of billions of dollars, and tens or hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians, and we’re the butt of all the world’s jokes.
And then North Korea gets nukes, and Iran starts working on nukes. After all, Iraq wasn’t close to having nukes, and look at what happened to them? Better get nukes!
And, al-Qaeda uses this fiasco as an opportunity to recruit and train more terrorists. And Bush uses *them* as a justification to keep up this idiocy indefinitely!
So, yeah, I’m cynical. I don’t trust them. I think they’re incompetent. But I’m not prejudging them–rather, I’m judging them. And if we had all asked these questions four years ago, then we’d all be a lot better off. So ask them with me next time.
J.
Just to echo Pb’s point against BlogReeder, uh, yeah, pretty much intel was worked to support policy. There’s a good book “Where are the WMDs?” out which explains a lot of how the impression of WMDs was twisted to support a war where no WMDs were found.
See amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1591144868/1n9867a-20
Krista
Pb – that 2:40AM rant was fan-frickin-tastic. Copy and save the comment link, everybody, as it’s the perfect response to the people who still think that it’s unreasonable for anybody to be opposed to the Iraq war and the Bush administration’s (mis)handling of it.
Pb
Krista,
Aw shucks, I think I’m blushing. :)
BlogReeder
Pb,
Is this what you really believe? You sound so cynical. But I’m more concerned how you’re re-writing history to make yourself look good. That is just dishonest. Case in point:
Show me where you thought this back in 2002. See what I’m getting at? Nobody was saying he had no WMDs, just that we shouldn’t invade because we’ll get poisoned. Right? I think you’re being dishonest here.
Jason Van Steenwyk
Well, so far, we’ve found 500 chemical munitions confirmed.
So the “No WMDs” idea has been soundly falsified. Now it’s just a matter of degree, since the 500 munitions found so far themselves date prior to the 1991 war.
But since Saddam did not declare them, it cannot be argued that Saddam was not in material breach of the UN resolutions. The only thing you can argue is that Saddam’s breach should have no consequence.
Yeah. Good luck with that.
But the “No WMD” idea?
It’s a lie.
jh
From Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNMOVIC
The United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) was created through the adoption of United Nations Security Council resolution 1284 of 17 December 1999. UNMOVIC was to replace the former United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) and continue with the latter’s mandate to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction, and to operate a system of ongoing monitoring and verification to check Iraq’s compliance with its obligations not to reacquire the same weapons prohibited to it by the Security Council.
Following the mandate of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441, Saddam Hussein allowed UN inspectors to return to Iraq in December 2002. UNMOVIC led inspections of possible nuclear, chemical, and biological facilities in Iraq until shortly before the U.S. invasion of Iraq in spring 2003, but did not find any weapons of mass destruction. Based on its inspections and examinations during this time, UNMOVIC inspectors determined that UNSCOM had successfully dismantled Iraq’s unconventional weapons program during the 1990s.
jh
On January 23, 2004, the head of the ISG, David Kay, resigned his position, stating that he believed WMD stockpiles would not be found in Iraq. “I don’t think they existed,” commented Kay. “What everyone was talking about is stockpiles produced after the end of the last Gulf War and I don’t think there was a large-scale production program in the nineties.” Kay criticized the intelligence that led to the war in testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), saying “we were all wrong and that is most disturbing.” Kay’s successor, named by CIA director George Tenet, is the former U.N. weapons inspector Charles Duelfer. Duelfer has stated that the chances of finding any WMD stockpiles in Iraq are “close to nil.”
Also from the same link
Duelfer Report
On September 30, 2004, the ISG released the Duelfer Report, its final report on Iraq’s WMD programs. The main points of the report are as follows:
* Iraq’s main goal was to end sanctions while preserving the capability to reconstitute WMD production.
* Iraq’s WMD programs had decayed significantly since the end of the first Gulf War.
* No senior Iraqi official interviewed by the ISG believed that Saddam had forsaken WMD forever.
* Iraq had no deployable WMD of any kind as of March 2003 and had no production since 1991.
* The ISG judged that in March 2003, Iraq would have had the ability to produce large quantities of Sulfur Mustard in 3-6 months, and large quantities of nerve agent in 2 years.
* There was no proof of any biological weapons stocks since 1991.
* Iraq’s nuclear program was terminated in 1991, at which point micrograms of enriched uranium had been produced from a single test gas centrifuge.
* Iraq had intended to restart all banned weapons programs as soon as multilateral sanctions against it had been dropped, a prospect that the Iraqi government saw coming soon.
* Smuggling was used by Iraq to rebuild as much of its WMD program as could be hidden from U.N. weapons inspectors.
Iraq had an effective system for the procurement of items banned by sanctions.
* Until March 2003, Saddam Hussein convinced his top military commanders that Iraq did indeed possess WMD that could be used against any U.S. invasion force, in order to prevent a coup over the prospects of fighting the U.S.-led Coalition without these weapons.
* Iraq used procurement contracts allowed under the Oil for Food program to buy influence among U.N. Security Council member states including France, China, and Russia, as well as dozens of prominent journalists and anti-sanctions activists.
* “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 policy makers or planners separate from Saddam. Instead, his lieutenants understood WMD revival was his goal from their long association with Saddam and his infrequent, but firm, verbal comments and directions to them.”
* “Iran was the pre-eminent motivator of this policy. All senior level Iraqi officials considered Iran to be Iraq’s principal enemy in the region. The wish to balance Israel and acquire status and influence in the Arab world were also considerations, but secondary.” [5]
***********************
So what we had was a petty despot who once had WMDs, was forced to detroy them after he lost one war, who lied to his liuetenants about them to act as a deterrent to invasion, wanted to get them again mainly as a foil again IRAN, but had no real concrete plans in place to do so when we invaded.
For that we’ve got 2600 dead soldiers, tens of thousands of dead civilians and Billions per month on the national Mastercard?
Only an idiot would look at Iraq right now and say that this was a good idea.