Marcus Bryant
10-07-2004, 11:44 AM
http://www.economist.com/agenda/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3261606
Draw your own conclusions
Oct 7th 2004
The Economist
Critics of the Iraq war will feel vindicated by a new report, concluding that Saddam Hussein had no illicit weapons. But the war’s backers will feel equally vindicated by its findings that he was readying to restart his weapons programmes at the first opportunity
YES, the weapons stocks that America, Britain and indeed most governments expected to find in Iraq after last year’s invasion are still not there. But no, that is not proof, as critics claim, that United Nations sanctions were working. On the contrary, Saddam Hussein was trying to play the UN and everyone else for fools; left to his own devices, he would have been quickly back to his chemical, biological, nuclear and missile tricks. If America’s intelligence services and others were victims of too much certainty about Iraq’s weapons, Saddam fell victim to his own deceit.
That is the gist of the latest, 1,200-or-so-page report from the American-led Iraq Survey Group (ISG), published on Wednesday October 6th. Since Charles Duelfer, the chief inspector, last reported in March, his team have ploughed through millions of pages of documents and watched thousands of videos. They have interviewed scores of Iraqis, including the man himself and many of his inner circle. In the ISG’s most exhaustive report so far, Mr Duelfer tries to pin down not just what was going on in Iraq, but why.
Yet it is the what that still dominates the headlines. For if there were no militarily significant weapons stockpiles, surely there was no threat? Iraq’s covert programmes, especially its nuclear programme, were in disarray. Yet Saddam never abandoned his intent to produce such weapons. Concealment of plans, and of illicit imports, though many with possible civilian uses too, put him in multiple breach of UN resolutions.
Some of what he had been up to appeared in the earlier reports. Mr Duelfer lists: improved production methods in the chemicals industry; a covert network of laboratories run by the intelligence services for testing chemicals and poisons, and other evidence of tests on humans; plans for ballistic missiles of ranges from 400-1,000km, well beyond the 150km allowed by the UN, and including efforts to buy missile technology from North Korea and from Russian firms. None of the missiles, however, was in production.
Building the missile systems was what Iraq had found hardest. Once it had developed these, it already had the knowledge to produce, within months or weeks, chemical or biological warheads to put on them. And interviews show that Saddam’s weapons scientists assumed they would be back in business once the heat was off. Mahdi Obeidi, who used to run Iraq’s covert uranium enrichment programme and had been famously ordered to hide the plans under a tree in his garden, concurs. Iraq’s nuclear programme could have been restarted “at the snap of Saddam Hussein’s fingers”, he wrote recently in the New York Times.
But how to get the heat off? By using some of his $11 billion of illicit income from sanctions-busting schemes to try to buy off politicians and companies in various countries, including Russia, France and China—each of which has a veto on the UN Security Council (and each of which ended up opposing the American-led invasion). The report says that, of Saddam's total illicit earnings, $2 billion came from corrupting the UN’s oil-for-food programme, under which Iraq had been allowed to export a limited amount of oil in return for using the proceeds to feed its impoverished people. To finance his illicit imports as well as buying influence, Saddam issued oil vouchers, which could be re-sold at a profit under the oil-for-food scheme, to those who were prepared, it seems, to take a slice of money that ought to have gone to malnourished Iraqis.
Mr Duelfer’s report gives a long list of those believed to have received vouchers, including the Russian president’s office and foreign ministry, Indonesia’s outgoing president, Megawati Sukarnoputri, and Charles Pasqua, a former French interior minister. However, some of those named may have received vouchers legitimately and some may not have cashed in their vouchers. The report stresses that it is not seeking to judge those named. The allegations of fraud in the oil-for-food programme are being investigated separately by a commission headed by Paul Volcker, a former head of America’s Federal Reserve.
The ISG’s conclusion that Saddam no longer had illegal weaponry is bound to strengthen the conviction of those who think President George Bush and his allies launched a war on false premises. However, the war’s backers will feel vindicated by the inspectors’ revelations about Saddam’s apparent intent to use bribery to get sanctions lifted and then get back to work on his weapons programmes (as well as his continuing quest for long-range missile technology). Mike McCurry, an adviser to Mr Bush’s Democratic contender, John Kerry, said the report “is a very significant commentary on the mistaken case for war presented by this administration”. Mr Bush, in contrast, insisted on Wednesday that there had been “a real risk” that Saddam could have passed weapons, materials or information on weapons-making to terrorist networks, and that this “was a risk we could not afford to take.”
By 2002, Saddam was convinced that sanctions had all but collapsed. But if he no longer had any militarily useful weapons to speak of (reports that he spirited some into Syria before the war remain unproven), why did he not do more to show this? The answer seems to be that his wish to get inspectors off his back, by ceasing to produce illicit arms, conflicted with his conviction that being thought to possess such weapons had preserved his regime—in his disastrous war with Iran during the 1980s, in keeping the Americans from toppling him in 1991 after they had pushed the Iraqis out of Kuwait, and in terrorising internal foes, especially Shias and Kurds. So if the world got it wrong, Saddam got it wronger: his bluffing over what have turned out to be nonexistent weapons has left him out of power and in jail.
Draw your own conclusions
Oct 7th 2004
The Economist
Critics of the Iraq war will feel vindicated by a new report, concluding that Saddam Hussein had no illicit weapons. But the war’s backers will feel equally vindicated by its findings that he was readying to restart his weapons programmes at the first opportunity
YES, the weapons stocks that America, Britain and indeed most governments expected to find in Iraq after last year’s invasion are still not there. But no, that is not proof, as critics claim, that United Nations sanctions were working. On the contrary, Saddam Hussein was trying to play the UN and everyone else for fools; left to his own devices, he would have been quickly back to his chemical, biological, nuclear and missile tricks. If America’s intelligence services and others were victims of too much certainty about Iraq’s weapons, Saddam fell victim to his own deceit.
That is the gist of the latest, 1,200-or-so-page report from the American-led Iraq Survey Group (ISG), published on Wednesday October 6th. Since Charles Duelfer, the chief inspector, last reported in March, his team have ploughed through millions of pages of documents and watched thousands of videos. They have interviewed scores of Iraqis, including the man himself and many of his inner circle. In the ISG’s most exhaustive report so far, Mr Duelfer tries to pin down not just what was going on in Iraq, but why.
Yet it is the what that still dominates the headlines. For if there were no militarily significant weapons stockpiles, surely there was no threat? Iraq’s covert programmes, especially its nuclear programme, were in disarray. Yet Saddam never abandoned his intent to produce such weapons. Concealment of plans, and of illicit imports, though many with possible civilian uses too, put him in multiple breach of UN resolutions.
Some of what he had been up to appeared in the earlier reports. Mr Duelfer lists: improved production methods in the chemicals industry; a covert network of laboratories run by the intelligence services for testing chemicals and poisons, and other evidence of tests on humans; plans for ballistic missiles of ranges from 400-1,000km, well beyond the 150km allowed by the UN, and including efforts to buy missile technology from North Korea and from Russian firms. None of the missiles, however, was in production.
Building the missile systems was what Iraq had found hardest. Once it had developed these, it already had the knowledge to produce, within months or weeks, chemical or biological warheads to put on them. And interviews show that Saddam’s weapons scientists assumed they would be back in business once the heat was off. Mahdi Obeidi, who used to run Iraq’s covert uranium enrichment programme and had been famously ordered to hide the plans under a tree in his garden, concurs. Iraq’s nuclear programme could have been restarted “at the snap of Saddam Hussein’s fingers”, he wrote recently in the New York Times.
But how to get the heat off? By using some of his $11 billion of illicit income from sanctions-busting schemes to try to buy off politicians and companies in various countries, including Russia, France and China—each of which has a veto on the UN Security Council (and each of which ended up opposing the American-led invasion). The report says that, of Saddam's total illicit earnings, $2 billion came from corrupting the UN’s oil-for-food programme, under which Iraq had been allowed to export a limited amount of oil in return for using the proceeds to feed its impoverished people. To finance his illicit imports as well as buying influence, Saddam issued oil vouchers, which could be re-sold at a profit under the oil-for-food scheme, to those who were prepared, it seems, to take a slice of money that ought to have gone to malnourished Iraqis.
Mr Duelfer’s report gives a long list of those believed to have received vouchers, including the Russian president’s office and foreign ministry, Indonesia’s outgoing president, Megawati Sukarnoputri, and Charles Pasqua, a former French interior minister. However, some of those named may have received vouchers legitimately and some may not have cashed in their vouchers. The report stresses that it is not seeking to judge those named. The allegations of fraud in the oil-for-food programme are being investigated separately by a commission headed by Paul Volcker, a former head of America’s Federal Reserve.
The ISG’s conclusion that Saddam no longer had illegal weaponry is bound to strengthen the conviction of those who think President George Bush and his allies launched a war on false premises. However, the war’s backers will feel vindicated by the inspectors’ revelations about Saddam’s apparent intent to use bribery to get sanctions lifted and then get back to work on his weapons programmes (as well as his continuing quest for long-range missile technology). Mike McCurry, an adviser to Mr Bush’s Democratic contender, John Kerry, said the report “is a very significant commentary on the mistaken case for war presented by this administration”. Mr Bush, in contrast, insisted on Wednesday that there had been “a real risk” that Saddam could have passed weapons, materials or information on weapons-making to terrorist networks, and that this “was a risk we could not afford to take.”
By 2002, Saddam was convinced that sanctions had all but collapsed. But if he no longer had any militarily useful weapons to speak of (reports that he spirited some into Syria before the war remain unproven), why did he not do more to show this? The answer seems to be that his wish to get inspectors off his back, by ceasing to produce illicit arms, conflicted with his conviction that being thought to possess such weapons had preserved his regime—in his disastrous war with Iran during the 1980s, in keeping the Americans from toppling him in 1991 after they had pushed the Iraqis out of Kuwait, and in terrorising internal foes, especially Shias and Kurds. So if the world got it wrong, Saddam got it wronger: his bluffing over what have turned out to be nonexistent weapons has left him out of power and in jail.