Let’s not forget that the reason Bush gave Americans for invading Iraq was not to battle tyranny. It was to protect us from a Saddam Hussein armed with weapons of mass destruction—which were never found, David Corn reminds us. And now that the weapon search has quietly been called off, administration lackeys still maintain Hussein posed a threat.
David Corn writes The Loyal Opposition twice a month for TomPaine.com. Corn is also the Washington editor of The Nation and is the author of The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception (Crown Publishers).
The historic election that occurred in Iraq has made it easier for George W. Bush to distance himself from the phony case he presented for war in Iraq. This latest State of the Union address is the president’s first since his weapons hunters declared there had been no WMDs and no WMD programs in Iraq before the war. Bush might—only might—feel obligated to reference the matter and offer what has become his final and disingenuous fallback position on those (nonexistent) WMDs. But the election has shoved the WMD controversy (or non-controversy) even further to the side. When the CIA issued a classified report this week concluding that Iraq had abandoned its chemical weapons program in 1991, it was not front-page news. So whether the MIA WMDs are State of the Union material or not, allow me to puncture Bush's final WMD myth.
He has, of course, promoted a series of WMD fables. Before the war, he proclaimed there was "no doubt" that Saddam Hussein was loaded to the gills with WMDs. In the weeks after the invasion—when no unconventional weapons were located—he claimed they would be found. Then, as the WMD search teams came up empty, he asserted that Hussein had maintained WMD programs in the years before the war. But after Charles Duelfer, the second head of the WMD hunt, declared there had been no WMDs and no WMD programs, Bush reached his last false argument. He most recently expressed it on January 18, when he was asked if "the word of the United States is good enough around the world for you, [or] our future president, to ever again launch a preventative or pre-emptive military strike?" Bush replied, "We did find out that [Hussein] had the intent and the capability of making weapons, which, in my judgment, still made him a dangerous man."
The story had gone from Hussein definitely possessed stockpiles of terrible WMDs to Hussein had the "intent and capability." This assertion was misleading, too.
Put aside "intent." Sure, one day Hussein wanted to be a WMD thug. Everyone has his or her dreams. But we do not tend to launch pre-emptive wars based on the long-term career goals of brutes. Let’s stick to "capability." This has been the argument that the White House has held to ever since Duelfer released his report in October. Roll the tape:
- In early October, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, Hussein had "the capability of developing [WMDs] rapidly."
- On Oct. 22, 2004, Condoleeza Rice, citing the Duelfer report, told the editorial board of the Pittsburgh Tribune Review that Hussein "had the ambitions and the money and the capability" to build WMDs.
- On Jan. 12, 2005, White House spokesman Scott McClellan noted that "Charles Duelfer came to the White House in December; the president took that opportunity to thank him for all the work that he had done. The two discussed how Saddam Hussein's regime retained the intent and capability to produce weapons of mass destruction."
Okay, the Bush gang says begrudgingly, there were no weapons, but Hussein could have produced WMDs. That means Iraq still was a serious and pressing WMD threat. But this is not what the Duelfer study reports. In fact, Duelfer's Iraq Survey Group (ISG) concluded that Hussein was generally not able to produce WMDs before the war. Here are excerpts from the report.
Nuclear weapons. "Saddam Hussein ended the nuclear program in 1991 following the Gulf war. ISG found no evidence to suggest concerted efforts to restart the program. Although Saddam clearly assigned a high value to the nuclear progress and talent that had been developed up to the 1991 war, the program ended and the intellectual capital decayed in the succeeding years." No capability at all here. Period.
Biological weapons. "In practical terms, with the [1995] destruction of the Al Hakam [biological weapons] facility, Iraq abandoned its ambition to obtain advanced BW weapons quickly. ISG found no direct evidence that Iraq, after 1996, had plans for a new BW program or was conducting BW-specific work for military purposes….Iraq would have faced great difficulty in re-establishing an effective BW agent production capability." In other words, Iraq did not have the means to create biological weapons.
Chemical weapons: "Iraq's [chemical weapons] program was crippled by the Gulf war….The way Iraq organized its chemical industry after the mid-1990s allowed it to conserve the knowledge-base needed to restart a CW program, conduct a modest amount of dual-use research, and partially recover from the decline of its production capability caused by the effects of the Gulf war and UN-sponsored destruction and sanctions….ISG did not discover chemical process or production units configured to produce key precursors or CW agents." Tactical CW was the one area of WMD development where Iraq was close to being able to revive a production capability. But it had not done so. The Duelfer report points out that Iraq could not have restarted its CW program without jeopardizing "its chances of having sanctions lifted." And the report notes that Hussein's WMD ambitions "were secondary to his prime objective of ending UN sanctions." At best, one might say that when it came to chemical weapons Iraq was capable of developing a capability.
Delivery systems: "While other WMD programs were strictly prohibited, the UN permitted Iraq to develop and possess delivery systems provided their range did not exceed 150 km. This freedom allowed Iraq to keep its scientists and technicians employed and to keep its infrastructure and manufacturing base largely intact by pursuing programs nominally in compliance with UN limitations. This positioned Iraq for a potential breakout capability." Again, the report is saying that Iraq had the ability to achieve a capability, not that it had managed that prior to the war.
I don't want to engage in word games. But Bush and his lieutenants have been hiding behind deliberately chosen words. "Capability" is their last fig leaf. But the use of this word is yet another rhetorical ruse. According to the Duelfer report, Iraq was not in a position to manufacture WMDs before the U.S. invasion. Iraq posed a potential WMD threat down the road—if there were no inspections, no sanctions, no international pressure, all of which were ongoing. Its supposed WMD capability was not a clear and present danger. Yet Bush insists it was reason enough for war. This is merely one in a series of disingenuous and misleading justifications for war. It might, however, be the very last variation of Bush's all-too-successful WMD scam.
