Deliberate confusion: the Iraqi WMD question

With the realisation by the American political establishment that no Iraqi WMD are to be found, this has led to many questions about how this can be. There is talk of "intelligence failures" and the like. Unfortunately, it has been well-known that Iraq has had no WMD, well known by those who were willing to know the facts, those who were not blinded by a fanatical faith that had developed in Washington and in other Western capitals, that faith that Iraq had such weapons. This faith blinded people to the facts and caused them to interpret innocuous activity in Iraq as being weapons-related activity. Vans crossing the countryside become "mobile germ labs". Metal tubing being shipped into the country must be intended to build centrifuges to enrich uranium. These interpretations are the result of a way of thinking whereby the facts must be shaped to fit the pre-ordained conclusion.

Perhaps this is a real example of the oft-cited "intelligence failure" at the CIA, that some analysts, prisoners of this irrational faith, chose to provide such analysis. However, others at the CIA and elsewhere, had access to a greater range of information that, in sum, could only lead to the conclusion that it was highly unlikely that Iraq had WMD. The public and many politicians did not know of this information because most of it was hidden or described in a way as to provoke confusion. This confusion was the deliberate policy of the so-called Iraq hard-liners, many of them either in some way under Israeli control or Israeli agents. These people have great power in Washington to dictate the terms of the Iraq discussion and they did this job remarkably well.

Several things were confused; one is the matter of weapons as opposed to weapons programmes. This is an important point. Then there is the matter of weapons that were produced versus weapons being produced. The Bush Administration promoted the view that weapons were being produced when in fact the argument between UN inspectors and the Iraqi government was not that new weapons were being produced. Almost immediately after the new inspection team led by Hans Blix entered Iraq, it was more or less proven that no new programmes were being implemented. The dispute between the inspectors and Iraqi authorities had to do with an old question that dated back to 1996, and ultimately to 1991.

In the summer of 1995, the head of the Iraqi weapons programme, one Hussein Kamal, defected to Jordan. He was a son-in-law of Saddam Hussein and he fled with his wife and his brother, Saddam Kamal, who was married to another one of Saddam Hussein's daughters. After he defected, Kamal revealed the Iraqi weapons plan that were put into effect since the 1991 war. The plan was to divide the weapons programmes between those that were known to be in the Iraqi arsenal, and those that were not fully developed but had greater potential as a deterrent. The latter catagory includes anthrax and VX gas. All existing supplies of these weapons were ordered destroyed and their supporting documentation hidden. This was, it seems, the explanation for the cat-and-mouse games that marked the inspectors' work for the previous couple of years.

The second category of weapons was reported to the UN inspectors, and they were destroyed under their supervision in order to comply with UN Security Council resolutions. So, Saddam's plan was that the destruction of these known weapons and the hiding of the infrastructure of the other programmes would appease the inspectors and in due course these weapons programmes could be revived. When Kamal defected, the whole plan was ruined. Kamal, who some believe hoped to become President of Iraq, may have concluded that he could only become Iraq's leader if he revealed all of Iraq's weapons secrets and thus undermined Saddam. It is believed that he hoped that the Western powers would reward him and help make him leader of Iraq. He also seemed to think that the end of the programmes would end the sanctions regime against Iraq and relieve the people's suffering.

Kamal disclosed the location of all the hidden materials and these were destroyed. The Israeli agent propaganda always claims that Kamal had large stocks of weapons destroyed, but this is not true. He had the weapons infrastructure destroyed. Kamal told the inspectors that Iraq had destroyed weapons in 1991. With the help of their new knowledge, the inspectors concluded that certain quantities weapons had been created with materials purchased for this purpose beforehand. However, no one could prove to them that these weapons really were destroyed. They had only Kamal's word and that of the Iraqi authorities who said that Kamal's story was true, the weapons were destroyed. It is this dilemma that was successfully exploited by the Israeli agents in order to propagate a falsehood and provoke a war.

Some people might not believe Kamal but these Israeli agents were happy to cite his information when it suited them, to say that Iraq had hidden weapons programmes and tried to deceive the UN about them. They then ominously claimed that Iraq could be hiding other programmes, even though no evidence existed that of their existance. Kamal proved to be very reliable; not only did his information lead to the destruction of the programmes, but he was killed on his return to Iraq when he decided that the Western governments were unfriendly towards him. Clearly, the regime in Baghdad was not pleased with what he had done.

Kamal's disclosure that the Iraqi weapons had been destroyed was kept secret for seven years; Newsweek broke the story in February 2003. No other mainstream media picked up this sensational story. Until then, reports had only Iraqi authorities saying that the weapons were destroyed in 1991. As the story broke, it was this dispute between the inspectors and the Iraqis that was played out in the media and exploited by the Bush administration. Iraq was being asked to account for the material used to build the destroyed weapons. Iraq's problem was the weapons had been destroyed. Iraq offered to take inspectors to the dumping grounds to test to see that the weapons indeed had been disposed of there. Iraq had the inspectors interview those who participated in destroying the weapons. With Bush demanding that Iraq prove a negative, that it had no weapons, and with Bush demanding that Iraq account for every drop of destroyed weapons, Iraq was clearly in an impossible situation.

This returns us to the matter of faith, and how intelligence agencies interpreted certain events. Agents were told, as were politicians and others, that Iraq had these unaccounted-for-weapons, even though that evidence clearly showed that they had been in all likelihood destroyed. So these agents factored in these phantom weapons into their reports. There had to be weapons; that was already established. Those who said otherwise were branded as being crazy. There must have been great social pressure to conform to the prevailing faith, faith based upon shameful lies, upon confusion and promoted by foreign agents and Iraqi exiles who had a clear interest in provoking this war.