June 9, 2003

The Real Iraqi WMD

The Sunday Los Angeles Times reported an interesting possibility regarding Iraq and weapons of mass destruction.

Saddam Hussein's intelligence services set up a network of clandestine cells and small laboratories after 1996 with the goal of someday rebuilding illicit chemical and biological weapons, according to a former senior Iraqi intelligence officer. The officer, who held the rank of brigadier general, said each closely guarded weapons team had three or four scientists and other experts who were unknown to U.N. inspectors. He said they worked on computers and conducted crude experiments in bunkers and back rooms in safe houses around Baghdad.

He insisted they did not produce any illegal arms and that none now exist in Iraq. But he said the teams met regularly and put plans on paper to quickly develop weapons of mass destruction if U.N. sanctions against Iraq were lifted. "We could start again anytime," said the officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he said he fears for his life. "It's very easy. Especially biological. The point was, the Iraqis kept the knowledge," he explained during a lengthy interview Friday in which he offered tantalizing details of secret programs. But U.S. weapons hunters "will never find anything here. Only oil."

UPDATE: A reader, posting comments to this silly post over at SKB, says the notion that Saddam's regime was the weapon of mass destruction is a "transparent dodge" because we were sold the war based on stories of stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. He's implying the Bush administration lied about the WMDs. But did they? The United nations, the Clinton administration, the intelligence services of most world governments, and most Arab governments all believed Saddam still had large WMD stockpiles. We KNOW Saddam did have them at one point, and not only because he admitted to the UN having large stockpiles. After all, he used a bunch of WMDs on the Kurds and the Shia, and on the Iranians.

If you carefully read the UN resolutions, you'll find that Saddam was not only banned from having actual WMDs, he was banned from having the means of production of WMDs, including labs, materials, equipment, etc. So, a clandestine program of small labs and research, as outlined in the LA Times story, is a violation of all the applicable UN resolutions including 1441, the one that authorized member states to apply "serious consequences" if Iraq did not come into compliance.

Saddam's regime was itself the weapon of mass destruction in two ways: 1. (see all the mass graves). 2. It held the knowledge and the plans for building WMDs once sanctions were lifted (hence its relentless campaign to get the sanctions lifted - a request long backed by France, Russia and Germany, all of whom had previously sold Saddam WMD-making equipment and materials and longed to do so again, in return for cash and lucrative oil deals.

Saddam was the key to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program. By going to war to remove Saddam from power, the United States ended the Iraqi WMD threat. And, oh by the way, put an end to a regime that, as Instapundit put it, was "shoveling children into mass graves." There's the cold, hard reality of it. Those who opposed the war favored keeping Saddam in power - in power to reconstitute his WMD programs. In power to gas more Kurds. In power to send dissidents screaming to their deaths into shredding machines. In power plunder his nation's wealth and impoverish his people. In Power To Shovel More Children Into Mass Graves.

Instapundit has a long, link-filled, must-read piece on Iraq, WMDs and the claim that "Bush lied." Don't miss it - especially the letter from U.S. Army Maj. Diggs Cleveland, Camp Doha, Kuwait, who writes:

I say that one only needs to look into a mass grave, filled with the bones of children scattered among dolls and toys, to know that this war was necessary. Time will show that we did the right thing, and those who opposed it, fervently, completely and eternally, were wrong. We may never find WMDs in Iraq, and I don't give a shit if we ever do. My world, my children's world, my grandchildren's world (when it comes) will be better because we fought this fight and won. I will never change my mind on this, I have seen the graves.