It will probably now be a widely accepted view that Saddam Hussein had no active weapons programme and was some way off from creating one. But that he intended to create one given a moment’s opportunity, is beyond doubt, and one reason why, given the increasingly porous nature of the sanctions regime, Saddam’s risk-taking behaviour and the corrupt oil-for-food programme of the UN, I felt war was the least-bad option.
Uber-blogger Andrew Sullivan linked this week to a Reuters story about how mothballed nuclear facilities were stripped and spirited out of the country after the Coalition successfully invaded Iraq.
It is one of the most serious charges one can level at George W. Bush that he bungled the aftermath of the war and that the Coalition forces failed to secure sites such as nuclear facilities. It was, after all, supposed to be a central justification for the war that we were securing such sites and preventing weapons getting into the hands of terrorists. Stuff like this makes me wonder whether Bush and Co. really had a clue about what they were doing.
But it is also interesting to note that a Reuters story (that big fat commie news service) implicitly conceded that Saddam did have a nuclear programme. And if it were not for the bravery and brilliance of the Israeli airforce in 1981, he would have had one up and running some time ago.
Hrm… who to believe, an unnamed ‘Western diplomat’ with ties to the IAEA or Jack Straw? I am going to go with Straw this time, because I trust the UN and IAEA less than the British government. The mystery UN mook says the materials got moved into 2004, Straw says right after the war.
So most of the movement occured in March/April 2003, when US was short a division thanks to Turkey screwing us.
Justification? Not on your life. Understandable? Yes.
However I do not see Syria giving away nuclear materials. They could use those themselves. Now if Iran had gotten their hands on said materials, I could see them ending up in terrorists’ hands. They have a nice nuclear program already, thanks to our pals the Russians and the IAEA.
Am I happy with how Iraq has been handled? No. Personally, I think we should have levelled Fallujah, only allowing people out of the city once they had demonstrated they were unarmed. The Shia and Kurds would have been neutral or happy about it, and the Sunnis are already pissed.
But the likelihood that a UN coalition or the US being led by Gore/Kerry/any-other-non-Zell-Miller-Democrat could have done better? Damn close to zero.
Hell, the French, Germans, and Russians might have helped MOVE the goods, had they been there.
And even if they didn’t, the French sat next to 82 bunkers full of explosives, including Soviet Frog missiles, in Afghanistan for 2 years. Some Canadians found the bunkers, unlocked and being looted continously by Afghans, after scouting the area for 8 days.
Eric
You seem to suggest that the French, Germans and Russians are less than honest and faithful friends and allies in the war against those that would do us harm.
If so you’re damned right.
In retrospect, we were really lucky that the French and Germans didn’t jump into the Iraqi fray with us. Of course the reason they didn’t had nothing to do with Bush being a cowboy and every thing to do with the huge OFF scam they were perpetrating along with the significant debt Sadddam owed them.]
Can you imagine the fun Tommy Franks would have had with a French agent sitting in on every bit of strategy and then immediately forwarding that info to Saddam?
And where were those faithful Hans Blix UN observers who knew very well every nuclear and dual facility in Iraq ? Why did they not pass the info to the US army, so they could secure the places ? Could it be inspectors delibarately kept mum, as they sympathized not with the US but with the other side ? Maybe they were ordered by Kofy to keep silent, to prove they are neutral, i.e. – not with us ? Or to hide something ?
I can’t take these “revelations” seriously. It’s just carping by desperate Bush haters. It there was something in this story it would have surfaced earlier.
What incredible irony. The US barges into Iraq to stop weapons of mass destruction, which don’t exist. The implements to create those weapons of mass destruction were in Iraq, mothballed, and under watch. The war prompts someone to strip the facilities and move them out of the country to an unknown place.
I don’t know about you, but I feel safer already.
– Josh
It was reported in early May, 2003 that the al Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center was looted in Iraq. I wrote to the President, both my Senators and my representative in Congress about this, and really, they didn’t seem too concerned.
Here’s what amazes me:
we have had THREE MAJOR INTELLIGENCE FAILURES here in the USA in just over three years.
9/11
No WMDs in Iraq
post-war planning
and yet, and this is what amazes me: NO ONE GOT FIRED!!! Blair and Bush never even got mad about the last two at all!!!
yes, we are safer, but we are still not safe.
and we are smarter, but we are still not smart.
And where were those faithful Hans Blix UN observers who knew very well every nuclear and dual facility in Iraq ? Why did they not pass the info to the US army, so they could secure the places ?
I posted about al Tuwaitha on April 11, 2003. I had no access to satellite imagery, just the web. The location of al Tuwaitha was pretty much public knowledge. As noted above, Israel bombed it in 1981. If the AIEA was uncooperative, I’m sure they would have assisted.
I have no doubt that we knew where all the major installations were in Iraq.
We no doubt knew where the spy headquarters were, but we let them be looted: “Press and looters vie for Saddam’s secrets”.
If you haven’t yet accepted just how badly the post-war was bungled, see the recent Knight Ridder report “Post-war planning non-existent”.
EddieP,
Germany had nothing to do witht the oil-for-food scam. Read the documents, only Russia, France China and others are mentioned, but neither Germany as a country not German firms or individual Germans
Ralf,
You mean the Germans were busy supplying Iran with forbidden items at the time, (some German businessmen were prosecuted for this). Definitly not Iraq !
Susan,
You say:
The cynic in me says that Bush and Blair never got angry about WMDs because they knew they were a false trail. Indeed, Bush seems not to have made much of the WMD angle at all pre-War, prefering to concentrate more on the equally specious Saddam-Al-Qu’aida connection, because that pressed more buttons in the USA after 9/11 I suppose.
Blair is even planning to honour the intelligence spooks and civil servants that supplied and/or interpreted the WMD “intelligence”. John Scarlett has already been promoted to head MI6 (or MI5, never can remember which way around they go).
Indeed, they did a good job for him, providing the fig leaf he needed to follow the US into battle.
I can accept that Saddam was a blight on the planet, and that the ’91 war peace terms, sanctions-busting by Saddam and various UN resolutions all added up to a powerful case for war…but what sticks in my throat was the blatant lying (as we know know) by Bush and Blair about the rationale for war. Maybe they or their advisors calculated that the above were all too complex and difficult to explain to their electorates, and that Osama and WMD-in-45-minutes were better soundbites.
In any event, whilst I never would have voted for Bush, I and many others who voted for Blair will never do so again – Iraq will be his political nemesis eventually I believe. Before that, he was actually quite a popular Prime Minister….
As for the post-war planning, both leaders can validly blame their officials, who would have done the detailed work. However, to blame them now would inevitably reflect upon the respective Administrations, so I guess that are just keeping quiet about it at the moment out of self-preservation.
9/11 I know less about (ie the possible intelligence that might have headed it off). I know there had been some general warnings, but such an exploit is very hard to stop in a society as open as America’s was. I though Bush and Rice has been cleared of misconduct by some sort of Senate hearing…?
The refusal of Turkey to allow 4ID to invade from the north via Kurdistan really threw a huge spanner in the works. It made little difference to the high-tempo phase of operations – there is essentially no conceivable scenario in which the Iraqis could have prevailed – but it complicated the stabilisation phase enormously. The continuing terrorism in the Sunni triangle is testament to this: had 4ID been allowed to perform its mission, many of those currently holed up in Fallujah and Ramadi would be dead or in captivity. Inability to rapidly seize possible WMD sites stems from the same source.
Turkey behaved atrociously in this matter and I do not believe it has yet paid the very high diplomatic penalty that it should.
Wild Pegasus writes that Saddam’s mothballed nuclear facilties were “under watch” before the war, and ironically, the war led that watch being lifted. Hmm. He may have half a decent point there. But since the UN inspectors left in 1998, and given Saddam’s long history of messing the inspectors around, it is stretching it a bit to say that the stuff in Iraq was “under watch”. Yep, the west was keeping some observation via satellites, stealth and lord knows what, but there were plenty of gaps.
David Gillies’ makes an excellent point about Turkey. I’d wager that this may explain why Turkey won’t be welcomed into the EU in the near term, assuming Britain has much say in the matter.
Some tried anyway, but that they were prosecuted should tell you that it was not officially sanctioned.
And Germany really had nothing to do wit OFF
“Turkey behaved atrociously in this matter ”
Turkey behaved like a free democracy whose parliament & people were dubious about the benefits of invading Iraq, & uncertain of the consequences for them should they support such an invasion. Both of these are legitimate concerns, & we certainly have no right to expect free passage through an ally’s territory in order to proceed with offensive military action about which that ally is dubious. Or do you prefer your allies to have only notional independence?
I like the suggestion that it’s all the Turks’ fault too; lets everyone else off the hook. Nope, wasn’t poor post-war planning; just those treacherous Turks (though you’d think if our planning was good, we might have planned for the possibility of Turkish non-cooperation).
A_T, your argument is somewhat undermined by the fact that Turkey is a member of NATO, at least the last time I checked. Being in an alliance involves certain mutual obligations, as I am sure you’d agree.
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My understanding was that NATO was a defensive alliance. No-one was under attack. Hence no obligation.
I’m pretty certain that if treaties had required Turkey’s participation, they would have had more a bit more trouble than they did keeping themselves out of it.
As was, no treaties were invoked by either side, so the sovereign Turkish parliament made it’s own decision about what would be best for the Turks.
Many here appear to have a problem with this. If so please explain why, if unconvinced by the case for war & dubious about its benefits for their nation, it is shameful that the Turks made a free decision on whether they took part or not.
If you believe they should have taken part, does this apply generally to all NATO allies? Say the Turks perceived a threat somewhere & request assistance from their American ally, would the US have a moral obligation to assist even if it doubted the usefulness of the action, or even thought the action might put it in danger? Would you be similarly outraged at US refusal to back Turkish plans? I strongly suspect not.
As I say, if the planners were so smart, you’d think they could have planned around the possibility that Turkey, being an independent nation, might make a decision which was different from that preferred by the US president. So blaming Turkey for the current situation in Iraq is a cheap shot on several fronts; still comes down to either inevitability or bad planning in my book.