Weapons of Mass Confusion
Speaking of WMDs, no matter how loudly they cheer for Scooter Libby’s conviction, major print and television news outlets have glossed over or ignored crucial pieces of pre-war and postwar WMD evidence. For instance:
The headline from David Kay’s testimony was, “We were all wrong.” What didn’t make the front page was that Kay also reported “hundreds of cases” of activities that were prohibited under UN Resolutions 687 and/or 1441; argued that postwar looting was “designed by the security services to cover the tracks of the Iraq WMD program;” described how “deliberate dispersal and destruction of material and documentation related to weapons programs began pre-conflict;” concluded that some WMD materials and personnel left Iraq before and during the invasion; and revealed Saddam’s illegal efforts to acquire long-range missile technology from North Korea.
Likewise, while Duelfer conceded that Saddam’s WMD arsenal was decayed and dormant, his report also concluded that Saddam was secretly planning to reconstitute his WMD arsenal as soon as the UN lost interest, and that Saddam had even established agreements with numerous non-Iraqi firms to enable him to build or buy “technologies for Iraq’s WMD-related conventional arms, and/or dual-use goods programs.” Toward that end, the report revealed, “the Iraqi Intelligence Service maintained throughout 1991 to 2003 a set of undeclared covert laboratories to research and test various chemicals and poisons, primarily for intelligence operations.” Plus, Duelfer concluded that Iraq “was planning to produce several CW agents, including sulfur mustard, nitrogen mustard, and sarin.” Even more frightening, Saddam “could have re-established an elementary BW program within a few weeks to a few months of a decision to do so.”
Similarly, major media outlets took a pass on John Negroponte’s 2006 letter to Congressman Hoekstra, which declared that Coalition forces had recovered 500 munitions containing mustard or sarin nerve agent. And they largely ignored the US Joint Forces Command Iraqi Perspectives Project, which found that “when it came to weapons of mass destruction, Saddam attempted to convince one audience that they were gone while simultaneously convincing another that Iraq still had them,” and that Saddam maintained “the illusion of having WMD,” even within his ruling circle. If Saddam’s generals didn’t know about his deadly game, one wonders how President Bush and his generals could have.
