Saddam’s non-existent nasties

On Oct. 2, 2002, Congress authorized the president to forcibly disarm Saddam Hussein if – and only if – he determined that “reliance by the United States on further diplomatic or other peaceful means alone could not adequately protect the national security of the United States” from the Iraqi threat.

What Iraqi threat did Congress have in mind?

Iraq actually used chemical weapons, defensively, in the Iran-Iraq war. In the aftermath of the Gulf War, United Nations commissioners discovered that during the Iran-Iraq war, Iraq had also attempted to develop biological weapons and nukes.

As a condition of the Gulf War ceasefire, Iraq agreed to destroy – under U.N. supervision – its stocks of Iran-Iraq war chemical and biological agents and weapons and produce no more. Iraq also agreed to destroy – under International Atomic Energy Agency supervision – its entire nuke-related research, development and production capability and never reconstitute it.

Not much nuke stuff is “dual-use.” So, the IAEA soon identified and destroyed Iraq’s nuke-related infrastructure, and began installing permanent onsite monitoring systems to ensure it was never reconstituted.

However, almost all chem-bio stuff is “dual-use,” and has peaceful applications. By 1995, the U.N. inspectors believed they had destroyed all Iraqi chemical and biological weapons. But they couldn’t be sure they had destroyed all the chem-bio agents because the Iraqis couldn’t document how much they had produced nor what they had done with it. Nor could the U.N. inspectors even be sure that they had identified all Iraqi chem-bio dual-use facilities, much less could they ensure that Iraq could never again produce chem-bio agents.

Nevertheless, by 1998, most members of the U.N. Security Council considered Iraq to be effectively disarmed and were agreeable to removing the economic sanctions imposed in 1991.

But not Bill Clinton. He had his own intelligence. Saddam hadn’t disarmed. Clinton told the U.N. to get out of Iraq so he could bomb dozens of “weapons of mass destruction” sites he claimed the U.N. inspectors had missed.

Saddam Hussein – who realized he was the issue, not his Iran-Iraq war weapons – wouldn’t let the U.N. inspectors back in. As a result, for several years the U.N. was unable to monitor what Saddam was doing.

Then came Sept. 11, 2001.

Secretary Rumsfeld has testified that the neo-crazies – who had provided Clinton much of the intelligence he used to justify his 1998 attacks – re-examined that same old intelligence “through the prism” of 9-11. Their neo-view, arrived at on 9-12, was that Saddam’s intent had always been to supply nukes to terrorists for use against you soccer-moms.

But how to convince you?

Well, find (or invent) some recent intelligence to support the neo-vision.

Divulge to Congress portions of a “top-secret” Brit dossier – much of it cribbed from a grad-student’s decade-old dissertation – claiming that Saddam recently tried to buy specialized “aluminum tubes” needed to develop nukes.

Or divulge to Congress excerpts from “top-secret” documents – obtained by the Brits – purporting to show that Saddam recently attempted to buy “yellowcake” needed to develop nukes from Niger.

The result?

The October Joint Congressional Resolution: “Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq.”

But, Congress required the president to first show that “reliance by the United States on further diplomatic or other peaceful means alone could not adequately protect the national security of the United States.”

So, the U.N. Security Council gave Saddam one last chance to prove he was not preparing to nuke you in your jammies. Saddam quickly accepted, and the U.N. inspectors almost as quickly concluded that Saddam had not been attempting to reconstitute his weapons-of-mass-destruction programs.

The aluminum tubes? Not suitable for use in a nuke program.

The “yellowcake” documents? Clumsy forgeries.

IAEA Director-General ElBaradei reported to the Security Council that “As of 17 March 2003, the IAEA had found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons program in Iraq.” Chairman Hans Blix made a similar – albeit less definitive – report on chem-bio weapons programs. Great news! War has been averted. Saddam’s not a threat. He has neither weapons of mass destruction nor reconstituted programs to develop them.

But, two days later, the U.N. inspectors were once again ordered out of Iraq, and three days after that, President Bush solemnly announced, “The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder.”

Apparently, the president is a bit confused. He’s describing North Korea, not Iraq.