Grasping for straws on Iraq

By Gordon Prather

National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice should have “taken the Fifth” – refused to answer questions – about what the U.S.-Brit-Aussie Survey Group found in Iraq.

But no.

She “took the stand” and argued the report exonerates Bush for unilaterally invading Iraq to “disarm” Saddam Hussein. Unfortunately, the report convicts.

Recall that the congressional authority Bush invoked required him to “determine” that:

  1. Reliance by the United States on further diplomatic or other peaceful means alone either (A) will not adequately protect the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq, or (B) is not likely to lead to enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq; and

  2. Acting pursuant to this joint resolution is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations or persons who planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on Sept. 11, 2001.

On March 19, 2003, Bush informed Congress that Saddam posed “a continuing threat to the national security of the United States” by “continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability, actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability and supporting and harboring terrorist organizations.”

Only days before, U.N. inspectors had reported that Saddam appeared to be cooperating and as best they could tell had neither nukes, chem-bio weapons, ballistic missiles or the makings thereof.

Furthermore, Bush and Rice have admitted, “We have no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved in the September 11th attacks.”

But she and Bush claim to have believed last year that Saddam did have “weapons of mass destruction” and that he might give them to terrorists for use against us.

“Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option.”

Rice claims that almost everyone then agreed with Bush’s assessment and cites last year’s UNSC Resolution 1441 as proof.

But they didn’t agree, not even then. That resolution – passed at Bush’s insistence – merely requested that Saddam let the U.N. inspectors verify that he hadn’t attempted to reconstitute his nuke, chem-bio and missile programs.

The U.N. inspectors went in, searched for four months and concluded that he hadn’t. Now, after six-months, the U.S.-Brit-Aussie group has discovered no “evidence” to the contrary.

Nevertheless, Rice claims that “the Iraq Survey Group is finding – and recording – proof that Iraq never disarmed, and never complied with U.N. inspectors”.

Howzat?

Well, she claims that the group discovered dozens of “WMD-related program activities” and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in late 2002.

According to Rice, “Had any one of these examples been discovered last winter, the Security Council would have had no choice but to take exactly the same course that President Bush followed: to declare Saddam Hussein in defiance of Resolution 1441, and enforce its serious consequences.”

In other words, if the Security Council had the U.S.-Brit-Aussie report in hand last March it would have authorized the use of “all necessary means” – including war – to remove the imminent threat of Saddam’s “weapons of mass destruction.”

British Foreign Minister Jack Straw buys her argument.

He went ballistic when he learned a “collection of reference strains” were found in an Iraqi biologist’s home, including “a vial of live C botulinum Okra B from which a biological agent can be produced.” According to chem-bio weapons “expert” Straw, botulinum is “15,000 times more toxic than the nerve agent VX.”

State Department media-expert Richard Boucher concurred. “Botulinum kills people; it kills people in large quantities. Botulinum is a weapon of mass destruction, yes.”

But it turns out there are several types of botulinum toxins.

Type B is the active agent in FDA-approved Myobloc, a muscle relaxant similar to BoTox. The Iraqi biologist kept Saddam’s supply of Type B in his refrigerator.

True, a terrorist could slip botulinum toxins into un-refrigerated food at fast-food salad bars, producing an outbreak of food poisoning, with some fatalities..

So, is Bush exonerated? Would the Security Council have authorized Wolfie’s War if only they had known about Saddam’s potential for spoiling a fun-meal at Wendy’s?

Gordon Prather

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Physicist James Gordon Prather has served as a policy implementing official for national security-related technical matters in the Federal Energy Agency, the Energy Research and Development Administration, the Department of Energy, the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Department of the Army. He also served as legislative assistant for national security affairs to U.S. Sen. Henry Bellmon, R-Okla. Dr. Prather had earlier worked as a nuclear weapons physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico. Read more of Gordon Prather's articles here.