H.T. to Gerald at Turn Maine Blue for THIS LINK. The Center for Public Integrity has developed a searchable database called "False Pretenses". They say that, "Following 9/11, President Bush and seven top officials of his administration waged a carefully orchestrated campaign of misinformation about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq." Then National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice is assigned a score of 56 of 935 administration "false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq."
The whole database is a nice companion for Five years ago in war....
This day's menu of blatant lies and intentional, purposeful mischaracterizations came from Rice in the form of a New York Times column entitled "Why We Know Iraq is Lying". I'm just amazed how Rice has over the years been the go-to person whenever a media splash of serviceable excrement is needed.
The Rice quotes: "I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon; that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile," and "It did not warn of attacks inside the United States. It was historical information based on old reporting. There was no new threat information, and it did not, in fact, warn of any coming attacks inside the United States," and, during the Israeli bombardment of Lebanon in 2006, "What we're seeing here, in a sense, is the growing -- the birth pangs of a new Middle East," are enshrined in the Hall of Infamy.
Almost from the beginning I have been wondering, how does she keep her job? Maybe I've answered my own question. She is an extremely smart, able writer and mouthpiece who serves the White House at key moments an outrageous episode is occurring or is discovered from the past and someone who sounds good is needed to wave it away.
So, what did Rice say was the reason we were able to "know" Iraq was lying? Well, the simple assertion that Iraq does possess the weapons is taken as axiomatic. The rest of the logic then falls right out: Unlike other countries that in the past gave up certain kinds of weapons, "Iraq has a high-level political commitment to maintain and conceal its weapons."
Therefore, Rice wrote, "instead of full cooperation and transparency, Iraq has filed a false declaration to the United Nations that amounts to a 12,200-page lie." Of course, because Iraq turned out not to possess the weapons, it's declaration was instead true.
Rice was wrong. But worse, plenty of information from wide open sources AT THE TIME made her epistemological assertion "know" the real lie. Here is the best source summarizing contemporaneous knowledge of Iraq's weapons programs: Claims and evaluations of Iraq's proscribed weapons. Let's just take one specific item, Iraq's then alleged possession of stockpiles of VX nerve agent.
Rice asserts, "Iraq has also failed to provide United Nations inspectors with documentation of its claim to have destroyed its VX stockpiles." First on its face, this is not a statement that offered proof that we "knew" Iraq was lying. Rice herself merely says there is not enough paperwork to satisfy her. Here is how the story unfolded on the VX issue:
Rice did not know Iraq was lying. The story told above I think reveals a completely opposite picture of an Iraq obviously concerned with their national security while under threat of war, but rather than being uncooperative with the international inspection effort, they did everything they could to satisfy Rice and her bosses.Iraq also produced 1.5 tonnes according to a second method (which UNMOVIC refer to as "route B") from April 1988 to April 1990. It is this quantity that the UK and Secretary Powell, among others, are referring to above. However, two factors would indicate that the 1.5 tonnes of VX nerve agent no longer exist in operational form.
Firstly, Iraq claimed that this quantity of VX was discarded unilaterally by dumping it on the ground. VX degrades rapidly if placed onto concrete (see this report of 15 November 2002). In accordance with Iraq's claim, UNSCOM tested the site at which the VX was reportedly dumped. UNSCOM's January 1999 reportstates in Appendix II, paragraph 16:
"Traces of one VX-degradation product and a chemical known as a VX-stabilizer were found in the samples taken from the VX dump sites."
However, from this information alone, UNSCOM was not able to make "a quantified assessment"; that is, they were not able to verify that all 1.5 tonnes of the agent had been so destroyed.
Iraq at first denied the production of VX. When confronted with the evidence of its past VX production by UNSCOM, to explain the lack of documentary proof of the destruction of this quantity of VX, it "provided UNSCOM with handwritten notes that recorded the issuance of oral instructions, inter alia, to destroy any evidence indicating the presence of VX and a key precursor of VX, 'Iraqi choline'" Unresolved Disarmament Issues" 6 March 2003, p.80)
Since then, it has provided further material from late February 2003 and on 14 March 2003 to substantiate its case, material that is currently being assessed.
Secondly, VX produced according to "route B" degrades rapidly. According to UNMOVIC:
"VX produced through route B must be used relatively quickly after production (about 1 to 8 weeks), which would probably be satisfactory for wartime requirements."
"Unresolved Disarmament Issues"ont> (6 March 2003), p.82
This conclusion is confirmed by other independent assessments. For example, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) strategic dossier of September 2002 records the status of VX produced before the Gulf War: "Any VX produced by Iraq before 1991 is likely to have decomposed over the past decade [...]. Any G-agent or V-agent stocks that Iraq concealed from UNSCOM inspections are likely to have deteriorated by now." (pp. 52 and 53).
Iraq also used two further methods to produce VX: route C seems to have been unsuccessful, but route D did result in the production of "high purity VX [..] in laboratory/pilot-scale equipment" ("Unresolved Disarmament Issues", 6 March 2003, p.82). According to UNMOVIC, any VX produced according to route D could have been stabilised, and could remain viable. However, there is no evidence that Iraq did ever produce significant quantities of VX through route D. As UNMOVIC record:
"Based upon the documents provided by Iraq, it is doubtful that any significant quantities of VX were produced using this route before the Gulf war."
"Unresolved Disarmament Issues" (6 March 2003), p.82.
Furthermore, it seems unlikely that Iraq would have produced VX through route D during the Gulf War due to the more complex process that would have been involved. As UNMOVIC record:
"During times of war, or imminent war, it would make sense for Iraq to produce VX through route B, which involves only about half as many process steps as route D."
"Unresolved Disarmament Issues" (6 March 2003), p.82.
In April/May 1998, UNSCOM passed samples from missile warhead fragments to a United States laboratory, which reported in June 1998 that they had found VX degradation products on the missile warheads.
This was seen as indicating at the time that Iraq had stabilised VX sufficiently and had managed to weaponise it (in contrast to the Government of Iraq's own claims). However, further tests on fragments from the same missile warheads at two other laboratories (in Switzerland and France), and at the same United States laboratory with further samples, "found no nerve agent degradation products" (ibid., p.82). The chemical in question "could also originate from other compounds such as precursors or, according to some experts, a detergent" (ibid., p.81).Key post-war readings: Bob Drogin, "The Vanishing", The New Republic,14 July 2003: includes detailed interview with a senior scientist involved in the production of VX prior to 1990.
Rice was grasping at straws concerning "farcical shell games" and obviously non threatening old, empty shells. Meanwhile, the White House issued fanciful speculation of their own, often based on "intelligence" gleaned from their very own groomed Iraqi "defectors." Rice uses some of THIS MATERIAL in her column. I'll pull just one "damning" quotation on "Iraqi "noncooperation" from the extensive document:
What Does Disarmament Look Like?
January 23, 2003
Introduction"We have reports..." That's just a howler. What we have here is impeachable.
On September 12, 2002, President Bush called on the United Nations to live up to its founding purpose and enforce the determination of the international community ? expressed in 16 UN Security Council resolutions ? that the outlaw Iraqi regime be disarmed of its weapons of mass destruction.
...Page 3...
Iraqi Non-cooperation
We have many reports of WMD material being buried, concealed in lakes, relocated to agricultural areas and private homes, or hidden beneath Mosques or hospitals. In one report such material was buried in the banks of the Tigris river during a low water period. Furthermore, according to these reports, the material is moved constantly, making it difficult to trace or to find without absolutely fresh intelligence.
Below is the full Rice 1/23/2003 column published in the New York Times:
"Why We Know Iraq is Lying" A Column by Dr. Condoleezza Rice
By Condoleezza Rice
Originally appeared in the New York Times on January 23, 2003
WASHINGTON. Eleven weeks after the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed a resolution demanding yet again that Iraq disclose and disarm all its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs, it is appropriate to ask, "Has Saddam Hussein finally decided to voluntarily disarm?" Unfortunately, the answer is a clear and resounding no.Condoleezza Rice was the National Security Adviser at the time this was published.
There is no mystery to voluntary disarmament. Countries that decide to disarm lead inspectors to weapons and production sites, answer questions before they are asked, state publicly and often the intention to disarm and urge their citizens to cooperate. The world knows from examples set by South Africa, Ukraine and Kazakhstan what it looks like when a government decides that it will cooperatively give up its weapons of mass destruction. The critical common elements of these efforts include a high-level political commitment to disarm, national initiatives to dismantle weapons programs, and full cooperation and transparency.
In 1989 South Africa made the strategic decision to dismantle its covert nuclear weapons program. It destroyed its arsenal of seven weapons and later submitted to rigorous verification by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Inspectors were given complete access to all nuclear facilities (operating and defunct) and the people who worked there. They were also presented with thousands of documents detailing, for example, the daily operation of uranium enrichment facilities as well as the construction and dismantling of specific weapons.
Ukraine and Kazakhstan demonstrated a similar pattern of cooperation when they decided to rid themselves of the nuclear weapons, intercontinental ballistic missiles and heavy bombers inherited from the Soviet Union. With significant assistance from the United States warmly accepted by both countries disarmament was orderly, open and fast. Nuclear warheads were returned to Russia. Missile silos and heavy bombers were destroyed or dismantled once in a ceremony attended by the American and Russian defense chiefs. In one instance, Kazakhstan revealed the existence of a ton of highly enriched uranium and asked the United States to remove it, lest it fall into the wrong hands.
Iraq's behavior could not offer a starker contrast. Instead of a commitment to disarm, Iraq has a high-level political commitment to maintain and conceal its weapons, led by Saddam Hussein and his son Qusay, who controls the Special Security Organization, which runs Iraq's concealment activities. Instead of implementing national initiatives to disarm, Iraq maintains institutions whose sole purpose is to thwart the work of the inspectors. And instead of full cooperation and transparency, Iraq has filed a false declaration to the United Nations that amounts to a 12,200-page lie.
For example, the declaration fails to account for or explain Iraq's efforts to get uranium from abroad, its manufacture of specific fuel for ballistic missiles it claims not to have, and the gaps previously identified by the United Nations in Iraq's accounting for more than two tons of the raw materials needed to produce thousands of gallons of anthrax and other biological weapons.
Iraq's declaration even resorted to unabashed plagiarism, with lengthy passages of United Nations reports copied word-for-word (or edited to remove any criticism of Iraq) and presented as original text. Far from informing, the declaration is intended to cloud and confuse the true picture of Iraq's arsenal. It is a reflection of the regime's well-earned reputation for dishonesty and constitutes a material breach of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441, which set up the current inspections program.
Unlike other nations that have voluntarily disarmed and in defiance of Resolution 1441 Iraq is not allowing inspectors "immediate, unimpeded, unrestricted access" to facilities and people involved in its weapons program. As a recent inspection at the home of an Iraqi nuclear scientist demonstrated, and other sources confirm, material and documents are still being moved around in farcical shell games. The regime has blocked free and unrestricted use of aerial reconnaissance.
The list of people involved with weapons of mass destruction programs, which the United Nations required Iraq to provide, ends with those who worked in 1991 even though the United Nations had previously established that the programs continued after that date. Interviews with scientists and weapons officials identified by inspectors have taken place only in the watchful presence of the regime's agents. Given the duplicitous record of the regime, its recent promises to do better can only be seen as an attempt to stall for time.
Last week's finding by inspectors of 12 chemical warheads not included in Iraq's declaration was particularly troubling. In the past, Iraq has filled this type of warhead with sarin a deadly nerve agent used by Japanese terrorists in 1995 to kill 12 Tokyo subway passengers and sicken thousands of others. Richard Butler, the former chief United Nations arms inspector, estimates that if a larger type of warhead that Iraq has made and used in the past were filled with VX (an even deadlier nerve agent) and launched at a major city, it could kill up to one million people. Iraq has also failed to provide United Nations inspectors with documentation of its claim to have destroyed its VX stockpiles.
Many questions remain about Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and arsenal and it is Iraq's obligation to provide answers. It is failing in spectacular fashion. By both its actions and its inactions, Iraq is proving not that it is a nation bent on disarmament, but that it is a nation with something to hide. Iraq is still treating inspections as a game. It should know that time is running out.
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