Fleishcer: Saddam destroyed WMD on the "eve of war"

[Chris Alger]

Recall that the central argument for invasion concerned the “implausibility” of Iraq’s position regarding WMD. It was not logical, said the White House, to think that Iraq would first conceal its program and then reveal everything to inspectors. It was not likely, they argued, that Iraq could have destroyed the WMD it said it did without retaining substantial proof of the particulars.

The latest White House theory about why no one can find any of the “thousands of tons” of alleged Iraqi WMD is that Saddam secretly destroyed them, under the world's nose, “on the eve of the war.” White House spokesperson Ari Fleischer speculated that Iraq might have done this “the fear of them actually being discovered,” thus being “caught red handed with the very weapons we said they had.”
http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml...toryID=2633190

So while it was not plausible for Iraq to destroy its WMD in order to avoid sanctions and war, it is plausible that Iraq would destroy them once war was inevitable in order to avoid embarrassment.

Thus the evidence mounts that Iraqi WMD was a hoax in order to justify replacing a renegade client with one more inclined to follow orders. Lest anyone think that we are not caught up in a mass media system dominated by official propaganda, consider the number of media flacks that insisted that Iraqi WMD was so obvious that it wasn't even arguable. “Ludicrous,” for example, was how Ann Coulter’s described any argument that “Saddam's weapons of mass destruction are no threat to America.”

The following are a few snippets (of probably hundreds) from the war drum-beaters, reminders of "lies in the absence of liberty," "so blessedly beyond the understanding of most Americans" of "how we underestimate, again and again, the lies that dictators tell and the lies that their subjects are forced to live" .... in other countries. Fred Hiatt, W Post, 4/14/3

Linda Chavez, 2/19/3: “Iraq's weapons of mass destruction will be unearthed by a U.S. invasion. When that happens, not even Johnnie Cochran could convince the world that Saddam was the innocent party and President Bush the great threat to world peace.”

Michael Dobbs, Washington Post, 12/8/2: “U.S. officials say ... the rest of the world should expect a pattern of telltale signs that lead to ‘only one logical conclusion’: that Hussein still has weapons of mass destruction and “‘values these weapons very dearly.’”

Wall Street Journal editorial, 12/6/2: “As U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said this week, ‘The United States knows that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. The U.K. knows that they have weapons of mass destruction. Any country on the face of the Earth with an active intelligence program knows that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.’”

Gary Milhollin, Wall Street Journal, 11/26/2: “Saddam will never be forced to give up his mass destruction arsenal--which every Western intelligence service believes he has--because Mr. Blix will never uncover what is hidden.”

Pete DuPont, Wall Street Journal, 10/16/2: “In taking on Saddam Hussein, there is a broader agenda, something of more lasting significance than eliminating the immediate threat posed by his weapons of mass destruction.”

Richard Spertzel, Wall Street Journal, 9/24/02: “Should Iraq be allowed to retain its biological weapons (and other weapons of mass destruction programs) it will remain a menace not only to its neighbors, but to the world at large because of the concomitant instability it would create in the region.”

Benjamin Netanyahu, Wall Street Journal, 9/20/2: “This is a dictator who is rapidly expanding his arsenal of biological and chemical weapons....”

Pres. Bush, 9/7/2 Press Conference: “I would remind you that when the inspectors first went into Iraq and were denied—finally denied—access, a report [from the International Atomic energy Commission] came out...that they were six months away from developing a weapon ... I don’t know what more evidence we need.” [The head of the IAEC later claimed Bush was lying, issuing a statement that “there’s never been a report like that issued from this agency.”]

PM Blair, September 2002: “I am in no doubt that the threat is serious and current, that he [Saddam] has made progress on WMD, and that he has to be stopped. ... Some of these weapons are deployable within 45 minutes of an order to use them.” [The line about being able to deploy them in 45 minutes was widely repeated throughout the mainstream press].

Ken Adelman, Wall Street Journal, 8/28/02: Saddam has “scores of scientific laboratories and myriad manufacturing plants cranking out weapons of mass destruction.”

[John Cole]

Quote of the Year: "They couldn't have destroyed them, if they didn't have them."

Well, maybe, perhaps.

[MMMMMM]

...that Iraq destroyed or disassembled WMD on the eve of war. An Iraqi scientist said it first.

[David Steele]

I am surprised you are still talking about this since the
discovery of the smoking gun, Saddam's bedroom art collection.

D.

[Parmenides]

The Bush thugs don't care. They've admitted that the intelligence used to persuade Congres to approve military action in Novemmber last year was faked and came straight from British intelligence.

The Bush fascists believe that the more they repeat their lies, the more people will believe them. They may have a point. If they put one in jail for denying that the emperor wears no clothes, then most people will say his clothes look fabulous.

[Chris Alger]

An "unnamed" Iraqi scientist to whom journalists were given no access and allowed to "report" about him only on the condition that the story would be vetted by the Pentagon --- which refused to confirm the report in any event -- in order to ensure it had the proper absence of skepticism.

Excerpts from Judith Miller's report in the NYT, 4/21/03:

The US military "declined to identify him, saying they feared he might be subject to reprisals."

Reprisals from whom? So we can conquer the country but can't protect this guy? And the Pentagon can't risk revealing his name but can risk disclosing his existence merely to publicize an unverified, non-evidenced preliminary account that barely supports the White House? What kind of fool would believe any of this?

"But they said that they considered him credible and that the material unearthed over the last three days at sites to which he led them had proved to be precursors for a toxic agent that is banned by chemical weapons treaties."

Note that the first sentence of the article refers to "chemical weapons," but down in the fifth paragraph is not even a toxic agent but an unidentified "precursor."

According to unnamed source for the article, the buried "precursor" is "the most important discovery to date in the hunt for illegal weapons."

Ready to launch in 45 minutes?

"Under the terms of her accreditation to report on the activities of MET Alpha, this reporter was not permitted to interview the scientist or visit his home. Nor was she permitted to write about the discovery of the scientist for three days, and the copy was then submitted for a check by military officials. ... Military spokesmen at the Pentagon and at Central Command headquarters in Doha, Qatar, said they could not confirm that an Iraqi chemical weapons scientist was providing American forces with new information."

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/21/in...&tntemail1

This is not normal reporting, even in wartime, and especially not for the New York Times.

And Judith Miller? She's the WMD person at the Times, apparently the only one, and the one who "broke" the story about the steel "centrifuge" rods, also based on unnamed Pentagon sources, and also bogus. In other words, she's the willing conduit for Pentagon disinformation into the "legitimate" press.

[MMMMMM]

I've got an idea for you, Chris.

Instead of arguing everyuthing from Saddam's side, why don't you use your legal mind and techniques to look at it the other way around.

Start by presuming Saddam is guilty. Start by presuming he had weapons of mass destruction--a most reasonable assumption, given his history and actions over the past 15 years or so. Then try to find any reasons he would have destroyed them ALL without being forced to. Try to find reasons he would have acted 100% out of character.

Iraq was a vast bureaucracy. They recorded everything from tortured prisoners to military and weapons matters. If they had truly and unilaterally destroyed all the WMD (some of which UNMOVIC was not given permission nor access to witness), they surely would have recorded that too. Now why couldn't they produce any of those records?

In our legal system, innocent until proven guilty is a good standard. In international military matters and matters of security, especially when dealing with tyrants with horrid histories such as Safddam Hussein's, the opposite is true. Guilty until proven innocent is actually the far more rational approach in this instance.

I suggest if you flip your thinking around a bit and start looking for inconsistencies in the other direction, you'll find a wheelbarrow full.

[andyfox]

"“Ludicrous,” for example, was how Ann Coulter’s described any argument that “Saddam's weapons of mass destruction are no threat to America.”"

Bill Maher's description of Ann Coulter seems about right: "You just make sh*t up," he said to her.

The media gets most of its "news," and always has, from government sources. The myth of media leftism is exactly that, a myth.

[andyfox]

I'm more concerned when my government is not open and honest with me than when Saddam Hussein is not. I expect him to lie and cheat; I don't expect my government to do so.

[andyfox]

Is saw that "art." Had I known about it before, I would have supported the invasion.