Mark Goldberg notes that the Senate Intelligence Committee seems to have forgotten all about Hans Blix and the IAEA too when discussing pre-war intelligence. After all, wouldn't want to pay too much attention to the guys who got this right! That, after all, might lead to taking the IAEA's assessments of Iranian nuclear activity seriously.
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Hans Who?
08 Jun 2008 03:12 pm
Comments (27)
The whole discussion of prewar intelligence ignores two preeminent realities. First, the course for war was already decided, it did not depend on the intelligence one way or another, and the "intelligence" was fixed to justify war, as the Downing Street Memo said and showed. In short, it was a stupid (nonintelligent) war from the get-go.
Second is the point you make: the true intelligence was the on-the-ground intelligence of the UN inspectors. The whole discussion of U.S. intelligence failures is unreal. It was the war that short-circuited the inspections. If the inspections had been allowed to proceed, we would have found out in a few months what we now know--that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction. And then we wouldn't have had this destructive war.
The line that everyone knew Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and therefore it was OK to go to war, is a crock of shit. All we had to do was wait to find out the truth.
Any investigation of prewar intelligence failures that does not look at the principal intelligence failure--the decision to go to war, which made it impossible to prove or disprove contentions about WMD in Iraq through UN inspections--is part of a continuing falure of intelligence. It parochially says that the problem is about what the United States did or didn't do--the problem is what the United Nations wasn't allowed to do, and that's the intelligence failure in a nutshell.
And what also seems not to be mentioned is that Hussein never gave full access to the locations of weapons that didn't fucking exist
Fixed.
And what also seems not to be mentioned is that Hussein never gave full access
Untrue, of course, but why start being honest now?
Of course Hussein _did_ give full access in 2002/2003: we'd scared the piss out of him.
We gave the inspectors some 30 tips: they checked out every one, and every one came up dry.
So we invaded.
The discussion is not really on the ground Matt would like. It's not so much whether Iraq had WMD; it's whether:
-- Hussein had been willing to use them in the past (yes)
-- Hussein had been willing to attack his neighbors in the past
-- Whether Hussein could, after a period of being left alone, reconstitute his programs
Unless you're utterly dense (Hi Matt!), the answer to (3) is obvious.
That, after all, might lead to taking the IAEA's assessments of Iranian nuclear activity seriously.
Like this assessment?:
On the topic of safeguards, the Director General addressed the status of implementation in several states. Regarding verification of Iran´s nuclear programme, Dr. ElBaradei said, "it is regrettable that we have not made the progress we had hoped for with respect to the one remaining major issue, namely clarification of the cluster of allegations and Secretariat questions relevant to possible military dimensions to Iran´s nuclear programme. The so-called alleged [weaponization] studies remain a matter of serious concern."
So, everything's cool except we're not sure if they're making weapons or not. Awesome.
yes, good point, that is exactly what's going on here.
"And what also seems not to be mentioned is that Hussein never gave full access"
It was George Bush who didn't give the inspectors full access. And it was George Bush who removed the inspectors so that they wouldn't be killed when he started bombing (before their work was done). While Don Rumsfeld was saying "we know Saddam has WMD and we know where they are," the inspectors were saying "well, why don't you tell us where you think they are, and we'll go look." The fact that the administration refused to even tell the inspectors where to look made me think they were simply making up their intelligence and didn't want the inspectors to know that. Why nobody called the administration on that issue at the time remains a mystery.
So, everything's cool except we're not sure if they're making weapons or not.
No, we're not sure if they were making weapons or not.
Also, "right" -- kudos for importing your tone of sneering idiocy intact from fall, 2002. It's a good thing you people haven't let the past five years of worldwide humiliation have any impact on your thought processes.
As everyone has noted the Iraqis were giving full access. There is not need for anyone to be in any doubt about this as Ritter has written it up thoroughly in Iraq Confidential, and Sy Hersh has explained exactly what was going on with Intelligence in Chain of Command.
ElBaradei called it exactly right; Blix was pathetic IMHO. Ritter of course was calling it loudly and clearly.
The administration is being totally disingenuous about the run-up to the Iraq War. The WMDs they were clearly scaring everyone about were nukes, hence Rice's comments about "a mushroom cloud" and the bogus hunt for yellowcake in Africa.
And the only WMD attack the US has faced to-date has been the horrible anthrax incidents in 2001, which appear to have come from US stockpiles and no one has been able to pin on any foreign terrorists to date.
Blix was pathetic IMHO. - Chris Dornan
FWIW, Blix always reminded me of Richard Bucket from Keeping up Appearances
Hans Blix is just disgruntled because he was ignored and later proven right. You can't say trust a thing he says.
Robertson bullshits as follows: "Whether Hussein could, after a period of being left alone, reconstitute his programs"
Once again, moron, these are the facts. Once UNSCOM finished its inspections, a monitoring program would have been put into place - subject to the same threats that provided UNSCOM with access in the first place - that would have utterly prevented Saddam from ever having a nuclear weapons program.
In short, Saddam would NEVER HAVE BEEN LEFT ALONE.
Moron.
Re Chris Dornan
Yessir, Noted pedophile Scot Ritter, a very reliable source.
"Dr. ElBaradei said, "it is regrettable that we have not made the progress we had hoped for with respect to the one remaining major issue, namely clarification of the cluster of allegations and Secretariat questions relevant to possible military dimensions to Iran´s nuclear programme. The so-called alleged [weaponization] studies remain a matter of serious concern."
One - these "weaponization studies" (note: "alleged") are based entirely on a fake laptop provided to the West by the M.E.K. terrorist group who basically admitted they got it from the Mossad.
Iran Nuke Laptop Data Came from Terror Group
http://www.antiwar.com/porter/?articleid=12443
"The German source said he did not know whether the documents were authentic or not. However, CIA analysts, and European and IAEA officials who were given access to the laptop documents in 2005 were very skeptical about their authenticity.The Guardian's Julian Borger last February quoted an IAEA official as saying there is "doubt over the provenance of the computer."
A senior European diplomat who had examined the documents was quoted by the New York Times in November 2005 as saying, "I can fabricate that data. It looks beautiful, but is open to doubt."
Scott Ritter, the former US military intelligence officer who was chief United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998, noted in an interview that the CIA has the capability [to] test the authenticity of laptop documents through forensic tests that would reveal when different versions of different documents were created.
The fact that the agency could not rule out the possibility of fabrication, according to Ritter, indicates that it had either chosen not to do such tests or that the tests had revealed fraud.
Despite its having been credited with the Natanz intelligence coup in 2002, the overall record of the MEK on the Iranian nuclear program has been very poor. The CIA continued to submit intelligence from the Iranian group about alleged Iranian nuclear weapons-related work to the IAEA over the next five years, without identifying the source.
But that intelligence turned out to be unreliable. A senior IAEA official told the Los Angeles Times in February 2007 that, since 2002, "pretty much all the intelligence that has come to us has proved to be wrong."
Former State Department deputy intelligence director for the Near East and South Asia Wayne White doubts that the MEK has actually had the contacts within the Iranian bureaucracy and scientific community necessary to come up with intelligence such as Natanz and the laptop documents. "I find it very hard to believe that supporters of the MEK haven't been thoroughly rooted out of the Iranian bureaucracy," says White. "I think they are without key sources in the Iranian government."
In her February 2006 report on the laptop documents, the Post's Linzer said CIA analysts had originally speculated that a "third country, such as Israel, had fabricated the evidence." They eventually "discounted that theory," she wrote, without explaining why.
Since 2002, new information has emerged indicating that the MEK did not obtain the 2002 data on Natanz itself but received it from the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. Yossi Melman and Meier Javadanfar, who co-authored a book on the Iranian nuclear program last year, write that they were told by "very senior Israeli Intelligence officials" in late 2006 that Israeli intelligence had known about Natanz for a full year before the Iranian group's press conference. They explained that they had chosen not to reveal it to the public "because of safety concerns for the sources that provided the information."
Shahriar Ahy, an adviser to monarchist leader Reza Pahlavi, told journalist Connie Bruck that the detailed information on Natanz had not come from MEK but from "a friendly government, and it had come to more than one opposition group, not only the mujahideen."
Bruck wrote in the New Yorker on Mar. 16, 2006 that when he was asked if the "friendly government" was Israel, Ahy smiled and said, "The friendly government did not want to be the source of it, publicly. If the friendly government gives it to the US publicly, then it would be received differently. Better to come from an opposition group."
Israel has maintained a relationship with the MEK since the late 1990s, according to Bruck, including assistance to the organization. in beaming broadcasts by the NCRI from Paris into Iran. An Israeli diplomat confirmed that Israel had found the MEK "useful," Bruck reported, but the official declined to elaborate."
Second, the IAEA considers most of these "alleged" studies to be non-credible, but are pressing Iran about them because the IAEA itself has been pressured by the US to do so.
Operation Merlin II
http://www.antiwar.com/prather/?articleid=12481
So, what was in ElBaradei's report last month on Iran's compliance with its Safeguards Agreement?"The Agency has been able to continue to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran.
"Iran has provided the Agency with access to declared nuclear material and has provided the required nuclear material accountancy reports in connection with declared nuclear material and activities."
Okay, how about the resolution of issues addressed in the "work plan" of last August?
"Iran has also responded to questions and provided clarifications and amplifications on the issues raised in the context of the work plan, with the exception of the alleged studies.
"The one major remaining issue relevant to the nature of Iran's nuclear program is the alleged studies on the "green salt" project, high explosives testing and the missile re-entry vehicle."
High explosives testing? You mean the Risen-CIA-Mossad "fire-set" stuff? The Operation Merlin stuff? Or is there an Operation Merlin II?
Well, it doesn't really matter, because ElBaradei goes on to remind the Board of their charter, their mandate.
"However, it should be noted that the Agency has not detected the use of nuclear material in connection with the alleged studies, nor does it have credible information in this regard."
Iran stopped the one portion of their nuclear program. The delivery program (missiles), and the enrichment program (the hard part), are still very active.
I'm not for invading Iran, but let's be honest about what they are doing.
Owen: Wrong.
"Let's be honest about what they are doing."
Okay.
Their missile program is not necessarily a "nuke delivery" system any more than any other military missile weapon is. First, those missiles are far from being able to carry a nuclear warhead, regardless of their range. Second, there is no strategic value in having a lot of missiles with no nuclear warheads to put in them. If you think Iran will be able to mass produce nuclear warheads any time in the next twenty years, you're deluded. That's a whole different level of technology than merely enriching uranium.
And the enrichment program, once again, has absolutely nothing to do with nuclear weapons. It is a requirement for Iran's nuclear energy program. Had the US - and even Russia - not tried to suppress the Iranian nuclear energy program, Iran probably would have been more open to the notion of allowing enrichment to occur in Russia or otherwise outside of Iranian territory. In fact, Iran supports the notion of an enrichment plant operated by an international consortium for the benefit of newly nuclear nations, as long as one of those plants operates on Iranian soil.
But the US sanctions program and pressure on Germany and Russia to stall assistance to the Iranian nuclear energy program killed that idea. And given the US hostility towards Iran, Iran would be insane to agree to the idea of having some other country control its access to the nuclear fuel cycle - a cycle which, again, is acknowledged to be required for an energy program which Iran is acknowledged to need for its economic development.
As I've said before, there is ZERO evidence that Iran has or ever had a nuclear weapons program. What is far more likely is that Iran has a nuclear weapons DATABASE program, in conjunction with its nuclear energy program. In other words, Iran's military probably has prudently - like every other nation with the economic and industrial capacity who is threatened by another nuclear armed nation - attempted to acquire all the designs and plans necessary for constructing a nuclear weapon, as well as the enrichment technology necessary to produce the nuclear material, in anticipation of a day when the national leadership might give the order to do so.
This is NOT the same thing at all as having an actual program to develop and deploy nuclear weapons.
I repeat, practically every significant nation in the world, including countries like Brazil and Japan, has such a capability. Nobody doubts that Japan could begin producing nuclear weapons at any time it chooses to do so. It has the technology, the economy, the infrastructure, and the nuclear fuel cycle. Nobody gets upset over this sort of "nuclear weapons capability" because it is expected and rational for any nation facing a nuclear armed hostile nation (as Japan does with China) to do.
Almost everything Iran has been accused of fits that model. The senior leadership of Iran has explicitly said that they reject the idea of Iran ever having nuclear weapons (unlike North Korea who did the opposite). The IAEA has explicitly stated that they have detected absolutely NO diversion of nuclear material to any weapons program. The ONLY "evidence" of such a "program" is of dubious provenance that would also fit the model I described just as well.
And for this, Bush, Cheney, Clinton, Obama and Matt would all justify the US to go to war with Iran to stop "proliferation"?
Really? Is that the "meme that Matt must not speak"? That Iran is not allowed to do exactly what Japan and other countries have done? While India, Pakistan, and Israel get a free pass for not even being members of the NPT and actually threatening to use nukes in the case of Israel?
Help me out here, Matt.
"The delivery program (missiles), and the enrichment program (the hard part), are still very active."
Iran's missiles without a nuclear warhead can basically reach Saudi Arabia and that's about it. Putting a nuclear warhead on a missile cuts down on its range, so basically Iran could just about only nuke themselves with their missiles. Also, the degree of enrichment that Iran is pursuing right now is only useful for nuclear power. Uranium and plutonium have to be enriched a lot more to be weapons-grade than they need to be just for power. Yes, Iran is probably trying to get to the Japan level where they can make nukes if they deem it necessary for security, but this will be to make a security guarantee to ensure no one invades them.
"The discussion is not really on the ground Matt would like. It's not so much whether Iraq had WMD; it's whether:
-- Hussein had been willing to use them in the past (yes)
-- Hussein had been willing to attack his neighbors in the past
-- Whether Hussein could, after a period of being left alone, reconstitute his programs
Unless you're utterly dense (Hi Matt!), the answer to (3) is obvious.
Posted by James Robertson | June 8, 2008 4:31 PM"
George W. Bush has a record of drunk driving. Drunk driving can kill people. Now, however, Bush claims to be sober. However, we must ask if:
- Bush has been willing to drive drunk in the past without caring about others' safety (yes)
- Bush has been willing to let his drunkeness damage other people's property (yes, such as when he would pee on his parents' friends cars at parties)
- If, after enough time goes by, Bush will revert back to being an alcoholic, especially if he is near alcohol.
The only clear path is to preventively lock Bush up so he never drinks and drives again.
Before we invaded President Bush rejected a February 24, 2003 proposal by France, Germany, and Russia, that would have provided reinforced inspections with timelines. Bush said we couldn't afford to wait. On March 18, 2003, President Bush certified that "further diplomatic and other peaceful means" wouldn't protect the US from the Iraqi threat, but he didn't try the Europeans' alternative.
After we invaded he changed his tune and said we have to give the Iraq Survey Group time to complete inspections.
It's not so much whether Iraq had WMD
"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction." -- Vice President Cheney, August 26, 2002
Rumsfeld: Attack Can't Wait, August 20, 2002.
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told reporters at the Pentagon yesterday that the search for weapons and weapons programs is far from over in Iraq, and that its lack of results so far does not mean that the Bush administration has given up hope.
"They have a lot of work left to do. They have a lot of people left to interrogate. They have a lot of leads still to worry through. They have a number of suspect sites that they've not yet visited -- [that number is] quite low at this stage, but there are still a few. And I don't think the administration is having trouble coming to conclusions. I think that -- what I've said, I believe: We'll all know, we'll all know exactly what that group finds," Rumsfeld said.
People also forget the reason we went in in March was to make sure our troops weren't marching on Baghdad in the summer heat. That's not exactly letting the inspectors do their jobs.
"Resolution 687, like subsequent Resolutions, requires cooperation from Iraq, but such was often withheld. Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance, even today, of the disarmament demanded which it needs to carry out to...live in peace." Hans Blix, in his final report to the Security Council, Jan. 27, 2003.
Popular fiction notwithstanding, by going through the UN process as he did Bush gave Saddam the ability to pull the plug on the invasion almost up to the last minute, much to the chagrin of many who felt that after over a decade of unresolved war and a comprehensively violated ceasefire agreement, regime change was in order.
It was the clear obligation of Iraq to disarm "pro-actively and transparently". It did not, any more than it accounted for the thousands of "disappeared" Kuwaitis, or met any of the other ceasefire terms. Blix made this clear, and when France responded that there were no circumstances under which it would approve actual "serious consequences" as agreed in the unanimous Resolution 1441, we were presented with a choice between bad and worse: keep our word and invade, or back down and leave the Persian Gulf vulnerable to the depredations of Saddam Hussein and his successors for the foreseeable future. We did The Right Thing, if poorly.
How stupid can you be powell? To claim "We did The Right Thing" even though it is blindingly obvious that no weapons existed; even though Bush claimed he would return to the UN before assaulting the people of Iraq, powell's fiction aside, that never happened; even though you cannot demonstrate that the likely result of doing the right thing (not invading) would have caused more suffering than doing the wrong thing (the unproved assault on the innocent Iraqi people).
SLC: "Yessir, Noted pedophile Scot Ritter, a very reliable source."
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Ritter was arrested in June, 2001,but never charged, in police stings in which officers posed as under-aged girls to arrange meetings. Ritter claimed the anonymous leaks of sealed court records of these arrests, which gave rise to these news stories, were a politically motivated effort to distract attention from his revelations about Iraq.
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there's zero proof that scott ritter ever engaged in pedophilia.
of course, what makes him a "reliable source"
is that he was right about iraq's wmds. let's not lose sight of that.
Where was "Circus Freak" when the sanctions he/it presumably supported killed perhaps a million of the most innocent Iraqis? Or when hundreds of thousands of others were being killed by Ba'athist oppression while we watched?
The invasion was justified, in fact required, because Iraq comprehensively violated the ceasefire agreement from 1991. Whether they had wmd stockpiles, or were just waiting for us to fold before reinstating them, was legally and practically irrelevant. Except for the propaganda effect taken hook, line, and sinker by the gullible and ignorant.
Comments closed June 22, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
And what also seems not to be mentioned is that Hussein never gave full access, hence our inspections couldn't be proven and we had to rely on Husseins good will.
Posted by Ody | June 8, 2008 3:54 PM