The Case For War Is Blown Apart

Independent UK ^ | 05-29-03

[Brian S]

By Ben Russell and Andy McSmith in Kuwait City

29 May 2003

Tony Blair stood accused last night of misleading Parliament and the British people over Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, and his claims that the threat posed by Iraq justified war.

Robin Cook, the former foreign secretary, seized on a "breathtaking" statement by the US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, that Iraq's weapons may have been destroyed before the war, and anger boiled over among MPs who said the admission undermined the legal and political justification for war.

Mr Blair insisted yesterday he had "absolutely no doubt at all about the existence of weapons of mass destruction".

But Mr Cook said the Prime Minister's claims that Saddam could deploy chemical or biological weapons within 45 minutes were patently false. He added that Mr Rumsfeld's statement "blows an enormous gaping hole in the case for war made on both sides of the Atlantic" and called for MPs to hold an investigation.

Meanwhile, Labour rebels threatened to report Mr Blair to the Speaker of the Commons for the cardinal sin of misleading Parliament - and force him to answer emergency questions in the House.

Mr Rumsfeld ignited the row in a speech in New York, declaring: "It is ... possible that they [Iraq] decided that they would destroy them prior to a conflict and I don't know the answer."

Speaking in the Commons before the crucial vote on war, Mr Blair told MPs that it was "palpably absurd" to claim that Saddam had destroyed weapons including 10,000 litres of anthrax, up to 6,500 chemical munitions; at least 80 tons of mustard gas, sarin, botulinum toxin and "a host of other biological poisons".

But Mr Cook said yesterday: "We were told Saddam had weapons ready for use within 45 minutes. It's now 45 days since the war has finished and we have still not found anything.

"It is plain he did not have that capacity to threaten us, possibly did not have the capacity to threaten even his neighbours, and that is profoundly important. We were, after all, told that those who opposed the resolution that would provide the basis for military action were in the wrong.

"Perhaps we should now admit they were in the right."

Speaking as he flew into Kuwait before a morale-boosting visit to British troops in Iraq today, Mr Blair said: "Rather than speculating, let's just wait until we get the full report back from our people who are interviewing the Iraqi scientists.

"We have already found two trailers that both our and the American security services believe were used for the manufacture of chemical and biological weapons."

He added: "Our priorities in Iraq are less to do with finding weapons of mass destruction, though that is obviously what a team is charged with doing, and they will do it, and more to do with humanitarian and political reconstruction."

Peter Kilfoyle, the anti-war rebel and former Labour defence minister, said he was prepared to report Mr Blair to the Speaker of the Commons for misleading Parliament. Mr Kilfoyle, whose Commons motion calling on Mr Blair to publish the evidence backing up his claims about Saddam's arsenal has been signed by 72 MPs, warned: "This will not go away. The Government ought to publish whatever evidence they have for the claims they made."

Paul Keetch, the Liberal Democrat defence spokesman, said: "No weapons means no threat. Without WMD, the case for war falls apart. It would seem either the intelligence was wrong and we should not rely on it, or, the politicians overplayed the threat. Even British troops who I met in Iraq recently were sceptical about the threat posed by WMD. Their lives were put at risk in order to eliminate this threat - we owe it to our troops to find out if that threat was real."

But Bernard Jenkin, the shadow Defence Secretary, said: "I think it is too early to rush to any conclusions at this stage; we must wait and see what the outcome actually is of these investigations."

Ministers have pointed to finds of chemical protection suits and suspected mobile biological weapons laboratories as evidence of Iraq's chemical and biological capability. But they have also played down the importance of finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Earlier this month, Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, provoked a storm of protest after claiming weapons finds were "not crucially important".

The Government has quietly watered down its claims, now arguing only that the Iraqi leader had weapons at some time before the war broke out.

Tony Benn, the former Labour minister, told LBC Radio: "I believe the Prime Minister lied to us and lied to us and lied to us. The whole war was built upon falsehood and I think the long-term damage will be to democracy in Britain. If you can't believe what you are told by ministers, the whole democratic process is put at risk. You can't be allowed to get away with telling lies for political purposes."

Alan Simpson, Labour MP for Nottingham South, said MPs "supported war based on a lie". He said: "If it's right Iraq destroyed the weapons prior to the war, then it means Iraq complied with the United Nations resolution 1441."

The former Labour minister Glenda Jackson added: "If the creators of this war are now saying weapons of mass destruction were destroyed before the war began, then all the government ministers who stood on the floor in the House of Commons adamantly speaking of the immediate threat are standing on shaky ground."

The build-up to war: What they said

Intelligence leaves no doubt that Iraq continues to possess and conceal lethal weapons

George Bush, Us President 18 March, 2003

We are asked to accept Saddam decided to destroy those weapons. I say that such a claim is palpably absurd

Tony Blair, Prime Minister 18 March, 2003

Saddam's removal is necessary to eradicate the threat from his weapons of mass destruction

Jack Straw, Foreign Secretary 2 April, 2003

Before people crow about the absence of weapons of mass destruction, I suggest they wait a bit

Tony Blair 28 April, 2003

It is possible Iraqi leaders decided they would destroy them prior to the conflict

Donald Rumsfeld, US Defence Secretary 28 May, 2003

[Dr. Frank fan]

a very compelling case must be made that military action resulting in the overthrow of a government is the only means of dealing with the issue.

It was, to our Congress, which approved War Powers for President Bush in the event.

The fact that this government felt a need to resort to such PR tactics to sell the public on the war

Not necessarily to "sell the [American] public" on the war - remember, the American public doesn't care all that much about the UN's imprimateur. Rather, it seems on the surface that they probably went the UN route to try to diffuse and dodge some of the inevitable World Criticism (tm), as well as to protect Tony Blair's ass.

Let us note that although the latter was accomplished (Blair survived) they were not actually very successful in doing the former (The World had a hissy-fit :-) This makes me think that another motive for going dancing with the UN was because doing so functioned as a kind of misdirection trickery against Saddam. Suppose Bush had resolved by, say, early 2002 that he was going to oust Saddam no matter what, the only question being how to do it at minimal cost. Then, it might have made sense to go through the pretense of UN votes, UN "debates", etc., etc., etc., both to give our military enough time to prepare and to trick Saddam into thinking he actually had a chance in hell of staving off the whole thing (by schmoozing France etc), even perhaps almost lulling him into complacency, at least in the sense that whatever attention he was paying to the UN debate was probably time better spent preparing Baghdad's defense.

This is merely my theory, nothing more. But I do want to say in the interest of fairness to some of your points that, as you can see, if you were to say something like: "the US used the UN as a pretext for war", I would absolutely agree with you. And, I have no objection to it. ;-)

tells me that they couldn't make a compelling case on the facts alone.

Uh, again, the only "case" which really mattered was whatever "case" was made to our Congress prior to the War Powers vote. After that, all else was PR and salesmanship (and perhaps, if my above theory is correct, disinformation and psychological warfare).

[the methodology by which you know that Iraq Is Not The Biggest Threat] Those anthrax letters were mailed right here in the U.S., and the anthrax could just as easily have been produced here as anywhere else in the world. And the Tokyo sarin gas attack that was mentioned in another post (and prompted my response) involved a chemical agent that could have been produced anywhere, too.

We seem to have mixed signals. Again, "Please pass along the elaborate methodology and mathematical equations by which you have calculated this Threatness-Level thing which you seem to think you have precisely measured for Iraq and all other nations."

[So, your claimed reason for pretending to believe that Iraq had no WMDs ("the US wouldn't have put troops there if they did") is demolished.] That's really my point.

Ok then, uh, we... uh, agree, that your earlier point was demolished. Swell! ;-)

If the U.S. could issue this kind of ultimatum to Iraq to keep them from using WMDs on our troops,

Uh, note: we didn't know for a fact that this ultimatum would prevent them from using WMDs. You speak as if by merely issuing these threats we can magically reduce the probability of WMD attacks to 0.0. However secure we may have felt in this, it was still a calculated gamble. One that most American citizens wouldn't necessarily feel comfortable making on an everyday basis for the rest of our lives.

then the U.S. could have issued the same ultimatum to allow unfettered access to U.S. weapons inspectors without putting all those soldiers and ships over there.

The soldiers are the U.S. weapons inspectors.

If Tom Clancy wrote a novel with a story line like this, he'd be out of business tomorrow.

I don't know what that means. I've never read a Clancy novel.

[Protagoras]

You may embrace state sponsored terrorism.

LOL, nice try Mr Strawman.

I believe it should be crushed. Thanks.

You seem to believe that the US should attack any country we don't like. Megalomania, kinda like Hillary.

[dirtboy]

There is a difference between having thousands of U.S. troops stationed along the DMZ in Korea for 50 years, and sending thousands of troops into a foreign country like Iraq specifically to deal with the threat of WMDs.

No, that's not what you said. Here was your initial statement:

Anyone who truly believes that the United States government would have placed thousands of U.S. military personnal in close proximity to Iraq

You can't even keep your own positions straight on this thread.

[Dead Dog]

It seems that you've bought into the same propaganda pitch as the Europeans. ie.

"The US has pre-emptively attacked a sovereign nation in violation of 'international law' that had no links to terrorism"

Now you're probably going to tell us that it was for the oil.

[Alberta's Child]

Uh, dude, we had that little event called 9/11 that changed our entire view about containment versus pre-emptive action.

That didn't keep the U.S. from going back to the U.N. after 9/11, did it?

And that didn't prompt us to invade Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Pakistan, Algeria, etc. and all the other nations whose citizens carried out those 9/11 attacks, did it?

[Stone Mountain]

Heck, even if Saddam never had usable WMD, but still for some nutty reason insisted on keeping ineffectual programs hidden from inspectors at the risk of his regime, that still wouldn't effect the legal basis for the war: his utter failure to comply with obligations he accepted to preserve his regime 12 years ago.

Perhaps, but that isn't the reason that we were given for going to war. If that was the reason, then we as the American people should have been trusted with that instead of being deceived about the reasons we were going to war. We were told that this war was about WMDs - WMDs that were immediately deployable by Iraq and that were causing a danger to other countries such as Israel.

[SunStar]

I bet there is absolutely nothing that would convince you that they the weapons had been destroyed rather than being "hidden", is there?

Sure, evidence supporting that conclusion would sway me. However, the lack of evidence is striking. I would tend to believe that the weapons are hidden rather than destroyed simply because of the sheer difficulty level in destroying such chemical and biological weapons.

By the way, what is up with this thread? Is it now time to completely second-guess our Republican President? Or are you and others on this thread simply making conversation?

[Dr. Frank fan]

No, I'm looking for the U.S. do do something effective that addresses a real problem. There's no excuse for the fact that throoughout the last ten years the U.S. was far more effective in maintaining a no-fly zone over Iraq than at protecting the citizens of this country from foreign assailants.

Agreed! I would rather have had us take out Saddam in '91 when we had the chance, than to go through the subsequent 12 years of slow warfare that we did. I did not like the "sanctions regime / no fly zone / starve him out of power" approach. It didn't work with Castro and it didn't work with Saddam.

That's why I applauded when we changed our approach and escalated the war to a shooting war, and ousted Saddam militarily once and for all. If you, like me, disliked the former approach ("sanctions/no fly zone"), then why do you not welcome the latter (preemptive military strike)?

[Alberta's Child]

Ah, if this buttresses your original assertion, that being that countries with weapons of mass destruction prevent US troops from being deployed in close proximity to said nation . . .

No -- it supports my original assertion that countries with WMDs prevent U.S. troops from being deployed in close proximity to said nation with hostile intent.

Notice the difference between the way the U.S. has reacted to a "perceived" threat in Iraq and a legitimate one in North Korea.

[Stone Mountain]

No. The irony here is that most have the sense to understand the real strategic reasons behind the overthrow of Hussein, while those who don't call us "naive."

When you say the REAL strategic reasons for the overthrow of Hussein, you are implying that the reasons our leaders gave to us for going to war aren't real?

[SunStar]

Well, if we weren't able to do that, what was the basis for our claiming that Iraq had all these WMDs? If we weren't capable of tracking Iraq's weapons, then how is it that we were able to claim that they had them?

Because they had them after the Gulf War, agreed to disarm vis-a-vis the UN inspectors, and, to our knowledge, never did.

Were you comfortable with the cease fire being flagrantly ignored for 12 years? Were you comfortable with this previously unfinished business being simply fumbled from President to President? Were you comfortable with Saddam Hussein remaining in power even after 9/11?

[dirtboy]

That didn't keep the U.S. from going back to the U.N. after 9/11, did it?

Yeah, we went there and said either YOU act or WE will. They didn't act, so we did. Your point is?

And that didn't prompt us to invade Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Pakistan, Algeria, etc. and all the other nations whose citizens carried out those 9/11 attacks, did it?

Funny how you are playing the hawk now that it suits your debating point of the moment. Iraq was a wake-up call to other nations still sponsoring terror that we weren't just uttering idle chatter about taking out terror-sponsoring nations. Now we see what countries clean up their act and which ones need additional attitude adjustments.

[dirtboy]

Again, they can not prove they destroyed them

Yes, they can. If that is a pre-condition of the cease-fire, that the weapons be destroyed and the destruction verified, they then videotape and document the destruction process.

You just don't pour that kind of crap down the toilet, dude. It takes elaborate processes to eliminate chemical and bio weapons.

[rdb3]

I remember a time when anyone who thumbed his nose at the United Nations was seen as a champion of some of the principles that conservatives hold dear.

This statement is a complete non-sequitur. This thread isn't about who would hold who how. Saddam signed an agreement. He didn't live up to it.

It's as simple as that.

The bombing starts in five minutes.

[SunStar]

The US and UK were certainly not acting on behalf of the UN in this latest war.

The UN Security Council voted 15-0 on Res. 1441. We acted on behalf of this and 15 previous resolutions, including 687 from 1991.

And you think we should go into other Arab countries because we THINK Iraq may have hidden their WMD there? You're killing me.

Nope. I'm just stating that the best possibility at this point (without any further evidence) is that Saddam moved the weapons to a "friendly" neighbor, to make us look foolish.

Such actions on the part of Saddam do not decrease our rationale for war. The weapons are certainly still unaccounted for.

I feel like I'm explaining this to a bunch of liberal Bush haters right now. Were you here discussing this issue during the past 18 months or so????

[Alberta's Child]

It was, to our Congress, which approved War Powers for President Bush in the event . . . Uh, again, the only "case" which really mattered was whatever "case" was made to our Congress prior to the War Powers vote. After that, all else was PR and salesmanship (and perhaps, if my above theory is correct, disinformation and psychological warfare).

That simply means that any legitimate complaints about the rationale behind the war are addressed to Congress as well as to the President. You'd have a hard time convincing me that Congress' "approval" made Clinton's foray in Kosovo morally right.

I don't know what that means. I've never read a Clancy novel.

Clancy's novels are built around intricate, fascinating military-related story lines with lots of intrigue and misleading angles. If he wrote one using the sequence of events that have unfolded in Iraq over the last 12 years, his publisher would have printed about 50 copies and put them right on the $2 discount rack.

[onedoug]

You seem to believe that the US should attack any country we don't like."

Iran, Syria and North Korea all have long histories involving the murder of Americans and others, both inside their borders and abroad.

Diplomacy may indeed work, if it's backed by force, and a United States finally willing to see such moral stuggle through rather than abandon it once the political elite becomes intimidated out of it by the international left. Unfortunately, that latter aspect marked most of the second half of 20th century US history.