Bush WMD Debacle Prompted by Salman Pak Blunder

NewsMax.Com ^ | May 31, 2003 | Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

Saturday, May 31, 2003 11:45 a.m. EDT

Bush WMD Debacle Prompted by Salman Pak Blunder

President Bush shouldn't wait a second longer to introduce Iraqi defectors Sabah Khodada and Abu Zeinab to the American people, and fire whoever it was in his administration who advised him to ignore the defectors' eyewitness accounts tying the Baghdad terrorist training camp Salman Pak to the 9/11 attacks.

Instead of relying on evidence that would have dispelled all doubts about making war on Iraq, the as-yet-unidentified presidential adviser counseled Bush to hinge his Iraq war rationale on the threat of weapons of mass destruction, evidence that - so far, at least - has yet to materialize.

The blunder has given Democrats their most potent ammunition yet in their bid to unseat Bush in the 2004 presidential election.

In an embarrassing series of statements on Friday, Bush challenged reports contending that Iraqi WMDs were still MIA - only to be contradicted by U.S. experts on the ground.

"They're wrong, we found 'em," he told reporters in Poland. "We found weapons of mass destruction. We'll find more weapons," the president added.

But in a discrepancy that's sure to become the focus of the Sunday talk shows, U.S. intelligence and military officials contradicted Bush's claims.

"We were simply wrong" in expecting to find that Iraqi army and Republican Guard units had terror weapons, Lt. Gen. James Conway, commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, told the New York Daily News.

"It's not for lack of trying," Conway explained. "We've been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti border and Baghdad, but [the Iraqi WMDs are] simply not there."

A lengthy report released by the CIA this week said that two suspected mobile biological weapons labs contained no traces of the actual toxins that would prove they were WMD facilities.

Adding to Bush's political humiliation, the British press quotes Secretary of State Colin Powell as fearing even before the war that tenuous WMD evidence "could explode in [our] faces."

Even before the news of the contradictory accounts surfaced, Democrats had seized on the fruitless WMD search as evidence that Bush had lied to lead America into war.

In one particularly odious comparison, former Clinton adviser Paul Begala charged that Bush's Iraq "lies" were far worse than his old boss's perjury about Monica Lewinsky.

"Which is worse: lying about a girlfriend or lying about a war?" Begala complained on Thursday. "There aren't 169 [U.S. troops] dead over Monica Lewinsky," the Democrat strategist added sarcastically.

While European and American intelligence services remain convinced that Saddam Hussein had substantial quantities of WMDs before Bush targeted the country as the lead member of the Axis of Evil in his 2002 State of the Union address, delays caused by United Nation's footdragging gave the Iraqi dictator plenty of time to hide or destroy his weapons cache.

Now, after U.S. forces have spent six weeks scouring Iraq in a fruitless search for Saddam's terror weapons, the decision to focus on WMDs has turned into a political nightmare for the White House.

Still, boneheaded administration strategists have refused to acknowledge evidence that might still spare the president the his worst political debacle to date - the accounts of two Iraqi defectors who say that, for years before the 9/11 attacks, they helped train al-Qaeda operatives to hijack U.S. aircraft using the tactics employed by Osama bin Laden's kamikazi crews.

In an account that would have dispelled any doubts about whether the U.S. was justified in making war on Iraq regardless of whether Saddam possessed WMDs, former Salman Pak instructor Sabah Khodada told the London Observer that Muslim fundamentalist recruits from throughout the Arab world were taught to hijack planes using small knives.

"The method used on 11 September perfectly coincides with the training I saw at the camp," Khodada revealed. "When I saw the twin towers attack, the first thought that came into my head was 'this has been done by graduates of Salman Pak.'"

Khodada's account is corroborated by a man identified by the Observer only by his code name, Abu Zeinab, a colonel in Saddam's Mukhabarat intelligence service who also helped train for 9/11-style operations.

"One of the highlights of the six-month curriculum was training to hijack aircraft using only knives or bare hands," he told the Observer. "Like the 11 September hijackers, the students worked in groups of four or five."

The accounts of the two Salman Pak instructors are further corroborated by former U.N. weapons inspector Charles Duelfer - a one-time vice chairman of UNSCOM - who said he personally witnessed some of the 9/11 training aboard the parked fuselage of a Boeing 707.

Duelfer told the British paper that the Iraqis even acknowledged that hijacking dress rehearsals were taking place at Salman Pak - but they insisted it was counterterrorism training.

"Of course we automatically took out the word 'counter,'" Duelfer explained.

The accounts of Khodada, Zeinab and Duelfer are backed by two other eyewitnesses - a third defector and a second U.N. inspector - all of whom testified earlier this year in a lawsuit brought by 9/11 victim families against Iraq.

In a May 7 decision that should have been seized upon by the Bush administration - but wasn't - Manhattan U.S. District Judge Harold Baer ruled that the Salman Pak evidence was persuasive enough to tie Baghdad to the 9/11 attacks.

It's probably too late for the Bush administration to abandon its WMD argument for going to war in Iraq. And indeed, Saddam's banned weapons may eventually be found.

In the meantime, the president needs to quickly focus attention on far more compelling evidence that every American would agree justified going to war - Iraq's role in the worst attack ever on U.S. soil.

And just as quickly, Bush should fire the officials whose advice to ignore the Salman Pak connection could conceivably cost him his re-election next year.

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

The WMD's were there. What you don't realize is that the amount of anthrax, botulinum, and VX toxin that was produced was only enough to fill several dozen barrels (oil barrels, that is) full of product.

Anthrax and botulinum are over-played. We ain't talking about the Soviet Weapon-grade stuff in the Aral Sea (God save us if that ever leaks), we're talking about the Third-World variety. The "also-rans" of Bio-Warfare, at best. OTOH, Even a couple of barrels of VX could be pretty scary in the wrong place at the wrong time (if they actually existed), but it ain't exactly the "thousands of tons" formerly advertised.

In fact, we haven't even found traces.

What was a mystery to me was why the entire Salman Pak episode and the Atta-Al Ani meetings were deliberately downplayed. I strongly suspect that the State Department, fixated as it was on the need to return to the U.N., deliberately went down that road.... Ruddy is right about the need to look into Salman Pak.

Perzackly. To my way of thinking, it's "the Case of the Air-tight Argument that got left by the way-side".

It's a waste of Political Capital, in other words (not to mention a good, honest argument which should be made).

[section9]

With respect, they're not overplayed to any victims. A small amount of anthrax was enough to cause a minor panic in October of 2001.

It's the VX that scares me, too. The VX was produced. Saddam did have them. The thing is, that's the kind of stuff that would be someone's meal ticket out of Iraq if the going got tough.

Remember when Limbaugh was saying that there's more going on behind the scenes than we know? Well, here's my take. A lot of the convenient leaks that have tarred the Administration have come from the CIA. When the CIA starts leaking, you know that there is a beaureaucratic blame war going on and a smokescreen that is being put up. I think that there is a cover up going on, one of monumental proportions.

I strongly suspect that when the histories are written, we will find that the Ba'athists were able to sell all kinds of nasty stuff to buy their way out of a jam, and out of the country, to all sorts of nasty people. People who might have been representing Al Qaeda, for instance. And I think that it happened right under George Tenet's nose. This just occured to me tonight that people at the CIA might be panicking, and that's why you have leaks to different reporters.

Bush kept Tenet on after 9-11. Bush has trusted Tenet. He's the only holdover from the Clinton regime. If we find that Tenet has screwed the pooch, which I think is increasingly likely, then his job is in serious jeopardy. Tenet knows that Rudi Giuliani is out there and could be tapped for his job.

Powell is not really the problem, here. Tenet is; of that I'm convinced. Tenet doesn't want to go down as the Keystone Kops Director who couldn't connect the dots before 9-11 and lost the WMD to a bunch of jumped up fanatic Islamic rug merchants. But that's what's happening.

And why do I suspect this? I believe that despite the Left press' going on about there being no Al Qaeda connection to Saddam, in point of fact, there was. It was most secret. I believe that 9-11 was Al Qaeda's brainchild, but that Saddam's Mukhabarat might have helped out in the here and there. But no one had enough hard evidence that every member of Wolfowitz' famous beauracracy could agree on. And no one will base an entire military campaign on the claims of two defectors. Ruddy is smoking some good hash if he thinks that we could have used the word of two guys to send over an expeditionary force. However, if Salman Pak is even half-true, that means that AQ has been running in and out of Baghdad for years. Obtaining WMD has always been Bin Laden's highest priority. Iraq may have been the best place for him to look after all.

And if Tenet believes that AQ might have obtained some anthrax, or better yet, VX, would you want to be the Director that has to go to George W. Bush and admit that he f&%ked up royally, and that Bin Laden has VX?

Consider that, folks.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

[MHGinTN]

You left out the Mukhabarat trips to Afghanistan, with training data for chem weapons, a direct regime connection to al Qaeda.

[section9]

Thanks for citing that. Of course, the Independent, the Guardian, and the New York Times, will refer to it as a tissue of lies, but there you have it.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

With respect, they're not overplayed to any victims. A small amount of anthrax was enough to cause a minor panic in October of 2001.

With respect, I am not discounting the suffering of the victims. I am simply drawing a distinction between the refined Weaponized Anthrax developed by First World nations during the Cold War, and the "also-ran" Anthrax currently accessible to Third-World nations.

Let me put it this way:

• Great Britain tested its prime-grade Weaponized Anthrax on Guinard island -- rendering the island uninhabitable to all Mammalian life for at least 50 years.
• The USSR, in a 1988 attempt to bury evidence of its bio-warfare programs, deposited hundreds of barrels of prime-grade Weaponized Anthrax on Vozrozhdeniye Island in the Aral Sea. The anthrax was deposited in sealed barrels full of concentrated bleach, without any oxygen, sunlight or chemical sustenance whatsoever -- and following a test in 1998 (ten years later), were found to have retained over 90% viability and virulence: sufficient to kill all Mammalian life on Earth at least 1,000 times over (all nuclear weapon arsenals combined are relative pikers).

By way of comparison, the "Third World"-style deployment of Anthrax in October 2001 killed, what, five? FIVE? As in, you could count it on one hand?

I am not trying to discount the sufferings of the victims, but as I said before -- the current "Third World" Anthrax capability (including that of Iraq) is a comparative Also-Ran. Public "panics" aside, it's hardly even worth worrying about.

It's the VX that scares me, too. The VX was produced. Saddam did have them. The thing is, that's the kind of stuff that would be someone's meal ticket out of Iraq if the going got tough.

VX is nasty. The Nick Cage movie "The Rock" had it right. One warhead could kill 80,000 -- in the right place.

That said, we really have no evidence whatsoever that Saddam ever produced so much as one gram of this horror. Maybe it was the "meal ticket" out of Iraq for certain Ba'ath generals, but it woulda have to have been -- considering we have never found any traces, or even any VX-production capabilities, anywhere in Iraq.

I strongly suspect that when the histories are written, we will find that the Ba'athists were able to sell all kinds of nasty stuff to buy their way out of a jam, and out of the country, to all sorts of nasty people. People who might have been representing Al Qaeda, for instance. And I think that it happened right under George Tenet's nose. This just occured to me tonight that people at the CIA might be panicking, and that's why you have leaks to different reporters.... would you want to be the Director that has to go to George W. Bush and admit that he f&%ked up royally, and that Bin Laden has VX?

You know there is no evidence whatsoever for your contention. There is no evidence whatsoever that Iraq even had VX-production capabilities.

In which case, if it ever existed, it is loooong gone. Gone even before this War, to who-knows-where...

And in which case... I certainly hope you're wrong.

Best, OP

[Miss Marple]

I guess we have a difference in interpretation here, which is fruitless to keep arguing. I read the comment as one in which WMD was the one issue on which everyone agreed was a firm reason and was backed by hard proof.

You are reading it as an issue that people chose because it was "juicy," which I assume you men it was chosen because it was politically an easy sell. There is no way to debate this, because it is a matter of opinion, based on one's reading of the character of the people involved.

My question now goes to section9's statement about the CIA. It seems odd to me that you suddenly tell him he has no proof for his thesis about George Tenet. Why is his theory, based on a few odd leaks and snippets of information, any less grounded in fact than yours? We are speaking of supposition and theory here, since none of us has the minutes of NSC meetings.

[Wrigley]

I think what we're seeing from many of the "bushbots" is a sense of fear. Fear that they know the points you are making are correct and that Bush has left his flank open. Its almost like the mind boggleing support Clinton got from the feminists after the Lewinsky affair. He can do know wrong and everyone is out to get him. But just like Clinton left the door open, it looks like Bush is doing the same thing.

I have given Bush the benefit of the doubt with the whole WMD arguement for going to war in Iraq. He made a strong case that these things were there and those presented a clear and present danger to us. I admit that none of those WMD being found has shaken my "faith" in Bush. I wont't go as far as saying the emperor has no clothes. Yet.

[Wrigley]

You are correct.

[George W. Bush]

But given a 15 second attention span on the part of the Mass Electorate, it appears to be working. And, in your words... this is Politics we are talking about.

The ideals of the Founders really shouldn't have to be subordinated to a realpolitick, in either foreign policy or in domestic politics. We have been, since the internationalism that arose following WW II, operating outside traditional constitutional boundaries. Bush didn't really blaze any new trails there.

By contrast, the Democrats are also inverting the normative methodology of Negative Argumentation, by fixating upon one argument (the Weapons of Mass Disappearance) and attempting to make it "stick". This ends up being a "Catch-22" in Bush's favor. Here's why: The longer that Bush takes to find the (apparently non-existent) "WMD"s, the better is the Negative Case that the WMDs never existed in the first place. But, if the Mass Electorate is only paying attention for 15 seconds at a time... The longer that Bush takes, the less anyone cares. The Mass Electorate moves on to the next Item-Du-Jour, such as the latest upturn in the Stock Market (which is certainly a God-send in Bush's favor)

Careful. You're getting as cynical as I am. But not yet in danger of entering the Bush-is-the-Constitution camp. If nothing else, Klinton did demonstrate the distractibility of the American public with obfuxcation, foreign adventure and endless stalling. Rove could hardly have failed to notice. Perhaps this demonstration is one of the worst and most lasting legacies of the Clinton regime.

The problem arises when we have to get practical about our policy goals. And the fact that the public doesn't care about or want the constitution in any meaningful way.

We Strict-Constitutionalists used to be able to get away with "Just War" theological criticisms of Clinton's wars, because at least we were criticizing Clinton. Nowadays, consideration of "Just War" theological criticisms -- even those in Bush's favor, though we suggest a different rationale than those preferred by Kristol and Wolfowitz -- are immediately suspect, if not heretical, because they depart from the Party Line.

Well, there are those other kind of constitutionalists, you know, the ones who decide if a president acted constitutionally on the basis of whether they voted for him or against him. Strangely enough, FR, a conservative constitutional forum, seems to have become the home of this strange kind of constitutionalist. Some real packet-switched irony in there somewhere.

[section9]

Was VX not cited by the original UN inspection teams? By Iraqi defectors, as well?

All I am saying is this: I hope to hell you are right. However, I strongly believe you to be wrong. Saddam had billions to spend. Some of the stuff got away, including perhaps, VX. It will, in all likelihood, be used against us in future.

Finally, the anthrax that killed five people in 2001 was finely machined stuff, designed to become airborne and stay airborne. If you accept, as some find questionable, that the anthrax spores were created and processed by a lone individual, then you must concede that Saddam Hussein, with an entire government apparatus at his disposal, could do so much more.

Concluding that Saddam had nothing at all would be the height of folly, especially in strategic terms. "I do not see it, therefore it never existed." Of course, the Left cares not about facts or logic. They only care about power. I guess that's what angers me about this entire enterprise that the Left is on right now. They had no intention, none, of lifting a finger to do anything about Saddam. A Republican President did. Saddam fell because of the actions of George W. Bush. That's what angers them the most. That's the entire reason this erzatz scandal is occuring. They tried this same song and a dance with Enron. It didn't work then, either.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

[Pan_Yans Wife]

Perhaps no one is talking about it, because they do not want to play up the fact that Iraq was complicit in September 11th.

[BenR2]

If you don't think they are promoting their Deck of Weasels, big time, just think about it the next time you get a pop-up add about them.

/////////////
I didn't say they weren't promoting the "Deck." You said that was "about all" they seemed interested in promoting, or something like that.

To my way of thinking, that is a distortion -- even if you memorize their articles.

If you were simply engaging in hyperbole, however, then point (begrudgingly) taken.

[CCWoody]

Here, Bob, for your reading.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Lets see do we trust the Brain Trust at NewsMax or George?

Sorry, no contest Bush wins hands down.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Surely you jest. "...we will not know for sure if the war was really about the best interest of the world or the best interest of a small group of people." You and the RATS who have their noses in a snit because we haven't found enough proof to satisfy you but most people in America understand that this was not the only reason Bush whacked Saddam. He early on laid out the course of pursuit of terrorists and their supporters and warned that the Axis of Evil would not be allowed to give chem/bio weapons to terrorist groups.

You really believe the world's best interest would mean leaving Saddam in power? How could that possibly be?

Actually your supposed alternatives are not even alternatives since serving the world's best interest may also be in the best interest of a small group.

[justshutupandtakeit]

You have a very strange view of kowtowing if you think W was kowtowing to the UN. He essentially told the UN to shove it, Saddam was going down whether it LIKED it or NOT. I hope no one ever kowtows to me like that.

Why do you think all the RATS and Euros were screaming and whining? Where did you see the UN giving "permission for US troops to invade Iraq"?

Phoney conservatives saying they won't vote for W in 2004 probably never did in the first place. They are the strength of the lameo parties: Liberts, Constitutional, Buchananites, part of the perpetually p.o.ed which weaken Conservatives every chance they get.

[AdamSelene235]

You have a very strange view of kowtowing if you think W was kowtowing to the UN. He essentially told the UN to shove it, Saddam was going down whether it LIKED it or NOT. I hope no one ever kowtows to me like that.

Ron Paul recently introduced legislation to remove the US from the UN.

Since Pubbies control Congress and the Presidency, we'll be out in no time. Right?? Right??

[js1138]

I always assumed the possibility we would have trouble finding WMDs. I must have posted my fears a dozen times in the weeks leading up to the war. I never had any doubts about the need for the war, and neither do most Americans.

There is an intuitive understanding that a mass murderer, once out from under the thumb of U.N. inspections, will spend the rest of his days making trouble for the U.S. It takes no great brainpower to see that Saddam would have the means and the motive to support terrorism against Israel directly, and against the U.S. indirectly. Fortunately, 60% of Americans agree with me.

Anyway, genocide was the reason for bombing Serbia and we haven't in five years found nearly the number of mass graves we have found in Iraq in five weeks.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Ron Paul hasn't made a responsible statement that I am aware of in years. I don't take him seriously about anything except perhaps medicine.

[AdamSelene235]

There's a chance to exit the UN on the table. Will or will not the Republicans take it?