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.

[CyberAnt]

Excuse me ... but your ridicule and rudeness are only surpassed by your crass prouncements.

You have no idea what I believe in - and yet you and your other buddy have wasted major amounts of bandwidth accusing me of just about everything.

I plan to ignore you - and your idiotic and insulting statements.

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

If you are depending on the Vanity Fair quote in coming to your conclusion, you need to go to the DoD web site and read the transcript of the complete interview, whicih the DoD always records. This quote is a Maureen Dowdish type bit of journalism; there have been statements left out. 80 posted on 06/14/2003 2:37 PM PDT by Miss Marple

Let's put it this way: Wolfowitz explained that while there were numerous rationales being weighed for the War, the only one which all of Bush's bureaucratic advisors could agree on was WMD's. Do I have that about right??

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

Excuse me ... but your ridicule and rudeness are only surpassed by your crass prouncements. You have no idea what I believe in - and yet you and your other buddy have wasted major amounts of bandwidth accusing me of just about everything. I plan to ignore you - and your idiotic and insulting statements.

Of course I have no idea what you believe in. I asked you whether or not Saddam running a Terrorist Training Camp at Salman Pak was a Good thing or a Bad thing, and you couldn't even answer me that.

Gad-zooks.

[Miss Marple]

Here is the EXACT quote, which apparently you haven't bothered to look up:

.The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy, we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason.

What this tells me is that for "reasons that have to do with the government bureaucracy" (like perhaps the State department) they chose an issue that everyone agreed upon...WMD. That means that SOME people didn't agree about Salman Pak, apparently, despite what Newsmax says. It also tells me that they chose WMD because they were certain of the correctness.

It does NOT say that the advisors ignored a sure-win issue for one that they thought was iffy.

[sydbas]

If you really mean this, you are hardly familiar with Newsmax.com.

Nice try. Actually I am very familiar with NewsMax as I read their postings just about everyday. 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.

[George W. Bush]

At the same time, I think that the very fact that the Dems have any traction at all on this issue is a result of not putting Salman Pak on Ari Fleischer's front burner, or at least one of the front burners alongside WMDs.

I think the people who worry over the WMD issue would hate Bush no matter what. Bush really can't hope for much more support than he already has. And relying solely upon the terrorist theme as the justification for war is not as useful or flexible as the changing reasons provided (Saddam is a mass murderer, Saddam has WMD, Saddam is violating U.N. resolutions, Saddam is violating the ceasefire of 1991, Saddam aids and supports terrorism, Saddam is militarily hostile to our craft in the no-fly zone, etc., etc.) I'm sure I missed a few. But having many excuses makes it harder for them to pin you down, a trick an old debating hound like you should appreciate. Well, if vocal slipperiness is to be admired. But this is politics we're talking about.

No matter what, Bush has few votes to gain and many to lose. His present strategy is working well for him, less so for Blair.

Of course, your raising of the issues of constitutionality and application of Just War to the recent situation is entirely appropriate. Not so long ago, there would have been more constitutionalists here at the forum that would have responded to your points more thoughtfully. As it is, you barely got scorched on this thread. Times change. So does FR.

[George W. Bush]

Rather than address the Article, "Deb" decided to excoriate "FR Bush-haters creeping out from under their rocks..." etc.

Uh-oh, looks like you've been Debbed. In some circles, it's considered a badge of honor. Or so I've heard.

[CARepubGal]

AMEN and thank you for the voice of sanity! Bush is squandering his conservative capital on an hourly basis.

[CARepubGal]

Too bad the issue is a nonstarter. WMD's are NOT found anywhere, IF Bush and co had discussed the known instances of horriffic torture, the Salman Pak or any other provable issue then the war would have been more palatable to all but the stoned and stupid Left.

[Miss Marple]

Please go back and re-read the UN speech. He DID discuss the known cases of torture, the connection to terrorists, and the rest. So did Blair.

Your concern about him squandering political capital with the conservatives is misplaced, unless you mean yourself, in which case I would ask you why you are willing to give him less time than the UN inspectors were wanting to have.

[CARepubGal]

That is perilously close to ad homenim. Bush promoted the WMD's to the American public and went to the UN hat in hand to ask permission for US troops to invae Iraq. And there are plenty of folks making alarming statements to the extent that they will ONLY vote for GWB if Hillary! is his opponent. As a Republican that bothers me and concerns me. The only winners at the State and Local levels in the above scenario are the Dems. Not something I want to see again.

And speaking of the UN, Will the US continue to Kowtow to Kofi and his band of scum?

[mikegi]

I think an "ammunition supply point" would be about the last place one would expect to find an Iraqi WMD if there was any such thing. Some of these infernal devices could fit easily in somebody's house.

Apparently, this isn't obvious to everyone. Saddam had years to hide his WMDs. I guess those same people fail to see the significance of the fresh chem warfare suits distributed to the Iraqi army.

I hope we don't find out the hard way that Saddam has hidden WMDs. How hard would it be for his loyalists to wheel out an artillery piece from a hidden site and fire chemical shells into a US Army base in Iraq? Our guys aren't wearing NBC suits anymore.

[Miss Marple]

Ad hominem? The question I am asking is valid; why are you so impatient?

And he did NOT go "hat in hand" to the UN asking for permission to invade. In case you didn't notice, we went in WITHOUT the UN.

Your impatience has been noted. Myself, I think we will evenutually find the WMD, and then the critics will have to find something else to complain about.

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

But having many excuses makes it harder for them to pin you down, a trick an old debating hound like you should appreciate. Well, if vocal slipperiness is to be admired. But this is politics we're talking about.

It's interesting that you should mention that; I was thinking along similar lines.

The funny thing is, the tactics you (correctly) describe represent an inversion of normative debate technique. Traditionally, the Affirmative Case (which is, IMO, the position from which Bush is arguing, as the party who is "advancing the proposition" for War) chooses one hopefully-impregnable argument, and attempts to "narrow the grounds" under contention by pressing that one Affirmative argument through to the end of the debate. Meanwhile, the Negative attempts to "expand the grounds" under contention, by taking a shotgun approach at the Affirmative case from a number of different angles -- Topicality (is the Aff argument legitimate?), Solvency (will it work?), Disadvantages (what are the repercussions?), et cetera. If the Affirmative succeeds in winning the core argument he has advanced thoroughout, he generally wins the debate. If the Negative succeeds, by multiplying arguments against the Affirmative, in "scoring" a point that the Affirmative cannot answer, he generally wins the debate.

Vietnam is a great example. The Affirmative advanced one core argument throughout the debate (Containment of Communism vis-a-vis the "domino" theory), whereas the Negative multiplied arguments against the Affirmative (Topicality -- "are we really defending freedom?"; Solvency -- "Is it working?"; Disadvantages -- "We're killing a lot of innocent people, not to mention US troops") and managed to win the debate.

This is, incidentally, the method by which Political Questions used to be argued in the USA (IMHO) -- with the Mass Electorate taking on the role of the Debate Judge (usually a Debate Professor or former National Debater) and judging the respective arguments on their merits.

As for myself, I would still like to see the Bush Administration make its arguments according to the normative methods of Affirmative Argumentation. There is something intrinsically honest, IMO, about stating your case from the beginning and winning it through to the end (as I believe that Bush could, and should, do with the Salman Pak terrorist training camp). But perhaps, given the modern "15 second attention span" of the Mass Electorate, the Bush Technique makes a degree of sense. The Affirmative "shotgun approach" won't work with a debate judge; he'll realize that the Affirmative isn't winning the Case which was advanced in the first place... but it may well work with a Mass Electorate given an attention span of 15 seconds. Multiply arguments in your favor, and whether they are valid or not... as long as the "debate judge" is only paying attention for 15 seconds at a time, you'll win him over by sheer volume of argumentation.

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)

Personally, I am still of the opinion (as an Old Debater) that Bush should have, from the beginning, made the Affirmative Case that Salman Pak was a dedicated training camp for 9/11-style boxcutter hijackings, and won that case through to the end. The idea of a President making up arguments as he goes to satisfy the Mass Electorate just strikes me as intrinsically less honest from an Affirmative perspective.

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.

No matter what, Bush has few votes to gain and many to lose. His present strategy is working well for him, less so for Blair.

Very correct.

Of course, your raising of the issues of constitutionality and application of Just War to the recent situation is entirely appropriate. Not so long ago, there would have been more constitutionalists here at the forum that would have responded to your points more thoughtfully. As it is, you barely got scorched on this thread. Times change. So does FR.

Thanks for the kind words. 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.

(sigh) As you say -- Times change. So does FR.

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy, we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason. What this tells me is that for "reasons that have to do with the government bureaucracy" (like perhaps the State department) they chose an issue that everyone agreed upon...WMD. That means that SOME people didn't agree about Salman Pak, apparently, despite what Newsmax says. It also tells me that they chose WMD because they were certain of the correctness.

Okay, so... we're back to exactly what I said before:

Wolfowitz explained that while there were numerous rationales being weighed for the War, the only one which all of Bush's bureaucratic advisors could agree on was WMD's. Do I have that about right??

If you're just going to repeat what I say, why not just agree with me?

It does NOT say that the advisors ignored a sure-win issue for one that they thought was iffy.

I never said that. I said that certain advisors obviously preferred the "juicier" rationale of WMD's over Salman Pak, despite the fact that we knew that some of the WMD intel was suspect (I can cite CIA evidence on that matter, if you want).

By contrast, can you cite me one stitch of evidence whatsoever which EVER called the Salman Pak intel into doubt?

ANYTHING. ANYWHERE.

There was never any doubt about Salman Pak. Even the UN Inspectors affirmed the Charge. If you think it was the least bit suspect, cite the evidence.

[Sparta]

BTTT

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

AMEN and thank you for the voice of sanity! Bush is squandering his conservative capital on an hourly basis. 88 posted on 06/14/2003 8:09 PM PDT by CARepubGal

You're too kind, and I agree.

But then again, I probably would. You quote my single-favorite Movie on your home-page, so I'm probably biased.

"Gurney, when the storm hits... set off the atomics. I want an opening through the entire Shield Wall. Stilgar? Do we have wormsign?"

"Usul -- We have wormsign, the likes of which... even God has never seen."

"ATOMICS!!!"

[CARepubGal]

Dune is excellent. Spice Addiction and all. I haven't seen the sequels though. About the conservative capital, the real risk is in the state and local elections. Folks staying home boosts the chances of the Libs getting elected or reelected to the detriment of the region. For the record, I truly loathe the state and local Dims and would be rather irate if the sleazeballs got even more entrenched.

[section9]

Actually, it's not going to hurt Bush at all.

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.

The stuff can be buried; the stuff can be sent to Syria, or, better yet, the stuff is portable enough to be sold on the black market, with reasonable containment protocols.

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.

Powell, that is. The one man Bush can't fire.

Still, Powell was satisfied with the quality of the intelligence even after spending several nights at Langley to look at intelligence.

Remember; the bottom line to the Left's reasoning is: "we haven't found any WMD's, therefore, they didn't exist". One conservative pundit responded by saying, "We haven't found Saddam, therefore he didn't exist."

It's not about being "defensive". It's about being frustrated at watching Chris Ruddy go into a panic about a predictable DNC propaganda offensive. Sometimes, we have good reason around here to hold Newsmax.com in contempt, and slight regard.

Nonetheless, even a broken clock is right twice a day, and Ruddy is right about the need to look into Salman Pak.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

Be Seeing You,

Chris

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

Dune is excellent. Spice Addiction and all. I haven't seen the sequels though.

I haven't watched the "Sequels" either... but the six-hour "Sci-Fi Channel" Dune miniseries was really pretty good. In fact, after watching it, I thought to myself... "wow, that was much more involved and in-depth than the Movie... I just wish they had blatantly-plagiarized the Movie when they were making their miniseries, because the Movie... was just right. It had the right feel, the right essence, the right je ne sais quoi."

About the conservative capital, the real risk is in the state and local elections. Folks staying home boosts the chances of the Libs getting elected or reelected to the detriment of the region. For the record, I truly loathe the state and local Dims and would be rather irate if the sleazeballs got even more entrenched.

I don't really think Bush is in any danger in the 2004 Presidential Election, either.

The disadvantage of this WMD issue, if any, is its potential for "trimming his coattails", politically speaking. The Dems shouldn't even have any traction on this issue. But without the WMDs... they do.