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'Just in time' WMD
TownHall ^ | October 10, 2003 | Charles Krauthammer

Posted on 10/10/2003 6:16:30 AM PDT by yoe

WASHINGTON -- Rolf Ekeus, living proof that not all Swedish arms inspectors are fools, may have been right.

Ekeus headed the U.N. inspection team that from 1991 to 1997 uncovered not just tons of chemical and biological weapons in Iraq, but a massive secret nuclear weapons program as well. This, after the other Swede, Hans Blix, then director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, had given Saddam a perfectly clean bill of health on being non-nuclear. Indeed, Iraq was sitting on the IAEA Board of Governors.

Ekeus theorizes that Saddam decided years ago that keeping mustard gas and other poisons in barrels was unstable and corrosive, and also hard to conceal. Therefore, rather than store large stocks of weapons of mass destruction, he would adapt the program to retain an infrastructure (laboratories, equipment, trained scientists, detailed plans) that could ``break out'' and ramp up production when needed. The model is Japanese ``just in time'' manufacturing, where you save on inventory by making and delivering stuff in immediate response to orders. Except that Saddam's business was toxins, not Toyotas.

The interim report of chief U.S. weapons inspector David Kay seems to support the Ekeus hypothesis. He found infrastructure, but as yet no finished product.

As yet, mind you. ``We are not yet at the point where we can say definitively either that such weapons stocks do not exist or that they existed before the war and our only task is to find where they have gone,'' Kay testified last week.

This is fact, not fudging. How do we know? Because Saddam's practice was to store his chemical weapons unmarked amid his conventional munitions, and we have just begun to understand the staggering scale of Saddam's stocks of conventional munitions. Saddam left behind 130 known ammunition caches, many of which are more than twice the size of Manhattan. Imagine looking through ``600,000 tons of artillery shells, rockets, aviation bombs and other ordnance'' -- rows and rows stretched over an area the size of even one Manhattan -- looking for a few barrels of unmarked chemical weapons.

And there are 130 of these depots. Kay's team has up to now inspected only 10. The question of whether Saddam actually retained finished product is still open.

But the question of whether Saddam was still in the WMD business is no longer open. ``We have discovered dozens of WMD-related program activities,'' Kay testified, ``and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in late 2002'' -- concealed, that is, from the hapless Hans Blix.

Kay's list is chilling. It includes a secret network of labs and safe houses within the Mukhabarat, the Iraqi intelligence service; bioorganisms kept in scientists' homes, including a vial of live botulinum; and my favorite, ``new research on BW-applicable agents, Brucella and Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever, and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin'' -- all ``not declared to the U.N.''

I have been to medical school, and I have never heard of Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever. I don't know one doctor in 100 who has. It is an extremely rare disease, and you can be sure that Saddam was not seeking a cure.

He was not after the Nobel in physiology (Yasser Arafat having already won the peace prize). He was looking for a way to turn these agents into killers. The fact that he was not stockpiling is relevant only to the question of why some prewar intelligence was wrong about Iraq's WMD program. But it is not relevant to the question of whether a war to pre-empt his development of WMDs was justified.

The fact that Saddam may have decided to go from building up stocks to maintaining clandestine production facilities (may have: remember, Kay still has 120 depots to go through)

does not mean that he got out of the WMD business. Otherwise, by that logic, one would have to say that until the very moment at which the plutonium from its 8,000 processed fuel rods are wedded to waiting nuclear devices, North Korea does not have a nuclear program.

Saddam was simply making his WMD program more efficient and concealable. His intent and capacity were unchanged.

Moreover, for those who care about the U.N. (I do not, but many administration critics have a weakness for legal niceties), Resolution 1441, unanimously passed by the Security Council, ordered Saddam to make full accounting of his WMD program and to cooperate with inspectors, and warned that there would be no more tolerance for concealment or obstruction. Kay's finding of ``dozens of WMD-related program activities,'' concealed from U.N. inspectors, constitutes an irrefutable material breach of 1441 -- and open-and-shut vindication of the U.S. decision to disarm Saddam by force. Q.E.D.


TOPICS: Editorial; Extended News; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: charleskrauthammer; chilling; inspectionteam; wmd
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1 posted on 10/10/2003 6:16:30 AM PDT by yoe
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To: Ragtime Cowgirl
ping

You probably already have this one! :)
2 posted on 10/10/2003 6:20:25 AM PDT by Pan_Yans Wife ("Life isn't fair. It's fairer than death, is all.")
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To: All

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3 posted on 10/10/2003 6:20:32 AM PDT by Support Free Republic (Your support keeps Free Republic going strong!)
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To: yoe
ping
4 posted on 10/10/2003 6:24:09 AM PDT by GluteusMax
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To: yoe
great article - and so markedly different from anything you might see mainstream...
5 posted on 10/10/2003 6:38:02 AM PDT by Hegemony Cricket (And always let our conscience be your guide.)
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To: yoe
bttt
6 posted on 10/10/2003 6:44:58 AM PDT by TigersEye (Regime change in the courts. - Impeach activist judges!)
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To: yoe
Finally.

At last, someone gets it.

A dead soldier killed by a WMD made this morning is just as dead as one killed by a WMD stored on a shelf for 2 years.

Just-in-time WMDs....proclaimed on Free Republic for months.

Here's what I've got so far.

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About WMDs List

Terrorist devices, chemical weapons found in Iraq

Suspicious Iraqi Drums - UPDATE

Suspected bioweapons labs found

Searching for Weapons of Mass Destruction, Larry Elder

Iraq's Weapons and the Road to War

Iraqi Scientist Links Weapons to 'Dual Use' Facilities, White House Says

IRAQ: U.S. Analysts Link Iraq Labs to Germ Arms

Illicit Arms Kept Till Eve of War, an Iraqi Scientist Is Said to Assert

Herald Sun: Soldiers find Iraqi chemical 'dump'

***Germany's leading role in arming Iraq

*Germany intercepts (30 tonnes) chemicals (may be used to make nerve gas) for N Korea

New DOD team to hunt for intel as well as weapons

***Chemical Weapons Programs

Capture of chemical expert could help U.S. weapons hunt in Iraq (Emad Husayn Abdulla al-Ani)

Belgium Finds Nerve Gas Ingredient in Letters

Banned missile programme found in Iraq

Administration to Announce 'Rollback' Strategy for WMD

Suspicious Iraqi Drums Preliminary Testing Suggests Chemical Agents; More Testing Needed

2 trailers deemed biological arms labs

***Table 2: Characteristics of Chemical Warfare Agents: Commercial Uses of Chemicals or Precursor Chemicals

***CENTAF IRAQ'S CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS PROGRAM

THE ROAD ENDS FOR WMD ON WHEELS

Coalition forces enter possible WMD site

Initial tests suggest WMD "cocktail" found in Iraq (**Of special note--post #58, by Archy)

U.S. finds new evidence of Iraqi WMD (NBC training school, antidotes)

Chem-weapons lab believed discovered

BRITS' CHILLING CHEM-NUKE FIND

CAPTURED FOES FOUND WITH CHEM-WAR GEAR

EUPHRATES 'POISONED'

MSNBC - Cyanide & Mustard Agents Found in Euphrates River

Is the Activity at Al Qaim Related to Nuclear Efforts?

U.S. probing nuclear facility (Al Tuwaitha Follow Up)

Team Inspects suspected plutonium site (update by the journalist who broke original story, NEW info)

Underground Nuclear Facility Found in Iraq

Marines hold Iraqi nuclear site built by French

U.S. Marines Guard Secret Iraqi City with Very Hot Nuclear Radiation Levels

IRAQ: WMD source 'was senior Iraqi officer'

If Bush, Powell & Rumsfeld "Lied" on WMD, So Did the UN, EU & Clinton (RUSH LIMBAUGH)

Rumsfeld Denies 'False Pretext' for Iraq War

Who screwed up?

An absence of evidence proves nothing

Powell Defends Information He Used to Justify Iraq War

Iraq Resumes WMD Activities, New York Times Reports [Carnegie - Jan. 22, 2001]

Iraq Rebuilt Weapons Factories, Officials Say

U.S. says more radioactive material than expected found at Iraqi nuclear site

Fate of Al-Tuwaitha nuclear material unclear

Iraq Failing to Disarm: Nuclear Weapons

***October 1998:Senate Democrats Signed Letter Urging Clinton To Attack Saddam Over WMDs

U.S. Discovers Weapons of Mass Destruction Lab.(see para 8; scrubbed caustics)

Weapons of Mass Destruction ( or Distorsion or Deception? You decide...)

Iraq's bioweapons program: detailed info on mobile labs from pre-war intel.

As conspiracies go, this is a doozy

Michael D. Evans: Where are WMDs? Hidden in Syria

U.S.: Banned arms evidence in Iraq

Same Crystallograph Technique Engineers Narcotic Overdose Fix, Chemico-Weapon Detoxification

Bush, Rumsfeld Confident Iraq Had Weapons of Mass Destruction

U.S. Weapons Adviser Confident Of Finding Iraqi Arms'

Iraq mission was founded on truth

Saddam Hussein Regime ordered chemical attack, investigator says

Laughably, Iraqi Trailers Said to (Inefficiently) Make Hydrogen via BIOLOGICAL PROCESSES, Not Biological Arms

7 posted on 10/10/2003 6:47:10 AM PDT by xzins
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To: yoe
Krauthammer is one of the most intelligent politico-writers of our day. I don't always agree with him, but he's always persuasive.

Here, he hits a home run. Too bad this will never be put in the "mainstream" press.

8 posted on 10/10/2003 6:53:08 AM PDT by Recovering_Democrat (I'm so glad to no longer be associated with the Party of Dependence on Government!)
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To: Recovering_Democrat
This article is in today's Washington Post.
9 posted on 10/10/2003 7:04:34 AM PDT by carton253 (All I need to know about Islam I learned on 9/11/2001)
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To: yoe
This is the one paragaph that the media completely ingores when reporting on Kay's report. If this is correct, than Saddam DID have prohibited biological materials in his possession and the precursors to produce more. It's amazing that some just can't grasp the thought that once the inspectors would've left, Saddam would've been back to his old tricks. And as Bush has said, we couldn't wait "until" Saddam was an imminent threat:

"Kay's list is chilling. It includes a secret network of labs and safe houses within the Mukhabarat, the Iraqi intelligence service; bioorganisms kept in scientists' homes, including a vial of live botulinum; and my favorite, ``new research on BW-applicable agents, Brucella and Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever, and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin´´ -- all ``not declared to the U.N."

10 posted on 10/10/2003 7:31:38 AM PDT by cwb
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To: Hegemony Cricket
I plan to write a letter to the editor with some of this in it.
11 posted on 10/10/2003 8:17:08 AM PDT by GraniteStateConservative ("We happy because when we switch on the TV you never see Saddam Hussein. That's a big happy.")
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To: yoe
Interesting and thought-provoking. Good find.
12 posted on 10/10/2003 8:18:57 AM PDT by rwfromkansas ("Men stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up as if nothing had happened." Churchill)
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To: yoe
I still think Saddam, being no dummy, set GW up. Several month before the US threatened attack, he set up a secret die-hard group to prepare to dismantle hide/export the WMD, only if we attcked. He knew this would consternate everyone. When he saw we were actually coming in, he set the team to work. I bet these are the same die-hards running sround now taking pot-shots at us.
13 posted on 10/10/2003 8:56:13 AM PDT by Rennes Templar
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To: yoe; Pan_Yans Wife; MJY1288; Calpernia; Grampa Dave; anniegetyourgun; Ernest_at_the_Beach; ...
Thank you for the post, yoe!

No, PYW, I didn't. Thank you so much for this ping. (^:

Mr. Krauthammer is brilliant. The article opens with a bang, ends with a bang - and the middle's packed w/ 'loud' facts.

Rolf Ekeus, living proof that not all Swedish arms inspectors are fools, may have been right.

Ekeus headed the U.N. inspection team that from 1991 to 1997 uncovered not just tons of chemical and biological weapons in Iraq, but a massive secret nuclear weapons program as well. This, after the other Swede, Hans Blix, then director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, had given Saddam a perfectly clean bill of health on being non-nuclear. Indeed, Iraq was sitting on the IAEA Board of Governors.

Hans, Hans, Hans...

The article to share with the misinformed re. WMDs and the Kay report.

 Thanks, Tonkin!

If you want on or off my Pro-Coalition ping list, please Freepmail me. Warning: it is a high volume ping list on good days. (Most days are good days).

14 posted on 10/10/2003 11:14:04 AM PDT by Ragtime Cowgirl ("There are terrorists in Iraq, yet there is no dictator to protect them." ~ VP Cheney, 10/10)
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To: hchutch; Coop; Angelus Errare
Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever.

He was trying to turn this into a weapon.......wow!

15 posted on 10/10/2003 11:21:47 AM PDT by Dog
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To: yoe
I've been putting exerpts like this in posts ever since Dr. Kay put out his report. There were so many violations of 1441 we could have had a dozen wars.

The United States, Brittain and their allies were TOTALLY justified in going to war. The UN should also be quoting from Dr. Kays findings in agreement with them. It would make the world a safer place AND justify other countries aiding a rapid solution to stability in the middle east.

But gee.. that might get President Bush elected again, and we just couldn't have that much POWER IN ONE COUNTRY NOW COULD WE???
16 posted on 10/10/2003 11:23:00 AM PDT by Vets_Husband_and_Wife (Our troops get it! We Thank God they do!! Remember ALWAYS 9-11)
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To: Dog Gone; Miss Marple
Noah's Ark~~~Biological Weapons -- Congo-Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever
17 posted on 10/10/2003 11:26:44 AM PDT by Dog
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To: Ragtime Cowgirl
I love his last paragraph! My exact sentiments regarding the UN.
18 posted on 10/10/2003 11:28:48 AM PDT by onyx
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To: yoe
If only the American people had the patience to follow this story. All they seem to have patience for is the 5-second soundbite, mainly of Democrats lying "No evidence!"
19 posted on 10/10/2003 11:37:08 AM PDT by My2Cents (Well...there you go again.)
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To: Dog
I was surprised to see this column printed in the Houston Chronicle this morning. The evidence regarding these programs is overwhelming.
20 posted on 10/10/2003 11:41:24 AM PDT by Dog Gone
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