Scotching the Detectives

by Eric Martin

Matt Yglesias, merciful soul that he is, looks past Howard Dean's disappointing statements on the Park51 project and, instead, praises Dean's courage and prescience during the run-up to the war in Iraq.  Quoting Dean:

My question is, why not use our information to help the UN disarm Iraq without war?

Secretary Powell’s recent presentation at the UN showed the extent to which we have Iraq under an audio and visual microscope. Given that, I was impressed not by the vastness of evidence presented by the Secretary, but rather by its sketchiness. He said there would be no smoking gun, and there was none.

At the same time, it seems to me we are in possession of information that would be very helpful to UN inspectors. For example, if we know Iraqi scientists are being detained at an Iraqi guesthouse, why not surround the building and knock on the door?

If we think a facility is being used for biological weapons, why not send the inspectors to check it out?

And if we believe terrorists – especially if they are terrorists linked to al Qaeda – have set up a poison and explosives training center in Northern Iraq, outside Saddam Hussein’s control, why haven’t we verified that information and destroyed that camp?

Yglesias adds:

Faced with the threat of invasion, Saddam Hussein was largely knuckling under to demands for inspections. The UN weapons inspectors were saying they found instances of Iraqi non-compliance with UN resolutions, but could not find evidence of active weapons programs. The US government insisted that it had such evidence. But instead of sharing everything we allegedly had with UNMOVIC and the IAEA so they could check it out, the governments of the US, UK, Spain, Australia, and a few others (Poland!) insisted on leaping ahead into a war.

One quibble with Matt's statement: we actually did share our intelligence with UNMOVIC and the IAEA - it's just that those groups couldn't find anything based on our tips.  From way back in 2003:

Hans Blix told the BBC that his teams followed up US and British leads at suspected sites across Iraq, but found nothing when they got there. [...] 

In a BBC interview...Mr Blix said he had been disappointed with the tip-offs provided by British and US intelligence.

"Only in three of those cases did we find anything at all, and in none of these cases were there any weapons of mass destruction, and that shook me a bit, I must say."

He said UN inspectors had been promised the best information available.

"I thought - my God, if this is the best intelligence they have and we find nothing, what about the rest?"

This of course should have set off multiple alarms, and in a sense it did.  Bush promptly yanked the inspectors and proceeded with the invasion. 

And Bush's gambit was successful in a sense: Many years later, it is "conventional wisdom" that "everybody" thought Saddam had WMD.  That would be "everybody" except the actual inspectors on the ground in Iraq hunting down the hottest leads provided by US and British intel.  Just those folks - but what did they know!

But I suppose that revisionist history is better than another resilient meme: that we went to war because Saddam didn't let inspectors back in.  Mitt Romney echoes this misinformation in a response during one of the GOP Presidential Debates in 2007 to a question asking: knowing what he knows now, was it a mistake to invade Iraq?:

Well, the question is, kind of, a non sequitur, if you will. What I mean by that -- or a null set -- that is that if you're saying let's turn back the clock and Saddam Hussein had open[ed] up his country to IAEA inspectors and they'd come in and they'd found that there were no weapons of mass destruction, had Saddam Hussein therefore not violated United Nations resolutions, we wouldn't be in the conflict we're in. But he didn't do those things, and we knew what we knew at the point we made the decision to get in.

If only!
 

Comments

[Model 62]

The events of February and March 2003 have sort of gone down the memory hole, but speaking as someone who spent the majority of the pre-invasion year supporting the Bush administration’s policy, what happened during those months was fairly shocking.

Once again we're reminded that being right is not that important, career-wise, for policy-makers and pundits.

[Slartibartfast]

He can't be wounded 'cause he's got no heart.

[wj]

My impression at the time was that the "everybody" who thought Saddam had WMDs referred to national intelligence organizations -- explicitly including folks, like the French and the Russians, who were not in agreement with the American apporach. At least, those were the ones I saw cited.

Which, to the extent it was correct, just shows that the fact that "everybody knows" is far from a guarantee of correctness.

[Console]

It's such a crazy period to look back at. It's so surreal.

This article is like a microcosm of the whole thing

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,88767,00.html

Headline: DIA: Intelligence Report Supports WMD Claims

Lede: Senior Defense Department officials intend to declassify and release a defense intelligence report from last September that said agents could not prove Iraq had ongoing chemical or biological weapons facilities, officials told Fox News on Friday.

Sound contradictory? Well fear not, here's a senior official to explain why not having any actual evidence is not a problem.

"We want to get it out because it will show there was plenty of evidence to suggest they had weapons," a senior official told Fox News. "It refers to intelligence evidence that the Iraqis were moving things around in preparation for a coming war. You don't move things around and disperse them if you don't have them."

That's seriously the rationale. Your intelligence apparatus at work.

But there's more:

The DIA report, of which only one page is currently declassified, says the United States couldn't prove its suspicions because it didn't have experts on the ground. DIA was one of several agencies, including the CIA, that developed estimates of Iraqi capabilities.

Even though they had no actual knowledge of any program that may or may not have existed, they weren't going to let a little thing like that keep them from speculating on Iraq's "capabilities."

That's what we were working with back then. People were pushing a conclusion before even getting the evidence.

[Josh]

Cheney began saying "They wouldn't let inspectors in," IIRC, in August or September 2003. Pretty fast memory hole.

[Enrique Arroyo]

It refers to intelligence evidence that the Iraqis were moving things around in preparation for a coming war. You don't move things around and disperse them if you don't have them.

That sounds pretty conclusive to me. There were definitely things in Iraq immediately prior to the US invasion.

[joel hanes]

"WMD-related program activities" was once the operative euphemism for one or more semi-trailer.

Such memories those words bring back.
Good times.

[Hartmut]

They had salt and electricity. Salt can be turned into chlorine by use of electricity. Why do you think the US went for the power plants first? They also had that sticky black stuff that comes from the ground and can be lit on fire.
Btw, I was cynic enough to expect that WMDs would be found. Not old ones but some freshly planted for that very purpose. Even with my rather low opinion of the US public I did not expect that it would be possible to persuade so many even without such 'evidence'. Iirc a lot of people even believed that Saddam not only had nukes but actually used them on US troops (but what do you expect from people that think that Hitler started WW1 and that the attack on Pearl Harbor was executed by the Germans*?).

*we all know of course that it was the Brits (wether FDR was in on the plot is still a point of debate).

[Catsy]

Such memories those words bring back.

For me it just conjures up the uncomprehending bewilderment I felt that there were actually people who couldn't see how transparently full of $hit these clowns were.

I mean, it was comically blatant. They were like cartoon characters. It would be hilarious if it weren't responsible for the deaths of thousands.

[Model 62]

For me it just conjures up the uncomprehending bewilderment I felt that there were actually people who couldn't see how transparently full of $hit these clowns were.

That was a tough one for me, too. Today I think a good many of them did see how transparently full of $hit those clowns were and didn't care. The coming war suited them fine, for whatever reason.

[Model 62]

Which reminds me, Where is Raed?