Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying

Senator Rick Santorum, together with Congressman Peter Hoekstra, announced today that newly declassified evidence proves the existence of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq after the 2003 Iraq invasion. Senator Santorum went on the Senate floor and touted this "new" information. Finally here was proof that George W Bush’s little adventure in Iraq was not totally pointless.

Senator Santorum’s press release on the subject states in part:

“The information released today proves that weapons of mass destruction are, in fact, in Iraq,” said Senator Santorum. “It is essential for the American people to understand that these weapons are in Iraq. I will continue to advocate for the complete declassification of this report so we can more fully understand the complete WMD picture inside Iraq.”

The following are the six key points contained in the unclassified overview:

• Since 2003 Coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent.

• Despite many efforts to locate and destroy Iraq’s pre-Gulf War chemical munitions, filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist.

• Pre-Gulf War Iraqi chemical weapons could be sold on the black market. Use of these weapons by terrorists or insurgent groups would have implications for Coalition forces in Iraq. The possibility of use outside Iraq cannot be ruled out.

• The most likely munitions remaining are sarin and mustard-filled projectiles.

• The purity of the agent inside the munitions depends on many factors, including the manufacturing process, potential additives, and environmental storage conditions. While agents degrade over time, chemical warfare agents remain hazardous and potentially lethal.

• It has been reported in open press that insurgents and Iraqi groups desire to acquire and use chemical weapons.

Either Senator Santorum is an idiot or he thinks the American public are idiots - or both. After his stunning revelations it made some sense to go back and review three crucial reports on the subject of Iraq’s WMD. These are:

• The Final Report of the Iraq Survey Group (also known as the Duelfer Report) released on September 30, 2004.
• The Addendums to the Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq’s WMD released in March 2005.
• The Report to the President from the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction (also known as the Silberman-Robb Commission) released on March 31, 2005.

Senator Santorum claims that the discovery of pre-1991 chemical weapons munitions proves Iraq had WMD. Here is what Volume III of the Duelfer Report, entitled Iraq’s Chemical Warfare Program, had to say about these munitions in its key findings:

While a small number of old, abandoned chemical munitions have been discovered, ISG judges that Iraq unilaterally destroyed its undeclared chemical weapons stockpile in 1991. There are no credible indications that Baghdad resumed production of chemical munitions thereafter, a policy ISG attributes to Baghdad’s desire to see sanctions lifted, or rendered ineffectual, or its fear of force against it should WMD be discovered.

• The scale of the Iraqi conventional munitions stockpile, among other factors, precluded an examination of the entire stockpile; however, ISG inspected sites judged most likely associated with possible storage or deployment of chemical weapons.

The Duelfer Report goes on to state:

Disposition of CW Munitions Post-1991

ISG expended considerable time and effort investigating longstanding Iraqi assertions about the fate of CW munitions known to have been in Baghdad’s possession during the Gulf war. We believe the vast majority of these munitions were destroyed, but questions remain concerning hundreds of CW munitions.

Since May 2004, ISG has recovered dozens of additional chemical munitions, including artillery rounds, rockets and a binary Sarin artillery projectile (see Figure 5). In each case, the recovered munitions appear to have been part of the pre-1991 Gulf war stocks, but we can neither determine if the munitions were declared to the UN or if, as required by the UN SCR 687, Iraq attempted to destroy them. (See Annex F.)

• The most significant recovered munitions was a 152mm binary Sarin artillery projectile which insurgents had attempted to use as an improvised explosive device.
• ISG has also recovered 155mm chemical rounds and 122mm artillery rockets which we judge came from abandoned Regime stocks.

…

Iraq Unilateral Weapons Destruction in 1991

Iraq completed the destruction of its pre-1991 stockpile of CW by the end of 1991, with most items destroyed in July of that year. ISG judges that Iraq destroyed almost all prohibited weapons at that time.

• ISG has obtained no evidence that contradicts our assessment that the Iraqis destroyed most of their hidden stockpile, although we recovered a small number of pre-1991 chemical munitions in early to mid 2004.

These remaining pre-1991 weapons either escaped destruction in 1991 or suffered only partial damage. More may be found in the months and years ahead. [Emphasis added by me.]

The March 2005 Addendum to the Duelfer Report lays the findings out even more clearly:

ISG assesses that Iraq and Coalition Forces will continue to discover small numbers of degraded chemical weapons, which the former Regime mislaid or improperly destroyed prior to 1991. ISG believes the bulk of these weapons were likely abandoned, forgotten and lost during the Iran-Iraq war because tens of thousands of CW munitions were forward deployed along frequently and rapidly shifting battlefronts.

• All but two of the chemical weapons discovered since OIF were found in southern Iraq where the majority of CW munitions were used against Iran in the Iran-Iraq war.
• As the Coalition destroys the thousands of conventional munitions at depots around the country the possibility exists that pre-1991 vintage chemical rounds could be found mixed in with conventional munitions at these locations.
  • ISG identified 43 bunkers and depots where the Coalition is in the process of destroying conventional munitions and that were suspected of being associated with the pre-1991 WMD programs.

However, ISG believes that any remaining chemical munitions in Iraq do not pose a militarily significant threat to Coalition Forces because the agent and munitions are degraded and there are not enough extant weapons to cause mass casualties.

Finally, the Silberman-Robb Commission concluded that Iraq had no chemical weapons capability and what remained were discarded pre-1991 munitions:

The Iraq Survey Group’s findings undermined both the Intelligence Community’s assessments about Iraq’s pre-war CW program and, indeed, the very fundamental assumptions upon which those assessments were based. The ISG concluded–contrary to the Intelligence Community’s pre-war assessments–that Iraq had actually unilaterally destroyed its undeclared CW stockpile in 1991 and that there were no credible indications that Baghdad resumed production of CW thereafter. Iraq had not regained its pre-1991 CW technical sophistication or production capabilities prior to the war. Further, pre-war concerns of Iraqi plans to use CW if Coalition forces crossed certain defensive "red lines" were groundless; the "red lines" referred to conventional military planning only. Finally, the only CW the Iraq Survey Group recovered were weapons manufactured before the first Gulf War; the ISG concluded that, after 1991, Iraq maintained only small, covert labs to research chemicals and poisons, primarily for intelligence operations.

…

Overall, although the vast majority of CW munitions had been destroyed, the Iraq Survey Group recognized that questions remained relating to the disposition of hundreds of pre-1991 CW munitions. Still, given that, of the dozens of CW munitions that the ISG discovered, all had been manufactured before 1991, the Intelligence Community’s 2002 assessments that Iraq had restarted its CW program turned out to have been seriously off the mark.

Senator Santorum, it seems, failed to read either the ISG reports or the Silberman-Robb Commission reports. If he had, he would have realized that the "chemical weapons" he is touting are old, ineffective munitions manufactured before 1991 that had been discarded or partially destroyed. Furthermore, these munitions pose no proliferation threat. It should however surprise no one that the Senator would leap to such conclusions. This is exactly the mentality that got us into the Iraq war in the first place. Senator Santorum and the Bush Administration claimed that Iraq had WMD and used any scrap of intelligence to try to justify the case for war. It appears that Senator Santorum has not yet learned the lessons of the Iraq war - that fixing the intelligence around the policy is a dangerous path to follow.

We as a country are being ill served by such ignorant behavior from our Senators and our Congressmen. The only question really is whether Senator Santorum is willfully misleading the public or whether he really is this stupid.

The tireless Daniel Pipes has solved the mystery of Saddam Hussein’s Weapons of Mass Destruction. Mr. Pipes argues that the reason we failed to find Iraq’s WMD is that they were moved just before the war. The answer was so simple - it was right there in front of us. Thank heaven that Daniel Pipes was on the case even when the last man from the Iraq Survey Group had packed his bags.

Daniel Pipes writes in his latest column:

The great mystery of the 2003 war in Iraq - "What about the WMD?" has finally been resolved. The short answer is: Saddam Hussein’s persistent record of lying meant no one believed him when he at the last moment actually removed the weapons of mass destruction.

Mr. Pipes does not tell us where the WMD were removed to - he leaves that as an exercise for his cerebral readers. He offers this explanation as an update to his column:

I have received many questions about the disposal of the WMD - Syria? Belarus? - and wish to clarify that I purposefully did not deal with this question in the above article (just as the Iraqi Perspectives Project did not). The topic here is exclusively the functioning of the Saddam Hussein regime in relation to the WMD mystery. Any thesis of what was done with the WMD is compatible with the above background explanation.

Mr. Pipes has "solved" the mystery of the WMD by stating that since they were not found they must have been removed. The more obvious explanation that perhaps Iraq possessed no WMD does not seem to resonate with Mr. Pipes. Mr. Pipes is a glass-is-half-full kind of thinker. He posits that if the bottom half of a glass contains no water that must mean that the top half of the glass contains water that is suspended in mid air. Who am I to argue with logic as powerful as that.

Daniel Pipes cites (without any hint of irony) the Iraqi Perspectives Project report to show how Saddam Hussein’s Government was disconnected from reality. Saddam Hussein demanded only good news and this led to a lot of misinformation being propagated throughout the Iraqi regime. Pipes claims that the confusion extended to WMD as well. Perhaps even Saddam was not sure if WMD existed or not. This is Mr. Pipes’ fallback argument. If the WMD were there they were moved. However, if they were not there then even Saddam thought they were there and therefore it was tantamount to Saddam actually having WMD. Either way the WMD, fictional or not, were removed by Saddam Hussein. Daniel Pipes thus ties his circular argument with a nice tidy bow:

The same situation extended to the military-industrial infrastructure. First, the report states, for Saddam, "the mere issuing of a decree was sufficient to make the plan work." Second, fearful for their lives, everyone involved provided glowing progress bulletins. In particular, "scientists always reported the next wonder weapon was right around the corner." In such an environment, who knew the actual state of the WMD? Even for Saddam, "when it came to WMD there was always some element of doubt about the truth."

So, it appears that Mr. Pipes has embarked on a two-pronged defense of this Administration - one prong using the fantasy argument, the other prong using the delusion argument. Using equal doses of fantasy and delusion Mr. Pipes has "solved" the WMD mystery. I am sure his followers will now tout this as "evidence" that Saddam had (real or imagined) WMD and the (real or imagined) WMD was removed prior to the war. Now all Mr. Pipes has to do to complete the circle is "find" the WMD. I will wait anxiously for the day when Daniel Pipes "finds" Saddam’s lost Weapons of Mass Destruction.

I am concerned about Deborah Howell. While other bloggers are attacking her for spinning herself into delirium trying to defend The Washington Post Editorial Board, I on the other hand can see past the confusion and feel her pain. I have acquired this skill of sniffing out illness from miles away by watching Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. Using Dr. Frist’s scientific technique I am able to deduce that Deborah Howell is insane.

Not possible you say? How can I make such a diagnosis without actually examining the patient you say? Well fear not I give you the following bizarre statements by this clearly disoriented ombudsman as proof of my diagnosis:

• "The Post editorially has supported the war, and the purpose of the editorial — headlined "A Good Leak" — was to support that leak as necessary to show that the president had reason to believe that Iraq was seeking uranium." (I have no idea what this sentence means.)
• "First, it’s important to remember that the articles and the editorial are looking back at June and July of 2003, seeking to add historical context to what we knew then. And we know a lot more now about the lack of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq than we knew then." (Should everyone write about the past as if all facts that have come out since then are irrelevant? For example, should historians who write books about medieval Europe claim the earth is indeed flat since that was the view at the time?
• "The editorial board makes policy, and it is not my job to second-guess it." (What does an ombudsman do exactly?)
• "Editorials and news stories have different purposes. News stories are to inform; editorials are to influence." (Should editorials try to influence by repeating statements that they know to be false? Isn’t that called lying?)
• "Editorial Page Editor Fred Hiatt said it is unlikely that the story would have influenced the editorial." (Clearly I need to also diagnose Fred Hiatt.)
• "The "supported" in the editorial refers to Wilson’s report that there was a trade meeting between officials of Iraq and Niger. Though news accounts have said there was no talk of uranium, the meeting was seen as corroboration that the Iraqis were seeking uranium, because that’s mostly what Niger has to export." (Is Deborah Howell a WMD expert? She said that she should not second-guess the editorial board. But is it in her mandate to defend the editorial board?)
• "Hiatt pointed to a British intelligence report that he said lent credence to the claim that Iraq was seeking uranium and to the report of the bipartisan Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, which was critical of Wilson." (Huh? Is that the same British intelligence report that led to the 16 words in the State of The Union speech? Is the whole debate not about this? Isn’t this circular logic? I allege falsely that man has bitten dog, Deborah Howell says that man has indeed bitten dog because I have alleged man has bitten dog. Clearly the work of an insane person.)
• "Gellman and Linzer relied on later reports from commissions appointed by President Bush — the Silberman-Robb WMD commission and the Iraq Survey Group — and on their own reporting over three years from intelligence sources. Gellman said the commission and the ISG found no evidence that Iraq sought uranium abroad after 1991." (Oh the horror. Someone actually using facts to do reporting. Howell clearly thinks Hiatt is not bound by facts? Does she think Hiatt is bound by the laws of physics?)
• "It would have been helpful if the editorial had put statements about Wilson in more context — especially the controversy over his trip and what he said." (Wow, you think that might have been helpful, Debbie?)
• "Reporting about national security and intelligence gathering is always fraught with fraught; it is a subject I will write about again." (I look forward to your writings. In the meantime, I will send the medication via mail. Stay indoors and don’t operate any heavy machinery. Good luck, unfortunate ombudsman. God speed!)

So, you see that clearly she is insane. So, Jane Hamsher, stop picking on this woman. She deserves our sympathy not our scorn. It is incumbent upon all of us to protect the most vulnerable of our citizens. Shame Jane, shame on you for subjecting this woman to your acid pen. The damage you do to her in this weakened state may be irreversible.

 Next week, I have some free time between lunch and mid-day snack to do a diagnosis of Fred Hiatt. Stay tuned.

The White House reacted to the article in The Washington Post with unusual vigor. In his response to the report that the Administration pushed the false claim that mobile biological weapons labs had been found in Iraq when they had evidence to the contrary, Scott McClellan bristled with indignation:

Now, I will point out that the reporting I saw this morning was simply reckless and it was irresponsible. The lead in The Washington Post left the impression for the reader that the President was saying something he knew at the time not to be true. That is absolutely false and it is irresponsible, and I don’t know how The Washington Post can defend something so irresponsible.

He was of course defending President Bush’s unequivocal statement of May 29, 2003 declaring:

We have found the weapons of mass destruction.

Now, I don’t know about you but if I wake up in the morning and turn on the news and I hear the President of the United States make a declaration like that I would think to myself "Golly, we have found the weapons of mass destruction." I would certainly not be thinking, "Our intelligence community believes we have found the weapons of mass destruction. Let me withhold judgment until the Iraq Survey Group releases its final report a year and a half from now. Gee, I am such a critical thinker, aren’t I?"

Yet, the Administration would like us to believe just that; that the intelligence agencies passed on bad information to the President who mindlessly parroted it. However, the President and the other senior members of his Administration have a peculiar history of cherry picking intelligence that supports their claims while ignoring any intelligence or evidence to the contrary. If this selective use of intelligence were an isolated incident, I would be more sympathetic to Mr. McClellan’s pleading that it was all the fault of the intelligence agencies or the media. The record however shows a pattern of behavior that is either dangerously incompetent or maliciously deceptive. Whether it is incompetence or deception, the effect is the same and the behavior is utterly indefensible.

A close look at the events during May of 2003 suggests a very peculiar breakdown in communications on a matter of grave importance. The timeline is as follows:

•  A technical team dispatched by the DIA begins examining the trailers on May 25, 2003.
• Within four hours the team concludes that the trailers are not mobile biological weapons labs.
• The team’s findings are quickly communicated to Washington and a series of email discussions follow between Washington and Baghdad.
• A CIA analyst completes a draft paper alleging that the trailers were the strongest evidence to date of Iraq’s biological weapons program.
• The technical team publishes their preliminary report in the early hours of May 27, 2003 dismissing the notion that the trailers were biological weapons labs.
• Ignoring the findings on the ground, on May 28, 2003 the CIA and DIA jointly releases a report written by an analyst located at Langley that claims:

  The design, equipment, and layout of the trailer found in late April is strikingly similar to descriptions provided by a source who was a chemical engineer that managed one of the mobile plants. 

• On May 29, 2003 the President of the United States unequivocally states that weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq.
• Scientists and biological weapons experts cast serious doubts on the claim that the trailers were likely used for biological weapons manufacture.
• Throughout 2003 senior Administration officials continue to assert that the trailers were mobile biological weapons labs.
• The report of the technical team is shelved and not shown to David Kay, then head of the Iraq Survey Group, until late in 2003 near the end of his tenure.

A number of questions quickly arise from this chronology of events that need to be answered and cannot simply be brushed away. These are:

• Why did the CIA and DIA ignore the report of the technical team in its report of May 28, 2003? Clearly, the DIA must have been aware of the team’s findings. After all, it was the DIA that dispatched this team.
• The CIA report brushed aside doubts about the trailers, specifically in a New York Times article, by stating "The experts cited in the editorial are not on the scene and probably do not have complete access to information about the trailers. ". This is a curious claim from an analyst writing from Washington when the DIA’s own team on the scene contradicts the analyst’s conclusions.
• The CIA report by its own admission is at best guesswork. The report makes the rather Orwellian claim that "despite the lack of confirmatory samples, we nevertheless are confident that this trailer is a mobile BW production plant". The report continues by stating that sample analysis has begun and the results were not yet known. The report is then, by its own admission, incomplete. In the face of contradictory findings by the DIA’s own technical team on the ground in Iraq, it defies reason why anyone would publish a report of such importance based on speculation and gossip. What was the urgency in releasing an incomplete report? What were the political pressures on the intelligence agencies to produce such an incomplete report?
• The CIA report relies on "Curveball" as a source that confirms its analysis. "Curveball" who is a self-described chemical engineer was the thoroughly discredited Iraqi defector who passed on wild fantasies to the CIA in the prelude to the Iraq war. The report states:
  

  The design, equipment, and layout of the trailer found in late April is strikingly similar to descriptions provided by a source who was a chemical engineer that managed one of the mobile plants.

• Why was the technical teams findings buried? And by whom?
• When did the White House become aware that the technical analysis did not support the conclusions of the CIA report? Why did the White House state as fact that the trailers were biological weapons labs when even the CIA report did not go that far. Did the White House read the CIA report carefully and understand that the analysis was still incomplete?

There are serious questions raised by this mishandling of the Iraqi trailers story by the White House. The pattern of incomplete information that always favors the Administration’s assertion is overwhelming and cannot be accidental. As far as I can discern from the Administration’s position, they are claiming that the CIA and other intelligence agencies led this Administration by the nose into war with Iraq by providing always inaccurate, yet always consistent, intelligence supporting the Administration’s preconceived notions. This is a wonderfully circular argument that has a highly technical description: nonsense.

It is well past time that the Administration stops blaming everyone else for its failures. If the CIA or DIA is to blame, where are the mass firings? Surely, if they are so dangerously incompetent then we as a nation are ill served by having these people on the payroll. From where I sit, it does not at all seem to me that this was a failure of intelligence. After all, it took the DIA team of experts four hours to correctly deduce that the trailers were not biological weapons labs. That is to me very strong evidence that our intelligence agencies have extremely competent and skilled people on the ground. Other public reports we have seen from the Iraq Survey Group and others also suggests a highly professional and well trained group of professionals who are reaching correct reasoned conclusions when allowed to complete their tasks.

The incompetence I see does not appear to be with the men and women of the intelligence agencies. There is a consistent pattern of the field level reports from the intelligence agencies being accurate but somehow, extraordinarily, the final report always being consistent with the preconceived (and always incorrect) notions of this White House. Why is that? This does not appear to me to be a failure of intelligence. It appears to me and I would hope to most reasonable observers to be a case of the King hearing what the King wants to hear.

It is time for common sense to prevail in Washington. It is time for accountability. It is long past time that dedicated hard working career Government servants are made to take the fall for the masters they serve. It is time for the world to see that the emperor has no clothes.