WMD

Blair addresses US Congress

Not much new here, but this is an interesting quote:

Can we be sure that terrorism and weapons of mass destruction will join together? Let us say one thing. If we are wrong, we will have destroyed a threat that is at its least responsible for human carnage and suffering. That is something I am confident history will forgive. But if our critics are wrong, if we are right - as I believe with every fibre of instinct and conviction I have that we are - and we do not act, then we will have hesitated in the face of this menace, when we should have given leadership. That is something history will not forgive.

Edited copy of Blair's speech to Congress at The Independent.

Useful timeline

The BBC has a useful timeline on the "Iraq-Niger" flap. The UK is saying there was reason to suspect an Iraq-Niger connection based on sources not shared with US intelligence.

Blame it on the CIA

In Uganda, Bush and Rice blame the CIA for the false accusation of an Iraq-Niger nuclear connection. Rice said:

I can tell you, if the CIA, the director of Central Intelligence, had said, take this out of the speech, it would have been gone, without question...There was even some discussion on that specific sentence, so that it reflected better what the CIA thought. And the speech was cleared.

Rice said Bush still had confidence in George Tenet, but:

We wouldn't put anything knowingly in the speech that was false; I'm sure they wouldn't put anything knowingly in the speech that was false...In this case, this particular line shouldn't have gotten in because it was not of the quality that we would put into presidential speeches.

Update: The BBC is reporting "the director of the US Central Intelligence Agency has acknowledged that his organisation was wrong to let President George W Bush tell the American people that Iraq was trying to acquire nuclear material from Africa."

Robin Cook on WMD

The Guardian has an interview with Robin Cook, the British MP who resigned from the cabinet over the war with Iraq. Key pull-quote from the article:

Cook's forensic brain has boiled down the issue to what he sees is a stark truth: there are no weapons of mass destruction, so the government got it wrong, and should now say so.

WMD claims in Bush's State of the Union address

From the full text of Bush's State of the Union address, here are the claims Bush made with regard to Iraq (all text quoted, some text elided):

1. To spare himself, [Saddam Hussein] agreed to disarm of all weapons of mass destruction. For the next 12 years, he systematically violated that agreement. He pursued chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons even while inspectors were in his country.  

2. Nothing to date has restrained him from his pursuit of these weapons - not economic sanctions, not isolation from the civilized world, not even cruise missile strikes on his military facilities. 

3. Almost three months ago, the United Nations Security Council gave Saddam Hussein his final chance to disarm. He has shown instead his utter contempt for the United Nations, and for the opinion of the world.  

4. The job of the [UN weapons] inspectors is to verify that Iraq's regime is disarming. It is up to Iraq to show exactly where it is hiding its banned weapons... lay those weapons out for the world to see... and destroy them as directed.  Nothing like this has happened.

5. The United Nations concluded in 1999 that Saddam Hussein had biological weapons materials sufficient to produce over 25,000 litres of anthrax - enough doses to kill several million people.  He has not accounted for that material.  He has given no evidence that he has destroyed it. 

6. The United Nations concluded that Saddam Hussein had materials sufficient to produce more than 38,000 litres of botulinum toxin - enough to subject millions of people to death by respiratory failure.  He has not accounted for that material.  He has given no evidence that he has destroyed it. 

7. Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard, and Vx nerve agent.  He has not accounted for these materials.  He has given no evidence that he has destroyed them.

8. US intelligence indicates that Saddam Hussein had upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents.  Inspectors recently turned up 16 of them, despite Iraq's recent declaration denying their existence.  Saddam Hussein has not accounted for the remaining 29,984 of these prohibited munitions.  He has given no evidence that he has destroyed them. 

9. From three Iraqi defectors we know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs.  Saddam Hussein has not disclosed these facilities.  He has given no evidence that he has destroyed them. 

10. The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in the 1990s that Saddam Hussein had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a nuclear weapon, and was working on five different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb. 
    The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. 

11. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high strength aluminium tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production. 

12. From intelligence sources, we know, for instance, that thousands of Iraqi security personnel are at work hiding documents and materials from the UN inspectors - sanitizing inspection sites, and monitoring the inspectors themselves. 

13. Iraqi officials accompany the inspectors in order to intimidate witnesses. 

14. Iraq is blocking U-2 surveillance flights requested by the United Nations. 

15. Iraqi intelligence officers are posing as the scientists inspectors are supposed to interview.  Real scientists have been coached by Iraqi officials on what to say. 

16. And intelligence sources indicate that Saddam Hussein has ordered that scientists who co-operate with UN inspectors in disarming Iraq will be killed, along with their families.  

17. Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications, and statements by people now in custody, reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of al-Qaeda. 

18. This dictator, who is assembling the world's most dangerous weapons, has already used them on whole villages - leaving thousands of his own citizens dead, blind, or disfigured.   Iraqi refugees tell us how forced confessions are obtained - by torturing children while their parents are made to watch.  International human rights groups have catalogued other methods used in the torture chambers of Iraq: electric shock, burning with hot irons, dripping acid on the skin, mutilation with electric drills, cutting out tongues, and rape. 

Bush also gives the weapons of mass destruction as the main justification for the impending war: Let there be no misunderstanding: If Saddam Hussein does not fully disarm, for the safety of our people, and for the peace of the world, we will lead a coalition to disarm him. 

CIA warned the White House about falseness of Niger claim?

BBC Article: White House 'warned over Iraq claim':

The CIA warned the US Government that claims about Iraq's nuclear ambitions were not true months before President Bush used them to make his case for war, the BBC has learned.

Pretzel logic and revised history

Joe Conason in Salon, Pretzel logic and revised history:

Does Rumsfeld think that nobody can remember what he and his associates were saying about Iraqi weapons during those eight months before the war began? Hasn't the secretary of defense ever heard of videotape?

'Senior UK Sources' say no WMD will be found

BBC is reporting Iraq weapons 'unlikely to be found':

BBC political editor Andrew Marr said "very senior sources" in Whitehall had virtually ruled out the possibility of finding the weapons.

They believe they did exist - but were hidden or destroyed by Saddam Hussein before the war.

Former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said the admissions were a "dramatic development" and ex-Prime Minister John Major has called for a full independent inquiry into the basis for war.

The point of this weblog

What's the point of this weblog?

One reason, frankly, is to test the new TypePad system for possible future use.

But another reason is this: I came to understand, reluctantly, the justifiction of the war in Iraq as necessary to protect the national interests of the United States. Understanding is not agreement, but at least the war no longer seemed irrational or strictly mercenary (i.e., "blood for oil").

Like Tim Converse, I feel played by the US administration if, in fact (as it seems likely), there were no significant weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and further (as it seems possible) the administration knew this to be the case.

So, this weblog is an attempt to follow the WMD story, in the US and elsewhere. It's not likely to be as complete or deep as I'd like, but it's one attempt to make sense of the situation.

White House admits error

From the CBS News report:

Amid questions about prewar intelligence, the White House is acknowledging that President Bush was incorrect when he said in his State of the Union address that Iraq recently had sought significant quantities of uranium in Africa.