‘As a member of unscom since 1991, and its chief inspector responsible for investigating Iraq’s concealment mechanism from July 1995 until my resignation on August 26, 1998, I know that this is hardly the first time Saddam has pulled such tricks [removing weapons from sites before inspectors are allowed in]. In fact, they are at the heart of his strategy for preserving his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and, eventually, getting rid of U.N. economic sanctions (which he has largely succeeded in eluding anyway). Through skillful manipulation of the situation on the ground in Iraq, international public opinion, and rifts among the members of the Security Council, Saddam actually aims to cap his comeback by getting unscom to issue a clean bill of health. It is an audacious plan, but it may succeed, thanks in no small part to the mistakes of U.S. policymakers themselves.

If it succeeds, the consequences could be dire. The Baghdad regime—strengthened by having retained the capability to produce weapons of mass destruction and psychologically fortified by having outlasted the world’s sole remaining superpower—will rapidly restore its internal and regional constituencies and reemerge as a force to be reckoned with. Since his defeat in the Gulf war, Saddam has built up eight years’ worth of resentment and frustration that can only be released through renewed efforts at territorial expansion through armed aggression and blackmail, both economic and military.

Even today, Iraq is not nearly disarmed. Unscom lacks a full declaration from Iraq concerning its prohibited capabilities, making any absolute pronouncement about the extent of Iraq’s retained proscribed arsenal inherently tentative. But, based on highly credible intelligence, unscom suspects that Iraq still has biological agents like anthrax, botulinum toxin, and clostridium perfringens in sufficient quantity to fill several dozen bombs and ballistic missile warheads, as well as the means to continue manufacturing these deadly agents. Iraq probably retains several tons of the highly toxic VX substance, as well as sarin nerve gas and mustard gas. This agent is stored in artillery shells, bombs, and ballistic missile warheads. And Iraq retains significant dual-use industrial infrastructure that can be used to rapidly reconstitute large-scale chemical weapons production.

Meanwhile, Iraq has kept its entire nuclear weapons infrastructure intact through dual-use companies that allow the nuclear-design teams to conduct vital research and practical work on related technologies and materials. Iraq still has components (high explosive lenses, initiators, and neutron generators) for up to four nuclear devices minus the fissile core (highly enriched uranium or plutonium), as well as the means to produce these. Iraq has retained an operational long-range ballistic missile force that includes approximately four mobile launchers and a dozen missiles. And, under the guise of a permitted short-range missile program, Iraq has developed the technology and production means necessary for the rapid reconstitution of long-range ballistic missile production.

As has been pointed out Ritter, like every other informed observer, believed that Saddam had WMDs and is on the record to that effect. He has never denied this, by the way, (he has confirmed it on many public occasions since, I could probably dig out an audio file if you want it, of his debate with C Hitchens where he is very candid about this) although he does not believe that military action should have been taken to remove them.

If you ace in the hole is Scott Ritter, you’re in big trouble. As you might know, Ritter resigned from UNSCOM in 1998, asserting at the time that Saddam was blocking the inspectors. Four years later—when he had no affiliation wth UNSCOM at all—he suddenly figures out that Saddam had no WMD! The guy is now in approximately Cindy Sheehan territory.

Well, nothing clears away the fog like a little ak-shawn. Nuke Damascus!

“4. The regime never accounted to the satisfaction of the UN inspectors for the whereabouts of the stockpiles.”

There were some holes in the paperwork, but the last UN inspector prior to the Bush II round, Scott Ritter, stated unequivocally that Saddam had no WMDs. He was the person in the best position to know, and to not equivocate on a negative existential proposition requires very high certainty.

In response to luci, I would point out that Josh Marshall tore Ritter a new one for suggesting that Iraq had no WMDs. Was Marshall no better than semi-informed? The “everyone knew” bit is revisionist. Since the President clearly has private knowledge others do not, it was always possible Bush was telling the truth. His public case was not convincing, but he made no public case at all for bin laden’s responsibility for 9/11 and that went unchallenged. The issue that has to be faced is the problematic nature of simply trusting the government.

The serious question is: is hiding mass confectionary a breach of UN security rules? Should we invade Syria to get our candies back? Or have they all melted by now?

The first page I found from a search for “racist” and “Buckley” on Brad DeLong’s blog was a list of quotes from the 1960s (when, e.g., a sainted Democratic icon like the late Mel Carnahan was appearing in blackface). My request was for something “recent”.

djd, you’re forgetting things like Iraq destroying a large amount of stuff under UN supervision, and UN inspectors having considerable access in ‘02-03, and finding nada.

Little details there.

1. Saddam had and used significant amounts of WMD in the ‘80s.

2. UN inspectors determined that Iraq had large stockpiles of WMD after the Gulf War.

3. The relevant UNSC resolutions required the regime to account for and relinquish its stockpiles of WMD.

4. The regime never accounted to the satisfaction of the UN inspectors for the whereabouts of the stockpiles.

5. There was utterly no argument from the nations opposed to US military action in 2002-03 that Iraq had complied with the accounting requirements of the UNSC resolutions; in other words, everybody agrreed that the regime was noncompliant. The only question on the table was what to do about it.

6. No rational observer would have dreamed that the regime destroyed its stockpiles without telling anybody that it had done so.

7. Nations, like other actors, can only act on reasonable appearances and, particularly in the intelligence sphere,have to rely on circumstantial evidence and reasonable inference.

That is, quite franky, pathetic. Open-source information detailing the Iranian nuclear program is availible in spades (armscontrolwonk, thank you), so we are able to conduct evidence-based discussions of the issue.

However, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and the complete lack of evidence supporting the assertion that Iraqi WMD went to Syria makes it clear what side we should err on. Iraq had no significant WMD capability or programs in early 2003. I knew that. Hans Blix knew that. Anybody who didn’t know that, but was supposed to be providing intelligence to our government’s decision-makers, should be fired for incompetance.

It’s that simple.

whatever you may think of the relative value of the claims of Podhoretz and Buckley about the absence of WMDs in Iraq, you must agree that the mental process that leads some of Podhoretz’s allies to conclude that Buckley is a coward (simply because he does not agree with Podhoretz’s claims) is very sloppy, if not disingenuous. I have a serious problem with the many voices on the right that have made it a habit to dismiss dissent as unpatriotic, cowardly, and even treasonous. That habit betrays extraordinary failure of imagination, don’t you agree?