New theory for Iraq's WMD: Saddam was fooled into thinking he had them

[tinnypriv]

Mods: Title shortened, full version given below

New theory for Iraq's missing WMD: Saddam was fooled into thinking he had them
The Guardian, 24 December 2003

British officials are circulating a story that Saddam Hussein may have been hoodwinked into believing that Iraq really did possess weapons of mass destruction.

The theory, which is doing the rounds in the upper reaches of Whitehall, is the result of an attempt to find what one official source called a "logical reason" why no chemical and biological weapons had been found in Iraq.

According to the theory, Saddam and his senior advisers and commanders were told by lower-ranking Iraqi officers that his forces were equipped with usable chemical and biological weapons.

...

The trouble for Britain was, the theory goes, that MI6's informants were the senior officials close to Saddam with the result that British intelligence was also hoodwinked.

The hypothesis, which is being spread privately by officials, is open to the interpretation that the government is searching for an excuse, however implausible, for failure to discover any WMD in Iraq.

...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1112467,00.html

[tinnypriv]

1. And no...

This isn't The Onion.

[loudnclear]

56. And so was the US.

But it is easy to 'fool' the US when it fits their agenda.

[kalian]

2. So....

he was fooled into believing that he had WMDs...just like the
Americans thought that he had WMDs...
And, the US went against international law and ILLEGALLY INVADED
a sovereign nation...and is now occupying that country...

Hmmm... :eyes:

[tbeatty]

10. Well Sadaam did have them....

and at one point he gassed Iranians and Kurds. I've seen the pictures. Saudi Arabia has them too. They gassed Egyptians in Yemen during their civil war.

The question is where did they go? When did he destroy them? Why didn't he show the UN? This is all very puzzling to me.

My guess is that he did destroy them but part of Arab culture is not to lose face. In the 1967 war, the Egyptians lost their entire Air Force after being attacked by Israel. But they claimed they were victorious and they were on their way to Tel Aviv. Jordan saw the Israeli planes returning on radar and thought this was the victorious Egyptian Air Force and they entered the fight. They lost Jerusalem and the West Bank for that.

Egypt didn't want to appear to be losing. So they lied to what is called the "arab street". The opinion of the "street" means everything. Sadaam didn't want to be seen as losing to the US to the street (remember his press guy during the war?). He probably knew he didn't have weapons but he didn't want to lose face on the street.

[kalian]

12. And the US FRIED Vietnamese during the Vietnam war!

What is your friggin point?! :mad:
As for Saddam "gassing Iranians"...these two countries were AT WAR
and the US was backing Saddam!

Saddam DID try to speak to the UN and the US lambasted him at
every turn...remember the Powel Power Point presentation...?

What is your point? :eyes:

[tbeatty]

14. My point is that he had WMD.....

And the US has WMD too.

Iraq was required to destroy their WMD stocks. Obviously the UN inspectors weren't satisfied that he had done this or they wouldn't have kept wanting to go back to search for them.

He may have destroyed them, we don't know. We haven't been able to find them, that's for sure.

The debate is whether we were justified in attacking Iraq, not whether Sadaam complied with the UN resolutions. No one has ever claimed he complied with either the spirit or the letter of the UN resolutions.

[rooboy]

21. Saddam didn't need to destroy the WMD to get rid of them.

Many of the stocks were destroyed by the UN inspectors when Ritter et al were in Iraq. Other stocks such as vx gas had a short shelf life and would be completely useless by now. As for the thousands of litres of anthrax, Iraq only had anthrax in liquid form. To be weaponized they had to dry it, something they were never able to do. According to Tariq Aziz, they simply poured the anthrax liquid out into the sand.

Apart from Scott Ritter, how many weapons inspectors were interviewed by the media? Only one that I know of, and he agreed with Ritter.

[Devils Advocate NZ]

48. Actually, just after the war began...

A New Zealander who was a member of the last inspection team sent in just before the war was interviewed on NZ television.

In this interview the the inspector (I have forgotten his name) was HIGHLY critical of the US. When asked about the US intelligence, he LAUGHED and said that not only was it bad, it was patently absurd.

This guy was a biologist, who specialised in the processes of production of biological agents. He claimed that the kind of intelligence they received was obviously fabricated.

For example, they would be told that a facility was a biological weapons plant. When they question why the US intelligence thought so, they would be told "because it has a generator" or "because it has a series of unidentified pipes".

What this meant is that they would be sent to a "biological weapons plant" only to find a textiles plant that had a generator.

Yet these are the "known WMD facilities" that Bush and Powell were ranting about. He said that it was clear from just the description alone that these were unlikely WMD plants, and when they arrived at the sites, even a cursory examination would show it was impossible.

Of course, being inspectors, they would take hours to throughly search and test these sites before clearing them and asking for the next one.

At first they thought they must have been getting the bad ones, but as time would go on they would get more and more suspicious plants until they found something that may have been a WMD plant. The reality, he said, was that as time went on, and as they got closer to the war, they were sent to even more ridiculous sites than the ones they had already seen. He didn't directly say it, but it was clear from his attitude that they felt they were intentionally being strung along so that they wouldn't give Iraq a clean bill of health BEFORE the US had time to finish it's invasion preperations.

He was asked whether he believed that Iraq had any WMD, and he directly said NO. Nothing he had heard or seen as part of the inspection teams had even remotely suggested the possibility, but as a scientific team they could not rule it out completely, although any such weapons were likely to be few in number.

It was an amazing interview with a person who was actually part of the inspection team just before the war (rather than the previous inspection teams that were full of CIA plants) and he had no doubt in his mind that not only did Iraq NOT have WMD but that the US KNEW Iraq didn't have them.

[Jack Rabbit]

22. We know that Iraq's chemical weapons were destroyed

They were destroyed shortly after the 1991 Gulf War. This information was given to UN weapons inspectors by General Hussein Kamel, Saddam's son-in-law and the head of Iraq's Military Industrialization Corporation. General Kamel defected to the west in 1995, then returned to Iraq and was murdered.

Mr. Powell presented some information from this document to the UN Security Council when he presented the case for war in February. However, he kinda sorta forgot to mention the part about General Kamel ordering the weapons destroyed. In short, Powell knew he was lying to the UN.

[Mountainman]

26. Why do you insist on keeping the lie alive? Give it up.

US intelligence and the UN inspectors said that the chance of Iraq having WMD was slim to none. The UN wanted to continue to search but Bush stopped them. The intelligence from Chaney's mock CIA group made the case for war, which was entirely bogus. And people like you are going to your grave refusing to admit the obvious. Bush lied to get us into war.

[leesa]

33. He quite obviously complied with it...just as we were told by nearly

every country on earth's investigative machinery, including our own CIA. Why do you persist in spewing this mythology?

[Just Me]

35. The UN Was Trying to "Appease" the U.S.,...

,...with inspections in order to divert war. Iraqi representatives provided a ton of evidence to the UNSC that WMDs were destroyed. The U.S. capitalized on Saddam's past and placed emphasis upon WMDs to pursue a war that had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11, terrorism, "imminent threats", "liberation" or WMDs. The neo-cons' plan (the PNAC) to take-over Iraq was created before the neo-cons even came into power under Bush's umbrella. The neo-cons acted in Machavellian-style to execute their PNAC, Pax Americana plan.

Are we clear, yet, about the underlying basis for the war in Iraq?


Neo-cons + PNAC = perpetual war

[Old and In the Way]

18. The answer might be in the 12,000 page document that Iraq

handed over to the UN (75% of which was redacted by the US) before the invasion.

I have no doubt that Saddam was in no hurry to expose his lack of WMD. I think he had concerns that the evidence of his not having them would embolden his enemies within and without.

Cynically, I don't think we would have ever invaded Iraq if we thought there was a chance that Saddam had the weapons. Sadly, I think the UN helped this administration confirm that Iraq was declawed...and that made our invasion to liberate the oil that much easier to accomplish.

[leesa]

31. Ummm...Saddam said he had no WMDs so how do you contort

your brain to swallow this hogwash? Everybody, except the Bush Crime Family said he had no WMDs

[oldcoot]

40. Yes, you are right

They think that we have such short attention spans that we do not remember what happened the last week. It is really very insulting.

[Devils Advocate NZ]

44. Good theory except for one small point...

HE SAID HE DIDN'T HAVE ANY!!!!!

I have seen this ridiculous theory quite a few times since it was proven that Hussein WASN'T a liar, while Bush WAS, and it really fascinates me that anyone could be so stupid as to think that it is in any way logical.

Think about it for a second! If he was trying to save face, why did he repeatedly claim that he had destroyed all the weapons? Why did he do this over and over again over a 10 year period?

Liars like Blair and Bush can try to pull any number of bullshit excuses for why there are no weapons out of their arse, but the reality is:

THERE ARE NO WEAPONS BECAUSE IRAQ DESTROYED THEM, JUST LIKE THEY SAID THEY DID!

It is the most logical conclusion and doesn't rely on patently absurd theories like the Blair theory. Of course that would prove beyond reasonable doubt that Blair and Bush are war criminals, so I don't expect them to admit it.

[dax]

60. It is well documented that the Kurds were gassed by the Iranians

It was reported in The Star a Canadian newspaper that US analysts concluded that the kind of gas used was not the kind Saddam had but a kind the Iranians had...in any case whatever gas Saddam had was supplied by the uNITED sTATES which really under most legal theory would make the US an accomplice in the atrocities, or possibly the Iraqis are just tools, surrogate cannon fodder for American Oil companies and now defense contractors..

[greatauntoftriplets]

3. Oh no!!!! This is too funny.

We have the Keystone Kops of world politics and "leadership". Sadly.

[kalian]

4. Funny haha...or funny peculiar....

this is damned serious stuff... VERY Orwellian. It would be funny
if it weren't so damned scary....

[0007]

16. Let's us ask Ronnie Raygun. He knows, I think!

The issue is junior not any fucking one else, goddamnit!

[mmm]

5. let me get this straight:

the US invaded Iraq because Sadam THOUGHT he had weapons
of mass destruction.

[rocktivity]

6. Yeah, but who fooled Bush?

rocknation

[maryallen]

37. Oh, but it's not Bushie's fault because ...

He never reads the newspapers or watches tv news; he depends on his advisers to inform him. It's their fault or Clinton's, I'm sure (sarcasm).

[Fenris]

7. Points to Whitehall for creativity!

Still, the notion is ludicrous! But nice try, British government!

We're just going to go in circles until A) we find weapons, however unlikely that may be or B) the public forgets about WMDs, which is much more likely.

America is a nation with a 15-second attention span. It doesn't take the public long to change the channel.

[VolcanoJen]

8. Yuk, yuk, yuk!!

I'm sure the families of the dead civilians and soldiers will find this new spin amusing...

[Jacobin]

9. So, the WH and MI5 fooled Congress, Parliament and Saddam, too?

Damn. They're good!!!!!

What a crock

[Pale Blue Dot]

11. According to the report,

British Intelligence also believes that Saddam's wife convinced him he was a foot taller and that he had a 10-inch penis.

[Darranar]

13. This is pathetic...

They'll use whatever crazy excuses they can find...

[loudnclear]

15. So, we invaded Iraq because of "thoughts of mass destruction"

Funny, we "thought" he had them too. So his thinking is no worse than ours.

[On the Road]

45. Yeah, This is Like the Old Joke About the Criminal Defendant

about to be sentenced who says to the judge "Your honor, what would you do if I said you were a son of a bitch?" The judge said "I'd hold you in contempt of court and increase your sentence." "OK, what if I just THOUGHT it?" "Well, there's no law against thinking something." "OK, then, I THINK you're a son of a bitch."

[Postman]

17. It doesn't matter what Saddam thought....

This is just a cover your a** operation on the part of the Bush fascists. Bush, Cheney & Co. outright lied about WMD's and are scrambling to come up with something to tell people...

[killbotfactory]

19. Maybe he knew he didn't have them... like he said...

But didn't want to look powerless in caving in to all the US demands.

[Jack Rabbit]

20. This theory doesn't wash

The idea that low-level munchkins could devise a story that would fool their superiors is ridiculous. The level of orchestration that is required to maintain such a deception is almost impossible to maintain.

This is why I find elaborate conspiracy theories so hard to believe. It's also why the idea that Bush and his top aides didn't know that their justifications for the invasion were a pack of lies is simply absurd.

A better explanation would be that Saddam knew he had no unconventional weapons, but that he wanted to keep up the deception that he possessed them in order to ward off potential attacks from hostile neighbors, especially Iran.

There is nothing in this theory that would explain why western intelligence services didn't know the truth. The best explanation there is that they almost certainly knew that Saddam was a paper tiger and kept their bosses informed; their bosses, namely Bush, Blair and their aides, deliberately lied to the public.

[plumster]

36. I find it hard to believe...

....that * and Blair knew there were no WMD. There would have been a plan to "find" them by now. * may be that dumb, but everyone else involved isn't. Was it the plan to look this rediculous?

[Jack Rabbit]

54. Welcome to DU, plumstar

I am certain that Bush and Blair knew about Saddam's biochemical arsenal, or lack thereof. If they didn't know he had nothing, they surely knew he didn't have a large unconventional weapons system that could be deployed in less than hour. That's what the real intelligence said, not the intelligence culled by the OSP or made to order for Cheney.

If Bush and Blair didn't know that, then somebody lied to them. If somebody lied to the US President and the British Prime Minister in order to manipulate them into a war, then the President (even a fake one) and the Prime Minister would be outraged. Heads would roll.

No heads have rolled. We can conclude from that they either don't care that the intelligence was phony or that they knew it all along. The first supposition is a contradiction of the proposition that they would be outraged if they knew they were lied to about this. That leaves the second.

Bush and Blair knew the truth and they lied to the public.

Here are some more thoughts on the subject that ran on DU's home page in July:

They Should Resign by Jack Rabbit, Democratic Underground, July 17.

[DS1]

23. You mean a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy?

:evilgrin:

[Guaranteed]

24. Wait, I thought he used them?

And I thought the reason we knew he had them is that we sold them to him?

There needs to be a bit more consistency here.

[Devils Advocate NZ]

50. Actually, I thought that it was pretty obvious...

Saddam had them in the 80's. He used them in the 80's. In 1991 he was ordered to destroy them. In 1991, he DID destroy them. Throughout the rest of the 90's and the first two years of the this decade he said OVER and OVER again I destroyed them.

The inspectors went in, and said he doesn't have them.

Now, what do you think happened?

Is it possible that Iraq DESTROYED THEM?

Before you start pointing fingers, it might help you if you realise YOU WERE LIED TO.

[NIGHT TRIPPER]

25. maybe Bush was hoodwinked into thinking weren't gonna boot his ass

I thought that you thought that I thought that he thought that she thought that I thought that you thought that Bush thought...wait Bush think?.... sorry, never mind

[radfringe]

27. "There's an old saying in Tennessee

"There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again." —George W. Bush, Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 17, 2002

[TheWebHead]

28. actually this isn't a new theory...

I remember this being discussed on Faux "News" a while back. Can't remember if it was a newspaper report or if it was one of their lineup of ex-Generals or that neocon shill Mansoor Ijaz.

[ret5hd]

29. That report was a trial balloon...

They (the govt) float it out there (via an unofficial schill) and see how it flys w/ the public (based on responses, phone calls, letters, emails, polls).

This is why it is important for people like us to challenge every shoddily constructed report every time they are seen. If every trial balloon was popped before it "flies too high", our work will be easier, and cleaner. It's better to pull the first weed up by the roots than to spray your lawn with roundup.

[underpants]

30. No it's not the Iraqi Generals routinely did this to get money

Saddam just loved whatever was the newest toy and all the generals had to do was show him the plans for say a missile or a prototype, then Saddam would give them lots of money to make more. The generals put it in their pocket and didn't develop anything. There was zero accountability and no inventory done so it is very possible Saddam thought he had X when in fact he had Y.

[Devils Advocate NZ]

51. Now, who told you this?

It wouldn't happen to be the same people that told you he had WMD would it?

[TheLastMohican]

32. Several words describe this all

Hague International Tribunal for Crimes committed against humanity.
I will prepare the rope while some of you please go bring some soap. It would be fascinating to see Blair hanging next to Bush for what they've done just like old proven nazis like Rosenberg, Keitel and Jodl.
I want to see a rerun of Nuremberg criminal court.

[NNN0LHI]

34. Isn't this about the 19th time someone has suggested this idiocy?

I feel like I am in a Twilight Zone show where everything keeps repeating over, and over, and over again. No kidding.

Don

[are_we_united_yet]

38. OK

How the hell did many, many intelligent Americans come to the conclusion before the Iraq war that there were probably no WMD's yet the leader of Iraq was fooled?

Just more propoganda that it wasn't W's fault that our troops are in engaged in this quagmire/guerilla war.

Utter crap.

edit : (sorry didn't complete a sentence)

[Capt_Nemo]

39. The dog ate my homework!

This would be hillarious if so many people hadn't died because of it...

[Warren Stuart]

41. Pure Rubbish

If Saddam really was a cruel and violent individual (and there is no reason to suspect he wasn't), then what lower level officer would lie to him about his military capabilities? If Saddam ever suspected that someone was lying to him he would have had that person and whis whole family executed.

If we are to believe the propaganda regarding Saddam then surely this has to be an impossibility. He didn't get hold onto power as tenaciously as he did without being keenly aware of his capabilities.

[trogdor]

42. Let me guess.

Dr. Emmitt Brown traded a box of old pinball machine parts for Saddam's plutonium to power his time machine.

[Entente]

43. I don't beleive this

but even if it were right, it just proves why intelligence is a requirement in a president. Bush proves to me everyday, why I as right in not voting for him. Why I was scandalized by his stupidity from day one even before I knew and only suspected that this was a very stupid person.

[missile_bender]

46. Three problems with this scenario

First, Saddam and all his people have and continue to consistently say there were no such weapons in existence or in development.

Second, if MI6 had these people close to Saddam, they knew there were no such weapons because they would never have seen any evidence of their existence.

Third, Blair sucks.


http://www.unembedded.com

[davidinalameda]

47. thought maybe Rummy told him that we were giving him WMDs

back in the 80s

[Rex]

49. Maybe Dubya can tell Saddam his wise saying...

"Fool me once, shame on you, fool me again...shame on, shame on...won't get fooled again!"

I'm afraid the true fools are the American people.

[stickdog]

52. Another, much simpler, theory.

"We lied."

[gulliver]

53. It's a "stupid only" product.

This explanation is not intended to be believed by anyone with intelligence. It is just thrown out there to give people who don't or can't think something to fill Bush's huge WMD credibility gap.

It's insultingly stupid.

Low level officers under Saddam are going to conceal something this big from him? Does that sound like a safe thing to do? Would it even have a prayer of not resulting in a summary execution for the alleged concealers?

Stupid. Just f'ing, insultingly stupid. But some idiots will believe anything. Man, these Bushies are such incredible assholes.

[Nlighten1]

55. Jedi mind trick in action

hilarious

[rman]

57. then why did Saddam say he didn't have WMDs

it certainly isn't so that intel agencies were mislead by what Saddam said about having WMDs.

[Jack Rabbit]

58. Why does a cat arch his back?

Saddam was attempting to appear bigger and more fierce than he actually was. He wanted his neighbors to think he had biochemical weapons to ward off attacks. Of his neighbors, he probably feared Iran more than any other.

The reason his neighbors didn't attack Iraq is because most world leaders don't believe that nations should just go around attacking each other for no good reason. However, Saddam thinks that nations exist to be belligerent with each other. He plunged his nation into two senseless wars out of a desire for personal aggrandizement. He probably feared others doing the same to him. If others believed he could strike back with an unconventional attack, they would think twice.

I know that sounds sick and twisted, but we are talking about Saddam, not a wholesome person.

[Devils Advocate NZ]

59. Bollocks!

Saddam claimed for YEARS that he had no NBC weapons and that he had destroyed them. It was the US that claimed he did. So why are you trying to blame Saddam for a decade of US lies?

It was the US that lied about Hussein's military capapbilites in order to frighten his neighbours and convince them to accept US troop emplacements.

It was the US that lied about Hussein's NBC capabilities to justify a nearly genocidal regime of sanctions and military interventions that did aboslutely NOTHING except result in over HALF A MILLION DEATHS of innocent children through preventable disease etc.

It was the US that lied about the threat that Hussein was supposedly presenting in order to justify the OUTRIGHT THEFT of Iraqi wealth.

Don't try to blame Hussein, becuase if the US had just said "Yes, Iraq has destroyed all NBC weapons", then the last decade of death and destruction would not have occured.

Remember, the only people saying that Iraq had NBC weapons, and thus the only people scaring Iraq's neighbours, were the US and UK governments and their intelligence agencies.

As for the "two senseless wars" the war against Iran was a result of the fundamentalist takeover and was done with the encouragment and support of the US. The war against Kuwait was a result of Kuwaiti theft of Iraqi natural resources, and encroachments on territory that had been agreed on as "no man's land". Iraq warned Kuwait repeatedly to stop slant drilling etc, but the US encouraged Kuwait to continue because as far as the US was concerned, the only thing that mattered was low oil prices, and Kuwait was ammenable to US demands for increased production.

Thus, those two "senseless wars" can be laid squarely at the feet of the US, the nation that feels that its "interests" far outweigh any other consideration when it comes to foreign policy.

[Jack Rabbit]

62. Even the Devil is entitled to his advocate

Saddam claimed for YEARS that he had no NBC weapons and that he had destroyed them. It was the US that claimed he did. So why are you trying to blame Saddam for a decade of US lies?

Saddam could claim anything he wanted for as long as he wanted. Even the fact that he had no WMDs -- at least not in the spring of '03 -- does not change the fact that he was untrustworthy. His word was not good enough.

I do not disagree that the US lied about Saddam's capabilities in order to steal Iraq's wealth. The question is why did Saddam want to make it appear to some that he had something to hide, even while saying he had destroyed his weapons. At the same time he was making those denials, he was also be less than cooperative with UN inspectors. He was doing all he could to make it appear that he was hiding something.

As for the "two senseless wars" the war against Iran was a result of the fundamentalist takeover and was done with the encouragement and support of the US. The war against Kuwait was a result of Kuwaiti theft of Iraqi natural resources, and encroachments on territory that had been agreed on as "no man's land". Iraq warned Kuwait repeatedly to stop slant drilling etc, but the US encouraged Kuwait to continue because as far as the US was concerned, the only thing that mattered was low oil prices, and Kuwait was ammenable to US demands for increased production.

Saddam may have been encouraged by the US in one case and duped in another, but the fact still remains that it was Saddam's decision to plunge his nation into those two costly wars. In the case of the Kuwait War, as with any international dispute, there were means available for mediation that fell short of invasion and annexation. For Saddam, the path taken was a bad career move.

The US is not blameless in these episodes. However, Saddam was no angel and bears more than a little of the responsibility for the bloodshed.

[Cronus Protagonist]

61. Saddam has consistently and repeatedly denied having WMD

...for over 10 years. Additionally, he let two waves of inspectors inspect his entire country to satisfy anyone's attempt at checking his veracity. He was telling the truth.

I never saw him "arch his back", to follow on your metaphor once in the last ten years, and certainly he never claimed to have WMD anywhere close to the start of the war. He claimed the opposite, inspectors verified his claims and he turned out to be truthful on this issue.

"Lick Bush" Buttons, Stickers & Magnets

[Jack Rabbit]

63. See post 62

Saddam's word on this matter wasn't good enough.

Of course, neither was Bush's claim to the contrary. That's wny UN inspectors were the best solution and why Bush would not allow the process to continue.

[Blue_Roses]

66. this makes alot

of sense. Whether or not he did have WMD still gave others the illusion by his odd and brutal behavior. Can you imagine how much sooner he would have been invaded by terroists, other countries, if they had known that he didn't have anything they would have to worry about.

Never thought of it like that until now, but it makes sense.

[daleo]

64. Low level officials have incredible power lately

Yesterday, the White House claimed that low level officials caused Bush to tell untruths in the State of the Union speech, by their inadequate fact checking. Thus, these low level officials are at fault for the war.

Now, Whitehall tells us that low level Iraqi officers caused Hussein to think he had WMD he didn't have, thus causing him to cause Blair and Bush to think he had WMD he didn't have. Thus, these low level officials are also at fault for the war.

Why even try for the top job, when the position of low level official wields such incredible power.

[Solly Mack]

65. Words fail me

well...hmmm.....allriighty then. Looks at feet and walks away-embarrassed for the people promoting this theory.