Iraq Posed “No Imminent Threat,” Kennedy Says

U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) sharply criticized Operation Iraqi Freedom yesterday, saying the Bush administration fabricated its justification for beginning hostilities (see GSN, Sept. 18).

During an interview with the Associated Press, Kennedy accused Bush administration officials of using “distortion, misrepresentation [and] a selection of intelligence” for justifying the war with Iraq.

“There was no imminent threat.  This was made up in Texas, announced in January to the Republican leadership that war was going to take place and was going to be good politically.  This whole thing was a fraud,” Kennedy said.

Kennedy also said that a recent Congressional Budget Office report found that the White House could account for only about $2.5 billion of the $4 billion being spent per month on Iraq.

“My belief is this money is being shuffled all around to these political leaders in all parts of the world, bribing them to send in troops,” he said.

The White House focus on Iraq has resulted in less attention being paid to more direct threats to the United States, such as al-Qaeda, the nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula and the continuing instability in Afghanistan, Kennedy said.

“I think all of those pose a threat to the security of the people of Massachusetts much more than the threat from Iraq,” he said.  “Terror has been put on the sidelines for the last 12 months,” Kennedy added (Associated Press/Washington Times, Sept. 19).

Former Iraqi Defense Minister Surrenders to U.S. Forces

Meanwhile, former Iraqi Defense Minister Gen. Sultan Hashim Ahmad surrendered today to U.S. forces in northern Iraq, according to the Washington Post.

Ahmad surrendered to Maj. Gen. David Petraeus after weeks of negotiations, said Kurdish mediator Dagwood Bagistani, who arranged the surrender.  In exchange for Ahmad’s surrender, the U.S. military agreed to remove his name from the list of 55 most-wanted former Iraqi officials, Bagistani said.

“We trust the promise,” Bagistani said.

U.S. forces will only hold Ahmad until his interrogation is complete, according to Bagistani.  Ahmad will not face prosecution, Bagistani said (Associated Press/New York Times, Sept. 19).

In addition, U.S. forces in Mosul have also reportedly been close to capturing Izzat Ibrahim, former vice chairman of the Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council, Reuters reported (Khudeir Majeed, Reuters, Sept. 19).

Back to top

Top U.N. Disarmament Official Calls for U.S., Russian Action

By Joe Fiorill

Global Security Newsire

MOSCOW — U.N. Undersecretary General for Disarmament Affairs Nobuyasu Abe said here today that a “collapse” of the international nonproliferation regime is possible without concerted action, notably by the United States and Russia (see GSN, April 1).

Speaking to top experts and officials from 36 countries at a PIR Center-Carnegie Endowment for International Peace nonproliferation conference, Abe cited complaints that disarmament by nuclear weapon states “proceeds at a snail’s pace.”  While calling the charge “legitimate,” Abe said it should not serve as an excuse for other countries to “renege on nonproliferation obligations.”

“The United States and the Russian Federation,” Abe said, “bear a special responsibility as the world’s two superpowers” to contribute to strengthening international norms of disarmament and nonproliferation.  The recent Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty is a significant step, he said, “but we want more.”

Abe — a Japanese diplomat who assumed his position July 1, succeeding longtime disarmament official Jayantha Dhanapala of Indonesia — said the bolstering of international monitoring and verification efforts the most urgent need at the moment in the field.  He said the cases of Iraq and North Korea demonstrate the insufficiency of International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards arrangements but that the Additional Protocol to those agreements can be expected to “greatly enhance” such efforts.

Among other remarks, Abe called for innovative means to prevent biological weapons proliferation in the absence of an effective monitoring system, better physical protection of WMD materials against acquisition by “nonstate actors,” strengthened export controls, better education to “build … a strong norm of prohibition,” and international organization reforms to address a “crisis of multilateral enforcement mechanisms” that encourages unilateralism and coalition-based action.

Back to top

United States to Offer Immunity to Iraqi Scientists for Information

Senior U.S. officials have said Washington plans to offer former mid-level Iraqi scientists immunity from possible prosecution if they provide information on Iraqi WMD programs, the Financial Times reported today (see GSN, Sept. 17).

The Bush administration determined that CIA envoy David Kay, who heads the Iraq Survey Group searching for evidence of alleged Iraqi WMD efforts, needed to offer the former scientists immunity to overcome their reluctance to provide information, according to the Times.  While some scientists have said that Iraq previously destroyed its WMD stockpiles, the White House hopes that such statements are merely bargaining positions and that the scientists might provide information if given immunity (Khalaf/Dinmore, Financial Times, Sept. 18).

Kay left Iraq yesterday to travel to Washington and is expected to present a report on the Iraq Survey Group’s finding as early as next week, a senior U.S. intelligence official said.  The report is expected to focus on evidence of Iraqi plans to resume WMD programs on short-notice and long-range plans to develop and produce weapons of mass destruction if U.N. sanctions against the sale of dual-use items were lifted, U.S. officials said.  No stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction have yet to be found in Iraq (Bob Drogin, Los Angeles Times, Sept 18).

Meanwhile, former U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix has said the United States and the United Kingdom overinterpreted prewar intelligence on Iraqi WMD efforts.

“They were convinced that Saddam was going in this direction and I think it is understandable against the background of the man,” Blix said during an interview BBC Radio 4’s Today program.  “But in the Middle Ages people were convinced there were witches.  They looked for them and they certainly found them,” he said (BBC News, Sept. 18).

Back to top

Cheney Defends Pre-Emption Doctrine

By Mike Nartker
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The United States needs to continue to pursue a strategy of pre-emptive action against both terrorist groups and countries that sponsor them to prevent future attacks, U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney said yesterday (see GSN, Aug. 1).

During a speech before a U.S. Air Force Association conference, Cheney said the United States has learned that terrorist groups are attempting to acquire weapons of mass destruction.  He warned that if they were to do so, “ they will use them, launching attacks far more deadly than anything we’ve ever experienced.”

To prevent such an attack, “we need a strategy that puts us on offense, that lets us go after those who pose a threat to the United States or our friends and allies, a strategy that allows us to destroy the terrorists before they can launch attacks against us,” Cheney said.

While the Bush administration has worked “aggressively” to improve U.S. defenses against terrorist attacks, “the 1 percent that gets through can still kill you,” Cheney said.  He also discounted strategic approaches used during the Cold War-era to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction, such as arms control agreements and the concept of deterrence.

“The kind of strategy we used against the Soviet Union during the Cold War, where we put at risk those things they valued in order to deter them from ever launching an attack against the United States, simply will not work where terrorists are concerned,” Cheney said.  “There is nothing they value highly enough that we can put at risk to keep them from launching an attack against the United States,” he added.

While the concept of pre-emptive attacks against other countries has been considered to be in violation of international law, Cheney yesterday brushed aside criticism of the White House doctrine.

“Some people, both in this nation and abroad … suggest that somehow it’s wrong for us to strike before an enemy strikes us.  But as President Bush said, if the threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words and all recriminations would come too late,” he said.

Back to top

Syria Rejects U.S. WMD, Threat Allegations

Syria has rejected allegations recently made by several senior Bush administration officials that it poses a security concern to the United States, CNN.com reported today (see GSN, Sept. 16).

Yesterday, Undersecretary of State John Bolton gave congressional testimony describing U.S. intelligence concerns over Syria’s alleged WMD programs.  Bolton also said Syria had taken “a series of hostile actions,” such as allowing guerrillas and weapons to move into Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom (CNN.com, Sept. 17).

During an appearance on ABC’s Nightline, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice described Syria as “a country with which we continue to have a number of problems.”

“We don’t really feel they’re meeting the mark, but we continue to press the Syrians,” Rice said (Harry Dunphy, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Sept. 16).

In addition, White House press secretary Scott McClellan yesterday reiterated U.S. concerns surrounding Syria’s WMD efforts and support for terrorism. 

“There are a number of longstanding concerns that we have with regards to Syria.  They know our views, they know what needs to be done.  And we will continue to make clear what our view is,” McClellan said (U.S. State Department release, Sept. 16).

Syria, however, has rejected the recent U.S. criticism, saying it has actively cooperated against terrorism, according to CNN.com.

“Syria was acknowledged by the U.S. to be one of the best countries who cooperated against terrorism in the aftermath of Sept. 11,” Syrian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Buthania Shaaban said.  “Syria is known for its historical stand against terrorism.  I think what’s worrying is the misinformation that seems to be getting to the United States,” Shaaban said (CNN.com).

Back to top

Iraq Probably Destroyed Weapons of Mass Destruction in 1991, Blix Says

Former U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix is becoming increasingly convinced that Iraq destroyed most of its stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in 1991, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, Sept. 16).

“I’m certainly more and more to the conclusion that Iraq has, as they maintained, destroyed all, almost, of what they had in the summer of 1991,” Blix said in an interview with Australian Broadcasting Corp.  ‘The more time that has passed, the more I think it’s unlikely that anything will be found,” he said.

Blix also said that that Iraq might have continued to insist that it possessed weapons of mass destruction, even after destroying them, for a deterrence effect (see GSN, June 23).

“I mean, you can put up a sign on your door, ‘Beware of the Dog,’ without having a dog,” Blix said (Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Sept. 17).

Missing Tuwaitha Material Poses Little Risk, Iraqi Scientists Say

Meanwhile, Iraqi scientists yesterday said that most of the radioactive materials looted from the Tuwaitha nuclear complex in Baghdad, the main site in Iraq’s former nuclear program, were too low in radiation to be used to build weapons and had been recovered, according to the Associated Press.

One of the scientists, Abbas Balasem, also said that Iraq lacked the resources to revive its nuclear weapons program following the 1991 Gulf War.

“There was no way to revive those attempts,” Balasem said.  “There was nothing left,” he added (George Jahn, Associated Press/Boston Globe, Sept. 17).

Back to top

Bolton Travels to Moscow to Discuss Proliferation Security Initiative

U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton left for Moscow yesterday to discuss a U.S.-led effort to interdict shipments of WMD-related cargo (see GSN, Sept. 15).

The “primary purpose” of Bolton’s two-day visit to Russia is to discuss issues related to the Proliferation Security Initiative, U.S. State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said yesterday (U.S. State Department release, Sept. 16).  Four PSI members — Australia, France, Japan and the United States — recently conducted a naval interdiction exercise off the coast of Australia.

In addition, Australian Defense Minister Robert Hill is scheduled to travel to China and Japan next week for talks on the initiative, according to Agence France-Presse.  China’s opposition to the effort has begun to weaken after presentations from U.S. and Australian officials, AFP reported.  Sources have also said that China, along with Russia, would be approached to take part in further planned initiative exercises (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, Sept. 17).

Back to top

Syrian WMD Goals, Support for Terrorism Pose “Security Concern,” Bolton Says

By Mike Nartker
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton today warned that Syria remains a “security concern” for the United States because of a combination of WMD ambitions and support for international terrorism.  He also said, however, that there are no signs that Damascus has provided terrorists with weapons of mass destruction (see GSN, Sept. 12).

Appearing before a House International Relations subcommittee, Bolton outlined U.S. intelligence regarding Syria’s nuclear research efforts, as well as its biological and chemical weapons programs.  The United States remains “concerned” about Syria’s nuclear research program and its efforts to obtain dual-use nuclear-related technologies, Bolton said.  He also noted that Syria and Russia have agreed to increase civilian nuclear cooperation, which “could provide opportunities for Syria to expand its indigenous capabilities, should it decide to pursue nuclear weapons.”

In his remarks, Bolton compared Syria’s nuclear efforts with those of Iran by the fact that both countries have not yet signed Additional Protocols to their International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards agreements.  Bolton said the protocols were necessary because the safeguard agreements, on their own, were not enough to detect “a determined effort to circumvent the agreement and produce nuclear weapons.”

“Syria’s unwillingness to adopt and implement the Additional Protocol is extremely troubling, as in the case of Iran, which is also refusing so far to sign and implement that protocol,” Bolton said.

Bolton also told the Middle East and Central Asia Subcommittee of Syria’s biological, chemical and missile programs, as well as Damascus’ reliance on international aid for such efforts. 

Describing Syria’s chemical weapons programs as “one of the most advanced Arab state chemical weapons capabilities,” Bolton said Damascus had developed stockpiles of sarin and was attempting to develop stronger nerve agents such as VX.  While Syria’s chemical weapons program is fairly self-sufficient, it still relies on foreign assistance for “key elements” such as precursor chemicals and production equipment, Bolton said.

The United States believes that Syria is continuing its efforts to develop an offensive biological weapons capability, Bolton said.  He also said that Syria’s ballistic missile capability relied “heavily” on Iranian and North Korean aid.

In addition to its efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction, Syria still remains an active supporter of terrorism with connections to Islamic militant groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas, Bolton said.  He added, however, that there is no information that Syria has transferred weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups or that Damascus would allow them to obtain such weapons.

Bolton also told the House panel that the United States has been unable to confirm reports that former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s regime covertly transferred Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to Syria in an attempt to hide them from U.N. weapons inspectors and coalition forces.

“We are continuing with the full breadth of resources at our command to seek conclusive evidence that any such transfer has taken place,” Bolton said.

In a seeming nod to the controversy surrounding U.S. prewar intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, Bolton said there was “very broad and deep agreement” within the Bush administration over the assessments he presented on Syria’s WMD efforts.

“I can assure you that with respect both to the unclassified testimony which I have delivered and the prepared classified statement which - which has been delivered to the committee, that the judgments that are expressed there have been reviewed and commented on by everybody with a stake in the issue within the executive branch,” Bolton said.

Knight Ridder News Service reported in July that an earlier scheduled subcommittee appearance by Bolton was delayed because of objections from U.S. intelligence agencies over his assessment of Syria’s WMD capabilities (see GSN, July 16).

Subcommittee Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) closed today’s hearing with support for the White House’s Syria assessment.  “Nothing ‘sexed-up’ here,” she said, referring to the controversy surrounding a 2002 British dossier on Iraq’s WMD threat.

Back to top

British Intelligence Chief Defends Iraqi WMD Dossier

Testifying before a parliamentary inquiry yesterday, British Secret Intelligence Service Director Richard Dearlove defended a September 2002 dossier on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, according to the New York Times (see GSN, Sept. 15).

Dearlove said that he and the intelligence service had had “full visibility of the process of preparing the dossier and that the whole process had gone extremely well.”

Dearlove also specifically defended a claim made in the dossier that the Iraqi military could deploy biological and chemical weapons within 45 minutes, calling it “a piece of well-sourced intelligence” (Warren Hoge, New York Times, Sept. 16).

“It did come from an established and reliable source equating a senior Iraqi military officer who was certainly in a position to know this information,” Dearlove said (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Sept. 16).

Dearlove told the inquiry that he believed there had been a “misinterpretation” in the way the 45-minute claim had been presented, according to the New York Times.  Previous intelligence indicated that the claim referred to only short-range weapons, he said (Hoge, New York Times).

“The original report referred … to battlefield weapons,” Dearlove said.  ‘I think what subsequently happened in the reporting was that it was taken that the 45 minutes applied … to weapons of a longer range,” he said (Reuters/Washington Post, Sept. 16).

Powell Visits Site of 1988 Iraqi Chemical Weapons Attack

Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell yesterday visited the northern Iraqi city of Halabja — the site of a 1998 chemical weapons attack by former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s regime that killed 5,000 people.

“What can I say to you?”  Powell told an assembled crowd.  “I cannot tell you that choking mothers died holding their choking babies to their chests.  You know that,” he said.

“I cannot tell you that the world should have acted sooner.  You know that.  What I can tell you is that what happened here in 1988 is never going to happen again,” Powell said (Steven Weisman, New York Times, Sept. 16).

Powell also said the 1988 attack demonstrated that Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and the will to use such weapons.

“If you want evidence of the existence and the use of weapons of mass destruction, come here now to Halabja today and see it,” Powell said.  “What happened over the intervening 15 years?  Did (Hussein) suddenly lose the motivation?  Did he suddenly decide that such weapons would not be useful?  The international community did not believe so,” he added.

Barham Salih, prime minister for the western section of Iraq’s Kurdish region, said the Halabja attack justified the U.S. effort to overthrow Hussein.

“Today it is perplexing and rather painful indeed for the people of Halabja to hear voices in the international community that continue to insist on proof for Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction,” Salih said.  “Here is the proof.  Halabja is the proof. … This mass grave in Halabja and the other 170 so far discovered mass graves in Iraq should dispel any doubts about the legitimacy of the American and British liberation of Iraq.  These mass graves vindicate the moral imperative of your intervention to protect the people of Iraq,” Salih said (Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Washington Post, Sept. 16).

Back to top

Cheney Defends Iraqi WMD Allegations

By Mike Nartker
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney yesterday strongly defended White House charges that former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s regime maintained programs to develop weapons of mass destruction prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom (see GSN, Sept. 12).

“The whole notion that somehow there’s nothing to the notion that Saddam Hussein had WMD or had developed WMD, it just strikes me as fallacious.  It’s not valid,” Cheney said on NBC’s Meet the Press.  “Now, nobody drove into Baghdad and had somebody say, ‘Hey, there’s the building over there where all of our WMDs stored’ — but that’s not the way the system worked,” he said.

Acknowledging that he misspoke during an earlier Meet the Press appearance when he had said that Iraq had reconstituted nuclear weapons, Cheney yesterday offered a strong defense of the disputed White House claims that Iraq had maintained a nuclear weapons program.  As proof, Cheney cited Iraq’s cadre of trained scientists, evidence that Iraq possessed usable nuclear weapons designs, and a stockpile of 500 tons of uranium stored at the Tuwaitha complex, the main site in Iraq’s former nuclear program.

In addition, Cheney also referred to former Iraqi scientist Mahdi Shurkur Obeidi, who has provided the United States with components and designs for a centrifuge used to enrich uranium.  “That’s physical evidence that we have got in hand today,” Cheney said.

“To suggest that there is no evidence there that he [Hussein] had aspirations to acquire a nuclear weapon, I don’t think is valid,” Cheney said.

The U.S. allegations that Iraq had maintained an active nuclear weapons program, as well as some of the Bush administration’s pieces of evidence of such a program, have been heavily disputed, however, according to reports.  Last week, the Associated Press reported that International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei had said in a confidential report that Iraq’s nuclear weapons program would not have been able to support active development of such weapons (see GSN, Sept. 9).

“In the areas of uranium acquisition, concentration and centrifuge enrichment, extensive field investigation and document analysis revealed no evidence that Iraq had resumed such activities,” AP quoted the report as saying.  “No indication of post-1991 weaponization activities was uncovered in Iraq,” it said.

Today, the Financial Times reported that many former Iraqi nuclear scientists have also continued to deny that their country possessed a nuclear weapons program prior to the war.

“It was surprising to hear these things from the Americans that we could build a nuclear bomb in six months, while meanwhile we were sitting here scrounging for a screwdriver,” the Times quoted a scientist who formerly headed a department in Bomb Design Group Four as saying.

In addition, AP reported in July that Obeidi — the same Iraqi scientist cited yesterday by Cheney — had also told the CIA that Iraq had not resurrected its nuclear weapons program since 1991 (see GSN, July 18).

Cheney also defended yesterday a heavily disputed claim made prior to the war by several senior White House officials, including President George W. Bush himself, that Iraq had sought to obtain uranium from Africa.  Cheney said a recent British inquiry had “revalidated” the claim.

In July, the White House acknowledged that the claim should not have been included into Bush’s State of the Union address because evidence used to support it — documents that purported to show an attempted Iraqi purchase of uranium from Niger — had been determined by the IAEA to have been fraudulent (see GSN, July 30).  Last week, however, a British parliamentary committee investigating whether British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s office had exaggerated prewar intelligence on Iraq said that British intelligence services were justified in continuing to support the claim that Iraq had sought uranium from Niger (see GSN, Sept. 12).

Biological, Chemical Weapons

In his remarks yesterday, Cheney also reiterated allegations that Iraq had maintained biological and chemical weapons programs prior to the war.  Two mobile trailers recovered by U.S. forces in Iraq could have been used to “produce anthrax or smallpox or whatever else you wanted to use during the course of developing the capacity for an attack,” Cheney said.

The New York Times reported last month, however, that engineering experts from the U.S. Defense Department’s Defense Intelligence Agency believed that the trailers had been intended to produce hydrogen for weather balloons, as Iraqi scientists had previously claimed (see GSN, Aug. 11). 

With regard to chemical weapons, Cheney said he suspected that the Hussein regime had hidden such weapons within Iraq’s civilian infrastructure.  “That’s not an unusual place to put it,” he said.

Cheney also reiterated the White House position that Hussein’s regime and al-Qaeda were connected, saying that Baghdad had provided al-Qaeda operatives with training in biological and chemical weapons.

Cheney said that he was sure that Iraq had WMD capabilities prior to the war.

“There is no doubt in my mind … [that] Saddam Hussein had these capabilities,” Cheney said.  “This wasn’t an idea cooked up overnight by a handful of people either in the administration or the CIA,” he said.

Cheney Denies Pressuring U.S. Analysts

Cheney yesterday also denied reports that he had pressured CIA analysts to create analyses that supported White House positions.  In June, the Washington Post quoted a senior CIA official as saying that the trips made by Cheney and his chief of staff, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, to the agency’s headquarters “sent signals, intended or otherwise, that a certain output was desired from here” (see GSN, June 5).

Cheney acknowledged that he had asked “a hell of a lot of questions” of CIA analysts examining Iraqi WMD efforts, adding, “That’s my job.”  He denied, however, that his questions were an attempt to pressure analysts into creating certain assessments.

“I’m not willing at all at this point to buy the proposition that somehow Saddam Hussein was innocent and he had no WMD and some guy out at the CIA, because I called him, cooked up a report saying he did,” Cheney said.  “That’s crazy.  That makes no sense.  It bears no resemblance to reality whatsoever,” he added.

Back to top

North Korea Criticizes International WMD Cargo Interdiction Exercise

North Korea yesterday criticized a naval interdiction training exercise held over the weekend off the Australian coast to practice a U.S.-led effort to block shipments of WMD-related cargo (see GSN, Sept. 12).

“Such moves of the United States are blatant military provocations to North Korea and they may push U.S. relations to an explosive phase,” the state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper said.

Four of the 11 countries involved in the Proliferation Security Initiative — Australia, France, Japan and the United States — took part in the “Pacific Protector” exercise.  The exercise scenario involved the purusuit and capture of a U.S. ship acting as a freighter loaded with chemical weapons (Richard Spencer, London Telegraph, Sept. 15).

Back to top

About Newswire  |  Contact National Journal  |  Re-Use Guidelines

HOME  |  CONTACT US  |  GET INVOLVED  |  SITE MAP