Well, Special Advisor to the Director of Central Intelligence Charles Duelfer has just sung his "swan song" to the Senate Armed Services Committee. Although their names weren’t mentioned, Duelfer’s song essentially constitutes long overdue homage to (a) Hans Blix, former Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency; (b) Scott Ritter, former Chief Inspector of the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) on Iraq; and (c) General Hussein Kamal, former czar of Saddam’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs.
You see, in order to obtain a Gulf War ceasefire in 1991, Iraq had unconditionally accepted UNSCR-687, which required Iraq’s full cooperation in the destruction, removal, or rendering harmless – under UNSCOM supervision – of:
- All chemical and biological weapons and all stocks of agents and all related subsystems and components and all research, development, support and manufacturing facilities;
- All ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150 kilometers and related major parts, and repair and production facilities;
Iraq also unconditionally accepted UNSCR-707, which required Iraq’s full cooperation in the destruction, removal or rendering harmless – under IAEA supervision – of all nuclear-weapons-usable materials, all potentially-related subsystems or components and all potentially-related research, development, support and manufacturing facilities.
To insure Iraqi’s "full cooperation," the Security Council (UNSC) imposed economic sanctions, effectively requiring all Iraqi foreign trade – export and import – to be conducted through a UN agency.
Duelfer’s principal findings are these;
- Frantic to get the UN sanctions lifted, Iraq had “essentially destroyed" all illicit weapons – as well as most weapons-usable materials and precursors – by the end of 1991.
- By 1996, "nothing remained," not even a production capability.
- Saddam never attempted to reconstruct any of those capabilities.
Surprise, surprise?
Not to Bush or Cheney, and maybe not to Kerry.
You see, back in 1995, General Kamal – Saddam’s son-in-law – had defected to Jordan, carrying with him thousands of Iraqi WMD program documents. Kamal was extensively debriefed by UNSCOM, IAEA and CIA weenies.
Kamal claimed that Iraqis had destroyed immediately after the Gulf War, all remaining chem-bio agents and weapons they had produced for the Iran-Iraq War. The IAEA had discovered and destroyed what remained of the unsuccessful Iraqi nuke program.
According to Kamal, “nothing remained."
By 1997, the UN inspectors were able to report – confidentially – to the Security Council that Kamal had indeed told the truth.
Oh, there were some "bookkeeping" inconsistencies. The amounts of chem-bio materials the Iraqis claimed to have made didn’t always equal the amounts they could prove they had destroyed. But, by 1997, the shelf-life – and hence, the effectiveness – of those chem-bio agents would have long since passed.
Hallelujah! Iraq was effectively WMD-free! Whereupon, several members of the Security Council proposed that the “sanctions” imposed on Iraq in 1991 be lifted.
President Clinton wouldn’t allow it.
Rationale?
Well, the UNSC resolutions didn’t require Iraq to be WMD-free. They merely required Iraq’s "complete cooperation" with UN inspectors. Clinton argued that the Iraqis weren’t providing "complete cooperation."
So, on Aug. 14, 1998, Congress resolved, "That the Government of Iraq is in material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations, and therefore the president is urged to take appropriate action, in accordance with the Constitution and relevant laws of the United States, to bring Iraq into compliance with its international obligations."
Then, on Oct. 31, 1998, Congress passed the Iraq Liberation Act, which declared, "It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime."
Armed with that "authority," Clinton attempted – from 20,000 feet – to remove Saddam from power at year’s end.
As the bombing of Saddam’s palaces was an obvious attempt to assassinate him, Saddam ceased "cooperating" with the UNSCOM inspectors, who had fled Iraq on the eve of the attempt.
Then, in November 2002, President Bush got the Security Council to pass UNSCR-1441, which afforded Iraq "a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations under relevant resolutions of the Council."
Bush claimed he had "slam-dunk" intelligence that Saddam had been reconstructing his nuke and chem-bio programs.
However, once back in Iraq, the UN inspectors reported – right up till the eve of the invasion – that they were receiving "complete cooperation" from the Iraqis. Furthermore, they could find no “indication” that there had been any attempts to reconstruct Iraq’s WMD programs or facilities since 1991.
Now, a thousand American deaths later, Duelfer is singing the same tune.
