This is the way Dafna Linzer of the Washington Post began her analysis last week of the report of the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction;
“Of all the claims U.S. intelligence made about Iraq’s arsenal in the fall and winter of 2002, it was a handful of new charges that seemed the most significant: secret purchases of uranium from Africa, biological weapons being made in mobile laboratories, and pilotless planes that could disperse anthrax or sarin gas into the air above U.S. cities.
“By the time President Bush ordered U.S. troops to disarm Saddam Hussein of the deadly weapons he was allegedly trying to build, every piece of fresh evidence had been tested – and disproved – by U.N. inspectors, according to a report commissioned by the president and released Thursday.”
Now, the portions of the Commission’s report that deal with a critically important assessment of our intelligence capabilities with respect to Iran and North Korea remain classified.
So, maybe Linzer knows something we don’t. But nowhere in the report that is available to us poor slobs does the Commission conclude that "every piece of fresh evidence had been tested – and disproved – by UN inspectors."
There is no indication that the Commissioners even recognized that the UN had done that.
Or if they did recognize it, there is no indication the Commissioners realized that the findings of the UN inspectors had been completely disregarded by our "intelligence community."
Or if they did realize it, there is no indication the Commissioners judged the total dismissal of UN on-the-ground intelligence important enough to make that dismissal one of their principal findings.
Or to make as a principal Commission recommendation that in future our "intelligence community" ought to make such on-the-ground intelligence by professional UN inspectors the basis of our "assessments."
If the Commission had recognized, had realized, had made such a finding and recommendation, then the Commissioners would deserve our praise for a job well done. But unless all that is included in the portions of their report kept secret from us, the Commissioners didn’t do any of the above and, hence, deserve from us – at best – Bronx cheers.
For it is unquestionably true that by the time Bush invaded Iraq to prevent Saddam from acquiring nukes, every piece of "fresh evidence" cooked up by our "intelligence community" that involved Iraq’s nuclear programs had been "tested and disproved" by the inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
And it is also unquestionably true that President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Secretary of State Powell paid absolutely no attention to the IAEA’s findings. There is not even any evidence in the Commission’s report that any weenie in the "intelligence community" paid any attention to the IAEA’s findings.
In particular, Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei was able to report to the Security Council on the eve of Bush’s invasion of Iraq that the IAEA had investigated all that "fresh evidence" of nuclear activities in Iraq presented in considerable detail by Powell to the Security Council on January 16, 2003.
What were ElBaradei’s findings?
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Infrastructure: the IAEA has been able to provide assurance of the absence of indications of resumed nuclear activities in buildings that had been identified through the use of satellite imagery as having been reconstructed or newly erected since 1998, and of the absence of any indication of nuclear-related prohibited activities at any inspected sites
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Nuclear material: the IAEA has been able to confirm that there has been no diversion of the nuclear material stored under IAEA seal; it has also been able to investigate reports of attempted imports by Iraq of uranium since 1990, and to ascertain that these specific allegations were unfounded.
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Uranium enrichment by centrifuge: the IAEA considers that it is unlikely that the aluminum tubes Iraq attempted to import were for use in centrifuge enrichment.
Seeing as how the same kind of "assessments" that led us into the wholly unjustified and unnecessary war in Iraq are apparently being made with respect to the nuclear programs of Iran – by the same people and in complete disregard for the findings of the on-the-ground IAEA inspectors – the failure of the Commission to recommend that in future our "intelligence community" ought to base our assessments on such intelligence may result in our waging an even more unjustified and unnecessary war in Iran.
Only this time, nuke-powers Russia and China may not "roll over" for Bush.
