Recent WMD history in Iraq

An AP wire story on March 31 said,

Percy responded to ask, "Still doesn't answer why he didn't use `em on us, Ed."

I responded with this:

Personally, I think Saddam was finessing the system.

The Gulf War cease-fire agreement said he couldn’t make or possess WMD or long-range delivery systems plus other stipulations.  That war never ended, there was just a cease-fire.

The U.N. inspectors initially found some WMD.  Early on, Saddam gave some WMD to the inspectors.  After about ’93, did the inspectors actually FIND any WMD?  Saddam admitted to possessing a lot of WMD that he said he destroyed – but he gave no proof of this destruction and NO documentary proof of this destruction has been found (in a compulsively documenting dictatorship).

From ’98 on, there were no inspectors.  Saddam said they left voluntarily.  The rest of the world thought they had been forced out because they were kept from doing anything worthwhile.

Saddam kept claiming he had no WMD and was asking for the cease-fire sanctions to be removed.  Simultaneously, he was cheating on the U.N. oil for food program with the connivance of some of the bribed U.N. officials.  Simultaneously, he was engaging in the time-honored Mid-East tradition of smuggling oil out.

Some of the money he got from cheating on the sanctions was used to buy prohibited weapons, weapon parts and tools from the French, German and Russians.  Saddam also made contracts with the French for the development of the mostly-undeveloped oil fields in the northeast of Iraq – thought to be the biggest undeveloped oil fields existing – to be developed after removal of the sanctions.

Along the way, Saddam bought lots of stuff from the French, Germans and Russians, running up big debts.  (Dictators are good for their debts, aren’t they?)

From ’98 into 2002, Saddam campaigned for total removal of the sanctions and removal of the cease-fire condition of the never finished Gulf War.  Guess which countries were leaders in claiming that Saddam has reformed and that there were no WMD and no reason not to declare the end of the Gulf War and the removal of sanctions.

Did I mention that along the way, the oil-for-food money was largely NOT used for food and medicines?  Saddam got lots of publicity from showing the starving children and the children and poor people in hospitals who had no medicines.  Poor Saddam. Besides the prohibited weapons purchases, he did manage to live like a Mid-East dictator during this period, building some really marvelous palaces and mosques with a lot of that oil-for-food money.

Poor Saddam.  The world’s just got to remove those bad sanctions, said the French with support from the Germans and Russians and others.  The sanctions were breaking down with more and more countries violating them.  It became doubtful that sanctions would last even two more years.

Yet, we were convinced that Saddam was still Saddam.  9-11 happened and we took care of Afghanistan. We were at war with terrorism.  Saddam, who had started two wars of invasion, who paid families of suicide bombers in Israel, who perpetually put out propaganda about the evils of the U.S. still looked mighty dangerous to us.  We started to act against Iraq.

During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, the U.S. started to rattle our sabers and say that if Saddam didn’t prove he had no WMD, we would invade and destroy them ourselves.  We started to move troops into the region.  After seeing the buildup, Saddam declared that of course he would allow U.N. inspectors.  Eventually, he did allow inspectors to enter, with conditions and minders.

Inspections stayed ineffectual.  Saddam had lived for seven years with U.N. inspectors and they found zip in the later part of their time in Iraq.  With continual pressure to allow inspections as a condition for removal of the sanctions, Saddam most likely made sure he’d pass any such inspections.

Whether Saddam hid actual weapons (he had admitted possessing) or actually destroyed them, we don’t know.  There has been evidence found of Saddam’s WMD development programs and evidence of factories capable of producing the chemical and bio weapons.  If the U.N. were to declare the Gulf War finally finished and remove sanctions, Saddam would be well positioned to quickly build new WMD.

While declaring to the U.N. and the world that he had no WMD, Saddam was bragging to his Mid-Eastern neighbors that he HAD WMD and was mean and tough.  Saddam’s government leaked to its local neighbors sufficient proof to convince them that he had actual WMD weapons.  This is in line with Mid-Eastern dictatorship macho.  (There’s some thought that Saddam’s minions were telling Saddam that he had weapons when he didn’t but that’s not resolved and may never be.  Sounds like a risky thing to do in a dictatorship.)

At any rate, Saddam’s government leaked sufficient “evidence” to the world’s intelligence services that there was pretty universal agreement within the intelligence community that Saddam had WMD or at least the ability to build them immediately.  Were these leaks just Mid-East dictatorship bragging and false leads or were they real leaks of real programs?

There's some reason to think that Saddam didn't think the wimp U.S. would ever invade tough Iraq, right up to till the invasion was under way.  By the time Saddam believed we'd invade, we had disrupted his command and control.  We had also put a lot of effort into distributing OUR propaganda leaflets promising to try as a war criminal any Iraqi who used WMD.

It's entirely possible that Saddam had actually destroyed every single actual weapon of mass destruction.  He knew he could build more so he may well have done so.  While bragging to and threatening his neighbors, he was still finessing the international system.  We may not find any actual WMD weapons.