The search for WMD

The Bush administration seems to be finally acknowledging that maybe the intelligence they had prior to the war may not have been nearly as good as they thought it was. The Washington Post and MSNBC are reporting that "planners and those participating in the hunt" worried that information and materials related to WMD may have been stolen during the looting and chaos that has been plaguing Iraq since Saddam's regime fell.

It seems to me that this is just more evidence that the Bush administration simply did not plan at all well (or maybe they just didn't plan at all) for what to do after the main fighting of the war had been completed and the occupation and rebuilding of Iraq began. While they managed to have a company of Marines available to secure the Ministry of Oil, there has been a great deal of condemnation for the many other things that we seem to have been able to secure. Sadly, while the loss of the national treasues of the Iraqi museums and libraries is cultural tragedy, the lack of security for the sites the administration believed were locations where WMD may have been being manufactured or stored could end up being catastrophic.

[I]f such weapons or the means of making them have indeed been removed from the centralized control of former Iraqi officials, high-ranking U.S. officials acknowledged, then the war may prove to aggravate the proliferation threat that President Bush said he fought to forestall.

“It’s a danger,” Douglas J. Feith, the undersecretary of defense for policy, said in a telephone interview. There are signs, he said, “that some of the looting is actually strategic.” Former Baath Party and Iraqi government officials appear to be “doing at least some of the looting” of government facilities, he said, “including those that might have records or materials” relating to weapons of mass destruction.” [Emphasis mine]

It is absolutely ridiculous that the Bush administration did not have better plans for securing the sites they believed were likely to hold key evidence for the WMDs they claim Iraq has. Apparently, it has only been in the last few days that they have been moving to get the sites they have not yet checked secured, though it may already be too late there, as well.

The article also mentions the report from yesterday that the administration has spoken to an unnamed scientist who supposedly has led officials to samples of chemicals that might have been able to be used in creating chemical weapons, but experts caution that almost any chemical that can be used in creating chemical weapons will also have legitimate civilian uses. Even Donald Rumsfeld was hesitant to make any claims based on this reported find, saying only that he had "nothing to add" to the vague reports that have been released about it.

In other news regarding the search for WMDs, Hans Blix has accused the US of having tried to discredit the UN inspector's work in order to futher their justificaion for the war, such as leaking information that Blix had not included in oral reports given to the UN (for example, when he didn't mention the "drone" that Iraq had - and which turned out to be little more than a remote control "model" airplane made of balsa wood). He also noted once again his concern that the US and UK had taken seriously documents the International Atomic Energy Agency has "easily" determined were false, and said that the question of just who falisfied the documents was "disturbing".

Though the US has said that they do not seen any "immediate role" for a return of the UN inspectors, many on the council feel "independent UN verification that the weapons have been destroyed would help to win international support for the swift lifting of economic sanctions against Iraq."

In my opinion, if we're having such difficulty finding any evidence of the WMDs and are concerned that whatever evidence may remain could possibly be stolen or, worse, sold or given to other enemies of ours, it would be logical to begin working with the UN again on weapons inspections, and allow them to assist us in the search.

This is not a situation in which we should be worried about petty disagreement or "saving face". We should be worrying that, if, in fact, there are WMDs in Iraq - as the Bush administration has assured us there are - they need to be found and identified.

Posted by thorswitch at April 22, 2003 10:43 AM | TrackBack