[Peace-discuss] WMD lies

[patton paul]

 Anthrax, Chemicals and Nerve Gas: Who is Lying?
Growing evidence of deception by Washington
by Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles


If US and British forces are scratching their heads at their inability to
find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, perhaps they should talk to
Scott Ritter, the United Nations weapons inspector who famously quit in
1998, after seven years on the job, and has been a controversial figure
ever since.

For months, Mr Ritter has said Iraq's capability of producing or deploying
chemical or biological weapons was 90-95 per cent destroyed on his watch
and was very unlikely to have been built up again under international
sanctions and the constant surveillance of spy satellites and US and
British war planes.

Iraq's nuclear program was dismantled at the end of the first Gulf War in
1991, he said, and factories to produce chemical or biological agents
deactivated shortly thereafter. Any leftover nerve agents would only have
a shelf life of five years and would probably be useless by now. The
anthrax and botulism toxin that Iraq produced was never weaponized and,
although it was put into warheads at one point, was no more than harmless
sludge that "could only kill you if it landed on your head".

This is the same Scott Ritter who, when he first made these assertions
last autumn, was vilified in the US media as "misguided", "disloyal", not
to be taken seriously and "an apologist for and a defender of Saddam
Hussein". One cable news host, Curtis Sliwa said on air he was a "sock
puppet" who "ought to turn in his passport for an Iraqi one".

Perhaps it's time to give Mr Ritter another chance. It may, in fact, be
time to reassess who exactly has been the deceiver and who the dupe in
this whole affair. What Mr Ritter and others now allege, with increasing
confidence, is a pattern of false information emanating from both
Washington and London since last September  lies and distortions that
launched a major war and are only now beginning to be widely exposed.

Exhibit number one is a speech Vice President Dick Cheney gave to the
Veterans of Foreign Wars last summer. "The Iraqi regime has in fact been
very busy enhancing its capabilities in the field of chemical and
biological agents." he said. "And they continue to pursue the nuclear
program they began so many years ago." Mr Ritter says this is pure
fiction.

Mr Cheney attributed his information to high-level defectors, including
Saddam's son-in-law, Hussein Kamal. Supposedly, Kamal led UN inspectors in
1995 to a chicken farm stuffed with secret documents on ongoing weapons
programs. Actually, according to Mr Ritter, Hussein Kamal told US
intelligence that the weapons had been destroyed, and the chicken farm
documents subsequently examined by UN inspectors corroborated that.

Exhibit number two is the briefing paper issued by Downing Street on 24
September, which first alleged the purchase of uranium for nuclear weapons
use from Niger. The documents indicating this purchase have now been
exposed by the International Atomic Energy Agency as glaringly obvious
fakes.

The timing of the nuclear allegation was crucial in persuading the US
Congress to grant President Bush full war powers against Iraq a few weeks
later. Several angry congressmen who voted in favor now want to know how
and why they were misled.

"This is a breach of the highest order, and the American people are
entitled to know how it happened," Henry Waxman of California wrote to the
President last month. "I believed that you had access to reliable
intelligence information that merited deference... The two most obvious
explanations  knowing deception or unfathomable incompetence  both have
immediate and serious implications."

Exhibit number three is the list of dangerous substances that President
Bush and Colin Powell, the Secretary of State, said the Iraqis had not
accounted for. Another distortion, according to Mr Ritter. The 15,000
liters of anthrax on the list, for example, was a hypothetical projection
of future production at a biological plant that was closed down long ago.

Mr Ritter has not, of course, been vindicated quite yet. US intelligence
may really know something, and significant hidden caches of weapons could
still materialize. But the pattern of deception and unsubstantiated
allegation is unmistakable, even as the political embarrassment for the
Bush administration deepens.

 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd