[Peace-discuss] Clinton I, not Bush II, responsible for WMD myth

[Michael Shapiro]

Scott Ritter's book "Iraq Confidential" details the efforts by the US/CIA to
sabotage the UN Iraq inspections. Ritter was the UN weapons inspector in
Iraq from 1991 to 1998. The forward to the book states:

The only way for the inspectors to be safe, and for Iraq to be disarmed was
if UNSCOM [United Nations Special Commission] was seen as a neutral
organization. But by this stage [Mar 1998] I was starting to have some
doubts myself on that score. I was concerned at the growing divergence
between the people who were serious about disarming Iraq and the people who
wanted to support US Foreign Policy, and I wasn't sure which camp the UNSCOM
chairman [Richard Butler] sat in.

UNSCOM had been surrounded by such ambiguities since it came into being in
1991. It was created to implement UN resolution 687. This resolution's
ostensible purpose was to rid the world of Iraq's weapons of mass
destruction (WMD). The reality of resolution 687 was different.  Having led
an international coalition to drive Iraq out of occupied Kuwait in 1991,
while promising to extract 'Nuremburg-like retribution' for Iraq's actions,
George H.W. Bush's government was confronted with the reality that Saddam
Hussein, even after a crushing defeat, still remained in power. Bush needed
to get rid of him – for domestic political reasons if nothing else. The CIA
believed that any credible effort designed to disarm Iraq of it WMD would
not only rid the world of a legitimate proliferation problem, but would also
undercut Saddam's standing and jolt the rest of the Iraqi leadership into
the realization that their countries interest would be served if the Iraqi
president were removed from power.

As they crafted Security Council resolution 687, American diplomats had
destabilizing and undermining Saddam Hussein at the front of their minds
rather than the complex business of disarmament. Disarmament was merely a
vehicle for achieving the larger US objective of regime change. In order to
achieve their ultimate objective of undermining Saddam's power base, the USA
pushed for the disarmament mandate to be severe, and the price of
non-cooperation to be high. For this reason, under resolution 687, the
stringent economic sanctions imposed on Iraq following its invasion of
Kuwait were extended until Iraq was found to be in complete compliance with
the disarmament mandate. Many members of the Security Council – including
Russia and China – deemed this to be too harsh. In order to bring them on
board, the USA crafted language which, included as paragraph 14, sought to
portray the disarmament of Iraq as a step 'toward the goal of establishing
in the Middle East a zone free from weapons of mass destruction and all
missiles for their delivery'. However, as the drafters of this language have
privately stated to me, paragraph 14 was always intended to be a 'throwaway'
element designed to induce faltering Security Council members into
presenting a solid front against Saddam Hussein. There was never any
intention on the part of the USA to pursue paragraph 14.

In fact one could say that the entire resolution was a throwaway statement.
It was crafted for the purpose of 'putting Saddam in a cage', to quote
former US Secretary of State James Baker. The [George HW] Bush
administration had already stated as official policy that economic sanctions
against Iraq would not be lifted, regardless of Iraq's compliance with its
disarmament obligation, a policy that was in direct opposition to the letter
and intent of resolution 687.

Note that this was under GHW Bush, before Clinton. The stage was already set
to have the inspections process fail. As the lion's share of the inspection
process occurred under Clinton, the sabbotage was under Clinton, as Ritter
was close to being able to declare Iraq free of WMD.

On 10/1/07, C. G. Estabrook < galliher at uiuc.edu> wrote:
>
>
>         Iraq's WMD Myth: Why Clinton is Culpable
>         By ANDREW COCKBURN
>
> A former senior UN diplomat has revealed to me details of how, just over
> 10 years ago, the Clinton administration deliberately sabotaged UN
> weapons inspections in Iraq.
>
> American officials were fearful that Iraq would be officially certified
> as weapons-free, a development that was seen as a political liability
> for Bill Clinton. Thus the stage was set for the manufacture of the
> Iraqi WMD myth as the excuse for George Bush's catastrophic invasion of
> Iraq.
>
> It was March 1997. For six years the UN inspectors had been probing the
> secrets of Saddam's weapons programs, in the process destroying huge
> quantities of chemical munitions and other production facilities. To
> enforce Saddam's cooperation, Iraq was subject to crushing sanctions.
>
> Now, Rolf Ekeus, the urbane Swedish diplomat who headed the inspection
> effort, was ready to announce that his work was almost done. "I was
> getting close to certifying that Iraq was in compliance with Resolution
> 687," he confirmed to me recently.
>
> At the time, he declared that although there were some loose ends to be
> cleared up, "not much is unknown about Iraq's retained proscribed
> weapons capabilities."
>
> For the Clinton administration, this was a crisis. If Ekeus was allowed
> to complete his mission, then the suspension of sanctions would follow
> almost automatically.
>
> Saddam would be off the hook and, more importantly for the Clintonites,
> the neo-conservative republicans would be howling for the president's
> blood.
>
> The only hope was somehow to prevent Ekeus completing his mission.
>
> Enter Madeleine Albright, newly appointed Secretary of State. On March
> 26, 1997, she strode on to the stage at Georgetown University to deliver
> what was billed as a major policy address on Iraq. Many in the audience
> expected that she would extend some sort of olive branch toward the
> Iraqi regime, but that was far from her mind.
>
> Instead, she was set on making sure that Saddam effectively ended his
> cooperation with the inspectors. "We do not agree with the nations who
> argue that if Iraq complies with its obligations concerning weapons of
> mass destruction, sanctions should be lifted," she declared. Sanctions,
> she stated without equivocation, would remain unless or until Saddam was
> driven from power.
>
> Ekeus understood immediately what Albright intended. "I knew that Saddam
> would now feel that there was no point in his cooperating with us, and
> that was the intent of her speech."
>
> Sure enough, the following day he got an angry call from Tariq Aziz,
> Saddam's deputy prime minister and emissary to the outside world. "He
> wanted to know why Iraq should work with us any more."
>
> From then on, the inspectors found their lives increasingly difficult,
> as Iraqi officials, clearly acting under instructions from Saddam,
> blocked them at every turn.Ekeus resigned in July 1997, to be replaced
> by the Australian Richard Butler. Butler was soon embroiled in
> acrimonious confrontation with the Iraqis. Later the following year, all
> the inspectors were withdrawn from Iraq and the US mounted a series of
> bombing raids.
>
> Clinton's strategy had been successful. Iraq remained under sanctions,
> while in Washington the neo-conservative faction spun the wildest
> conjectures as to what evil schemes Saddam, unmolested by inspectors,
> might be concocting with his weapons scientists.
>
> In fact Saddam had long abandoned all his WMD programs, but as the CIA
> had no sources of intelligence inside Iraq, no one in the West could
> prove this.
>
> Finally, following 9/11, the war party in George Bush Jr's
> administration was able to make the case for invasion on the grounds
> that Saddam had refused to comply with UN resolutions on disarmament by
> refusing to grant access to the weapons inspectors. The Iraq disaster
> has many fathers.
>
> [Footnote: Ekeus knew from the mid-l990s on that Saddam Hussein had no
> such weapons of mass destruction. They had all been destroyed years
> earlier, after the first Gulf war.
>
> Ekeus learned this on the night of August 22, l995, in Amman, from the
> lips of General Hussein Kamel, who had just defected from Iraq, along
> with some of his senior military aides. Kamel was Saddam's son-in-law
> and had been in overall charge of all programs for chemical, biological
> and nuclear weapons and delivery systems.
>
> That night, in three hours of detailed questioning from Ekeus and two
> technical experts, Kamel was categorical. The UN inspection teams had
> done a good job. When Saddam was finally persuaded that failure to
> dispose of the relevant weapons systems would have very serious
> consequences, he issued the order and Kamel carried it out. As he told
> Ekeus that night, "All weapons, biological, chemical, missile, nuclear,
> were destroyed." (The UNSCOM record of the session can ne viewed at
> http://www.fair.org/press-releases/kamel.pdf). In similar debriefings
> that August Kamel said the same thing to teams from the CIA and MI6. His
> military aides provided a wealth of corroborative details. Then, the
> following year, Kamel was lured back to Iraq and at once executed.
> Editors.]
>
> Andrew Cockburn is the author of Rumsfeld: His Rise, Fall and
> Catastrophic Legacy.
> _______________________________________________
> Peace-discuss mailing list
> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/listinfo/peace-discuss
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/private/peace-discuss/attachments/20071001/812236ec/attachment.htm