A rchive Date
[ 13-07-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ U.S ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/goldstein_jul13.html
No WMD and U.S./Brits lose their credibility
By LORRIE GOLDSTEIN -- Toronto Sun
July 13, 2003
No one will be happier than me if, within the next few days, weeks or months, the U.S. and Great Britain produce convincing evidence of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. But let's face it, it looks increasingly like they won't. And if they don't, the moral basis for launching a pre-emptive strike against Iraq will have been fatally undermined.
As will the arguments made by those of us - present company included - who said that what justified a pre-emptive strike against Iraq in a post 9/11 world was the possibility that Saddam Hussein would supply WMD to terrorists.
Ten weeks after the war's end, the debate - with no WMD or convincing evidence of what happened to them having been found thus far - is now shifting to whether the George Bush and Tony Blair administrations relied on bad intelligence, goosed the intelligence they had, or lied.
In Great Britain, a parliamentary committee has cleared Blair and a top aide of deliberately doctoring intelligence information, but was highly critical of how the information was presented to Parliament and the nation. Britain is now deeply divided - once again - over its involvement in the war.
While there's been less pressure on Bush in the U.S. over the failure to find WMD, controversy is growing and the White House has admitted the president's State of the Union claim that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from Africa to build nuclear weapons, based on British intelligence, was wrong.
More worrisome for Bush and Blair - since by the time the invasion was launched few believed Iraq had nuclear weapons - is the fact that none of the chemical or biological weapons they insisted Iraq was stockpiling have been found.
Various theories and defences have been offered - they were spirited away to Syria, Saddam had 12 years to hide them and finding them will take time, Saddam destroyed them but wouldn't tell the UN because of his ego, finding WMD is irrelevant because the real point is that Saddam would have re-embarked on a massive WMD program the moment the world's back was turned, and so on.
Other reasons
The coalition also argues WMD was not the only reason it gave for going to war, that it was also to liberate the Iraqi people from tyranny. And the thousands of mass graves uncovered since Saddam's regime fell indicate the world is better off without him. But the fact remains there are all sorts of tyrants who aren't invaded simply for being tyrants.
No amount of revisionist history will change the fact Bush and Blair mainly justified a pre-emptive strike against Iraq on the grounds Saddam posed an imminent threat, based on his ability to supply terrorists with WMD, and that striking first was thus a form of self defence. If no WMD are found - and no convincing explanation offered as to why not - the hit to U.S./British credibility will be enormous. Who will trust their future claims regarding WMD anywhere else?
It will also mean leaders who opposed going to war - including Prime Minister Jean Chretien - can argue they were right to make the case for further UN inspections.
Of course, there's disingenuousness in this. All members of the Security Council believed Iraq had WMD when they unanimously passed Resolution 1441 last November, giving Iraq one last chance to disarm and to prove it.
Chretien was convinced Iraq had WMD - and said so repeatedly - prior to Bill Clinton's launch of what turned out to be an ineffective military strike against Iraq in 1998.
But disingenuous or not, the burden of proof is on the Americans and Brits. Arguments that the same anti-war activists now saying Iraq didn't have WMD when it was invaded previously said Iraq's use of WMD would be devastating in the war, miss the point.
The onus isn't on the war's opponents. It's on the U.S. and British administrations to prove Iraq had the weapons they said it did. If they can't, no amount of double-talk or changing the subject will alter the perception the war was unjustified - particularly as more coalition soldiers come home in body bags, with the Americans now talking about having to stay in Iraq for years.
For a more humourous indication of growing skepticism about WMD claims, go to Google on the Web, type in "Weapons of Mass Destruction" and hit "I'm Feeling Lucky."
What pops up at first glance looks like a standard page telling you the site you've asked for is unavailable. But read the text and the gag - the work of a clever independent programmer - becomes clear. "These Weapons of Mass Destruction cannot be displayed" it begins. "The weapons you are looking for are currently unavailable. The country might be experiencing technical difficulties, or you may need to adjust your weapons inspectors mandate." The site goes on to advise:
- "Click the regime change button, or try again later.
- "If you are George Bush and typed the country's name in the address bar, make sure that it is spelled correctly. (IRAQ)" ... and so on, concluding with,
- "Click the Bomb button if you are Donald Rumsfeld."
The good news since 9/11 is that there hasn't been another successful terrorist attack on American soil. The bad news is the U.S. hasn't found Osama bin Laden (remember him?), Mullah Omar, Saddam Hussein or Iraq's WMD.
At this point, finding WMD - which would mute much of the growing criticism of the war effort - clearly tops that list.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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