>From the NY Times
>(http://nytimes.com/2003/08/01/international/worldspecial3/01CND-GORDON.html?hp -
>free registration required):
"Weapons of Mass Confusion"
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
"CAMP DOHA, Kuwait, Aug. 1 — There is a bold and entirely plausible theory that may
account for the mystery over Iraq's missing weapons of mass destruction.
"Saddam Hussein, the theory holds, ordered the destruction of his weapon stocks well
before the war to deprive the United States of a rationale to attack his regime and to
hasten the eventual lifting of the United Nations sanctions. But the Iraqi dictator
retained the scientists and technical capacity to resume the production of chemical
and biological weapons and eventually develop nuclear arms.
"Mr. Hussein's calculation was that he could restart his weapons programs once the
international community lost interest in Iraq and became absorbed with other crises.
That would enable him to pursue his dream of making Iraq the dominant power in the
Persian Gulf region and make it easier for him to deter enemies at home and abroad.
"'This is the leading theory,' said Gary Samore, director of studies at the
London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies and a former
nonproliferation expert on the National Security Council under President Bill Clinton.
"American intelligence experts are still in Iraq trying to determine the status of Mr.
Hussein's weapons programs, so it is premature to be too categorical about what they
will find. What the theory offers, however, is a new way to make sense of the
testimony of captured Iraqi officials who claim that weapons stocks were eliminated,
Mr. Hussein's pattern of grudging and partial cooperation with United Nations weapons
inspectors and his longstanding ambitions in the region.
"If true, it means that the Iraqi threat was less immediate than the administration
asserted but more worrisome than the critics now suggest. And it means the decision to
use military force to pre-empt that threat was not an urgent necessity but a judgment
call, one that can be justified as the surest way to put an end to Iraq's designs but
still one about which ardent defenders of the United States' security can disagree."
It goes on; entire URL given above for those who want to read the rest of it.
This speculation raises several questions in my mind: if Saddam destroyed his nukes -
WHY DIDN'T HE TELL US??? That's what we wanted, after all, what we were demanding, the
ostensible reason for the invasion. Why do what he was supposed to but not gain any
benefit from doing so? Let us invade anyway? He's a nutcase, but I don't see how this
makes any sense from his point of view.
Also, did we know he was doing it? ("We" meaning the CIA, the president, etc.) Could
the destruction have been detected from outside Iraq's borders using spy satellites,
etc.?
And, if we did know - did we invade anyway because the president wanted his invasion?
(This will piss off the Bush-is-wonderful-and-so-is-the-war crowd on this list, but it
has to be asked in light of other suggestions that the president and his chickenhawk
warmongers either cooked the intelligence books or ignored contradictory evidence or
both.)
--
Tom Beck
www.prydonians.org
www.mercerjewishsingles.org
"I always knew I'd see the first man on the Moon. I never dreamed I'd see the last." -
Dr Jerry Pournelle
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