Former chief UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter had briefed Senator
Feinstein before the 2002 vote, and presented evidence that Iraq had
achieved at least qualitative disarmament and could in no way be a
threat to U.S. national security. According to Ritter, "I had her look
me in the eye and I asked her if she had seen any credible evidence
contradicting my conclusions. She said she had not."
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/12/27-4
Feinstein: Bad Choice for Intelligence
by Stephen Zunes
Ignoring the pleas of those calling for a more credible figure, Senate
Democrats have instead chosen Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) to lead the
Senate Committee on Intelligence. Feinstein was among those who
falsely claimed in 2002 despite the lack of any apparent credible
evidence that Saddam Hussein had somehow reconstituted Iraq's arsenal
of chemical and biological weapons, as well as its nuclear weapons
program.
She used this supposed threat to justify her vote in October 2002 to
grant President George W. Bush the unprecedented authority to invade
Iraq. Most congressional Democrats voted against the resolution. So it
is particularly disturbing that Democrats would award the coveted
Intelligence Committee chair to someone from the party's right-wing
minority.
She took this extreme hawkish position out of her own predilection,
not because of political pressure. Indeed, Senator Feinstein
acknowledged at the time of her vote that calls and emails to her
office were overwhelmingly opposed to her supporting Bush's war plans.
She decided to ignore her constituents and vote in favor of the
resolution anyway.
Background to the VotePublic opinion polls in the fall of 2002 showed
a majority of Americans would support a U.S. invasion of Iraq only if
it posed a serious threat to the national security of the United
States. Unfortunately for Senator Feinstein and others eager for the
United States to conquer that oil-rich country, Iraq wasn't a threat
to the United States. Though Iraq once had an arsenal of chemical
weapons as well as an active chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons
development program, these were all destroyed or otherwise eliminated
by the mid-1990s, as were their missiles and other delivery systems.
With strict sanctions prohibiting imports of requisite technologies
and raw materials, and a lack of adequate internal capacity to produce
them in Iraq, it was physically impossible for the Iraqis to have
reconstituted its "weapons of mass destruction" (WMDs).
Former chief UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter had briefed Senator
Feinstein before the 2002 vote, and presented evidence that Iraq had
achieved at least qualitative disarmament and could in no way be a
threat to U.S. national security. According to Ritter, "I had her look
me in the eye and I asked her if she had seen any credible evidence
contradicting my conclusions. She said she had not."
Similarly, I was among a number of scholars, arms control analysts,
and other constituents who briefed her staff on how given the ongoing
strict international sanctions imposed on that country and rigorous UN
inspections through the end of 1998 there was no way for Iraqi
dictator Saddam Hussein to have reconstituted his biological,
chemical, and nuclear weapons programs. Citing reports from the UN,
reputable think tanks, and recognized arms control experts as well as
articles from respected peer-reviewed academic journals we thought we
had made a convincing case that Iraq was no longer a threat to the
United States or its neighbors.
Despite all this, Senator Feinstein insisted that Iraq somehow
remained a "consequential threat" to the national security of the
United States and claimed that Iraq still possessed biological and
chemical weapons. And, in an effort to defend Bush's call for a U.S.
invasion, she tried to discredit the UN inspections regime that had
successfully disarmed Iraq by falsely claiming that "arms inspections,
alone, will not force disarmament."
Similarly, even though the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency had
correctly noted in 1998 that Iraq's nuclear program had been
completely eliminated, Feinstein also falsely claimed that Saddam
Hussein "is engaged in developing nuclear weapons."
When asked about such exaggerated claims regarding Iraq's military
prowess, she insisted that she was somehow "privy to information that
those in California are not." However, despite repeated requests to
her office to make public what she was supposedly privy to, the only
information her office provided has been the White House's summary of
a 2003 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE). Based on the testimony of
a handful of disreputable Iraqi exiles, this NIE met with widespread
derision at the time of its release for its clearly inaccurate and
politicized content.
Feinstein's supporters insist that her false claims about Iraqi WMDs
were an honest mistake. But Ritter and other critics argue that it
wasn't just ignorance and stupidity that led Feinstein to make these
false statements about Iraq's military capabilities. She may very well
have lied about the WMDs in order to frighten the public into
supporting a U.S. takeover of that oil-rich country. Whether out of
deceit or unawareness, however, Feinstein is clearly not suited to
chair the committee.
Consequences of the VoteI was also among a number of scholars
specializing in the Middle East who warned Senator Feinstein that a
U.S. invasion of Iraq would likely spark a disastrous armed
insurgency, sectarian violence, and an increase in anti-American
extremism in the Middle East and beyond. Despite this awareness of the
likely consequences, however, she insisted that the United States
should invade Iraq anyway. Such a decision raises serious questions as
to whether she has the ability to rationally assess the costs and
benefits of national security policies, which someone chairing the
Intelligence Committee presumably should possess.
If her real goal was to protect our country from Iraq's alleged
"weapons of mass destruction," however, she would have presumably
called for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops once they invaded
and occupied Iraq and discovered that there really weren't such
weapons after all. It should have also been obvious that the longer
U.S. troops stayed in that country, with its long tradition of
resistance to foreign invaders, the more likely it would provoke a
major armed insurgency and the rise of extremists groups. Despite
this, Feinstein called on American troops to remain in Iraq for more
than four years after the invasion. She voted to send hundreds of
billions of dollars worth of taxpayers' money to support Bush's war
effort even as California sank deeper and deeper into fiscal crisis.
During this occupation, U.S. authorities helped to rewrite the
country's economic laws to allow American corporations to take over
Iraqi industries and repatriate 100% of profits. Under U.S. tutelage,
the new Iraqi government slashed corporate taxes and provided generous
oil concessions to American conglomerates. In this way, the war has
been extremely profitable for some giant corporations. Among these
were the firms URS and Perini, both of which Feinstein's husband
served as the majority owner. The Military Construction Appropriations
subcommittee, under her leadership, steered government contracts to
these very companies.
The Democratic Party's decision to appoint as head of the Senate
Intelligence Committee someone with such a history of dubious judgment
on intelligence matters is hardly new. The party chose Jay Rockefeller
(WV) who is leaving his post to chair the Commerce Committee to
chair the Intelligence Committee in January 2007, although he also
made false claims about Iraq's WMD programs similar to those of
Feinstein in order to justify his vote in favor of the invasion.
In the world of Senate Democrats, therefore, it appears that the
quickest path to leadership in Intelligence comes from getting things
wrong.
Stephen Zunes is a Foreign Policy In Focus senior analyst and a
professor of politics at the University of San Francisco.
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