IRAQ NEWS, TUESDAY, MARCH 9,
2004
Readers will recall an earlier "60
Minutes" blunder on Iraq, when it claimed, based on Ron Suskind's book on Paul
O'Neill, that the Bush administration planned the Iraq War long before 9/11 and
there were documents to prove it:
Last Sunday's program was nearly
as egregious. It included a segment which featured Ahmad Chalabi,
head of the INC Chalabi defended the information the INC had provided regarding
1) Iraq's links to al Qaida and 2) Iraq's weapons programs. .
Chalabi revealed that the INC had
discovered an Iraqi document, linking Iraqi intelligence to Usama
bin Ladin. Dated March 28, 1992, the document listed scores of
Iraqi agents in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Reading from the document,
Chalabi showed Leslie Stahl that it described "the Saudi, Usama bin Ladin" as an
agent whom Iraqi intelligence had re-contacted.
Leslie Stahl questioned the document's
authenticity. Chalabi replied that it was initialed by four Iraqi
intelligence officials and the INC knew who they were.
"60 Minutes" subsequently asked the
Defense Intelligence Agency (which runs the INC program) about the
document. The DIA confirmed it was authentic. But the
DIA dismissed it as being of "little significance," because "it
does not spell out what the relationship with Usama bin Ladin was or
what, if anything, he did for the Iraqis."
That is typical of how the U.S.
intelligence community has dealt with the information suggesting an Iraqi link
to terrorism, al Qaida, and even 9/11. It refuses to pursue leads or
connect dots in a reasonable way. Prior to 9/11, the dominant
view within the IC was that al Qaida represented a new form of stateless
terrorism. That was also the view promoted by the Clinton White House,
above all terrorism czar, Richard Clarke. To acknowledge that Iraqi
intelligence worked with al Qaida is tantamount to acknowledging that all these
people made a tremendous blunder--and they are just not going to do
it.
Yet U.S. soldiers are daily asked to
risk life and limb in Iraq. They are certainly entitled to understand
why. Moreover, the war is not over. The question of whether
significant contacts exist between Iraqi intelligence and Arab militants is
important to fighting the ongoing insurgency. Lest we forget, over
500 US soldiers have died and several thousand have been wounded, many
quite seriously, in this conflict http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39003-2004Mar7.html.
The intelligence problem within the
Defense Department is no less than that within the CIA. How can it be
that one part of the US government is asked to make the sacrifices we
ask of the GI's, while another part--indeed another part of the same
department--just goes on covering its posterior, to borrow a phrase from William
Safire?
THROUGHOUT THE "60 Minutes"
segment, Kenneth Pollack (a former Clinton administration official, now at
Brookings and married to CNN's Andrea Koppel, daughter of Ted) commented on
Chalabi's remarks. Chalabi had a "track record," Pollack
claimed, with no details. But Pollack's target wasn't really
Chalabi, it was the US officials responsible for the Iraq War. As Pollack
stated, "We knew that this guy was not telling us the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth. And I think that U.S. officials who believed him -
unwittingly or who used his information - both need to look hard at exactly what
they were up to.”
Yet the show, itself, paradoxically
suggested otherwise. Pollack complained the INC was still receiving
$350,000/month, as part of a US intelligence program. How can this
be? "60 Minutes" checked with the US government and reported that the INC
had "truckloads of Iraqi intelligence documents, including the names of Iraqi
intelligence officers all over the world." It is a "goldmine," according
to US officials.
If the INC is as worthless and feckless
as Pollack/"60 Minutes" claim, how did it manage to acquire that goldmine of
documents? Indeed, it would be interesting to compare the product of the
INC from its documents with that of the CIA from its documents.
The segment also included
the question of Iraq's weapons. "60 Minutes" showed an INC defector
talking about the purchase of refrigerated trucks for mobile BW (biological
weapons) labs. The show, along with Pollack, assumed the information had
been proven false and portrayed it as some wild invention.
But no such conclusion has been
reached. As George Tenet stated on Feb 5:
"Let me also talk about the trailers
discovered in Iraq last summer. We initially concluded that they resembled
trailers described by a human source for mobile biological warfare agent
production. There is no consensus within our intelligence community today over
whether the trailers were for that use or if they were used for the
production of hydrogen.
"Everyone agrees that they are not
ideally configured for either process but could be made to work in either
mode.
"To give you some idea of the
contrasting evidence we wrestle with, some of the Iraqis involved in making
the trailers were told that they were intended to produce hydrogen for
artillery units. But an Iraqi artillery officer says they never used
these types of systems and that the hydrogen for artillery units came in
canisters from a fixed production facility. We are trying to get to the
bottom of this story."
Moreover, UNSCOM was the first to
conclude that Iraq had mobile BW facilities. As Scott Ritter wrote in his
book, Endgame, in June 1997, he confronted a senior Iraqi official, "On
biological warfare, the information we have is that Iraq has a mobile biological
production facility. You have fermenters and processing equipment, and
also a drying and grinding facility." (p. 153).
Finally, one subscriber, Prof. Henry
Greenspan, of the University of Michigan, sent "60 Minutes" the following note,
focused on Pollack's ever-shifting position:
"I was astonished to see Ken Pollack
wagging his finger at those who allowed themselves to be 'misled' about WMD by
Ahmad Chalabi and his group of Iraqi defectors. In his book, The
Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq, Pollack uses much of the
same information, and there is no hint that he does so critically. In the
specific case of mobile bio weapons labs, for example, featured in the 60
Minutes piece, Pollack writes: 'The biggest problem with tracking Iraq's
biological weapons program is that it does not require large facilities to
produce agents. Consequently, defectors report that Saddam has taken the
entire Iraqi program on the road. Baghdad now has a number of mobile BW
labs that can move around the country as needed, leaving no trace and having
virtually no signature that Western intelligence can detect.' (pp.
172-3)
"There is no suggestion of doubt in Pollack's assertions, no qualification or uncertainty. To hear him now blame others for their credulity (or worse) is breathtaking. To quote Pollack himself, 'Fool me once, shame on you...'".
"There is no suggestion of doubt in Pollack's assertions, no qualification or uncertainty. To hear him now blame others for their credulity (or worse) is breathtaking. To quote Pollack himself, 'Fool me once, shame on you...'".
