The Sikh Times - News and Analysis - War on Iraq: W.M.D., M.I.A.?

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War on Iraq: W.M.D., M.I.A.?

By JAKE TAPPER

Salon, Apr. 16, 2003

"Hasty, incomplete news reports have suggested that coalition troops found chemical weapons, or even nukes, in Iraq. They haven't - at least not yet. And the rest of world is watching skeptically."
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"Responding last Jun. to Iraqi denials that it possessed weapons of mass destruction, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told U.S. troops in Bahrain that Saddam Hussein was 'a world-class liar' whose claims were 'false, not true, inaccurate and typical.' Then came President Bush's Sep. 12, 2002, demand at the United Nations that Iraq 'immediately and unconditionally forswear, disclose, and remove or destroy all weapons of mass destruction' and Secretary of State Colin Powell's Feb. 5, 2003, follow-up presentation to the U.N. of alleged evidence of W.M.D., as those weapons have come to be known."
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"For now, everyone is staying on script: We fought the war to get rid of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, and we still intend to do so - as soon as we find them. 'There's strong evidence and no question about the fact there are weapons of mass destruction,' Powell asserted Sunday on B.B.C.1.'s 'Breakfast With Frost.' 'We will find weapons of mass destruction.' That same day Gen. Tommy Franks, the head of U.S. Central Command, told Fox News that he has 'absolute confidence that there are weapons of mass destruction inside this country.' White House spokesman Ari Fleischer noted last week that 'we know Saddam Hussein is there, but we haven't found him yet, either.' Weapons of mass destruction are 'what this war was about - and it is about,' Fleischer said. But none have been found yet. 'When we have something to report, it will duly get reported, of course,' Fleischer added Tuesday."
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"[I]t hasn't taken long for those global cynics to start piping up. 'Nothing was found, and even at the last moment of their struggle for survival, the Iraqi regime did not use [W.M.D.],' Russian President Vladimir Putin said in St. Petersburg on Friday, after his summit with fellow war opponents German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and French President Jacques Chirac. 'They either don't have them, or they are in such condition that they could not be used. And this raises the advisability of such an action. What does this mean? What was the war for?' The war is not technically over, of course, so Putin's conclusion is premature. But he's not alone in his criticism. On Monday, Indonesia's foreign ministry spokesperson, Marty Natalegawa, said that 'with regard to the alleged existence of weapons of mass destruction, so far the U.S. had yet to discover any evidence.' "
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"[Mohamed] ElBaradei [director of the International Atomic Energy Agency] - a war skeptic - would bring a certain amount of credibility to any W.M.D. findings. On Sunday, ElBaradei told the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag that 'so far, no evidence has been provided that Iraq still has weapons of mass destruction.' He stated that it won't suffice for 'suspicious substances' to be 'tested in U.S. laboratories. The results must be checked by the U.N. weapons inspectors. This is the only way to make credible statements about weapons of mass destruction which possibly still exist.' ElBaradei also declared that only the United Nations has the authority to destroy any of these weapons."
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" 'If there are claims by coalition forces about discovering weapons of mass destruction, only international inspectors can make a conclusive assessment of the origin of these weapons,' Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said to the Federation Council, the upper house of the Russian legislature. 'No other evaluation and final conclusion can be accepted.' "
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"Or, to put it more bluntly: 'George W. Bush is going to find those weapons even if they don't exist,' an Apr. 11 letter to the editor of the Bangkok Post stated. 'After all, what other reason is there to justify the slaughter of so many human beings, friend and foe alike?' The letter goes on to anticipate a scenario where 'the horrifying weapons' are 'discovered by a few small bands of Americans patrolling previously unexplored terrain,' with no one else around - no British, Australians, or media. 'But not to fret, the very resourceful Americans will just happen to have a supply of fully loaded video cameras on hand with which to record their shock and awe at just happening to stumble across this huge threat to their homeland.' "
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"An Apr. 9 editorial in the Herald - of Glasgow, Scotland - made some less conspiratorial points. 'The one constant among all the reasons advanced for going to war was the claim that Iraq possessed W.M.D.,' it stated. 'If this is not the case, then Saddam would be seen to have been . . . hiding . . . nothing all along. How could he avert war by handing over what he did not have? At a stroke, Saddam will have achieved the martyrdom he craves and the Muslim world will have its worst fears about western intentions confirmed.' "
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"When Robin Cook resigned from the Blair Cabinet as leader of the House of Commons on Mar. 17 to protest the war, he said that 'Iraq probably has no weapons of mass destruction in the commonly understood sense of the term - namely, a credible device capable of being delivered against a strategic city target.' "
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