We knew in advance that Secretary of State Colin Powell did not have the infamous “smoking gun”, we knew that Powell would not provide solid proof that Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction, but we did expect that Powell would present convincing evidence to the UN Assembly.
In reality, Powell’s presentation, although professionally delivered, merely illuminated that America has little evidence to back up their claim that Iraq still has weapons of mass destruction. It was a mishmash of hearsay, supposed communications intercepts, eye-witness reports, and secondhand accounts from defectors and the “disappeared” languishing in Guantanamo Bay. The latter would no doubt say that the moon was made of Feta cheese, if that would help their case. Hans Blix, in his earlier report, said that information from such defectors is not reliable.
First of all we heard a transcript of a conversation between a Republican Guard and an officer in the field where the guard asks his subordinate to clear out the scrap. He then goes on to tell him to destroy the message. What message?
Powell comments that this is part and parcel of Iraq’s policy of evasion and deceit. Given that we know for certain that the Bush administration is determined to overthrow the Iraqi regime, and is willing to go it alone if necessary, how can we be certain that this alleged intercept is genuine?
My own experience in the Middle East and the Gulf convinces me that this recording does not sound like an authentic exchange between two Arabs of differing status. First, there would have been elaborate greetings, with the junior soldier calling his superior by a respectful title, instead of just answering “na’am”, meaning “OK”. To my ears, the soldier sounded far too curt to be for real. Amer Al-Sa’adi, Saddam Hussein’s chief scientific advisor, referred to this as “manufactured evidence.” He said: “It is known as the concealment theory and the author of this theory is still around, Scott Ritter. You can ask him about the concealment theory to which Colin Powell repeatedly refers.” Al-Sa’adi derided Powell’s presentation as being “a typical American show complete with stunts and special effects”.
The secretary of state next described the high level committee set up by Iraq to monitor the inspectors, a committee headed by Foreign Minister Taha Yassin Ramadan. Again, in the light of the fact that several UNSCOM weapons inspectors were found to be American spies, why wouldn’t Iraq be cautious about allowing foreigners to run around its country unfettered on the brink of a possible war? “Orders were issued to Iraq’s security organizations to hide all correspondence with the Organization of Military Industrialization,” said Powell. He said that Hussein’s son had ordered the removal of illicit weapons from the Iraqi president’s palaces. He talked about material, which has been concealed in scientist’s home, as well as items in cars, which drive perpetually around the countryside.
Amer Al-Sa’adi, countered by saying that Hans Blix had jumped the gun talking about the document found in the scientist’s home. He said that the document was not classified, as Blix had first supposed, and that a copy of this research document had been given to a representative of the IAEA after a conference in the 1980s.
Satellite photographs: I was pleased to hear Powell saying that he found satellite photographs hard to interpret. An astute observation. A cloudy photograph of a munitions facility in Taji, taken before the latest inspections, showed decontamination vehicles driving around what he said were four active chemical munitions bunkers.
Just before the inspections, Powell said, the vehicles were nowhere to be seen, and the bunkers had been cleaned out. We have to wonder why the satellite didn’t later capture the current locations of these vans, and how every trace of chemicals could have been so completely cleared from those bunkers and the surrounding areas.
The inspectors have such sophisticated state-of-the-art testing equipment. Still if Iraq removed every single trace of illicit materials, we must surely regard it with awe for its technical expertise. America and Britain have shown us numerous satellite photographs before in relation to Iraq. On many of these occasions, Iraq immediately took reporters to the sites photographed, and each and every time they found nothing, except such innocuous items as baby milk and sugar.
Al-Sa’adi said that the inspectors, armed with similar satellite imagery, have already checked these sites and left satisfied with the answers to their questions and their test results.
Iraq is currently being threatened with a massive bombing campaign in which nothing is ruled out including the use of microwave technology, depleted uranium and even the nuclear bunker busting warheads. Baghdad is under threat. Which country on earth would wish to see its enemies’ spy planes circling overhead at a time like this? The Americans are already listening in to telephone and wireless communications, taking satellite pictures, and has admitted to the infiltration of human intelligence to pinpoint Iraq and persuade the world to rubber-stamp a war. Is Iraq just expected to lift up its skirts leaving itself exposed and vulnerable to attack?
Al-Sa’adi explained that the Iraqi government did not object to U2 flights but could not be responsible for their safety as long as British and American planes were dropping bombs over the so-called “no-fly” zones.
He asked that these incursions over Iraqi territory stop as per Resolution 1441, which provides for the maintenance of the sovereignty and integrity of Iraq.
Al Qaeda: As the editor of the Arabic daily Al-Quds, Abdel Bari Atwan says, “the link with Al- Qaeda is very weak. The secretary said these links (between Al-Qaeda and Iraq) started in 95, so why didn’t Saddam pass his nerve gases to Al-Qaeda then? If Al-Qaeda had been handed these devastating weapons from Saddam Hussein they would have used these on Sept. 11 and not aircraft.”
Bari Atwan said that Osama Bin Laden once offered his services to the Saudi government to eliminate Saddam Hussein and was angered at being turned down. Given their widely differing ideologies — Saddam Hussein a secular leader and Osama Bin Laden an extremist Wahhabi, who has called Hussein “an apostate” — it is hardly unlikely that they would now be working together. Powell is crediting Saddam Hussein with adhering to the principle of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” but has no evidence that this is the case.
As for Abu Musab Zarqawi, an Al-Qaeda affiliate implicated in the African embassies and the USS Cole bombings, he is based in Powell’s own words in northwestern Iraq, which is Kurdish territory protected by the United States. If Powell knows this, why doesn’t America go after him? Based on the way that the US treated the Taleban, targeting them because they were harboring Bin Laden, then why is America so reticent when it comes to the Kurdish tribes, who they say have welcomed Zarqawi into their bosom?
He said that Zarqawi spent some time in a Baghdad hospital and was soon followed by Al-Qaeda militants who are allowed to come and go as they please. Couldn’t we say the same thing about London, Paris, Milan, and yes, even Washington? Isn’t there an Al-Qaeda presence in almost every country of the world, according to United States government sources? Osama Bin Laden was reported to have undergone treatment in the American Hospital in Dubai in mid-2001 where he was visited by a CIA agent, but nobody is pointing fingers at the UAE.
Iraq’s UN ambassador said that just a few days ago the CIA reported that there are no verifiable significant links between the Iraqi government and Al-Qaeda members. This was backed up by the British intelligence services, which are miffed that their work is being distorted for political purposes.
Powell once again talked about the aluminum tubes, those same tubes that IAEA head Mohamed El-Baradei had investigated at length and which he declared, during his earlier presentation to the UN, as having been used to manufacture short-range ballistic missiles, not for producing fissionable material.
The dove-turned-hawk didn’t shrink from vilifying Saddam Hussein on a personal level citing “his contempt for the truth” and “his utter contempt for human life”. We again heard how Hussein used mustard and nerve gas against the Kurds (his own people they are called, even though at the time those chemicals were used, the Kurds were attempting to pull down the Baghdad regime). The Iraqi ambassador to the UN said that he was surprised about this statement since the CIA had verified years ago that Iraq didn’t have that particular type of chemical weaponry in its armory.
The secretary talked about how chemical weapons had been used on another nation, obviously talking about Iran but failed to say, that at that time Hussein had been the blue-eyed boy of Washington. America supplied Iraq not only with weapons but also with technical know-how during the Iran-Iraq War. No wonder the US grabbed the Iraqi weapons declaration document, pulling out entire sections, before it was handed over to the other Security Council members. The pages were choc-a-bloc with the names of American and British companies, which had willingly sold materials for the manufacture of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.
“When we confront a regime that harbors ambitions for regional domination — unless we act we are confronting an even more frightening future,” warned Powell. Detractors of American hegemony in the region and beyond may well be thinking the very same thing about the US.
Al-Sa’adi was dismissive of Powell’s claim that Iraq had pronounced many Iraqi scientists as “deceased” while they were still walking around. He challenged Powell to produce these individuals if, as he says, they were still alive, and called the American contention “ridiculous” in these days of DNA testing. “This is really below the level of a country leading the world,” he said. So which side do we believe? Both sides have a vested interest and so we should leave the final analysis in the hands of Blix and El-Baradei. After all, they are the UN-appointed experts.
There is one question that bothers me in the meantime. Why did the US come up with this so-called “evidence” at the eleventh hour?
Time is running out for Saddam Hussein, we are told over and over by the Bush-Blair partnership. Jack Straw, Britain’s foreign secretary, in his speech to the UN even parroted George Bush’s frequent use of the word “evil” pertaining to the Iraqi leader.
But what both Powell and Straw failed to mention was the horrendous human tragedy that would be suffered by the Iraqi people if the pyrotechnics begin. Iraq is not threatening its neighbors, does not want war and wants to rejoin the world community. For the sake of the Iraqi children and the stability of the region, we should keep the inspectors in place for as long as it takes and say a firm “no” to any war for regional domination, the furtherance of American hegemony and oil.
Arab News Features 8 February 2003
