Iraqi documents
New York Times (via Instapundit)
Among the dozens of documents in English were Iraqi reports written in the 1990s and in 2002 for United Nations inspectors in charge of making sure Iraq had abandoned its unconventional arms programs after the Persian Gulf war. Experts say that at the time, Mr. Hussein’s scientists were on the verge of building an atom bomb, as little as a year away.European diplomats said this week that some of those nuclear documents on the Web site were identical to the ones presented to the United Nations Security Council in late 2002, as America got ready to invade Iraq. But unlike those on the Web site, the papers given to the Security Council had been extensively edited, to remove sensitive information on unconventional arms.
The deletions, the diplomats said, had been done in consultation with the United States and other nuclear-weapons nations. Mohamed ElBaradei, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which ran the nuclear part of the inspections, told the Security Council in late 2002 that the deletions were “consistent with the principle that proliferation-sensitive information should not be released.”
In Europe, a senior diplomat said atomic experts there had studied the nuclear documents on the Web site and judged their public release as potentially dangerous. “It’s a cookbook,” said the diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of his agency’s rules. “If you had this, it would short-circuit a lot of things.”
The context in the article of course is that the Bush administration should never have allowed these documents to be published. However, it is interesting, as tons of conservatives are pointing out, that you cannot square the ‘Iraq was not a WMD threat’ meme with ‘Iraqi WMD documents are a huge threat.’
There is really nothing new here of course. The ‘No WMDs in Iraq’ has always only been accurate in referring to existing stockpiles and active weapon production programs. Saddam was of course still trying to obtain WMDs, and it is pretty clear that he was at least keeping his options open for resumed productions when the sanctions regime fell apart and probably was working on some small scale expiramentation and research in the meantime. These documents confirm that, but few serious people had any doubts about that anyway.
One interesting side of this development though is that other documents from the same source highlight Iraqi terrorism connections. Some of these things are ‘new’ and of course go directly against the ‘no Iraqi ties with terrorists’ meme. I am quite sure that Iraq did not have any involvement in the planning or execution of 9/11. Saddam’s regime did though have ties with terrorists, it did support terrorist organizations, and it certainly had some ties with Al-Qaida, although how significant those were is still controversial.
Does that justify the Iraq war? Perhaps, perhaps not. That is a value judgment, and most supporters of the war, myself included, only had that as one factor in the decision that going to Iraq was the right thing to do. I still think it was the correct choice, and I am not convinced of the doom and gloom scenarios being presented about Iraq right now.
I think we are witnessing a major effort by those who want instability in Iraq right now. I have know doubt that many of them are sophisticated enough to realize that increased instability in Iraq effects the political situation here in the U.S. and are expending extra effort with that goal in mind. I don’t mean this is a partisan, a vote for Democrats is a vote for Terrorists sort of way. Democrats are opposed to terrorism and terrorist organizations just as Republicans are, and I am sure that Democratic leadership of the country would craft policies that would be effective against terrorism as well, but in many ways this election is a referendum on whether we should quickly leave Iraq or not.
It is hardly surprising that those who seek to profit from chaos there would step up the tempo in an attempt to influence that decision. It should also be noted that many Republicans are now calling for leaving Iraq quickly, so it isn’t a purely partisan thing.
I expect we will be better able to evaluate if we have actually made progress in Iraq in a couple of months, if the insurgent forces are spending huge amounts of their resources to cause the present chaos then the situation there should improve markedly after the election. If the violence continues at present levels, or escalates further then a good case can be made that our efforts are failing.
Sadly though the political decisions will have already been made by then, and even if in January it becomes apparent we are on the right course it may no longer matter. That is presumably what those behind an escalated violence strategy would be counting on, and I can’t say that they are wrong in their assessment.
New York Times lies?