WMDs: a new (believable) theory

[trof]

In my opinion, Daniel Schorr is one of the few true journalists left in the U.S.

Now it's right war, wrong reason

By Daniel Schorr

"A school of thought is emerging that Saddam Hussein was not so much covering up his possession of banned weapons as his lack of them.

The Wall Street Journal reported that in 1990, weeks before the Gulf War, Iraqi scientists ran an unsuccessful test of a biological agent called ricin, made from castor beans, and then scrapped the program.

In The Washington Post, columnist David Ignatius speculates that Hussein's science adviser, Amir Saadi, and Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz are being kept under wraps by the American authorities because they might testify that the dictator had long since destroyed his weapons of mass destruction."

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0725/p11s02-cojh.html

[Stuckinthebush]

1. "It remains to be seen...."

"...whether that switch in the propaganda line will fly."

Good line.

I don't think it will. The ball is already rolling against Bush, and people are waking up to his scam.

[mike6640]

2. It could happen......

I have been ruminating this idea ever since I read a post (pre-war) here a few months ago.

Bluff and bravado. Saddam did not want his neighbors (especially Iran) to get the idea his country was "weak" and invadable.

[ewagner]

3. Plausible

This is a plausible explanation for why Saddam kept the inspectors out.

Also note another news report (re:missing WMDs) not only are WMDs missing in Baghdad, they're missing from Bush's current speeches!

Don't know how they could spin this.......

[charlie]

6. The spin bubbling up from the wingers

is audacious: It was never about WMD (or liberation) anyway. It was about reordering the ME so it's less hostile to our well-being. Bush's lies were unavoidable. If he revealed our true reasons, we wouldn't have enjoyed the cooperation of Kuwait, Oman, et al. Arab culture, being shame-based, would never have tolerated sidling up to the Devil for his own purposes. No regional support would have meant our assault would've had to have been launched from afar, with the attendant expense and dangers of establishing a beachhead and fortifying it while we built up enough troop strength to invade.

Conclusion: Bush saved soldiers lives by not telling us what we didn't need to know.

Impressive, isn't it? I can't wait to see what they'll gin up next when it's pointed out to them that the Bush cabal didn't exactly take the trouble to hide the aims of the PNACers in his circle. Effectively, the only audience he lied to was Americans who were willing to take him at his word. The Arabs, the audience that matters in their argument, knew that making Iraq an American outpost was the true reason for war.

[rman]

13. except that Saddam didn't keep the inspectors out

that's why they managed to remove saddams wmds (though chem artillery shells are hardly wmds), which is why * can't find m now.
the best (worst) one can make of it is that Saddam didn't always cooperate with inspectors. though he did cooperate fully during the last inspection, you know the one that Bush asked for, then couldn't wait for results.

Saddam was installed by the CIA, turned out to be a loose cannon, which upset the Hawks, now they take revenge.

[ithinkmyliverhurts]

4. But the trick isn't to change the narrative completely,

which this article does (and the article may, in fact, be correct). If we change now, the repubs. will SCREAM "fishing expedition. Their first scandal didn't stick so now they want to change stories. Sorry, the American people are too smart for this." The real story will be buried.

So, before we follow this article's line of inquiry, we need to pave the road a bit. Maybe establish an either/or proposition. For example: either the administration misled and hyped intelligence, or the WMD that were there, and were potentially dangerous if in the wrong hands (i.e., Al Qaida now in Iraq), are now gone and unaccounted for. So we are now actually in more danger; at least we knew where they were before.

O.K., so they want to deny both of these? Saddam destroyed them maybe? That's plausible. And maybe so is this, a report from Daniel Schorr in the CS Monitor. And then fire away.

[Tikki]

5. Just something nagging at me...in the back of my mind...

...didn't this administration have a vast amount of the US population scheduled to be vaccinated against a possible Small Pox and/or Anthrax outbreak.... before their Invasion of Iraq?

...and then...they just announced 'one day' that it would not be necessary.

...I have wondered if *Bush found evidence that Suddam DID NOT have biological weapons after all.....and...

...Bush* feared that the law suits from Americans.... who had either 'a reaction from the shots' or 'were angry in being forced into unnecessary shots'.... would be a greater cost.... than they could get out of this..... using it as part of the FEAR FACTOR.



edited to remove two words....

[seemslikeadream]

7. I have thought this for a long time

He learn a great lesson from poppy bush. Just as bush 1 created the slant drilling in Kwaite to provoke Saddam into invading and starting the Gulf War so has Saddam provoked bush 11 by punking the little chimp into believing the really were WMDs.

[Jack Rabbit]

8. I've been saying this for some time

I never thought that Saddam was such a threat that it justified war; however, when he didn't use any weapons of mass destruction in the early hours of the invasion, I came to the conclusion that he didn't have any at all.

In the ensuing discussions at DU, I would be asked why Saddam didn't just come clean and coopertate to the fullest extent to show he had nothing. After all, while the weapons inspectors reported that they were able to accomplish their mission, Dr. Blix complained that Saddam's level of cooperation could have been higher. It was a fair question at that time.

The answer I gave is that Saddam was like a cat arching his back, attempting to appear more fierce than he actually was. Like the use of such a posture by a cat, it was a defense strategy. Saddam was a very sick man. He was by nature a sadistic tyrant. He thought that the business of nations was to swallow other nations. Just as he plunged Iraq into two unnecessary wars, he thought that his neighbors would simply invade iraq. If they believed he had a biochemical arsenal they would stay away.

Now we see that theory in the Christian Science Monitor.

What Saddam didn't count on was that the United States would be taken over by a tyrant as sick as he. Bush and his friends can give any excuse they like, but the invasion of Iraq was one of colonial design. With his desire to satiate his friends' greed for corporate profits, gluttony for oil and his own lust for empire, Bush defeated Saddam simply because he is a bigger bully. It had nothing to do with an arsenal of banned weapons (Bush knew or should have known that there was none) or a desire to bring democracy to Iraq (it is laughable to think that the junta that undermines democratic institutions in America would promote any real democracy elsewhere).

The invasion of Iraq can not be characterized as the right war for the wrong reasons. It is still the wrong war.

[trof]

10. "Methinks he doth protest too much."

Your comments are well taken, and what a convoluted, double-reverse-psychology, can of worms this is turning out to be. But fascinating, oh so fascinating.

Saddam Hussein: "We have NO weapons of mass destruction! NONE! Absolutely NONE!" Thinking..."Reverse psychology is working. By protesting loudly and feigning outrage I keep my enemies at bay by making them think I actually DO have WMDs." But perhaps not thinking far enough ahead because...

George W. Bush* and his Office of Special Plans (OSP) advisors can say: "We know this is a bluff. He's using reverse psychology. But we can reverse HIS reverse by making the voters and the U.N. think he protests too much and believe that he may actually have WMDs, when we're pretty sure he has none."

Mama mia! Talk about your tangled webs.
My head hurts.

[TahitiNut]

18. I've never believed Iraq possessed WMDs

that weren't "Iran/Contra'd" covertly into Iraq by the US during the Iran/Iraq war. How could Iraq be a formidable power if, even with extensive assistance from the US, they weren't able to keep that war from being fought on Iraq's turf? Iran, with US assistance, never made any significant progress into Iran and never threatened Tehran in the slightest. How then could they be hallucinated as a threat to the US?

I believe the US, particluarly the Reagan/Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld cabal, has known all along that Iraq was rattling a plastic sword. It served their MIC/Oil/Banking interests.

I believe they used the bluster, and the inherent inability of Iraq to "prove" they'd destroyed something which never existed, to (1) use the inspections as both intelligence on Iraq's conventional defense capabilities, (2) engage in a long air campaign to further weaken Iraq's conventional defenses, and (3) a totally fabricated fabric of lies to rationalize a hegemonistic and predatory invasion of a sovereign nation. If anything (remember the famous photo of Rumsfeld meeting Saddam?), this cabal further deceived Saddam with a "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" that the US could never invade and conquer Iraq without clear and unambiguous provocation -- and that the Arab countries in the region would never permit it.

We're neck-deep in political corruption here. This madministration is more corrupt than the mafia ever was dreamed to be.

[FubarFly]

22. Agreed

This is an essential narrative for people to debate and understand.

The questions that rise out of this debate will be devastating for shrubco.

Hopefully, more of the mainstream media will finally come around.

Although the fact that, even now, Hussein Kamel's name is not being mentioned, is a bad sign.

[DrBB]

9. Add me to the "ME TOO" list

If WMD are a deterrent, a reputation for having 'em is almost as good as having them. At least up to the moment where deterrent fails and an army comes crashing in. Then all a dictator can do is bug out. Certain fits the facts.

[trof]

12. Page from the U.S.S.R.-CIA playbook?

Didn't I read, in the not too distant past, that the so-called "missile gap" never existed?
That the U.S.S.R. fooled an apparently very-willing-to-be-fooled CIA into relaying "information" about how far ahead the Russians were in development and number of ICBMs. Information that filled the coffers and advanced the careers of the military-industrial complex.

Everything old is new again.

[ewagner]

14. Good analogy

Khruschev and his "we will bury you" bluster, was just that ...bluster

remember too that the old Soviet Union was absolutely paranoid about being either invaded or boxed in by the US. Therefore nuc deterrent and overstating that deterent was a hugh strategic mission!

[charlie]

16. Yeah, but while the myth benefitted the Soviets

they weren't the originators, our Air Force was. Not even the CIA bought into it:

http://www.msnbc.com/avantgo/932179.asp?s=OP

[DrBB]

21. Yup, and lest we think only the GOP plays such political games

It was actually JFK who campaigned on that term and used it to beat on the GOP for not being sufficiently modern and forward-thinking on defense issues. GOP isn't the only crew who can play the you're-soft-on-defense card, as our current JFK(erry) evidently knows.

[whoYaCallinAlib]

11. I dunno.

I think he had a few WMDs right up until the war broke out. They're gone now and we'll never know for sure.

[ewagner]

15. Do you mean..

...like old mustard gas shells and maybe some of the other nasty stuff left over from the Iran/Iraq war?

That I would agree with...but don't think those are WMDs per se

[Merlin]

17. Makes sense.

You're right. Schorr is one of the truly courageous, honest journalists in the tradition of Edward R. Murrow.

[Robbien]

19. Jumping on the Me Too bandwagon

The statement I keep remembering is that of the Iraqi Ambassador to the US. When the war started, he walked away from the reporters saying "The game is over". He knew Saddam was playing a dangerous game.

[ewagner]

20. Forgot about that..

good point