The Distorted Iraq Intelligence Posted by Morton H. Halperin

As the Bush Administration presses its claim that its view of Iraq was the same as that of the Clinton Administration, and that we all got the intelligence wrong, it is important to distinguish among the conclusions and predictions which led the Administration to go to war.

Bush is correct in asserting that many Democrats supported the war and both supporters and critics of the war believed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (meaning chemical and biological).  I have no doubt that the Bush people believed Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.  In that sense they were just as wrong as many others.

However, there was deception about many other issues.  Bush, Cheney and Rumseld were  aware that the evidence for Iraq having WMD was soft and circumstantial.  That was never made clear; in fact, the opposite was asserted.  The Administration, in both its public statements and Powell's presentation to the UN Security Council, gave many examples of concrete evidence, which all turned out to be false.  There were many voices in the Intelligence Community warning about these allegations, but the Administration not only chose to believe the stories, it also exaggerated the certainty of the evidence. The Bush Administration also painted a threat of Iraq getting nuclear weapons, which was far more alarmist than the intelligence suggested.

While the Intelligence Community did believe that Saddam had WMD, it did not believe that he would use these weapons or consider giving them to terrorists unless we attacked Iraq.  The Bush Administration said the opposite, suggesting that we could not afford to wait. 

The Bush Administration also argued that we needed to remove Saddam because of his connection with 9/11 and his relation to Al Qaeda.  On this issue Cheney and Rumsfeld were clearly going against the considered judgment of the Intelligence Community and never made it clear that their assertions were not shared by intelligence officials.  In fact, the Intelligence Community concluded that terrorist attacks would increase if we invaded Iraq.  The Administration said the opposite.

The Administration was also fundamentally wrong about what would happen if we invaded Iraq.  It predicted a quick victory and claimed that Iraq would pay for its reconstruction out of its own oil revenues.  More than two and a half years later -- with upwards of 160,000 U.S. troops still there battling a raging insurgency and hundreds of billions of dollars spent -- these predictions now seem fantastical. 

We should not be trying to rewrite the history of progressive support for the war, nor even suggest that the Clinton Administration had a coherent Iraq policy.

But Democrats and other critics of the war are finally putting forward concrete alternatives and even Republicans are coming to understand that the public is not comforted by the fact that much of the foreign policy establishment got it wrong.  The danger, highlighted by recent polls, is that there will be a return to isolationism and a reluctance to use American force when our security or our values demand that we act.  In challenging the current policy and the path that took us to war we must avoid strengthening the tendencies in our society to avoid foreign entanglements. 

Comments

[Gary Halperin]

"In challenging the current policy and the path that took us to war we must avoid strengthening the tendencies in our society to avoid foreign entanglements."

Perhaps a little strengthening of this tendency would be a good thing if "foreign entanglements" means commiting lives and money to fight wars in other countries.

[Kirk H. Sowell]

I agree on one point and disagree with two others. Point of agreement - the administration clearly misunderstood what would happen after the fall of Saddam. I think this was in part because of the weak information provided by the intelligence community, in part by an excessive degree of confidence in the attraction of the democratic model it was pushing, and I also think in part by the fact that some (the minority view, not Bush's) in the administration just wanted to get rid of Saddam and then leave, and not even bother to try this transformation process.

Two points of disagreement. One, those who criticize the administration for its heavily reliance on what the intel community was feeding it need to recognize that even Democrats who supported the war demanded that the U.S. go through the United Nations. As with any system of collective security, the UN security system only works when the interests of all relevant countries are aligned. Since the strategic rationales for the war were specific to the U.S. and its allies, and not of real concern - or else adverse - to most security council members, strategic rationales were out the window. Thus there was a need to rely excessively on certain issues which in reality were only part of the reason for the war.

Second, the concern that Iraq might pass chemical or biological weapons, or at least the ability to make them, to terrorist organizations was quite well founded. Ansar al-Islam had its own chemical weapons experiments going, and this is not an easy thing to do. We know that Iraq had covert links to Ansar, including the placing of intelligence operatives with the group for training. We haven't established that Iraq supplied the specific chemical agents, but in 1999-2000 al-Qaeda's members got to Iraqi Kurdistan by travelling through Iran, where they were closely monitored. This means that either (a) they brought these materials with them from Afghanistan, certainly with the knowledge of Iranian authorities, or (b) they got some help on this front from their contacts within Iraqi intelligence. Also, if Yossef Bodansky's source within Israeli intelligence is to be relied upon, Iraq was the source of the technology for the ricin plot in Britain.

The key for Saddam during that period was plausible deniability; if a terrorist group to which it (falsely) denied links did something, Baghdad could not be blamed. We know without question that Iraq at least maintained the ability to produce this stuff, by maintaining trace samples and equipment, so the concern was not at all implausible.

[Dan Kervick]

Kirk,

The theory of "Ricin Plot" evaporated in a barely noticeable puff of hot air once it encountered the sober consideration of the British legal system. The case fell embarrasingly apart, and all but one of the men was released. The one conviction was on a minor charge of conspiring to cause a public nuissance.

As for the fearsome "technology" involved, it was apparently most likely a bungled recipe from a pamphlet for James Bond enthusiasts. I'd be interested in seeing the solid evidence for the other nefarious links and schemes you claim we "know" exist.

Of course, for one who insists on viewing the absence of evidence as itself evidence for Saddam's diabolical skill in maintaining plausible deniability, failure to make the case will only be perversely self-reinforcing.

[Dan Kervick]

The danger, highlighted by recent polls, is that there will be a return to isolationism and a reluctance to use American force when our security or our values demand that we act. In challenging the current policy and the path that took us to war we must avoid strengthening the tendencies in our society to avoid foreign entanglements.

Speaking of our values, and given all the recent reports of death squads, torture chambers and disappearings in Iraq, it appears that country is in need of another one of those humanitarian interventions prized by liberal gunslingers. Does the interventionist ideology allow for an intervention in our own intervention? Are we required to protect the Iraqis from the consequences of our own failed duty to protect? Are we charged with constituting a new good occupying power to wrest control of the country from the old bad occupying power - namely ourselves?

[Kirk H. Sowell]

Dan (and all others),

In regard to my reference to Saddam's links to Ansar, which was an affiliate of al-Qaeda, see Jeffrey Goldberg's article's on Ansar in the New Yorker (March 2002 and Feb. 2003), an article from the Los Angeles Times on Abu Wael (Dec. 9, 2002 according to my records), and those of Jonathan Schanzer's of the Washtington Institute for Near East Policy. This just deals with Iraqi intelligence officers who were serving as links to the organization. There is other evidence, and even the minimalist 9/11 Commission found that there were "indications" that Saddam had helped Ansar, although this was framed as being focused on Kurdistan. There is a dispute as to the level of the assistance being provided, just as there is a dispute as to the closeness of the relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda, but the dispute is one of degree, not of kind.

The reason that this is important is that the original post claimed that the administration was making unreasonable judgments based on the intelligence it had. But since we know that -
(1) Iraq was working with Ansar,
(2) Iraq had the capability to produce chemical weapons (possession is still disputed), and
(3) Ansar was experimenting with chemical agents in order to produce such weapons,

... it was reasonable for the administration to conclude that a major threat existed. Remember also that Zarqawi, who at one point linked up with Ansar, was also running an operation in Europe (mainly Tawhid in Germany), so the implications were global. The fact that there are gaps here is the nature of the intel available. I'm not arguing that the gaps themselves are evidence, but rather that the evidence available, now as then, was (and is) sufficient to believe a threat existed.

In regard to Ricin plot, most European investigations/prosecutions have collapsed, not because the individuals in question didn't have terroristic intent, but because their actions did not go far enough to constitute crimes under the laws as written. That is why Blair's new (but recently defeated) anti-terror laws were important.

I also don't think that the fact that many of these terrorists are incompetent undermines my point. Even more ambitious plots, like the Bojinka plot out of the Phillipines, have been uncovered because of the incompetence of the individuals involved. Many more plots fail than succeed, and lack of competence is usually the reason. Zarqawi screwed up several terrorist plots before he became as skilled as he is now.

Regards,
KHS

[Kirk H. Sowell]

(continued response)

This relatively recent report from the BBC seems to indicate that they wanted to produce Ricin, but never succeeded. I wouldn't say that the case "evaporated" since prosecutors were willing to take all defendants to trial, although they were unsuccessful, as Dan notes.

[Kirk H. Sowell]

(continued response)

This relatively recent report from the BBC seems to indicate that they wanted to produce Ricin, but never succeeded. I wouldn't say that the case "evaporated" since prosecutors were willing to take all defendants to trial, although they were unsuccessful, as Dan notes.

[Dan Kervick]

Kirk,

As you mention, Ansar al-Islam was a Kurdish Islamist group whose fight was with the PUK and KDP. Having a common enemy, any contacts Saddam may or may not have had with the group are thought to have occurred in that context. Since intelligence agencies everywhere are always no more than a degree or two of separation from any group of bad guys you care to name, questions of the precise degree and nature of the contacts are vital.

I am unaware that investigation inside Iraq since the war began has corroborated the existence of the Ansar poisons factories Colin Powell mentioned in his presentation to the UN.

But certainly, Saddam possessed within his own government chemical weapons expertise far in excess of anything possessed by Ansar al-Islam. So bringing Ansar into the picture as evidence for a chemical weapons threat from Saddam seems pointless. The question is one of capability and intent. You cite articles from 2002 and 2003 as evidence for your claim of a major threat. But we have learned much since the war, and piece by piece, the elements of this heinous Iraqi threat to the United States have fallen apart.

[Kirk H. Sowell]

If Saddam's only links with al-Qaeda and its affliates were giving some aid to Ansar, that probably wouldn't be significant. The reason I bring them into the picture here is that the original post raised the specific point of Iraq giving WMDs to terrorist groups. Iraq had links to Islamist as well as secular terrorist groups from Africa to the Phillipines. In at least some cases, such as Iraq's relationship with the Phillipino Abu Sayyaf, this was very likely independent of Bin Laden. Likewise, the Bush administration's contention that Zarqawi formed a link between Saddam and Bin Laden is disputable because we don't know if OBL told Zarqawi to link up with Saddam or if he did it on his own, but he did, and when Jordan requested that Saddam pick up Zarqawi in Baghdad and repatriate him to Jordan, Saddam refused. In fact, Zarqawi's plots in 2002 against American targets in Jordan (only one successful, the murder of Laurence Foley), were carried out while Zarqawi was moving seamlessly between Baghdad and his base in Syria.

That said, two points to bear in mind. First, much of the dispute regarding the relationship between Saddam's regime and al-Qaeda often hinges on whether or not Baghdad's work with a specific Islamist terror group is coordinated with Bin Laden or not. But the fact that during the 1990s Saddam was reinventing himself as a jihadist and cultivating people with the same aims and ideology as Bin Laden - such as Zarqawi - is well documented and clearer now than ever before, assuming people are willing to look at the evidence. Some of the administration's claims, particularly with regards to WMDs, have been proven incorrect or at least exaggerated. But this point is well documented. Moreover, none of the evidence cited in the articles I noted above has been overturned.

Second, it should be clearly understood that were the only reason to invade Iraq its terror ties, this would not have been sufficient reason alone. The 2002 plots to which I refer above, in fact, were more linked with Syria than Iraq. Iraq, Syria and Iran were all terrorist sponsors, and I would have placed Iran, not Iraq, at the head of that dubious class.

This brings us back to the point I made in my oringal comment above - there were strategic rationales for the invasion, which would take a long time to explain here, which the administration did not and could not press once the decision was made to go through the United Nations. That was the fundamental problem, and that is one of the key lessons we need to learn for the future. An alliance system, in which you rely only on those who have common interests, is much preferable to a system of collective security, which is intrinsically flawed.

In short, the security threat from Saddam's regime was large, although probably not what the CIA (and Bush) thought, but that has to be viewed within the context of our broader strategic posture in the Persian Gulf and long-term conflict not only with Baathism but also al-Qaeda's Salafism and Iran's revolutionary Shi'ism. Once you go through the UN, however, many important vital U.S. interests go out the window, because many UN memebers do not share those same interests. You have to prove a violation of the UN's charter or resolutions, and that often has little to do with the national interests of the United States.

[Jeff Younger]

It is preposterous to claim that "Democrats and other critics of the war are finally putting forward concrete alternatives." Not a single concrete alternative has been offered. Even Murtha's pullout scheme effectively matches the Administration's albeit on shorter timeline.

Moreover, the "there is no plan" canard is easily be shown false by examining this report
http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/20051013_publication_OSSRF.pdf

Further, the US did find WMD in Iraq, for example 1.77 tons of enriched uranium and cyclosarin chemical missile warheads.

Despite my factual disagreements with this post, it does accurately point out that "the Administration was also fundamentally wrong about what would happen if we invaded Iraq. It predicted a quick victory and claimed that Iraq would pay for its reconstruction out of its own oil revenues." However, do consider the mitigating factor of casualties which have been spectacularly low.

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