Justifying the Iraq War and WMDs

Towards the end of January, David Kay did resign. He told Reuters that WMDs probably did not exist:

Furthermore, as reported by The Guardian, Kay noted that Iraq had abandoned its efforts to produce large quantities of chemical or biological weapons:

In addition, as the above cited article also notes, the Iraqi exile group in London which claims to have supplied MI6 with the intelligence about Saddam’s 45-minute capability admitted that the information might have been completely untrue.

For some, Kay’s comments are devastating enough to suggest impeachment:

In September 2004, Colin Powell admitted that WMDs will probably never be found.

An apparent rift appeared between the BBC and the British government over such accusations, and a scientist called Dr. Kelly who had apparently claimed the sexing up of certain intelligence information allegedly committed suicide when his name was revealed to the public as the most likely source to the BBC reporter that revealed this.

In Britain, this dominated news during August, and in some respects has continued to be a distraction to other major issues about misinformation, weapons of mass destruction and the rebuilding/resistance in Iraq.

A major inquiry known as the Hutton Inquiry (named after Lord Hutton, who performed the investigation) into the allegations started revealing many interesting points, as the inquiry interviewed people all the way up to the British Prime Minister himself. The final report was damning for the BBC, and one of its reporters who made the claim of sexing up the document. Summarizing The Guardian, the report concluded many points, including:

• Gilligan [the BBC reporter making the claim] was wrong to say government knew its 45-minute claim was unfounded
• The desire of the Prime Minister to have a strong dossier may have subconsciously influenced John Scarlett and the Joint Intelligence Committee to produce a strongly worded document
• The Joint Intelligence Committee’s assessment was in line with available intelligence
• BBC editorial and management system was 'defective'—governors of the BBC were also criticised

The damning verdict has led to resignations (or calls for more) at the BBC. See the BBC web site’s section on the David Kelly inquiry and Hutton Report. At the same time, there has been reaction throughout the press at how unscathed the government was, while the BBC was completely criticized. The enquiry’s verdict has therefore been described as a whitewash and some are even sceptical of the credibility of this because of such a tilt against the BBC. The inquiry itself has its own web site from where you can see the final report.

It would seem that the British government has been exonerated, but they have only been seen to have acted credibly in terms of the content of the dossier not apparently being an intentional lie. However, all the examples raised further above about other citations being exaggerations, or there being other forms of pressure to create support or justification for war still seem to hold or have not been investigated with such vigor, and it would seem that there is still a strong argument that the war on Iraq was not justified.

A.J. Doherty writes in The New Standard that the narrowness of Lord Hutton’s brief must not be obscured. The inquiry was neither an investigation into the supposed reasons for the illegal invasion of Iraq nor an investigation into the deceitful roles of the Blair administration and the intelligence services. In addition:

Investigative journalist Greg Palast (who has had some of his reports aired by the BBC) also notes that the future of British journalism might be bleak, On the other hand, The future for fake and farcical war propaganda is quite bright indeed, he notes, because based on the Blair government’s claim, headlines pumped the war hysteria: SADDAM COULD HAVE NUCLEAR BOMB IN YEAR, screeched the London Times. BRITS 45 MINS FROM DOOM, shrieked the Sun newspaper…. But these headlines were, in fact, false, and deadly because they helped create support for a war that is now questionable. Palast is therefore implying that while erroneous claims by a BBC reporter that raised questions about supporting the war were thoroughly examined in the public eye, other claims or headlines (but those that supported the war) have received less scrutiny. Furthermore, as Palast also adds, the U.S. and British governments bent the information (about the threat of Iraq) then hunted down the questioners.

The likely repercussions on the BBC could indeed be far-reaching, as various competing media empires and possibly the government could try to take advantage of this reduced credibility.

• On one hand the BBC has had a lot of credibility in the eyes of the public and is usually well regarded for quality (though, I would argue with still a western-based bias when it comes to issues of importance to the third world in general). As a result, other media companies such as Rupert Murdoch’s outlets in UK would want to take advantage.
• On the other hand, possibly the government would also want to take advantage, perhaps to either decrease the powers and reach of the BBC, or perhaps journalism in general. While some media outlets indeed have been critical of the BBC (opportunism or not) leading up to the enquiry (as mentioned below), as the enquiry has come out and have been so heavy on the BBC only, many media outlets are now questioning the ramifications and asking if the enquiry was fair. It would seem that other media outlets are also worried about the implications to journalism (and therefore themselves) on the whole and what the government might do, and not just the BBC.

But these political games and apparent attempts at opportunism have been going on since the beginning of the accusations:

On April 2, 2004, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell admitted that claims about mobile labs he had dramatically highlighted in his speech to the United Nations in the build up to the war, used intelligence that was weak.

However, this was known before the war started. As noted on this site’s section on the build up to war, Hans Blix himself had said the evidence was weak. Quoting from that page again:

Powell’s admission (and also his appearing to shift area of blame onto intelligence), in April 2004, has been met with media excitement as if this is a new revelation, but it seems few remember that Powell’s claims were regarded as dubious even before the war.

At the beginning of 2004, with the U.S.'s then chief man for hunting weapons of mass destruction David Kay saying that he doesn’t believe there are any, there has been intense pressure on the Bush administration to launch an investigation about the intelligence that was used to justified the war.

In February 2004, President George Bush announced the launch of an investigation. The report will analyse where we stand and what we can do better as we fight this war on terror, Bush said, still trying to tie this into the wider war on terror, which has also been questioned.

Interestingly, when asked why a launch of the investigation and why its findings would be released after the U.S. elections, George Bush seemed to waiver and even implied that they had to be sure about the intelligence. What we don’t know yet is what we thought he also said. Yet, this would appear to be a lie or at least more spin.

• During the buildup to the war, various members of the Bush Adminstration, including Bush himself asserted with absolute conviction that WMDS were definitely there.
  • Channel 4 News in U.K, for example, noted (February 2, 2004) that on September 24, 2002, in a television interview, Dick Cheney made claims in a way that did not betray any uncertainty.
  • A speech by George Bush on 26 September 2002 also made such strong convictions, while Donald Dumsfeld famously said that they knew Saddam Hussein’s WMDs are there, that they are somewhere North, South, East and West of Baghdad!
  • See this site’s section on the build up for the Iraq war, which provides many more such examples, including details from Colin Powell’s speech at the U.N., assertions by others such as Jack Straw and Tony Blair, etc.
• A question Channel 4 also noted was if Bush was this uncertain about a war, how could he have asked his servicemen to die for a war that may not have been justified? (The news report also failed to follow that theme and ask if the thousands of Iraqi civilian deaths could have been avoided as well.)

Under pressure to follow the U.S. example, UK’s Prime Minister, Tony Blair also announced an intelligence inquiry.

Robin Cook, the British minister in Tony Blair’s cabinet who resigned protesting the war, also noted that any investigation need not take too long because a lot of the evidence is already there, supposedly, and it needs scrutiny. The political decisions to go to war also needs analysing he added. (Interview on Channel 4 News, February 2, 2004). Cook reiterated that Bush and Blair’s attempts to use intelligence in a way to justify war implied blatant propaganda.

Initially, both Bush and Blair suggested investigations would be narrow in scope, looking only at the intelligence used to justify the war, and not the political judgements based on that intelligence, which full accountability would surely require.

Tony Blair announced that the UK inquiry would be held in private with only some evidence possibly being published. In addition to the secrecy, also controversial about this is that while ordering what will be known as the Butler Inquiry, he debarred the inquiry from examining the political and diplomatic decision to wage war, and the legal basis for doing so as The Guardian highlighted (February 4, 2004).

For many this will be seen as

• Avoiding a look at the political judgements (i.e. looking at government accountability)
• Using the intelligence services for scapegoating any controversial decisions

Yet, mentioned in various places on this section has been how top ministers and experts have felt and experienced the Bush and Blair administrations deciding long ago to go to war and looking for reasons to justify it. Furthermore, just as UK announced this new inquiry, The Independent in U.K. noted a former British intelligence official who gave crucial evidence to the Hutton inquiry claimed that (citing that news article)

• Not a single defence intelligence expert backed Tony Blair’s most contentious claims on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction;
• Downing Street’s dossier, a key plank in convincing the public of the case for war, was misleading on Saddam Hussein’s chemical and biological capability because the expert intelligence analysts of the (Defence Intelligence Staff) were overruled in the preparation of the dossier;
• The whole of the Defence Intelligence Staff, Britain’s best qualified analysts on WMD, agreed that the claims should have been carefully caveated; and
• Intelligence chiefs ignored warnings from their own leading experts that they could not be certain Iraq had chemical and biological weapons.

It was also revealed that around the time that Bush and Blair pressed for war, intelligence on Iraq’s WMDs was sparse and the British government knew this. Furthermore, as it appears that both British and U.S. governments are looking to blame the intelligence communities, some of the intelligence communities are turning to the defensive, either pointing out that they never said threats were imminent, or to lay fault at intelligence agencies of other countries. George Tenet, head of the CIA is one example. In early February, Tenet reiterated that the CIA did not exaggerate threats from Iraq. This should not be new information though. As pointed out in the building the case section on this site, during the lead up to war, the CIA had repeatedly downplayed the scare-mongering and even mentioned that it did not believe Saddam Hussein would strike unless struck upon first (and in the end, Iraq didn’t strike back, perhaps because it didn’t have anything to strike back with, in that respect).

In addition, it turns out that Tony Blair was under the impression that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction which could be launched against targets such as Israel and Cyprus in just 45 minutes. This has made headline news, yet top ministers, including the British Defence Secretary, Geoff Hoon, and others, such as Robin Cook, knew that the 45-minute claim only applied to battle-field weapons, and that was it (Robin Cook even mentioned this in his resignation speech). (Of course, the BBC has been given a heavy blow suggesting that using this 45 minute claim was sexing up, yet, even if Lord Hutton did exonerate Blair in a whitewash, that no-one would correct this until now, is a scandal. Indeed, it has dominated news in the first few days of February, in the U.K.) Hans Blix, chief U.N. weapons inspector up to the Iraq war has on many occassions criticized the U.S. and U.K. for lack of cooperation. Blix also described Bush and Blair as salesmen who exaggerated intelligence in an attempt to win support for war.

However, such revelations are not really new though. The Building the Case for War on Iraq section on this site notes that many of these types of concerns had been raised many times by various sources during the build up to war.

The Butler Report was released mid July, 2004, reporting serious flaws in the intelligence used on Iraq in the build up to war. While limited in nature (not looking at political accountability) it contained a serious blow to the intelligence that was used. Problems and findings included:

• Intelligence sources not checked well by the MI6
• MI6 sometimes relied on third hand reports
• The 2002 dossier used to show the British people and the world the threat of Saddam should not have included the claim Iraq could use weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes without further explanation
• The limitations of the intelligence in the September 2002 dossier were not made sufficiently clear, with important caveats removed
• The 45 minutes claim was unsubstantiated and it should not have been included without clarification—doing so led to suspicions it was there because of its eye-catching character (or propaganda appeal)
• Intelligence was pushed to its outer limits but not beyond—and there was no deliberate distortion by politicians, any blame was collective
• JIC chairman John Scarlett should still take up post of MI6 chief—but future intelligence chiefs should be demonstrably beyond influence
• Since the war key claims based on intelligence from agents in Iraq, including claims the Iraqis had recently produced biological agents, had had to be withdrawn because they were unreliable
• There had been an over-reliance on dissident Iraqi sources and human intelligence in general
• Language in the dossier and used by the prime minister may have left readers with the impression that there was fuller and firmer intelligence than was the case, Butler had said and added, It was a serious weakness that the Joint Intelligence Committees' warnings on the limitations of the intelligence were not made sufficiently clear in the dossier.
• While Iraq may have had the desire to build WMDs, it didn’t have any, or any of significance, and no developed plan of using them
• There was no intelligence to conclude that Iraq was a threat to the region or the world
• No evidence of Britain going to war to secure oil supplies
• No evidence of mobile labs

See the BBC summary of the Butler report, which include links to the actual report, for more details.

It is often accepted, especially in a democracy, that leading politicians ultimately should be held accountable for their decisions and political judgements especially on something such as going to war. It applies here because not only have their own troops lost lives, but so too have Iraqi civilians. Yet the inquiries risk being a way to brush off blame onto technicalities. Ironically this would have to also raise the question of whether or not Tony Blair is the right person to order the inquiry when he has so much at stake personally, because he has ensured it is limited in a way that he cannot be held accountable.