by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright August 31, 2003
All Rights Reserved.

crambling to explain unfound weapons of mass destruction, the White House is back on its heels regarding the rationale for war with Iraq. President Bush's 2003 State-of the-Union speech, citing British intelligence, raised urgent concerns about Iraq's pursuit of “yellowcake” uranium from Niger. Now discredited, the bogus report raises serious concerns about either false intelligence gathering or deliberate manipulation for the expressed purpose of toppling Saddam Hussein. Exaggerated claims have led to a British judicial inquiry, trying to get to the bottom of David Kelly's suspicious suicide, a Defense Ministry scientist and former U.N. weapons inspector. Interviewing Kelly before his death, the BBC alleged that Blair hyped the Iraqi threat to justify going to war, including the Sept. 24 British intelligence report that Saddam could deploy WMD within 45-minutes.

      Taking heat for juicing up the State-of-the-Union speech, both Bush and Blair stand by British intelligence, denying that Blair's recently resigned communication director Alastair Campbell spiced up the Sept. 24 report, claiming that Saddam was an imminent danger. “A lot of people buy into the view that the government did exaggerate the Saddam threat in general terms,” said Michael Cox, professor of international relations at the London School of Economics, implying that Blair has a growing credibility problem. With U.S. and British soldiers losing their lives in Iraq, Bush and Blair are under increased pressure, especially without evidence of WMD. Now U.S. [CIA] and British intelligence [MI-6] suggest that Saddam might have used double agents to deliberately throw officials off track—that's more convenient than admitting they exaggerated Iraq's immediate danger.

      When the CIA or MI-6 review intelligence, it's more involved than simply relying on the testimony of expatriated Iraqis, like Ahmed Chalabi, director of the London-based dissident group Iraqi National Congress, or Qadir Hamza, Saddam's “alleged” former bomb maker, both of whom frequently appeared on TV and radio hyping the Iraqi threat. Though out of the loop for 25 years, Hamza was welcomed in pro-war circles, claiming Saddam was dangerously close to building A-bombs. Claiming Iraqi defectors were deliberately misled by Saddam to trick Western intelligence defies common sense. Whether getting intelligence from prisoners or defectors, savvy experts always read between the lines, never taking second-party reports too seriously. Defectors “were telling us what we wanted to hear,” said and unnamed U.S. official, suggesting that authorities were somehow duped.

      U.S. and British officials are well aware of calculated disinformation designed to throw spy agencies off track. Floating the idea that spy services were duped is a double-edged blade: On the one hand, it shows incredible naiveté, on the other hand, it diverts attention away from criminal manipulation of intelligence data. Blaming exaggerated British intelligence on Saddam or Iraqi defectors doesn't pass the smell test. Faced with mounting criticism, Bush and Blair must coordinate stories and blame intelligence failures on outside forces. “We were prisoners of our own beliefs,” said a senior U.S. weapons expert, noting that the White House selectively heard only what fit their theory. “We said Saddam Hussein was a master of denial and deception. Then when we couldn't find anything we said that proved it, instead of questioning our own assumptions.” Without WMD, Saddam didn't present a threat to U.S. national security.

      For two years leading up to the war, the White House insisted that Saddam presented a “gathering” danger to U.S. national security. Not only had Saddam booted out inspectors in 1998, he had violated 17 post-Gulf war resolutions calling for unconditional disarmament and was up to no good. Then, despite CIA reservations, much ado was made of Mohammed Atta's alleged meeting with an Iraqi intelligence official in Prague, the summer before Sept. 11. When that was debunked, growing reports surfaced about Iraq's clandestine nuclear program. Then, when U.N. inspections resumed in 2002, more reports surfaced about Saddam's attempts to purchase uranium and aluminum tubing, culminating in Secretary of State Colin A. Powell's Dec. 2002 multimedia presentation to the U.N., accusing Iraq of deliberately hiding illicit weapons. After toppling Saddam in April, the search for WMD went on.

      When nothing turned up, the White House shifted gears toward its new goal of “democratizing” Iraq—the most massive nation-building project since the Marshall Plan after WW II. With no WMD in sight, the U.S. now questions its intelligence fingering Saddam as a threat to national security. Blaming bad intelligence on Saddam or his double agents is like blaming a patient for the dentist pulling out the wrong tooth. Characters like Ahmed Chalabi or Qadir Hamza make good entertainment but not reliable intelligence. With Iraq no longer a threat of national security, the U.S. must recalculate its mission, now costing American lives and incalculable tax dollars. Opening up a hornet's nest, post-war Iraq has become a new cause celebre for Osama bin Laden and every garden variety Islamic terrorist. Intelligence failure or not, it's time to rethink the mission and look for an exit strategy.

About the Author

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.

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