How hard would it be to plant WMD in Iraq? I have no clue, since I have no idea how they would be “authenticated” or exactly what weapons would be considered WMD and what wouldn’t. It seems that with a full scale military occupation going on, getting them there would be rather simple. The US is already moving lots of weapons into the country.
If it would be as easy as I think (admittedly my WAG), then I would have to wonder why WMD haven’t already been planted and “found.” If the Bush admin. had no problems lying about the intel on the WMD, I can’t see them balking at lying about the actual WMD themselves.
There is also the possibility that they have planted WMD (or legitimately found them) and are waiting to reveal them for the October Surprise. I don’t buy this. I think finding them in the next month would be seen as way too convenient by too many people. If they were going to plant them, I think they would have already done it and revealed them. If they had already legitimately found some, I think that they would be in a hurry to reveal them so as to be sure to have enough time to put to rest any doubts about their authenticity. If they do find WMD in the next month, I will most likely don my tinfoil hat and go vote for a Democrat (instead of my usual-third party) for president for the first time in my life.
The problem at this point is that in order to change the public preception of a WMD free Iraq, the US gov. would have to come up with something fairly impressive. They’ve already found old chemical weapon shells (probably left over from Iran-Iraq war) and old nuclear fuel processing parts buried under somebodies rose garden and these did very little to impress the public. So for a sucessful plant, one that would both live up to the administrations pre-war hype and be enough to sway a now cynical public, they couldn’t just make up a few sarin-filled artillery shells or one tank of mustard gas. They’d need to mimic an entire stockpile of chemical weapons, an assembled chemical or nuclear lab or some other sign of an active weapons program, and this I think would be very difficult.
First they’d need to find enough chemical or nuclear material. While I’m sure we have this or could whip them up pretty fast, I’m also sure these things are monitored by a lot of different agencies, all of whom you would need co-operation from. I’m sure the position, owner, etc. of every uranium centrifuge in the U.S. is extremely well documented. You’d also need to make it technologically and chemically undistinguishable from something that could’ve been made in Iraq, something that would take several roomfuls of experts.
In short, I think that building something belivable would take the involvement of too many people, and not all of them would be super-loyal military types.
Also notice that the failure to find WMD has not exactly destroyed Bush’s chances to be president. As such, even if you belive the current administration is evil through and through, it wouldn’t necessarily be in their advantage to fake WMD’s and risk the backlash if the public got wind of it.
Planting is the easy part actually… a cargo plane with 3 warheads and a quick chopper ride to the location where they will be “found” shouldn’t be too hard. The volume of flights happening would simply be too big and few would bother to ask questions.
The hard part is getting beleivable nukes. You can’t just use US ones with russian alphabet on top. CBS already got shot down for fakes. Eventually even after being elected if they revealed fake nukes it might hurt way too much.
Maybe Israel could lend them some nukes that aren't american ?
Faking chemical and bio stuff is harder though… you’d have to find big installations… and they are more dangerous and volumous to handle
My cynical view: If it was easy, they would have done it.
I think that in addition to the actual “forging” of the materials, the operation would necessarily involve a fair number of people…And, only one of them would have to decide that this was morally repugnant for the whole thing to blow up in their face.
They won’t find the WMD, but shortly before the election I expect the FBI to announce that they’ve got a lead on the current whereabouts of the guy who sold the WMD to Saddam…
Assuming the Bush administration WOULD do this (something I doubt…not for ‘moral’ reasons but for purely practical ones), I think it would be difficult to bring off reguardless. The more people who know a secret, the more chance there is that said secret would get out…and something like this would require quite a few people, many of who would be enlisted types likely to blab about it (unless you ALSO think the government would wack all people in the know to protect itself :rolleyes: ).
In short it would be too much trouble for the possible gain, so its not likely to ever happen. IF any WMD are ever found (something I think is likely, but not on the scale the Administration believed pre-GWII), they will most likely be legit…and won’t really matter that much in any case in the broad picture of events. If you believe the US should have gone after Iraq/Saddam, WMD are moot…and if you don’t believe the US should have, they still are moot.