This is a question asked by Condoleezza Rice in today’s New York Times. She says Saddam has not disarmed…
The column goes on to describe how three other countries which had sincerely committed to voluntary disarming did follow these steps.
I’m convinced by Dr. Rice. Are you?
The behaviour described is not just the behaviour of a country acquiescing in being disarmed - it is the behaviour of a country enjoying being disarmed.
Iraq is obligated to disarm. It is not obligated to like it.
No, I’m not convinced. The title of her piece is “Why we know Iraq is lying”. I accept that she suspects that Iraq is lying. So do I. But if she knows, why not tell the inspectors where to look? If the Iraqis no longer have WMD they cannot show they have “decided to disarm”.
I guess my first question would be “Of just exactly what are you convinced?” First of all, the allusions made by Ms Rice are not really germaine to the discussion of inspections in Iraq: in all three cases cited, the countries voluntarily sacrificed specific programs, not their entire arsenals; it can also be said that obviously in the case of Ukraine and Kazakhstan the programs were pretty much superfluous and of little practical use (expecially as they were Soviet-era remnants, and presented serious logistical issues with no real benefit). If you look here, http://www.idsa-india.org/an-oct8-2.html, you will see that SA came to the same conclusion, and most likely also wanted the inherent benefits of cooperation with the US and Europe (as an aside, it is also enlightening to see just how much both the US and Israel provided to them in support of the program). In any case, the programs were quite limited in scope, and much easier to disarm.
In the case of Iraq, the administration has pushed for the fullest possible accounting of all WMD, possible delivery systems, R&D, support, etc.; in comparison, it is quite a tall order. And nowhere in the article did Ms. Rice state the amount of time it took for the successful disarmament of said programs; it doesn’t seem to me in my research that any of the countries involved were on a deadline, much less one imposed from an outside agency.
So just what is it again that convinced you? I’d be interested in knowing.
Thanks
Greco
Regardless of how we personally feel Iraq should take the dissarmament procedures, I am convinced that what Mrs. Rice said is what is stipulated in the UN resolution against Iraq.
BTW, two sites with some background on the disarmament of the other affected countries: the Ukraine gained a great sum of money for their efforts, while Kazakhstan basically had us do it for them because “they aspired to the system of European continental security”; not bad incentives, but makes the article by Ms. Rice somewhat disingenuous.
http://the-tech.mit.edu/V114/N11/ukraine.11w.html
http://www.freenet.kz/~alumni/doulatbek/book1/liquidation_of_nuclear_weapon.htm
I am convinced that Iraq has not disarmed, that they have not destroyed all their chemical and biological weapons and rockets, and that they have not ceased their program to develop nuclear weapons.
It’s the other side of the point made by tschild
If Saddam had really disarmed, it would be in his interest to make that absolutely clear. How stupid would it be for Iraq to disarm in a way that made it appear that they still have their WMDs? Then the US might attack and overthrow Saddam, even thought he had fully complied with the Security Council resolutions.
By agreeing to disarm, Iraq gained a ceasefire in the Persian Gulf War. Saddam & Co. were not only allowed to avoid trials for their War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity ™, they were allowed to stay in power. That’s a pretty good incentive, too.
So because Ms. Rice says that they haven’t disarmed, you are convinced? That is your prerogative, after all; though I personally don’t believe either the Iraqis nor the administration, and I feel that a simple regurgitation of the UN resolution does little or nothing to instill confidence in the average American that the administration is on the right path. More to the point of the article that you quoted: nothing in her article has really any bearing on the current situation, so she is simply a parrot of statements that have been previously made by both her colleagues and her employer. My question really is: what is so convincing about her article? Besides your blind faith in the administration, there is nothing in the article to provide any further evidence that Iraq is indeed lying; in fact, in the following quote
she specifically points to the empty warheads located by the inspectors, and then ties them to the use of Sarin or even VX; yet that is quite misleading, as those warheads were found to be empty (so no proof of either type of agent), and for short range use (unguided 122 mm rocket projectiles, with a maximum range of only 20 km). So she then ties the discovered warheads together with a non-existent agent of MD, throws in the absolute suppositon by Butler that IF the “larger type of warhead that Iraq has made and used in the past were filled with VX” it could possibly “kill up to one million people” IF launched at some fictitious “major city.” What a construction of paranoia - the only thing that has been found so far has been a cache of 12 unused rocket warheads of a design that has existed pretty much unchanged since the 1940’s or earlier, and she links these to the possible threat of death for “up to one million people” by the end of a short paragraph. And you are convinced? Once again, she posits no argument here, so there is nothing by which one could be convinced: it is just the stating of the same old party line, with some misleading facts thrown in to scare the average Joe.
Man, where were you when I was doing the debate thing? It would have been some quick points for my side…
Greco
AQA I will try to link to another post in which I discussed this to some degree; however, you have over-simplified the situation. There was no real threat of our removing Saddam from power; it was not the stated goal of the Coalition nor the US, and we didn’t really have much of a chance of making him stand trial for anything if we weren’t going to depose him first. Iraq signed the ceasefire terms as drawn up by the UN, which included the request to disarm. Not the other way around; Hussein was not even forced to sign the document, and was not even present when it was signed.
I’m not saying that there isn’t some incentive in drawing up a ceasefire, but I would say that it is less than you imply: they are still undergoing daily overflights and the inability to use either their northern or southern airspaces, none of which was covered by any UN mandate. And after 12 years, some would say they have paid their price, especially considering the sanctions that they have been saddled with ever since. A far cry from the incentives that were offered in the scenarios described in Ms. Rice’s article.
Thanks
Greco
Uh, I forgot that link, didn’t I? Here you go: :smack:
[url=http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?postid=2891189#post2891189]look for Greco post
I got kind of long-winded, so didn’t want to reproduce it all here.
Greco_loco raises some good points. More generally, Condi’s argument is based on exactly the sort of sort of cookie-cutter logic that she decries in our dealings with North Korea. The Iraq situation is not the same as in Kazakhstan, South Africa, or Ukraine. Her attempt to use the behavior of those nations as an excuse to invade Iraq suggests to me at least, that she needs a few more years practice with the debate team before she’ll be ready for prime-time.
One more time, just in case you are interested:
Excuse me, I’m new. And thanks Squink, I was hoping I wasn’t the only one that saw the huge holes in that article. And people actually rave about her intellect? Sounds more like a mouthpiece in this instance.
Greco
Squink, what is “cookie-cutter logic”?
I would imagine an overly simplistic analysis based on popular rhetoric and bromides without actually considering relevant facts at hand, how deep an analogy holds, and so on. In short, specious reasoning based on pre-existing arguments against superficially similar cases.
Okay, I have to chime in here. First Greco, you don’t find 12 undocumented chemical warheads troubling? You said that she Condi ties them to Sarin or VX which is misleading. How is that misleading? These warheads were designed to carry chemical or biological payloads. How is it misleading to state that they can be loaded with a few of the chemicals that he very well may have access to?
Then you go on to state that, “she then ties the discovered warheads together with a non-existent agent of MD.” Please explain to me how you determined that these chemicals are non-existant when Iraq never provided any sort of proof that they were destroyed? Not a document, not a site, not anything.
Next, “IF launched at some fictitious “major city.” What a construction of paranoia - the only thing that has been found so far has been a cache of 12 unused rocket warheads of a design that has existed pretty much unchanged since the 1940’s or earlier, and she links these to the possible threat of death for “up to one million people” by the end of a short paragraph.”
We also know that Iraq has been illegal importing prohibited weapons? You don’t think that he has ANY rockets/missiles capable over his proscribed 70km range? IIRC the weapons inspectors stated that they were illegally importing missle engine parts. So that fact alone gives a good chance that they can at least deliver a payload to a neighboring country (read Israel).
And I don’t care if they’re happy about disarming or not. Proactive cooperation is what is going to get rid of sanctions, keep SH in power, and benefit his people. You would think THAT would be incentive enough.
**Jdeforrest[\b], thanks for joining in. As for the warheads: there are reports that they are similar to ones imported and declared in the 1980’s, and that they are expired. In addition, UNSCOM had visited the site where they were located, and found no evidence of any associated WMD, either on site or on the warheads themselves. You and one of the inspectors say they were “undocumented,” but the Iraqis claim they were documented; also, they took pains a few days later to turn over 4 more examples of the same type of rocket that they said they located.
As I stated in another thread: in the mid-90’s I was involved in doing analysis of Iraq’s capability to fight. At that time, we saw that these weapons existed then - they are a modified 122 mm Katyusha-type rocket, unguided and short-range. Using these for any kind of serious chemical or biological attack would not be particularly smart: though the maximum range is 20 Km, they would be lucky to make it half that distance considering their current age. And any of the artillerymen using them would know this fact well, and steer clear of them. That is the most likely reason they were found in boxes in a storage area. The primary use for this type of warhead could be for anything that needs to be fired in mass quantity - the Eastern Europeans used them for smoke, marker rockets, and tested them with chemical agents; as for biological agents, the design is of a type not wholly consistent with that use, and I have not heard of any particular tests showing that they have been used as such. Although they could be used in such a manner in a pinch, they are not a particularly safe container to handle.
And sorry to disappoint, but neither my discussion nor the article written by Ms. Rice brought up what other types of missiles he has; she made a very poor linking of what we actually know to exist through empirical evidence to suppository statements. I was pointing out the poor logic and misleading way in which she constructed her statement; I did not say that I believed that Iraq had no such delivery systems, but it has not been proved that those type of longer range missiles currently exist, either.
It would take a delivery system capable of at least 200 miles to hit Israel (by the way, on my map, the two are not “neighboring countries”); if it were something as inaccurate and crude as a SCUD, the chances of it collapsing into either Syria, Jordan or Lebanon are pretty high as well, especially considering that the missiles he has would have to be at least 12 years older than they were during Desert Storm (and they had surpassed their shelf-life by a few years then). We know he has TRIED to get spare parts to upgrade and maintain some of his weapons; even if marginally successful, these weapons would be so unreliable as to be equally as dangerous to the missile crews as to any possible target. Once again, though, where is all of this illegal equipment? Regardless of what anyone says, it doesn’t currently exist in any capacity; if the administration knows where all of these “smoking guns” are, why don’t they give the inspectors some clues?
And lastly: are you conjecturing that if Saddam were to comply with the UN mandate on this request, that he would be able to stay in power and be rid of the sanctions? Where is your proof of this? I haven’t heard anyone be so magnanimous and make any offers as such, certainly not our President. And what you and I may think would be incentive is immaterial: it is what Saddam thinks would be incentive enough that matters, if he is the one you are trying to get to cooperate.
Thanks again
Greco
BTW - the proscribed range for his missiles, I believe, was 150 KM. I will look for a cite for this.
Greco
Okay, their handing the 4 warheads over does make me itch to wait and see if they are cooperating. However, my instinct just tells me that it’s too convienient that they decided to hand them over (or found them as the case may be) after we already found some and by the terms of the resolution anything undeclared is a material breach. So it’s still too little, too late in my eyes.
Iraq did say they were included in the document (btw, afaik nobody but iraq said they were included in the report) but even after a request was made by the US for them to point to the page, I don’t think that request was met.
It also does trouble me that nobody can seem to point the inspectors to the illegal arms cache. I can think up plausable explantions for this, but you would think our intelligence services would be able to get a line on at least 1 smoking gun.
As for why a soldier would fire a chemical weapon that has a chance to backfire…I can think of a very good hollow-pointed reason. I can also think of a good use for rockets that only go 20km.
I believe that UN stated before this round of inspections began that if all went well, sanctions may be loosed or lifted within a year. I think (I want to say France and Russia) a couple countries were even trying to loosed the import restrictions before the fresh round of inspections began.
P.S. My geographical knowledge is absolutely horrible, so please forgive the Israel neighboring country thing. I was just trying to make a point that he probably has a longer range weapon available to him and was using the fact that he has already rained missles on Israel to suggest a possible target.
Here are two links that may be of interest: one on the exact text of the ceasefire resolution this page, and another on the exact type of weapon referred to by the 122mm rocket: here - the Iraqis have used a version similar to the Egyptian variant. I have seen conflicting reports of traces of biological agents found on rockets of this type after Desert Storm, but can get no real corroboration; though they would not be well-suited to the task, and would require substantial modification, it is not outside the realm of possibility.
Please understand: I am not saying that the Iraqis are being truthful and not hiding anything from us. What I am saying is that there is no justification for war, and that the administration has failed to find anything more than pretexts on which to base this crusade. I live in the Persian Gulf, and have been supporting the US military, one way or another, ever since Desert Storm; I have been on the intel side, the frontline side, and more recently in the coordination of this whole gargantuan effort. So I definitely have a personal interest in this whole affair, no doubt about it…
A couple of quick points: in the last conflict, the Iraqi soldiers were not seen to be particularly suicidal; they surrendered in droves, and during interviews even many Rep. Guard admitted to being less than enthused, especially during the latter stages of the war. These are not the type of guys that would fire a barrage of unstable chemical or biological weapons at relatively close range; there is a very natural aversion on the part of the soldiers in the chemical weapons battalions to even get close to these weapons, and the biological weapons are often seen as frightening beyond words. There are indeed many good uses for these type of short-range barrage missiles, but using them for things like VX or Anthrax would potentially be as hazardous to the crew as to the target, if not more so.
There were some overtures re lifting of sanctions made by the UN (chiefly France and Russia) before all of this began; however, the US would most assuredly veto any of these plans, and was strongly against any kind of relaxation of sanctions. This was true of the previous administration as well as the current bunch.
And no problem on the geography - I live here, so it tends to be a little more important for me to know just who lives where ;). Iraq is currently thought to possibly have “a few dozen” modified Scud B missiles (aka al-Hussein); these would have a maximum range (650 KM) that would allow them to hit Israel, and are not particulary accurate (within a 2 KM radius). They are also known to disintegrate in flight, as they are heavily modified; usually, 3 older Scud B missiles are cannabalized to provide 2 Al-Hussein missiles, with lots of spot-welding and sheet metal work involved. No doubt, in the event of a war where we backed Saddam into a corner, these would be trundled out for some kind of retaliatory attack on Israel; the hope on his part would be that the proverbial shit would hit the proverbial fan, and Israel would be forced to join the fray. In Saddam’s estimation, this would be the equivalent of starting WW3; once the Israeli’s are involved, it would definitely be a “we hate the Muslims” war, and the situation could rapidly deteriorate even further. Since our record for locating and destroying the SCUD launchers in the last war was just short of abysmal, I wouldn’t be holding my breath in the hope that we could catch them before launch this time, either. As the inherent instabilities in such a “low-tech” delivery system make interception with TMD almost impossible (the missile often disintegrates while tumbling in flight, and can create several very small segments not following easily predicted ballistic paths), you can pretty much guarantee that if they have even a handful, one or two will land somewhere close to where they want it to.
Anyhow, thanks again for the response -
Greco