So,
Why Was This War For?
By Rupert
Cornwell in Washington
Independent
29 May 2003
After seven weeks of fruitless search, the Bush administration has come
the closest so far to conceding that, contrary to its pre-invasion scaremongering,
there may not have been any chemical or biological weapons in Iraq.
Several US military officers
involved in the hunt in Iraq have raised the possibility that the illegal
arms might have been destroyed, but the official line in Washington
has been that Saddam Hussein had artfully hidden them, and sooner or
later they would be found.
But now, Donald Rumsfeld,
the Defence Secretary and one of the leading hawks on Iraq, has admitted
that the weapons may not exist. "We don't know what happened,"
he told the Council of Foreign Relations in New York. "It is also
possible that [Saddam's government] decided they would destroy them
prior to a conflict."
What Mr Rumsfeld did not
discuss was when the weapons might have been destroyed - immediately
before the war, or long beforehand (as suggested by Iraqi defectors,
who said as long ago as 1995 that they had been destroyed). Experts
also doubt that, in the past few weeks or months, Iraq could have got
rid of chemical and germ warfare stockpiles of the size alleged by Bush
officials, without it being picked up by US and British intelligence.
Pentagon officials insist
that Mr Rumsfeld broke no new ground and say that interrogations of
senior Baathist officials and scientists will lead to the weapons' whereabouts.
But his remarks may fuel the debate on whether the American public was
sold the war on a false premise. As post-war reconstruction falters
and US soldiers continue to die (four in recent days) at the hands of
snipers and ambushers, questions are starting to be asked.
On Capitol Hill, in particular,
scepticism is growing, despite a reluctance by Democrats to challenge
Mr Bush on a national security issue that plays to a popular President's
strengths. "This could conceivably be the greatest intelligence
hoax of all time," said Jane Harman of California, the senior Democrat
on the House intelligence committee.
The quality of the intelligence
is to be looked at by a CIA-led team. This was suggested as long ago
as October, with the aim of monitoring the process leading up to a war
in Iraq, which even then seemed likely.
Intriguingly, the prime instigator
of the investigation was Mr Rumsfeld who, disappointed by the lukewarm
findings of the CIA, set up an intelligence unit inside his office to
assess the Iraq threat. This body is known to have relied heavily on
information provided by the Iraqi National Congress exile group, led
by Ahmed Chalabi, long the preferred choice of the Pentagon and the
Vice-President, Dick Cheney, to lead post-Saddam Iraq.
Whether the initiative will
uncover the truth remains to be seen. The involvement of Mr Rumsfeld
has been memorably likened by Maureen Dowd, the New York Times columnist,
to "O J [Simpson] vowing to find the real killers" of his
wife.
Even so, the controversy
is unlikely to assume the proportions it has in Britain unless Iraq
descends into anarchy and substantial numbers of US troops are lost.
At present, complaints are directed at the shortcomings of the Pentagon's
post-war planning, and the inadequate number of American soldiers in
Iraq to restore order.
More than 100,000 troops
are said to be in the country. But experts say at least double that
will be needed. Weeks before the war, General Eric Shinseki, the outgoing
army chief of staff, told a congressional panel that "several hundred
thousand" troops would be required to keep the post-war peace.
General Shinseki was slapped down by Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Defence
Secretary, as "way off the mark". But he may have been right.
The claims that paved
the path to the invasion of Iraq
30 January, 2002. George
Bush: "The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax and nerve
gas and nuclear weapons for over a decade ... This is a regime that
has something to hide from the civilised world. States like these, and
their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten
the peace of the world."
State of the Union address
24 September, 2002. Tony
Blair: "I have been increasingly alarmed by the evidence from inside
Iraq that ... despite his denials, Saddam Hussein is continuing to develop
weapons of mass destruction, and with them the ability to inflict real
damage upon the region, and the stability of the world."
Foreword to 'Iraq's weapons
of Mass Destruction: The Assessment of the British government'
8 November, 2002. George
Bush: "If Iraq fails to fully comply, the United States and other
nations will disarm Saddam Hussein."
On the UN Security Council
backing resolution 1441
8 November, 2002. Tony Blair:
"Conflict is not inevitable, but disarmament is ... everyone now
accepts that if there is a default by Saddam the international community
must act to enforce its will."
5 February, 2003. Colin Powell:
"One of the most worrisome things that emerges from the thick intelligence
file ... is the existence of mobile production facilities used to make
biological agents ... The trucks and train-cars are easily moved and
are designed to evade detection ... in a matter of months, they can
produce a quantity of biological poison equal to the entire amount that
Iraq claimed to have produced in the years prior to the Gulf War."
Addressing the UN Security
Council
5 February, 2003. Colin Powell:
"Our conservative estimate is that Iraq has a stockpile of between
100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agent. That is enough to fill 16,000
battlefield rockets. Even the low end of 100 tons of agent would enable
Saddam Hussein to cause mass casualties across more than 100 square
miles of territory, an area nearly five times the size of Manhattan."
5 February, 2003. Colin Powell:
"Let me remind you ... of the 122mm chemical warheads the UN inspectors
found. This discovery could well be ... the tip of a submerged iceberg.
The question before us all is when will we see the rest of the submerged
iceberg?"
14 February, 2003. Hans Blix:
"Since we arrived in Iraq, we have conducted more than 400 inspections
of more than 300 sites. All inspections were performed without notice,
and access was almost always provided promptly. In no case have we seen
convincing evidence that the Iraqi side knew in advance that the inspectors
were coming."
Addressing the UN Security
Council
27 February, 2003. George
Bush: "In Iraq, a dictator is building and hiding weapons that
could enable him to dominate the Middle East and intimidate the civilised
world, and we will not allow it ... Acting against the danger will also
contribute greatly to the long-term safety and stability of our world."
Address at the American Enterprise
Institute in Washington
18 March, 2003. George Bush:
"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no
doubt that the Iraqi regime continues to possess and conceal some of
the most lethal weapons ever devised."
Televised address, giving
Saddam Hussein 48 hours to leave Iraq or face war
18 March, 2003. George Bush:
"The danger is clear: using chemical, biological or, one day, nuclear
weapons obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfil
their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of
innocent people in our country or any other."
20 March, 2003. George Bush:
"At this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages
of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend
the world from grave danger."
Televised address, announcing
the start of the war
20 March, 2003. Tony Blair:
"Our choice is clear: back down and leave Saddam hugely strengthened
or proceed to disarm him by force."
Address to the nation as
war started
2 April, 2003. Jack Straw:
"The removal of Saddam Hussein's regime has become necessary to
eradicate the threat from his programmes to develop weapons of mass
destruction."
Speech at a Newspaper Society
lunch
22 April, 2003. Hans Blix:
"The US was very eager to sway the votes in the Security Council,
and they felt stories about these things would be useful to have, and
they let it out. And thereby they tried to hurt us a bit and say we
had suppressed this. It was not the case, and it was a bit unfair, and
hurt us."
Hans Blix, telling the BBC
the US had seized on his alleged failure to include details of a drone
and cluster bomb found in Iraq, in his presentation to the Security
Council before the war
24 April, 2003. Jack Straw:
"Given the fact that it will be American and British military who
will be first on to any site, it will always be possible for those who
opposed this military action to say, 'Oh well, they were planted'. Now,
they won't be planted. We're going to immense care to ensure the veracity
of the finds."
Speaking on the BBC News
Interactive's 'Talking Point'
28 April, 2003. Tony Blair:
"There was a six-month campaign of concealment of those weapons
... Before people crow about the absence of weapons of mass destruction,
I suggest they wait a little bit."
Monthly news conference at
10 Downing Street
14 May, 2003. Jack Straw:
"I hope there will be further evidence of literal finds ... It
[Iraq's illegal arsenal] certainly did exist. There is no question about
that ... It's not crucially important."
Interviewed on the BBC 'Today'
programme
23 May, 2003. Hans Blix:
"I am obviously very interested in the question of whether or not
there were weapons of mass destruction and I am beginning to suspect
there possibly were not ... It may turn out that in this respect the
war was not justified."
In an interview with the
Berlin newspaper, 'Der Tagesspiegel'
28 May, 2003. Donald Rumsfeld:
"It is also possible that they decided they would destroy them
prior to a conflict... It's hard to find things in a country that's
determined not to have you find them. I suspect we'll learn a lot more
as we go along and keep interrogating people."
In a speech in New York