My. The administration's stated positions on Iraq -- never mind its justifications for war -- seem to be unravelling everwhere this week, don't they?
UNITED States defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld was trying desperately to backtrack yesterday, after declaring that he knew of no clear link between the al-Qaeda terror network and Saddam Hussein. Mr Rumsfeld's admission to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on Monday night came only 24 hours before the US vice-president Dick Cheney was due to go head to head with his Democratic rival, senator John Edwards. Mr Rumsfeld had at first refused to answer when he was asked to describe the connection between the Iraqi leader and al-Qaeda. But he then added: "To my knowledge, I have not seen any strong, hard evidence that links the two."
Mr Rumsfeld's comments are a further embarrassment for the White House, which repeatedly claimed the existence of a link as justification for the Iraq war. Despite increasing evidence that no such relationship ever existed, Mr Cheney has continued during the US presidential election to give the impression of direct Iraqi involvement with al-Qaeda.
Mr Rumsfeld yesterday tried to cover up his gaffe, issuing a statement from the Pentagon saying his comment "regrettably was misunderstood" by some.
Well ... now, exactly how difficult is it to understand the bare, bald statement "To my knowledge, I have not seen any strong, hard evidence that links the two." Exactly what room does that leave for misunderstanding? The best -- the very best -- spin you can reasonably put on that statment is that the evidence exists, but that Rumsfeld has not seen it. Given that he's the secretary of defense, if it exists and the administration has it, but he has not somehow seen it, that would indicate that the administration has some fairly severe problems in communicating internally.
While Democrats seized on the new report by Charles Duelfer to bolster their case that invading Iraq was a mistake, Cheney focused on portions of the report that were more favorable to the administration's case. While saying that Saddam's weapons program had deteriorated since the 1991 Gulf War and did not pose a threat to the world in 2003, the report did say that Saddam's main goal was to get international sanctions lifted. "As soon as the sanctions were lifted he had every intention of going back" to his weapons program, Cheney said.
As may be. The admistration's case at the time was not that Saddam might someday have those weapons; it was that he had them right at that very moment, that he presented an imminent threat, and that he had to be taken out. The war was thus based either on an outright lie or a major intelligence blunder, or some combination thereof.
And then there's the odd little sidenote:
SADDAM HUSSEIN believed he could avoid the Iraq war with a bribery strategy targeting Jacques Chirac, the President of France, according to devastating documents released last night.
Memos from Iraqi intelligence officials, recovered by American and British inspectors, show the dictator was told as early as May 2002 that France - having been granted oil contracts - would veto any American plans for war. [...] To keep America at bay, he focusing [sic] on Russia, France and China - three of the five UN Security Council members with the power to veto war. Politicians, journalists and diplomats were all given lavish gifts and oil-for-food vouchers.
Tariq Aziz, the former Iraqi deputy prime minister, told the ISG that the "primary motive for French co-operation" was to secure lucrative oil deals when UN sanctions were lifted. Total, the French oil giant, had been promised exploration rights. Iraqi intelligence officials then "targeted a number of French individuals that Iraq thought had a close relationship to French President Chirac," it said, including two of his "counsellors" and spokesman for his re-election campaign. They even assessed the chances for "supporting one of the candidates in an upcoming French presidential election." Chirac is not mentioned by name. A memo sent to Saddam dated in May last year from his intelligence corps said they met with a "French parliamentarian" who "assured Iraq that France would use its veto in the UN Security Council against any American decision to attack Iraq."
In a purely academic sense, it would be fascinating to know if this plan would have worked. Interestingly, among the countries accused in the Dulfur report of secretly aiding and abetting Iraq's quest for banned items under the sanctions and its corruption of the oil-for-food program are several of our nominal allies. One wonders what France has to say about the fact that their leader was viewed as so eminently corruptable, or what new NATO member Poland has to say about the accusations that it helped Iraq violate sanctions. (Of course, they've just withdrawn from the "coalition of the willing", so they're not likely to be saying much of anything on the matter.)
Posted by iain at October 07, 2004 11:19 AM
