[Blix] noted that there was little U.S. reporting on ElBaradei’s claims before the invasion of Iraq that a document alleging an Iraqi attempt to buy uranium was forged. The Bush administration used the document to make its case against Iraq, but after the war conceded that ElBaradei was correct.
Nice piece of revisionism. In fact, the British report that reviewed this issue stated categorically that the president’s uranium reference in his 2003 State of the Union address was “well-founded” and based on intelligence having nothing to do with the forged documents and ElBaradei’s claim. Here are the relevant bits, on pages 123 and 125:
We conclude that, on the basis of the intelligence assessments at the time, covering both Niger and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the statements on Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa in the Government’s dossier, and by the Prime Minister in the House of Commons, were well-founded. By extension, we conclude also that the statement in President Bush’s State of the Union Address of 28 January 2003 that: ‘The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa’ was well-founded.
And:
From our examination of the intelligence and other material on Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa, we have concluded that: a. It is accepted by all parties that Iraqi officials visited Niger in 1999. b. The British Government had intelligence from several different sources indicating that this visit was for the purpose of acquiring uranium. Since uranium constitutes almost three-quarters of Niger’s exports, the intelligence was credible. c. The evidence was not conclusive that Iraq actually purchased, as opposed to having sought, uranium and the British Government did not claim this. d. The forged documents were not available to the British Government at the time its assessment was made, and so the fact of the forgery does not undermine it.
Blix continued:
“We carried out 700 inspections at 500 different sites … and said to the Security Council, and said to the United States and the Brits that we find no weapons of mass destruction,” he said. “Out of these places that we visited, there were about three dozen places or sites that were given to us by intelligence agencies in different countries and in none of them could we find any weapons of mass destruction.” “My belief is that if we had been allowed to continue to carry out inspections for a couple of months more, we would then have been able to go to all the sites which were given by intelligence, and since there weren’t any weapons of mass destruction we would have reported that there weren’t any,” he said.
The “any” Blix is referring to includes the unaccounted for weapons of mass destruction — the anthrax, VX, chemical & biological precursors, chemical rockets & shells, etc. — that UN inspectors knew Saddam had produced but could not verify had been destroyed. The inspection regime agreed to by the Security Council was never about the number of inspections completed. It was about Saddam’s regime actively engaging in disarmament and providing “verifiable evidence” to the Security Council that it had. The UN insistence on this “verifiable evidence” standard began in 1995 when Iraq was caught in a massive deception campaign to hide the scope of its weapons programs from the inspectors. From then on, the UN inspection team’s conclusions on the state of Iraq’s disarmament were to be solely based on “obtaining verifiable evidence including physical materials or documents; investigation of the successful concealment activities by Iraq; and, the thorough verification of the unilateral destruction events.” In other words, Saddam had to prove he got rid of the stuff to ensure that he did not just stash it away somewhere beyond the eyes of the UN. Clinton Defense Secretary Cohen explained it this way in 1998:
[Inspectors] have to find documents, computer disks, production points, ammunition areas in an area that size [California]. Hussein has said, ‘we have no program now.’ We’re saying, ‘prove it.’ He says he has destroyed all his nerve agent. [W]e’re asking ‘where, when and how?'”
Here’s what Hans Blix said on the verification standard in late January 2003 — though somehow I doubt he mentioned it in his speech.
Resolution 687 (1991), like the subsequent resolutions I shall refer to, required cooperation by Iraq but such was often withheld or given grudgingly. Unlike South Africa, which decided on its own to eliminate its nuclear weapons and welcomed inspection as a means of creating confidence in its disarmament, Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance-not even today-of the disarmament, which was demanded of it and which it needs to carry out to win the confidence of the world and to live in peace. As we know, the twin operation “declare and verify,” which was prescribed in resolution 687 (1991), too often turned into a game of “hide and seek.” Rather than just verifying declarations and supporting evidence, the two inspecting organizations found themselves engaged in efforts to map the weapons programmes and to search for evidence through inspections, interviews, seminars, inquiries with suppliers and intelligence organizations.
Blix also gave some concrete examples of the difficulty in verifying Iraq’s disarmament without the active help of Saddam’s regime. For instance, January 27, 2003
The discovery of a number of 122 mm chemical rocket warheads in a bunker at a storage depot 170 km southwest of Baghdad was much publicized. This was a relatively new bunker and therefore the rockets must have been moved there in the past few years, at a time when Iraq should not have had such munitions…. They could also be the tip of a submerged iceberg. The discovery of a few rockets does not resolve but rather points to the issue of several thousands of chemical rockets that are unaccounted for.
March 6, 2003
The result, so far, is that no underground facility of special interest has been found. Although they may be easier to find than mobile facilities, they are still a difficult target and it is always possible that inspectors have missed a hidden entrance. Like mobile facilities, any dedicated underground CW or BW facility could also have been dismantled prior to inspection. UNMOVIC does not dismiss the possibility that such facilities exist and will continue to investigate reports as appropriate. Given the vast number of potential underground “sites” capable of hosting CW or BW production or storage facilities in Iraq, inspections in this area will have to be dynamic and rely on specific intelligence information…. The long list of proscribed items unaccounted for and as such resulting in unresolved disarmament issues was neither shortened by the inspections, nor by Iraqi declarations and documents.
The fact the Saddam Hussein never complied with UN disarmament resolutions led Defense Secretary William Cohen to state on CNN one month AFTER coalition forces entered Iraq:
I am convinced that he has them. I saw evidence back in 1998 when we would see the inspectors being barred from gaining entry into a warehouse for three hours with trucks rolling up and then moving those trucks out. I am absolutely convinced that there are weapons. We will find them.
When it comes to “spinning” Hans Blix should gaze into a mirror.
