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Credibility (Or Lack Thereof)
Harry was on KNPR radio in Nevada on Friday, 23 December, making more false statements about pre-war intelligence and post war success.
Embracing the Hermann Goering School of Partisan Political Rhetoric, Harry and his Harpies believe that, if they tell a big enough lie often enough, people will accept it as truth.
Of course, to live in this obstructionist world, one must refuse to learn the facts. In addition to not reading the National Intelligence Estimate before the war, they cannot be bothered to read the reports issued after the war.
They claim to support the troops, but refuse to acknowledge the success of the troops.
Below is a short sample of some of his mistatements.
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There is only one Iraqi Battalion capable of fighting in Iraq
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Harry Reid on KNPR - 12.23.2005
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According to the US State Department, as of December 7, 2005, there were over 214,000 trained Iraqi Security Forces. Over 101,000 were in the Army.
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US State Department - 12.23.2005
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Harry repeated the lie that he was misled about pre-war intelligence, again admitting that he did not read the National Intelligence Estimate before voting for war.
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Harry Reid on KNPR - 12.23.2005
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Harry’s utter lack of credibility on national security issues could not be clearer, when one reviews the information below.
We know that Harry and most of his Harpies could not be bothered to read the National Intelligence Estimate before voting to send troops to war.
We now know that he could not be bothered to review documents in the public domain since 2003.
The following are excerpts from post war reports on Iraq and WMD. Some are lengthy, but important to place pre-war intelligence into context.
These post war studies confirm the fundamental pre-war conclusion - Iraq wanted WMD and was actively deceiving the world about its intentions and capabilities.
Many of the excerpts are from Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCO on Iraq’s WMD, issued on 30 September 2004. The full portions of the report discussed below can be found on-line at http://tinyurl.com/ca2zj.
For Harry and his Harpies, it is to their political advantage to ignore these reports, so that they can repeat their big lie about pre-war intelligence.
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Commentary - 12.23.2005
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STATEMENT BY DAVID KAY ON THE INTERIM PROGRESS REPORT ON THE ACTIVITIES OF THE IRAQ SURVEY GROUP (ISG)
BEFORE THE
HOUSE PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE,
THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS, SUBCOMMITTEE ON DEFENSE, AND THE
SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE
October 2, 2003
We have discovered dozens of WMD-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in late 2002. The discovery of these deliberate concealment efforts have come about both through the admissions of Iraqi scientists and officials concerning information they deliberately withheld and through physical evidence of equipment and activities that ISG has discovered that should have been declared to the UN. Let me just give you a few examples of these concealment efforts, some of which I will elaborate on later:
A clandestine network of laboratories and safehouses within the Iraqi Intelligence Service that contained equipment subject to UN monitoring and suitable for continuing CBW research.
A prison laboratory complex, possibly used in human testing of BW agents, that Iraqi officials working to prepare for UN inspections were explicitly ordered not to declare to the UN.
Reference strains of biological organisms concealed in a scientist's home, one of which can be used to produce biological weapons.
New research on BW-applicable agents, Brucella and Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF), and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin were not declared to the UN.
Documents and equipment, hidden in scientists' homes, that would have been useful in resuming uranium enrichment by centrifuge and electromagnetic isotope separation (EMIS).
A line of UAVs not fully declared at an undeclared production facility and an admission that they had tested one of their declared UAVs out to a range of 500 km, 350 km beyond the permissible limit.
Continuing covert capability to manufacture fuel propellant useful only for prohibited SCUD variant missiles, a capability that was maintained at least until the end of 2001 and that cooperating Iraqi scientists have said they were told to conceal from the UN.
Plans and advanced design work for new long-range missiles with ranges up to at least 1000 km - well beyond the 150 km range limit imposed by the UN. Missiles of a 1000 km range would have allowed Iraq to threaten targets through out the Middle East, including Ankara, Cairo, and Abu Dhabi.
Clandestine attempts between late-1999 and 2002 to obtain from North Korea technology related to 1,300 km range ballistic missiles --probably the No Dong -- 300 km range anti-ship cruise missiles, and other prohibited military equipment.
Read the full statement at http://tinyurl.com/pkw8
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Statement of David Kay, Iraq Survey Group - 10.02.2003
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Saddam wanted to recreate Iraq’s WMD capability—which was essentially destroyed in 1991—after sanctions were removed and Iraq’s economy stabilized, but probably with a different mix of capabilities to that which previously existed. Saddam aspired to develop a nuclear capability—in an incremental fashion, irrespective of international pressure and the resulting economic risks—but he intended to focus on ballistic missile and tactical chemical warfare (CW) capabilities.
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Report of Iraq WMD - 09.30.2004
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Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) were an integral element in the range of tools Saddam drew upon to advance his ambitions. WMD was not an end in itself. Therefore, to examine meaningfully WMD in Iraq means examining the leadership of Iraq concomitantly.
The Iraq experience with WMD stretches over 30 years and three wars. Thousands of victims died on battlefields, and civilians have been gassed in domestic terror campaigns. War and sanctions have ground civil society down to rudimentary levels. The most talented of Iraq have faced excruciating dilemmas—to comply with the Regime’s directions or risk careers, their lives, and the lives of loved ones. Chronic, systemic fear on the part of the best and the brightest was a feature of the intellectual elite.
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The goal of this report is to provide facts and meaning concerning the Regime’s experience with WMD. It aims to provide a dynamic analysis rather than simple static accounting of the debris found following Operation Iraqi Freedom. The report will put into context the WMD activities of the Regime and the trends and directions of the Regime with respect to WMD. Artificially separating the WMD from the Regime would not provide a synthetic picture. Such a picture would seem to be more instructive than a simple frozen inventory of the program remnants at one point in time.
Readers will draw their own conclusions about various national and international actions and policies. This report will, hopefully, allow a more complete examination of these events by showing the dynamics involved within the Regime and where it was headed as well as the status of the WMD on the ground in 2003. The events surrounding Iraqi WMD have caused too much turmoil to be reduced to simple binary discussions of whether weapons existed at one moment in time versus another. They deserve at least an attempt to look at the dynamics rather than a description of a single frame of a movie. It deserves calculus not algebra. This report will deny the reader any simple answers. It will seek to force broader and deeper understanding from multiple perspectives over time.
* * *
We have tried to sort through the data available and have tried to judge candid views from Saddam on WMD as well as his likely vision of the future of Iraq and the role of WMD. What seems clear is that WMD was a tool of power or leverage that varied in its utility in advancing toward his goals for himself and Iraq.
In Saddam’s view, Iraq was the natural leader of the Arab world. Its people, history, and resources combined with his leadership made it the inevitable leader in the region—perhaps not without struggle, but struggle contributes to the overall glory. Saddam sees himself as the most recent of the great Iraqi leaders like, Hammurabi, Nebuchadnezzar, and Saladin. In Babylon, where Iraq was reconstructing the historical city, the bricks were molded with the phrase, “Made in the era of Saddam Hussein”—mimicking the ancient bricks forged in ancient Babylon and demonstrating his assumption that he will be similarly remembered over the millennia. This narcissism characterizes his actions, and, while it is not always visible, it is always there.
From the evidence available through the actions and statements of a range of Iraqis, it seems clear that the guiding theme for WMD was to sustain the intellectual capacity achieved over so many years at such a great cost and to be in a position to produce again with as short a lead time as possible—within the vital constraint that no action should threaten the prime objective of ending international sanctions and constraints.
Saddam continued to see the utility of WMD. He explained that he purposely gave an ambiguous impression about possession as a deterrent to Iran. He gave explicit direction to maintain the intellectual capabilities. As UN sanctions eroded there was a concomitant expansion of activities that could support full WMD reactivation. He directed that ballistic missile work continue that would support long-range missile development. Virtually no senior Iraq; believed that Saddam had forsaken WMD forever. Evidence suggests that, as resources became available and the constraints of sanctions decayed, there was a direct expansion of activity that would have the effect of supporting future WMD reconstitution.
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Charles Duelfer, Special Advisor to the Director of Central Intelligence - 09.23.2004
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Saddam Husayn so dominated the Iraqi Regime that its strategic intent was his alone. He wanted to end sanctions while preserving the capability to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction (WMD) when sanctions were lifted.
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Report of Iraq WMD - 09.30.2004
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Saddam saw Iraq’s nuclear program as a logical result of scientific and technical progress and was unconvinced by the notion of non-proliferation. He considered nuclear programs a symbol of a modern nation, indicative of technological progress, a by-product of economic development, and essential to political freedom at the international level (what he described as “strategic balance”). He wanted nuclear weapons to guarantee his legacy and to compete with powerful and antagonistic neighbors; to him, nuclear weapons were necessary for Iraq to survive. Saddam wished to keep the IAEC active and his scientists employed and continuing their research. “I,” maintained Saddam, “am the Godfather of the IAEC and I love the IAEC.”
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Report of Iraq WMD - 09.30.2004
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The Iran-Iraq war and the ongoing suppression of internal unrest taught Saddam the importance of WMD to the dominance and survival of the Regime. Following the destruction of much of the Iraqi WMD infrastructure during Desert Storm, however, the threats to the Regime remained; especially his perception of the overarching danger from Iran. In order to counter these threats, Saddam continued with his public posture of retaining the WMD capability. This led to a difficult balancing act between the need to disarm to achieve sanctions relief while at the same time retaining a strategic deterrent. The Regime never resolved the contradiction inherent in this approach. Ultimately, foreign perceptions of these tensions contributed to the destruction of the Regime.
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Report of Iraq WMD - 09.30.2004
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Many former Iraqi officials close to Saddam either heard him say or inferred that he intended to resume WMD programs when sanctions were lifted. Those around him at the time do not believe that he made a decision to permanently abandon WMD programs.Saddam encouraged Iraqi officials to preserve the nation’s scientific brain trust essential for WMD. Saddam told his advisors as early as 1991 that he wanted to keep Iraq’s nuclear scientists fully employed. This theme of preserving personnel resources persisted throughout the sanctions period.
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Report of Iraq WMD - 09.30.2004
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Baghdad reluctantly submitted to inspections, declaring only part of its ballistic missile and chemical warfare programs to the UN, but not its nuclear weapon and biological warfare programs, which it attempted to hide from inspectors.In 1991, Husayn Kamil and Qusay Saddam Husayn attempted to retain Iraq’s WMD and theater missile capability by using MIC, along with the SSO, RG, SRG, and Surface-to-Surface Missile Command to conceal banned weapons and deceive UNSCOM inspectors.
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Report of Iraq WMD - 09.30.2004
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Following unexpectedly thorough inspections, Saddam ordered Husayn Kamil in July 1991 to destroy unilaterally large numbers of undeclared weapons and related materials to conceal Iraq’s WMD capabilities. This destruction–and Iraq’s failure to document the destruction–greatly complicated UN verification efforts and thereby prolonged UN economic sanctions on Iraq. According to Iraqi Presidential Advisor ‘Amir Hamudi Hasan Al Sa’adi, the unilateral destruction decision was comparable in its negative consequences for Iraq with the decision to invade Kuwait.
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Report of Iraq WMD - 09.30.2004
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Iraq attempted to balance competing desires to appear to cooperate with the UN and have sanctions lifted, and to preserve the ability to eventually reconstitute its weapons of mass destruction. Iraqi behavior under sanctions reflects the interplay between Saddam’s perceived requirements for WMD and his confidence in the Regime’s ability to ride out inspections without full compliance, and the perceived costs and longevity of sanctions. The Iraqis never got the balance right.
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Report of Iraq WMD - 09.30.2004
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The Regime made a token effort to comply with the disarmament process, but the Iraqis never intended to meet the spirit of the UNSC’s resolutions. Outward acts of compliance belied a covert desire to resume WMD activities. Several senior officials also either inferred or heard Saddam say that he reserved the right to resume WMD research after sanctions.
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Report of Iraq WMD - 09.30.2004
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