What Democrats Said About WMD Before the War in Iraq

Just to let you know, this is NOT my writing. I happened upon it, and I figured it would spark a...spirited--yes, that's a euphemistic way to put it--debate in KMC. Enjoy 🙂.

Originally posted by Celtlund
there is considerable evidence that these Demo-gogues and their colleagues believed Iraq had WMD long before President George Bush came to Washington. Here is a small sample of that evidence from the Clinton years:

Bill Clinton: "If Saddam rejects peace, and we have to use force, our purpose is clear: We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program."

Madeleine Albright, Clinton Secretary of State: "We must stop Saddam from ever again jeopardizing the stability and the security of his neighbors with weapons of mass destruction."

Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Advisor and Classified Document Thief: "[Saddam will] use those weapons of mass destruction again as he has ten times since 1983."

Harry Reid: "The problem is not nuclear testing; it is nuclear weapons. ... The number of Third World countries with nuclear capabilities seems to grow daily. Saddam Hussein's near success with developing a nuclear weapon should be an eye-opener for us all."

Dick Durbin: "One of the most compelling threats we in this country face today is the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Threat assessments regularly warn us of the possibility that...Iraq...may acquire or develop nuclear weapons."

John Kerry: "If you don't believe...Saddam Hussein is a threat with nuclear weapons, then you shouldn't vote for me."

John Edwards: "Serving on the Intelligence Committee and seeing day after day, week after week, briefings on Saddam's weapons of mass destruction and his plans on using those weapons, he cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons, it's just that simple. The whole world changes if Saddam ever has nuclear weapons."

Nancy Pelosi: "Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology, which is a threat to countries in the region, and he has made a mockery of the weapons-inspection process."

Sens. Levin, Lieberman, Lautenberg, Dodd, Kerrey, Feinstein, Mikulski, Daschle, Breaux, Johnson, Inouye, Landrieu, Ford and Kerry in a letter to Bill Clinton: "We urge you, after consulting with Congress and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions, including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs."

After President Bush was sworn into office in 2001, his administration was handed eight years worth of intelligence analysis and policy positions from the Clinton years -- you know, the years of appeasement when Saddam was tolerated, when opportunities to take out Osama bin Ladin were ignored, as was the presence of an al-Qa'ida terrorist cell in the U.S. -- which reared its head on 9/11.

In the weeks prior to the invasion of Iraq, Democrats, who had access to the same intelligence used by the Bush administration (much of which was compiled under the Clinton administration), were clear about the threat of Iraq's WMD capability.

Ted Kennedy: "We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction."

John Kerry: "I will be voting to give the president of the U.S. the authority to use force if necessary to disarm Saddam because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security. ... Without question we need to disarm Saddam Hussein."

Hillary Clinton: "In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock. His missile-delivery capability, his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists including al-Qa'ida members. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons."

Carl Levin: "We begin with a common belief that Saddam Hussein...is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them."

Al Gore: "We know that he has stored nuclear supplies, secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country."

Bob Graham: "We are in possession of what I think to be compelling evidence that Saddam Hussein has and has had for a number of years a developing capacity for the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction."

For the record: Here's a partial list of what didn't make it out of Iraq before the OIF invasion: 1.77 metric tons of enriched uranium, 1,700 gallons of chemical-weapon agents, chemical warheads containing the nerve agent cyclosarin, radioactive materials in powdered form designed for dispersal over population centers, artillery projectiles loaded with binary chemical agents, etc. Assuming Irag had no WMD because only small caches were recovered after Operation Iraqi Freedom began is perilously flawed logic. That, in no way, affirms what he spirited out through Iran and Syria before OIF.

it doesn't really matter who believed what...everybody believed it...all the intelligence gathered apparently proved it to be the case

unfortunately there were many factors which made it false

saddam paid many scientists to construct weapons...when the scientists fled abroad with the regimes money...the commanders in charge of the installations where the weapons were supposed to be manufactured were too afraid to tell the regime knowing that they would be put to death for allowing the scientists to flee...hence they made out that the weapons were being built

perhaps saddam knew there were no weapons but had to save face and put up a front against Iran by saying that there were who knows

That would be great if we could get the date and context of each quote.

Also the source of the article would be appreciated. I am not excusing or condoning any of the above quotes, I would just like to see their context.

For example, some of those quotes are taken from the period immediately prior to the invasion of Iraq when the Bush administration submitted fabricated evidence to convince people to go to war. To take a statement that was made based on the information given to them that was fraudulent, and then use that comment against them, well that would just be deceptive.

-they didnt make it up or blindly accept, they were following given intelligence, of which the administration has far more access to.

-i see calls for disarming, not regime change. big difference. congress did not vote for regime change as bush wants you to believe.

what bush says now:

"It is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how the war began..''

"More than 100 Democrats in the House and Senate who had access to the same intelligence voted to remove Saddam Hussein from power...''

what bush promised to have powers given to him:

"But some people won't like it if he ends with a nuclear weapon and uses it. We have an obligation to lead. And I intend to assume that obligation to make the world more peaceful.

"Terry, listen, there's risk in all action we take. But the risk of inaction is not a choice, as far as I'm concerned. The inaction creates more risk than doing our duty to make the world more peaceful. And obviously, I weighed all the consequences about all the differences. Hopefully, we can do this peacefully -- don't get me wrong. And if the world were to collectively come together to do so, and to put pressure on Saddam Hussein and convince him to disarm, there's a chance he may decide to do that. "

on a side note, i AM disgusted with the democratic party and was disgusted when they granted bush power without question. i think they're a bunch of worthless disfunctuional pussies. just in case you were wondering

oops double post

I also think the Democratic party are also a bunch of wimps for not aggressively going after Bush, Cheney and all their cronies.

They should look at it as their responsibilty to bring these guys forward to answer for their actions instead of just sit back, make the odd comment, and wait for all this to blow up so they can win the next election.

The quotes made were during Clinton's presidency.

Originally posted by Deep Kimichi
How is it that Bush has more information than George Tenet at the time?
Who was the DCI? The man with all the intel cards in his hand?

It wasn't Bush... It was Tenet.

It's not a legitimate argument that "Bush lied". During the Clinton Administration, Clinton had access to Tenet - and Clinton believed that there were WMD. Bush subsequently had access to Tenet - and Bush believed that there were WMD.

The common thread here is Tenet saying that Iraq had WMD. And I submit that any President who would ignore his DCI and say, "no, I just have a gut feeling that you're full of it" would be considered an idiot. All that would have to happen after that would be for Tenet to leak the WMD evidence he thought he had, and make whoever was President look like an idiot for not doing anything.

You still haven't shown me a single scrap of evidence to prove that "Bush lied". Not one.

Originally posted by Syniks
Word. Down with Republocrats, Democan'ts and RINOs.

Anyway, aside from my interest in seeing people's replies, the goal of this thread is discussion (after all, I didn't make--nope, I was just too lazy...anyway, let's continue discussion versus what happens in some threads *coughs* Kansas and ID *coughs*).

Originally posted by Listeneisse
We actually did, in 1998, during the height of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, attack and destroy the Iraqi WMD programs in Operation Desert Fox.

The US Navy, Air Force B-52 bombers, and other forces launched cruise missiles at the Iraqi WMD program sites, including a location being used to design and create unmanned UAVs armed with chemical weapons such as nerve gas or biological agents, such as anthrax spores, plus the site developing their long-range missiles.

The mission was widely seen as a success, crippling those plans.

In other words, without stepping foot into the nation, we took care of a great deal of the high-threat targets under the Clinton administration.

Meanwhile, the nation was far more concerned with oral sex, semen stains and impeaching the President.

The critics of the then-seated President accused the administration of using it simply as an election-year diversion.

So when the UNMOVIC arms inspectors went in, they did not find what had already been destroyed. (UNMOVIC was the new inspection after the 1998 strikes, begun in Dec 1999. Iraq had banned the original group of inspectors under UNSCOM; UNMOVIC replaced it.)

It was revealed that it had been the arms inspectors who, under the UNSCOM inspections, told the US military exactly what Saddam Hussein had, and where he had it. That's why they knew exactly where to hit.

It was also the reason why Saddam Hussein's regime was rather unhappy with the later demands to let even more weapons inspectors into the nation, and why they stiff-armed them on many occasions thereafter.

The Iraqi government in 2003 might still have dreamt of having UAVs launching VX attacks against Israel, but apparently that danger had been significantly averted already by the US miltary in 1998.

At the same time, I have come to wonder more precisely at the claims of the UAV/WMD program of Iraq since I first read about it.

Iraq's Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction -- October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate

Quote:
Iraq has largely rebuilt missile and biological weapons facilities damaged during Operation Desert Fox and has expanded its chemical and biological infrastructure under the cover of civilian production.

Baghdad has exceeded UN range limits of 150 km with its ballistic missiles and is working with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which allow for a more lethal means to deliver biological and, less likely, chemical warfare agents.

The question becomes one of whether the UAV program remained one which specifically sought to arm with chemical and biological weapons, or whether it was a UAV program that could be turned into one armed with WMD.

In the case of one UAV (Al Qud) program, it was supposed to be a long-endurance system designed for electronic surveilance. It's long range was not intended for WMD delivery. It was also a complete failure of a program. The Mig-21 was dismantled by UNSCOM in 1991. The L-29 programs were unsuccesful and in 2001 the final unmanned test ended with a crash.

The missile program is the same. While the Iraqi leadership might have had visions of gassing Israel, it had not done so, even in GW1 when it clearly had the capabilities.

Quote:
We assess that Baghdad has begun renewed production of mustard, sarin, GF (cyclosarin), and VX; its capability probably is more limited now than it was at the time of the Gulf war, although VX production and agent storage life probably have been improved.

That was claimed in 2002 in the report that led up to the war. So we need to dig into these intelligence claims.

In 1992, Colin Powell put forth the case regarding Iraqi WMD claims.

The full CIA Report from 2002 can be read online.

One of the issues in the debate over the 2002 CIA report are highly contestable assertions such as:

Quote:
They have expanded chlorine output far beyond pre-Gulf war production levels—capabilities that can be diverted quickly to CW production.

Yes, they could be, just as the UAVs could be used for CW -- but generally weren't. Otherwise the US would have to destroy all our own UAV program. The question was whether they were actually planning to use them thusly, and immanently. The ones designed specifically for CW were targeted in 1998 by Operation Desert Fox.

The case for war was that we were under a present and direct threat. That Saddam Hussein planned to himself use WMD, or that he would give them to our present enemies. Yes, and his regime were definitely were tricky, double-dealing liars.

We didn't lie. We just exagerated. In 2002 the CIA said:

Quote:
The al-Dawrah Foot-and-Mouth Disease (FMD) Vaccine Facility is one of two known Biocontainment Level-3—facilities in Iraq with an extensive air handling and filtering system. Iraq admitted that before the Gulf war Al-Dawrah had been a BW agent production facility. UNSCOM attempted to render it useless for BW agent pro-duction in 1996 but left some production equipment in place because UNSCOM could not prove it was connected to previous BW work. In 2001, Iraq announced it would begin renovating the plant without UN approval, ostensibly to produce a vaccine to combat an FMD outbreak. In fact, Iraq easily can import all the foot-and-mouth vaccine it needs through the UN.

In other words, the assertion was that this was a covert CW production facility, because they CIA could not consider any reason why they might want to develop the vaccine domestically.

This, and the Castor Oil plant mentioned just below in the report were similar arguments put forth.

UNSCOM had been ejected after Operation Desert Fox in 1998, since the Iraqis were convinced (and were correct) that the US had known where to hit because of their inspection information.

The problem is that by 2002 the CIA was putting forward information that there were facilities that might be used for WMDs, that could be applied to NBC productions. The new inspections were often blocked or met with belligerence.

The paranoia and distrust between Baghdad and Washington was so great between 1991 to 2002, and especially after the 1998 Operation Desert Fox strikes, that the truth was difficult to establish. Baghdad was renown for their pathological lying.

"You have biological weapon bombs."

"No we don't."

"What's that?" (pointing to a bomb)

(shrug)

That's what UNSCOM was like during much of the early 1990s.

However, by 2002, and UNMOVIC, the opposite could be said to be the case. The CIA began to stretch the threat, and began rhetorically to hype Iraq's potential WMD capabilities by painting them as actual and current threats.

So let's look at the sites identified in 2002, and see what they found since then in 2003-2005 under US direct military presence.

It's instructive to read the Iraq WMD 2004 report from the CIA, and compare it to the 2002 report.

Quote:
Chlorine/Phenol Plant (Formerly Fallujah II): Leading up to OIF, this plant was not fully operational, and was unlikely to have provided any basic chemicals such as chlorine or phenol to an Iraqi CW effort. Because of technical problems, the plant could not even supply local markets with its products.

Quote:
Castor Oil Production (Formerly Fallujah III)

Castor oil was also produced at Tariq from 1992 until 2002, but ISG investigations did not uncover any indication that the ricin-containing mash was further processed or transferred off-site for any purpose. According to interviews with Tariq officials, they complied with UNSCOM regulations by burning the residual castor bean mash in pits near the Fallujah III facility.

Castor oil production ended in 2002 because of rising prices of castor beans and decreasing customer interest. Two companies interested in purchasing Tariq’s castor oil were Ibn Al-Baytar and Samarra Drug Industries, but ultimately neither company purchased Tariq’s oil because its process used solvent extraction and rendered the oil unfit for pharmaceutical and medical uses, according to the same interviews.

Originally posted by Listeneisse
Quote:
Chlorine (Formerly Fallujah II)

Chlorine, a feedstock for some CW precursors, was produced at Tariq from 1993 to 1996,and sporadically thereafter; however, ISG has not discovered any information that indicates chlorine from the plant was diverted to a CW program. During an ISG site visit, the director of the phenol plant stated that chlorine production had stopped months before OIF. Reporting indicates the facility was unable to obtain membranes—the key component of the technology at Tariq—to separate the chlorine.

There are other examples of a phenol production facility that was actually used for making molds, but it was being little used because of problems, etc.

Quote:
Because of feared repercussions and the awareness of the dual-use nature of Tariq’s products, officials at Tariq were often reported as hesitant to allow or support research that could be considered CW-applicable by the international community... Huwaysh stated that he went out of his way to make sure that no CW research was going on, even to the point of canceling the Tariq research center in Baghdad.

How about their biological weapons? Let's look at Chapter 6 of the report.

Quote:
Despite evidence of Iraq’s intent to develop more dangerous biological agents after Desert Storm, ISG uncovered no indications that biological agents were researched for BW purposes post-1991, even though Iraq maintained—and in some cases improved—research capabilities that could have easily been applied to BW agents. ISG’s investigations found no direct evidence that the expertise or equipment were being used specifically for BW work. That said, ISG judges that further R&D on the agents weaponized pre-1991 was probably not required. Additional agents would have required extensive R&D, in ISG’s judgement, but despite concerns that surrounded the possible addition of other, more pathogenic, agents into the viral BW program, no evidence has been found by ISG.

What about the Al-Dawrah vaccine facility?

Quote:
"We're growing cucumber and eggplant," workers in a garden corner of the compound told reporters.

"It is very good cooperation," former factory director Montasser Omar Abdel Aziz told reporters, who were allowed onto the factory grounds after the inspection. He said inspectors swabbed many samples from an air-filtration system, tanks and other fixtures.

Asked why the U.N. monitors might suspect illicit activities at al-Dawrah, he replied in English: "You can see, enter inside and see. They are all destroyed," meaning the equipment. "Nobody can do anything here."

-- Baltimore Sun

In other words... Whoops! We overstated the case for dual-use CW facilities and were overly alarmed by inflated claims of biological weapons.

Even though some companies were bending over backwards to comply, in 2002 we painted them as the causus bellorum.

Strikes by Coalition forces in 1993 and 1998 (Operation Desert Fox), as well as attacks by Iran had definitely kept the Iraqi regime belligerent and determined. The US and Iran felt quite justified in blowing up facilities that were proven or highly likely to be used for WMD production.

Hence why Iraqi businessmen were rather leery about even being percieved to be making WMDs. It was a sure cry for a cruise missile strike once every few years. None of them had inspected a full-scale invasion.

Iran for their part was also striking Iraq, such as when it hit the Mujaheddin el-Khalq (MEK) facility in 1994 and again in 1997, 1999 and 2001. (See line #140, #200, #260, and 295 in the WMD Timeline Events).

Even though these strikes are listed in the WMD timeline, this group is not known to have possession of WMDs. The citation of the strikes by Iran in the report make it sound as if this was an attack in the same style as Operation Desert Fox.

They are an opposition group which agreed to the overthrow of the Shah, but differed with the Islamic party that took over the state.

This was the assessment of them in May 2002 by the US State Dapartment:

Quote:
Iraq also supports the MEK, the Mujaheddin el-khalq, that operate into Iran, actively continues to support that. So they are still involved in supporting terrorist activities as we speak, and of course, that's why they remain on the state-sponsored terrorism list.

While they are officially a terrorist group, there's little evidence to show that Saddam Hussein was going to give them WMDs to attack any targets. There were rumors that he was going to send them to destroy the oil fields, which did not materialize. They were disarmed after the US invasion (you can also read more about them in this link).

This is not to say there is no evidence of any WMD R&D. There is plenty of indication that Iraq kept up various projects. But Saddam Hussein had mostly abandoned CW and BW and even nuclear weapons -- which the CIA in 2002 projected at earliest with aggressive research could have been gotten by 2007-2009.

However, in 2004 it revised its point of view and reported a contrite statement:

Quote:
Iraq did not possess a nuclear device, nor had it tried to reconstitute a capability to produce nuclear weapons after 1991.

Whoops again.

Yes, it was working on rail guns and medium-range ballistic missiles.

But for the most part, its WMD program was stunted after repeated strikes going back to the Israeli bombing of their nuclear power plant as well as by changes in defense policy and basic economics. Physicists, chafing at years of being unable to leave the nation or to work on nuclear projects domestically, began to work on projects like air defenses or the rail gun.

Researchers found other things to work on when there was little reward and great risk. Iraq still dabbled and experimented, but it has given up and gone on for the most part.

There probably were human rights violations regarding human testing of BW and CW weapons. I shudder to think of it.

Iraq was not angellic and it had plenty of covert activity occurring. At the same time, the CIA over-reported those activities and turned rumors and possibilities into clear and present dangers to the United States of America and the world.

In a way, you can say that OIF was simply the US being fed up with being given the run-around. Putting their foot down. Enough is enough.

It came off as ham-handed, premature, poorly-researched, poorly-justified and poorly-planned.

But it's a fait accompli now. We're there, and we were led there by flawed reports. We've toppled the regime and we're building a hopefully better one.

It is still the truth that the US, particularly the CIA, in 2002 exagerated WMD capabilities, and relied on guesses and postulations to justify a war. And in 2004 it took a backtrack on the severity of those dangers.

It is fair to say that both Democrats and Republican leaders relied on WMD reports from the CIA and other defense agencies that were misleading.

They were right to say that Iraq had dangerous programs, and in cases that they continued to work on them.

From time to time the United States had taken steps to stop Iraq's deplorable exterminations of the Kurds and Shi'ites, and to strike the facilities we felt were directly contributing to any possibility of full-scale WMD production.

Committing the nation to a full-scale conventional war to hunt for WMDs was, however, based on exagerated claims.

The person or party winning american election is not really the point in international affairs. Liberals, democrats and conservatives all went to war with the us warmachine backing them up. It's not what you pronounce, it's how hard your national power can make it sound.

a lot of people were fooled by an Iranian spy and member of Wolfowicz' project for a new american century named Ahmed Chalabi. who for some reason is still having secret meetings with Condoleeza Rice and being treated like a foreign dignitary despite being wanted for treason, bank fraud, espionage, purgery, providing false intelligence, and organized crime in at least 7 countries including Israel, Iraq, Jordan, and the United States.

Originally posted by Darth Jello
a lot of people were fooled by an Iranian spy and member of Wolfowicz' project for a new american century named Ahmed Chalabi. who for some reason is still having secret meetings with Condoleeza Rice and being treated like a foreign dignitary despite being wanted for treason, bank fraud, espionage, purgery, providing false intelligence, and organized crime in at least 7 countries including Israel, Iraq, Jordan, and the United States.

Yes, I hear he's up for Rove's job.

he'll fit right in

nah, i don't think even bush has the balls to appoint a guy who's got an arrest warrent out for him in the united states as a suspected terrorist.