Saturday, September 16, 2006
TERRY TELLS US SO
The Sunday Age’s Terry Lane directs his forensic research abilities towards the matter of Iraq’s military capacity:
There are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. There weren’t before the invasion and there aren’t now. Just as those opposed to the war have argued all along. After the thorough going-over that the country got from Scott Ritter, Richard Butler and Hans Blix, it was obvious. The anti-warriors are now entitled to say, we told you so.
No weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? I wouldn’t be so sure. Anyway, let’s take a look at what Lane’s experts were saying before the war. Here’s Scott Ritter in 1999:
I have grown convinced that there has been a total breakdown in the willingness of the international community to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction. Saddam Hussein is well on the road to getting his sanctions lifted and keeping his weapons in the bargain.
From the same year, Richard Butler:
Following Iraq’s expulsion from Kuwait, it became clear that the Saddam Hussein government had created a range and quality of weapons of mass destruction that was truly alarming. Iraq had also acquired a very considerable long-range missile force to deliver those weapons. There was also concern about Iraq’s nuclear weapons program, which through the International Atomic Energy Agency, we now know was advanced ... It was envisaged that UNSCOM’s job in the disarmament of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction would take a relatively short time, possibly as little as a year. It has taken eight years, and the job is still not completely finished.
The reason for this distressing lag is that Iraq never kept its side of the bargain by: not making honest disclosure statements of its prohibited weapons and weapons capability ...
And Hans Blix in 2002:
One must realize and remember that the Iraqis have had plenty of time to hide whatever they wanted to hide since 1998. They were quite capable at that before, and they would be even better at it now. We read stories to the effect that they have been putting things on mobile—on trucks and moving it around in the country - there could be underground installations - and we would need to have an idea where we could find that and look for it.
So much for the obviousness of Iraq’s lack of WMD. Lane continues:
We are told that it is not good enough to simply say that “George Bush is a dangerous, religious-driven idiot who represents all that is rotten about America”. But what if it is true?