On Wednesday, January 7, 2004, at 11:18 AM, Devine, James wrote:
> from MS SLATE's daily news summary:
>> A frontpage investigative piece by the [Washington POST]'s Barton
>> Gellman finds
> evidence of an Iraqi "nonconventional arms establishment that was
> far less capable than U.S. analysts judged before the war." Iraqi
> scientists did hide plans for various banned programs, but the
> planned didn't seem to be beyond the brainstorming stages, having
> been limited because of sanctions, the Gulf War I, and U.N.
> inspections. Of course, none of that is new. But Gellman has
> endless details, including an internal Saddam-era Iraqi memo
> (that he corroborated), stating that the total "destruction of
> the biological weapons agents took place in the summer of 1991."
> As for Iraq's nuclear efforts--which the administration played
> up--one scientist said, "We would have had to start from less
> than zero. The country was cornered. We were boycotted. We were
> embargoed. The truth is, we disintegrated."
>
>> Gellman also finds evidence supporting the long-floated theory
> that Saddam's scientists were lying to him. In some cases,
> researchers "worked" on absurd, sure-to-fail weapons programs
> that Saddam was told would work. They then had to hide the
> programs' documents from inspectors. "Saddam Hussein ordered this
> work, but where would we get the materials?" said a former Iraqi
> general. "This was the case in every field. People would prepare
> reports under the order of Saddam Hussein and the supervision of
> the people around Saddam Hussein. But it was not real." <
>
> in addition, the US power elite _wanted_ to believe that the WMDs
> existed, and more importantly, wanted _us_ to believe it.
> Jim D.
>
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