<http://www.slate.com/?id=3936&m=18068482>
Subject: Fighting Words From: Zahawie Date: Aug 28 2006 1:48AM
August 10, 2006 Slate
Fighting Words
I see that Christopher Hitchens is still dizzily pursuing the buzz of the bee in his bonnet trying to prove, against all the available evidence, or the lack thereof, that Iraq did seek to purchase uranium from Niger in 1999. ("Case Closed", July 25). This appears to have become an absolute obsession with Mr. Hitchens.
I am no longer surprised to see that he still insists on considering me as "a very experienced Iraqi envoy for nuclear- related matters". After all, I have never met Mr. Hitchens nor spoken to him. But I am genuinely surprised to know that Rolf Ekeus too, who should certainly know better, thinks of me, as quoted by Hitchens, as "Iraq's top negotiator on nuclear weapons issues" and "Iraq's top man on nuclear weapons diplomacy and negotiations, fully plugged into the intricacies of nuclear-weapons diplomacy". In all the meetings I had with Ekeus we were never engaged in any "negotiations" nor in "the intricacies of nuclear-weapons diplomacy". If I remember correctly, our talks were limited to Iraq's compliance with the Security Council resolutions or to the compliance of the inspection teams of UNSCOM with the terms of their mandate. Ekeus' assessment of my qualifications in nuclear matters seems to be based on the circumstantial evidence of my participation in the IAEA conferences and the 1995 NPT Review Conference.
At the IAEA conferences I spoke on the agenda item which Ekeus himself describes as "the diplomatic and political fall-out of Israel's destruction of the Osirak reactor". This was exactly the content of my speeches; the diplomatic, political and legal aspects of the Israeli aggression. I did not engage in any "intricate" nuclear-weapons negotiation or diplomacy. The same goes for my participation in the 1995 conference in New York. My statements in Vienna and New York did not involve any nuclear – related weapons negotiations and diplomacy. They were very direct criticisms and attacks on Israel's flagrant aggressions and violations of the rules of international law, and the double-standards, pressures and the full support of the United States which enable Israel to commit its crimes with total impunity. All that hardly makes me "Iraq's top negotiator on nuclear weapons issues". I participated in these conferences in my capacity as the director general of the department of international organizations and conferences at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, from 1978 to 1984, and, later, as senior under- secretary supervising that department. It was also in that capacity that I had participated in all other UN, non-aligned, and Islamic conferences where no nuclear issues were discussed at all. I suppose I should be flattered that Ekeus, himself a veteran expert, thought so highly of my qualifications, which are, in fact, quite misplaced and inaccurate. If I had the qualifications he bestows upon me, I would have been engaged in secret, behind – the-scenes negotiations calling upon my expertise in their "intricacies" as Iraq's top negotiator, instead of making ineffectual speeches to which not many really paid any attention at all. Making speeches at international conferences is not tantamount to participating in the intricacies of nuclear weapons negotiations. It appears that Ekeus is also quite unfamiliar with the background of my visit to Niger which I had fully explained in the detailed interview I gave to the Independent on Sunday, published in its August 10, 2003 issue, which received wide coverage at the time, nor is he familiar with the articles published by many commentators who are familiar with the details of my visit; otherwise Ekeus would not have written in his letter to Hitchens, "the question remains, why Iraq's top man on nuclear weapons diplomacy and negotiations would travel to Niger, with all respect, not the dream-place for a connoisseur of Mozart". These words show that Ekeus is either totally unaware of the declared, and publicly acknowledged, purpose of my visit, or that he has deliberately chosen to ignore or to dismiss the purpose of my visits to the four African countries implying that it was a lie or a subterfuge to cover up the real purpose of the visit which, according to his and Hitchens' unsubstantiated allegations, must have been the purchase of yellowcake, since Niger is not the dream – place for " a connoisseur of Mozart". With all respect, what an inane statement for anybody to make; as if nobody visits Niger except to buy uranium! I, for one, happen to have visited Niger once before, in the mid-eighties, with quite a host of other diplomats and officials from Islamic countries. We had gathered in Niamey to attend a ministerial meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference. I don't believe any of the participants was there to purchase uranium, nor were they expecting to hear Mozart. Some members of the delegation, including myself, were taken to do some shopping. We visited shops for locally made leather products, and to some goldsmiths who were fashioning African style chains and jewelry, which I assumed were made of locally mined gold. Nobody mentioned anything about yellowcake or uranium mines in Niger.
Hitchens, himself, then goes on to explain that 'Ambassador Ekeus' allusion to Mozart in that last sentence "is to Zahawie's affecting claim that he was posted to Rome in virtual retirement and "mainly for the music". This is an insult to anyone's intelligence, primarily an insult to the one who allegedly made the statement; as if anybody, even remotely familiar with the nature of the Ba'ath regime, would believe for a single instant that its leaders would be so solicitous about the aesthetic tastes of its officials as to post them to countries where they could indulge in the enjoyment of their hobbies. Such a claim could only rightly raise a derisive guffaw. The only reason, and instance, that I ever mentioned my musical preferences was to rebut the preposterous allegations made by Hitchens about my holding standing tickets to the Bayreuth Wagner Festivals and The Ring cycle operas which he singled out as of particular interest to me. Now, he has the nerve to turn around and impute to me a ludicrous "affecting claim" which I had never made in the first place. I challenge Hitchens to produce the text of this idiotic statement and where I had supposedly made it.
As for his second "corroborative witness", Hitchens introduces the French atomic expert, Therese Delpech, who apparently took exception to my presence at a meeting of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission held in Cairo in 2005, an incident which apparently had led, among two other reasons, to her resignation from the Commission! Notwithstanding Mme Delpech's qualifications as an expert nor Hitchens' assessment of my own presumed expertise in nuclear matters, no one in Jordan, Iraq or indeed any other Arab country has ever considered me as remotely knowledgeable about nuclear matters. It seems that it is only certain "experts" in the West, like Ekeus and Delpech, who consider me, too, a highly qualified expert. No Western government or intelligence agency ever approached me to find out what Saddam's "top man on nuclear weapons" could tell them about the intricacies of the diplomacy and negotiations I had supposedly undertaken on behalf of Saddam. This, in spite of the fact that in the 2003 interview, I had clearly expressed my readiness to meet with any official who wanted to find out more details about my visit to Niger. Obviously, no one who is truly knowledgeable in the field takes my supposed "expertise" very seriously.
And what was it that made me such a persona non grata to Mme Delpech? According to her, since the French Ambassador to the Holy See does not go on official visits to West Africa, my visit, or apparently any other ambassador to the Vatican's visit to Africa should be viewed with misgivings, and my visit, in particular, could only have been for the purpose of buying uranium. Mme Delpech, appears to be, like Ekeus, either completely unfamiliar with the stated purpose of my visit to the four African countries, or chooses to ignore this information and substitutes her own interpretations. The other reason which appears to have made my presence in the meeting in Cairo objectionable to Mme Delpech, was that she had remembered my participation in the NPT extension conference in New York in 1995, and recognized me as "Saddam's ambassador to the Vatican". I would like Mme Delpech and Mr. Ekeus to know that I did visit Africa again later in 1999 while I was still ambassador to the Vatican. The President of Algeria had invited Iraq to attend the summit meeting of the Organization of African Unity as an observer. I received instructions from Baghdad to join the Iraqi delegation in Algiers. I assumed that the leader of the delegation, foreign minister al- Sahhaf, would want me to be present when he met with any of the presidents of the four African countries which I had visited earlier in the year to convey the Iraqi president's invitation to them to visit Baghdad. As it turned out, the opening session of the summit was the only function I attended during the whole conference. The heads of delegations and their immediate staff were accommodated at the hotel at the conference centre complex at the Pines, an isolated spot outside the capital Algiers. I, and other members of the delegation, were assigned to a downtown hotel. To this day, I don't know why I was asked to join that delegation only to be kept isolated in a downtown hotel. To me, it was a total waste of time. My visit to Africa was apparently reason enough for Mme. Delpech to demand to have me thrown out of the meeting. She does not explain why the facts she mentioned should make my presence unacceptable. It certainly could not be for anything I had said at the conference in New York. In my statements, I had called for the implementation of resolution 687 of the Security Council, adopted under chapter VII of the charter, which states that measures should be taken to establish a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East, as well as the implementation of the Council's resolution adopted in 1981, after the attack on the Iraqi nuclear reactor, which called upon Israel to join the NPT and put its nuclear installations under the treaty's safeguards regime. I had also called for the eventual elimination of all nuclear weapons to ensure the universality of the Non – Proliferation Treaty. That statement in New York should certainly not have caused anybody to object to my presence in the room where the Cairo meeting was held.
My presence in Cairo was only as a member of the entourage accompanying His Royal Highness Prince El-Hassan bin Talal on his visit to Egypt. There was no "Jordanian delegation" as such, to any specific meeting or conference. His Royal Highness was invited to Cairo to deliver a lecture at the Al-Ahram Center for Strategic Studies, and to give an interview to be broadcast by Egyptian television's satellite channel. I was included in the entourage in my capacity as Secretary General of the Arab Thought Forum – a pan-Arab non-governmental organization dedicated to providing a forum for inter – Arab dialogue, and dialogue with other countries and cultures too, for building bridges of understanding, friendly relations and cooperation with other civil societies and citizens' assemblies. HRH Prince El-Hassan is the founder, president and patron of the Forum which he had established in Amman in 1981. To my knowledge, the Forum has never had nuclear issues on its agendas over the past twenty five years since its foundation. The entourage accompanied His Royal Highness to the venue of the WMD commission meeting because we were to attend a dinner there given that same evening. Ironically I, myself , almost missed the dinner, as in the hustle of the departure of the convoy with its police escort, I missed getting into one of the cars. I only made it because another member of the entourage, H.E.Dr.H. Khatib, was kind enough to instruct the driver of his car to turn back to pick me up. There was no "Jordanian delegation" at the meeting; His Royal Highness was the only Jordanian member of the commission. None of the members of the entourage had anything to do with the commission's work, before, during or after the meeting was held. We simply filed into the room behind His Royal Highness and took seats on the sidelines. Nobody told us it was to be a closed meeting. It was only during the coffee break that we were told that some members of the commission had objected to the presence of too many Jordanians in the room. None of the members of the entourage went back into the room after the break.
I suppose the next allegation concerning my activities as a nuclear "expert", would be the assertion that I am now employed by the Jordanian government as a consultant on nuclear affairs, which might indicate Jordan's interest in "seeking" the acquisition of uranium or attempting to start a nuclear programme of its own. As Hitchens writes, my activities should obviously raise the disquiet of experienced diplomats like Ekeus and Delpech; and , "what responsible American administration could possibly have viewed any of this with indifference'. And yet, according to Hitchens, it is only the "incompetent and divided (US) government which grew so nervous as to disown the words that appeared in the 2003 State of the Union address", in which President Bush stated the "obvious fact" that Iraq did seek to acquire uranium from Niger in 1999.
Does it make any real sense for Hitchens to say that the government, which was so desperately trying to prove that the reasons and justifications it had declared for the invasion of Iraq were indeed based on genuine documents and correct intelligence, would hide the "genuine" document on Niger because it "grew so nervous as to disown" the president's words? Nervous about what? If it was Wilson's report that made them nervous, Karl Rove and the whole administration could have immediately produced the "genuine" document to prove Wilson wrong, and that would have stopped the whole "Plamegate farce" right then and there. Clearly, it is Hitchens himself, and not Joseph and Valerie Wilson, who is engaged in spinning fantasies.
In fact, this whole question could have easily been settled once and for all had the spinners of the convoluted and bizzare theories on the existence of a "genuine" document bearing my signature taken the trouble to demand that the authorities or parties supposedly in possession of this document make it available for inspection. Or, which would be even easier, why not ask the authorities in Baghdad to release all the documents concerning my trip to Africa? I am told that the archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were burned down during the bombing of Baghdad. But the texts of the correspondence exchanged between the Ministry and the Embassy in Rome were all recorded in the Embassy's register of ciphered telegrams. The instructions I received from the Ministry and the reports on the details of my meetings with the four African presidents were all recorded in that register. All should still be available at the Embassy, unless, that is, the files and records have already been deliberately removed or destroyed. Why has nobody questioned the total silence of Baghdad on this issue when it could have easily provided all the documents now under the control of the present regime? Obviously, those who came with the conquering forces of the occupation and are presently installed in their positions of power have a vested interest in supporting all attempts that would prove Iraq's intentions to acquire weapons of mass destruction. They would be very loathe indeed to provide any evidence to the contrary. They themselves were actively engaged in fabricating all the fake "evidence" they could muster to provide Washington with the justifications it needed for the invasion of Iraq.
A final note on the accuracy and veracity of Hitchens' sources of information; in a letter to Hassan Fattah, who had interviewed me for that Time magazine article, Hitchens says that he had once befriended my late brother, Mazen, when he was acting as interpreter to Saddam in the mid-eighties. He also writes that my brother was later "executed" by Saddam. There is absolutely no truth to this bit of information. Mazen had been ailing for sometime; he died of heart and liver complications on October 1st, 1995, two days after he had been admitted to the Yarmouk hospital in Baghdad. Still, if Hitchens believes that Saddam had "executed" my brother, he should, at least, have stopped to wonder why I continue to cover up Saddam's actions and deny that I had "sought" to buy uranium on that visit to Niger, and to continue to deny the existence of a "genuine" document which I had actually signed but which, for some very murky reasons, has disappeared God knows where. It is surely inconceivable that I should persist in being more "loyal" to the imprisoned Saddam, with a death sentence hanging over his head, than to the memory of the dead brother who was "executed" by Saddam.
I should like it to be known that I fully reserve my rights to sue Mr. Hitchens for libel and defamation.
Wissam al- Zahawie former Iraqi ambassador
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<http://www.slate.com/?id=3936&m=18104625>
Subject: A message from Christopher Hitchens. From: Freditor_G Date: Sep 1 2006 2:59PM
In response to this post <http://www.slate.com/?id=3936&m=18068482>:
Obsessively or not - I find the topic of continuing interest - I am planning to write again about the Niger connection for next week's Slate, and so shall reserve most comment on Ambassador Zahawie's letter until then. But two points won't wait.
1) My correspondence with Hassan Fattah, who at one point offered his services as an intermediary, was intended to be (at his own request) private. I did write to him to ask if he could confirm that Ambassador Zahawie's brother was the late Mazen, and I did tell him what I had been told (on very good authority): namely that my former friend had fallen victim to his former employer. This would not be unique: many senior Ba'athists like Naji Sabry lost relatives to the dictator and yet stayed in his employ. I received no reply on these points from Mr Fattah, and did not bring them into my exchange with Ambassador Zahawie.
However, I am very dismayed indeed to have been misinformed, and make haste to apologise unreservedly for the distress my question must have occasioned.
2) If the Ambassador wants to sue me for defamation, he has only to mention the name of any independent court in any democratic country and I shall be happy to see him there.
Christopher Hitchens