The media spins issue of Iraqi weapons

By Ilana Freedman / Local Columnist

Friday, October 8, 2004

On Wednesday morning, Charles Duelfer, special adviser to the CIA on Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction, appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee in Washington. His testimony was a thoughtful and enlightening supplement to his 19-page report on the search for weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq. It was also a far cry from the screaming bulletins that appeared in the Wednesday evening news reports: "No Iraqi WMD."

What Duelfer said presented a very different picture from that painted by the media. It was a detailed, complex, and highly professional analysis of the search for WMD in Iraq and what the lack of evidence means. It was important testimony.

A key to his point of view is found in the very first sentence of his report. "Saddam Husayn (sic) 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 when sanctions were lifted."

Duelfer went on to write, "Saddam wanted to recreate Iraq's WMD capability -- which was essentially destroyed in 1991 -- after sanctions were removed and Iraq's economy stabilized... Saddam aspired to develop a nuclear capability -- in an incremental fashion, irrespective of international pressure and the resulting economic risks."

When asked about biological weapons, Duelfer stopped short of stating categorically that none existed in Iraq. He explained how little space biological agents take and how easy they are to hide. He also declined to confirm that none had been transferred out of the country to Syria just prior to the war.

He expressed concern that new evidence may emerge that could change the conclusions of his report. "I personally am not convinced that we have explored all of the avenues in that regard," he said.

About Saddam Hussein himself he said, "He clearly had ambitions regarding WMD." When asked whether he believed there was a benefit from eliminating Saddam Hussein's regime, he responded, "The world is better off... He was enormously susceptible to making dangerous decisions."

Clearly, both the testimony and the report itself reflected the complex nature of the mission and the conclusions drawn by the team. One can only surmise that the media was suffering from collective laziness and the need to oversimplify the findings of the report for a simple-minded American viewing public.

The problem is that there was no simple message here and the bulletins and reports that reduced it to a sound-byte were misleading and, one could argue, highly political.

Putting such blatant spin on a report of such significance is questionable at any time. But a month before a presidential election, when the findings of this report could be a deciding issue, is unconscionable.

History is always easier to understand in retrospect. It can be reduced down to its essential elements and distilled to a sequence that is relatively easy to grasp. But history-in-the-making is much harder to deal with. Our vision is clouded by the swirl of events around us, our lack of objectivity, and the confusion of multiple currents and the interconnected threads of the countless events that constitute our lives.

Reducing current events to the lowest common denominator is foolish at best, because it deprives us of the colors and flavors that shape our news and therefore our lives. At worst, it is insulting, because it assumes that we the people are not bright enough to understand anything more complex than a simple declarative headline, and it deprives us of information that would otherwise help us draw our own informed conclusions.

Listening to the testimony in its entirety brought several things into clear focus. Duelfer made it abundantly clear that whatever evidence we now lack regarding the presence of WMD in Iraq, virtually all intelligence that we had prior to the war -- from France, Germany, Russia, Israel, and our own resources -- indicated that Saddam had both the WMD and the will to use them.

Duelfer explained this in part by Saddam's own deviousness and his posturing that was both threatening and believable. This combined with the failing sanctions, what the "Economist" called the "leaking box," and the launching of the corrupt Food for Oil program that enabled Saddam to amass enormous personal wealth, were sufficient to make his threats highly credible.

In the increasingly hostile climate of the presidential campaign, the Bush administration is being accused of having lied to the American people. It would be well for us to consider that it is misguided to pass judgment on a year old administration decision based on knowledge that we have only recently acquired. Prior to the war, the administration was relying on intelligence that was fresh, confirmed by our allies, and not suspected of being faulty.

Is it absolutely certain that there were no WMD in Iraq before the war? No, it is not. Is it clear that none have been found? Absolutely. Is this conclusive? According to Charles Duelfer it is not. He is convinced that Saddam would have begun rebuilding his WMD programs following the end of sanctions.

This issue is far from black-and-white and we would do far better to consider it in its complexity than to try to reduce it to a simple statement that is both misleading and wrong.

(Ilana Freedman is a specialist in counter-terrorism and Managing Partner of Gerard Group International. She welcomes your comments at ilana@gerardgroup.com.)

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