THE
SMELL TEST Consider. It is widely reported that the Western intelligence agencies, all of them, missed the Iraq WMD story. Each agency reported and their respective governments relied upon, and some acted upon, the intelligence which it is now asserted turned out to be wrong. The general report on Iraqi WMDs was that Iraq was known to have had poison gas WMDs. It did, in fact, use such weapons against its own Kurdish population in the early 1990s. Iraq was alleged to be involved in the development of biological WMDs, surely not a difficult task for a country awash in oil cash. They could simply have outsourced the project to a German chemical or French pharmaceutical company. The nuclear story was that it was a full-steam ahead program, not completed, but backed from Hussein on down the line and, again, Iraq had the capacity to finance whatever programs it really wanted. And, the story goes, Hussein desperately wanted Iraq to be a nuclear force, thus a major political force in the Middle East, if not the world. It was because of the supposed near-term success of that nuclear program that George Bush invaded Iraq. It seemed then, as it seems now, that the story line of Western intelligence agencies is quite believable. It hangs together; it is logically progressive; it is believable that Hussein wanted his own nuclear capability, his own bioweapons and an improved poison gas component. He had political reasons, ego reasons, military needs and all of that passes the smell test. It was believed. I still believe it. Well, that was then. Now, we have a very different story. We are told that the Western intelligence was all wrong, at least about the nuclear program. This has come to a head based on David Kay’s recent report and Congressional testimony given in support of the theory that Iraqis scientists played a deadly game of poker with Hussein himself, his sons, the cabinet staff, and military leaders. From what may be read in the report, intensified by Kay’s personal testimony before Congress as scrutinized by our media, there were two kinds of weapons of mass destruction: real and virtual. The real WMDs were those the world knew Hussein had: poison gas. Having used them before, it was clear he could and likely would use them again. The American military men went into Iraq with gas masks if you recall the early stories and pictures. There was great concern about the Armageddon poison gas would wreak on America’s fighting men and women. No poison gas was used on American troops, even though we know Iraq had poison gas weapons. What I find very interesting is that no poison gas weapons or facilities have been found either. The poison gas WMDs remain as real as well as they are unaccounted for. They are someplace and they will either be found or be used. Pray that it is the former, not the latter. Poison gas is easy enough to transport, requires little in the way of technology to release and requires no sighting mechanism. You simply leave it on a doorstep, in a crowded department store, an enclosed mall, Costco on a holiday; anywhere there is a large crowd in a small space, particularly an enclosed space. Multiple attacks could be coordinated to take place on the same day or days. Not too tough to do and quite deadly. Why such an attack hasn’t occurred is a blessing. Why no stockpile has been found is a mystery. But to say that there is no stockpile, no inventory, none at all, that simply doesn’t pass the smell test. Biological WMDs are also among the missing. There doesn’t seem to be much discussion of them vis-a-vis Iraq. Perhaps the Iraqis simply didn’t have any interest or were afraid of an accident being uncontainable in their own country. I would be concerned too. However, bio-WMDs have the same portability advantage as gas, perhaps more, and they are truly scary. Nobody knows the consequences of bio weaponry; it’s not been tried. Gas, at least, evaporates. It doesn’t mutate. Again though, like poison gas, no bio attacks anywhere, no laboratories found and no stockpile. It doesn’t pass the smell test. Ahh but the nukes? Where are the nukes? It appears that nobody knows. Kay’s report and remarks as well as the comments of others suggests that Hussein was bluffed by his own scientists. Here’s how it is said to have gone down. Iraqi scientists, unable to produce the nuclear weapons demanded of them, supposedly invented their nuclear development programs, bluffing fellow-scientists, who may or may not have had parallel programs, as well as the military, as to their imminent existence and the progress of nuclear development, hopefully to live another day. Documents have been found alluding to nuclear programs but no physical evidence has been unearthed; not one laboratory has been found and nothing resembling a nuclear bomb has been discovered. Nothing. All of this is said to be an embarrassment to the “intelligence” crowd of the Western countries, not just the United States’ CIA. It has been frequently reported that the French, German, English, Israeli and other Western intelligence organizations had the same inaccurate information. How could they all be wrong? Good question. Answer: they couldn’t; it doesn’t pass the smell test. The notion that one or more Iraqi scientists, perhaps or perhaps not in conjunction with some subordinates, passed off some faux activities as the real nuclear thing is absurd on its face. No word has been reported as to whether this was a conspiracy on the part of all Iraqi scientists working within the alleged nuclear program or whether each of the scientists came up with the same idea, at the same time and each executed this similar strategy in an accidental but coordinated way so as to fool every other scientist, Hussein, the military and the accountants - even Iraq must have had bookkeepers. That notion is simply not believable. It is very hard to swallow that Hussein, a paranoid tyrant as they all must be, would simply hand out billions to scientists who showed him nothing, absolutely nothing, in return. Not one test site; not a single ounce of plutonium; no labs, not even failed attempts. Even bad managers expect some results. To simply believe Hussein - and his sons and the military brass - would let this situation begin and then allow it to continue is preposterous. Somebody knew it was a pile; somebody would have turned the buggers in; somebody in a program would have talked. It is ludicrous to believe that a program could be funded and then so cleverly managed as to fool the workers in the program, the finance guys, the military and the dictator. Not only that, it is declared with a straight face that there were multiple programs and that each thought the other had succeeded. Imagine! A successful program next door; your program failing and you don’t even try to steal your neighbor’s secrets so that you stay alive? Never happen. This beggars the imagination. Conspiracies, especially, con-current, multiple conspiracies, in any society, much less one such as Iraq’s simply do not happen. A few days? Okay. A couple of weeks, maybe. A month? Doubtful. Years? Never happen. You can’t even keep an affair secret in the White House or in your own office. Summarizing?
Try this. Poison gas WMDs, known by all to have existed, are not found;
not a trace. Bio WMDs, believed by all to have been under development,
are not found; not a trace. Nuclear WMDs, believed by all to have
been under development, are not found; not a trace. None of this passes
the smell test. Where are they? Another good question. Answer? |