Motions
for Discovery: Thoughts on the Search for Iraqi WMD
Q:
Seven weeks after the end of major hostilities in
A:
Certainly not yet. The
significance of this is being misrepresented and exaggerated by critics of
the Bush Administration.
To be
sure, the problem in locating Iraqi WMD highlights one factor that
proliferation experts all along had known.
Biological and chemical agents are easy to get and easy to hide.
Tracking them is a very hard line of intelligence work.
The
fact remains, regardless of what we find or not, that Saddam Hussein was
in the weapons of mass destruction business. He was actively seeking,
acquiring and concealing these capabilities. He refused to permit
effective UN inspections or to provide conclusive evidence that these
capabilities were in fact destroyed. The
WMD threat emanating out of
Given
the ease with which these agents can be hidden, the jury is still out over
what may be found. Let's keep in mind the "megadeath in a milk
carton" reality--it takes only a small amount of a biological agent
to cause large numbers of casualties.
One frightening possibility is that the stocks of biological and
chemical agents that we knew existed up to the beginning of the war may
have been moved out of the country into other irresponsible hands, or may
have been hidden so effectively it may never be found.
The
Bush Administration has acquired a bit of a credibility problem in the way
the issue was framed before the war. The administration's statements may
have led to higher expectations of what would be found in the immediate
aftermath of the war, but I do not believe that it engaged in a con job or
deliberately exaggerated the threat.
The
most significant aspect of this question, however, is not connected to
American public opinion--which largely believes the case made by the
administration--but the reputed bad blood within the government itself
between intelligence analysts and policymakers.
I have been in touch with former colleagues who tell me that this
feud is exaggerated. Tensions
over intelligence--what it means, how it is to be interpreted, and so
on--are endemic to the relationship. They were present during the Cold War
in assessing the Soviet threat. They are usually kept under control by a
system of checks and balances. I am no longer in government so it is not
readily apparent to me the extent to which they are still operating, but I
think they are better than some of the more vocal complainers to the press
have made the situation out to be.
Q:
How imminent was the threat posed by Saddam? You currently have a
vocal campaign in
A:
Frankly, I didn't receive or hear anything that indicated that
there was an imminent threat against the American homeland or
Q:
Is the media, therefore, the primary culprit in raising
expectations?
A:
What we have seen is a case of chains of threat inflation.
Our
intelligence had evidence and the administration was convinced that Saddam
had the equipment and capabilities to produce WMD, but intelligence was
not certain as to precise locations. Convincing
but appropriately caveated reports were drawn up. The
administration takes that, and in making its public case, emphasized what
it finds convincing, inflating the threat.
The press takes it and simplifies the story as it always does,
causing further inflation. This
leads critics now to claim that the entire case was based upon
misrepresentation--a conclusion I find basically wrong.
Q:
Speaking of "appropriate caveats", what of the reports
that information provided by defectors or opposition elements regarding
Iraq's WMD program was perhaps given too much weight, and not subjected to
more skeptical scrutiny?
A:
It has been alleged in the media, and may well be true, that you
have a case where a source provided a dramatic story that was discounted
by some elements within the intelligence community but that was given more
credence by policymakers. The
examples are legion of this happening in the last half century.
I don't think it has been demonstrated that defectors or opposition
elements fabricated assertions or data.
Q:
What lies ahead? Obviously
the role of intelligence in detecting and verifying the existence of WMD
programs elsewhere in the world will come under scrutiny?
A:
One of the points that critics have rightly made is that if the
Bush Administration, as has been laid out in the National
Security Strategy and the President's recent speech in Krakow, among
other places, aims to avert the threats posed by WMD proliferation through
early interdiction--and here I think the term "pre-emption" was
carelessly used--early interdiction is a better term--such a policy, to be
sensibly executed, requires quality intelligence on where WMD components
are and where they are going. If
so, we have to make serious improvements in our intelligence efforts,
especially in detecting proliferation in its early phases.
These agents are becoming easier to obtain and easier to hide.
The world is headed in that direction.
Globalization of technology--especially biotechnology--is making it
easier to acquire weapons of mass destruction.
The
hardest part of the nuclear challenge, of course, is gaining fissile
material. Saddam failed to do
that. He probably acquired
many of the other components necessary.
As
Fritz
W. Ermarth is Director of National Security Programs at the