ZGram - 11/2/2002 - "AC Editorial: Iraqi Intelligence"

[irimland@zundelsite.org]

ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny

November 2, 2002

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

I had the pleasure a few days ago of receiving my first copy of The 
American Conservative, the Buchanan/Taki/McConnell magazine that 
lives up to its name.  I can only recommend it - it is trim writing 
and tells it like it is.  Here is their editorial, to give you a 
taste for content and style:

[STYLE]

Iraqi Intelligence

A funny thing happened on the way to the war. President Bush had 
enraptured an invited crowd - if not the networks - with his "full 
force and fury" battle plan. Congress was primed to vote consent. 
Public opinion was breaking toward the White House, and all the 
president's men looked to be lining up behind.

Then CIA Director George Tenet sent a letter to the Senate. Seems the 
spy chief is in possession of intelligence - a rare commodity on the 
Washington scene - that convinces him Saddam Hussein might indeed 
pass weapons of mass destruction to terrorists - but only if the U.S. 
strikes first.

The administration needed a missing link - proof positive that Saddam 
was complicit in the atrocities of 9/11. Instead it got an expert 
assertion that "Baghdad for now appears to be drawing a line short of 
conducting attacks with conventional or chemical or biological 
weapons." Rather than the global threat of President Bush's 
incarnation, Tenet casts the dictator as a cornered animal, fierce if 
provoked but unlikely to initiate aggression.

The CIA memo is not cavalier. It warns that Saddam is still in 
pursuit of the world's deadliest weapons. But it makes clear that the 
threat to American territory, either by direct attack or terrorist 
delivery, is not imminent. Unless we choose to make it so.

"Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or 
chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists," the 
president said in his Cincinnati speech. Perhaps. But Tenet ascribes 
far less arbitrary intent. Instead of any given day, he sees a date 
certain, set not by Baghdad but by President Bush.

"Should Saddam conclude that a U.S.-led attack could no longer be 
deterred, he probably would become much less constrained in adopting 
terrorist actions," the CIA director writes. In other words, the man 
Bush describes as a "homicidal dictator=8Aaddicted to weapons of mass 
destruction" is behaving like any rational leader. He is stocking an 
arsenal that he will use if attacked and empty if threatened with 
extinction.

If logic so governs, then the time-tried constraints of containment 
and deterrence should be tools of choice. Countries across the globe 
- some friendly, others not so - possess the same weapons and have 
historically been corralled by diplomatic means. Saddam differs only 
in that, from the ashes of his 1991 defeat, he agreed to open his 
cache and strip it as the victors required. He has not been 
forthcoming on that score, but none can argue that the inspection 
regime has failed, for in the last 11 years Saddam has neither 
acquired nuclear weapons nor deployed chemical agents. Noncompliance 
therefore justifies more rigorous inspections, but not invasion.

Should the president decide otherwise, over the objection of his top 
intelligence officer, he could make of his scant evidence a 
self-fulfilling prophecy. In a fight to the death, Saddam would do 
the things the administration deems him eventually capable of but 
cannot immediately prove. The pinned despot would likely vindicate 
the latter half of Bush's good vs. evil dichotomy. But at what price?

After hearing Tenet's assessment, Sen. Ron Wyden concluded, "Pursuit 
of a first-strike war - absent any credible sign that Saddam Hussein 
is preparing to wage war against our nation or other nations - will 
leave this nation less secure than before."

That is President Bush's constitutional mandate: the security of the 
country he leads. Not selecting which dictator next abuses the 
long-suffering Iraqis, or reconfiguring the balance of Middle Eastern 
power, or cashing in on the domestic rewards of war-making. The duty 
of an American president is to defend these borders and to spend our 
blood sparingly. This administration makes exception for itself 
because its professed goals have noble names like democracy and 
liberation. But imposing "freedom's power" does not inoculate even a 
superpower against the natural consequence of tramping through a 
minefield. Beating despots into submission comes with just one 
guarantee: we will only remain good in our own eyes.

In the wake of September 11, the same voices calling for Saddam's 
head claimed we were hated for our virtue. How much more will we be 
despised when the crusade begins in earnest? George Tenet knows. So 
too does Saddam Hussein, and if we ask through a hail of bombs, he 
will likely answer.

(Source:  http://amconmag.com/11_4/iraqi_intelligence.html )