Saddam's Arsenal

LAST WEEK, in an interview with BBC radio, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice called Saddam Hussein "an evil man," and warned of dire consequences "if he gets weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them."

If?

USA Today's John Diamond, in a report of the interview that ran on the front page, wrote: "U.S. intelligence cannot say conclusively that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction," and the resulting "information gap is complicating efforts to build support for an attack on Saddam's Iraqi regime." The paper claimed that Rice "was careful not to say that Iraq currently possesses chemical, biological or nuclear arms," and suggested that a "sense of uncertainty" about Saddam's arsenal of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) "is influencing Bush's preparations for a major effort to sell his Iraq policy this fall."

So, was this indeed a calculated attempt by the Bush administration to soften its claims that Saddam already possesses weapons of mass destruction?

No. Rice's comments were part of an interview she gave the British radio network for a documentary commemorating the first anniversary of September 11. The discussion of Iraq was a small part of that larger conversation, and not intended as a newsmaker.

"She was specifically referring to the means to deliver weapons of mass destruction," says an administration source. "We don't know how good his means of delivery are. But we know he's got the weapons of mass destruction."

Rice and other administration officials have repeatedly referred to Saddam's possession of weapons of mass destruction as the source of the Iraqi threat. In early July, for example, Rice gave a blunt assessment of the Iraqi threat in an interview with an Italian newspaper in which she spoke only of the weapons, not the means of delivery. "The one thing that is clear," she said, "is that the status quo is unacceptable because it permits Saddam to possess weapons of mass destruction." Interesting that those comments didn't find their way across the Atlantic onto the front pages.

The case that Saddam already possesses such weapons, and that he's not reluctant to use them, is overwhelming. Indeed, to argue that Saddam is merely "intent on developing" weapons of mass destruction--the favorite phrasing of those who argue that Saddam is "bottled up"--one must disbelieve a mind-boggling number of reports from highly credible sources that suggest the Iraqi dictator already has them.

There are several indisputable facts about Saddam's history with weapons of mass destruction. Saddam built an extensive biological and chemical weapons arsenal. He used chemical weapons on the Kurds in 1988. He shocked inspectors twice with the advanced state of his nuclear program, once after the Gulf War and again when his son-in-law defected to Jordan in 1995. He devised an elaborate concealment program to thwart the efforts of U.N. weapons inspectors. Despite those efforts, the U.N. found and destroyed vast quantities of chemical and biological weapons, and significantly degraded his nuclear program.

The inspection regime was little more than a seven-year game of high-stakes hide-and-seek, with Iraq repeatedly denying it retained weapons of mass destruction and then feigning surprise when inspectors discovered a cache. Richard Butler, who headed the inspection team in its last two years, details the charade in his compelling book, "The Greatest Threat: Iraq, Weapons of Mass Destruction, and the Crisis of Global Security." While no one can say for sure just how extensive Saddam's arsenal was when inspectors were withdrawn in 1998, there is little doubt that he retained weapons of mass destruction.

To believe that Iraq is clean today, then, requires an assumption that Saddam chose unilaterally to get rid of all of his remaining weapons of mass destruction after inspectors left. While that notion is absurd on its own, it is even more preposterous when one considers that Saddam thinks his WMD arsenal prevented his demise at the end of the Gulf War. Charles Duelfer, the highest-ranking American inspector on the U.N. team, put it this way: "Why would Saddam say, 'This stuff saved my ass one time, but oh yeah, you're right, this isn't moral. I'll stop'?"