Friday, July 18, 2003
U.S. ignored WMD message, analyst says
U.S. ignored WMD message, analyst says
Canadian Press
Friday, Jul 18, 2003
Toronto — A conference of top-level military analysts was told that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction months before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks — a message that later fell on deaf ears in the U.S. capital, analysts say.
Former Canadian military officer-turned-analyst Sunil Ram remembers the January, 2001, conference Understanding the Lessons of Nuclear Inspections and Monitoring in Iraq: A Ten-Year Review.
What he heard at the meeting he has repeated for months, he says, getting little attention from the mainstream media: that U.S. President George W. Bush had no grounds to base the invasion of Iraq on the disarmament issue.
"The people doing the presentation were weapons inspectors and former weapons inspectors and senior members of (U.S. government) agencies," Mr. Ram said in an interview.
"These were the guys on the ground (in Iraq) who had this stuff (weapons facilities) taken apart."
The conclusion they reached, he said, was that "Iraq's nuclear weapons program (didn't exist) because (the Iraqi government) had dismantled it."
He said the message of experts at the meeting was heard loud and clear by many U.S. military and political officials.
He acknowledged that the message did not necessarily mean Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was not trying to acquire nuclear capability, but he pointed out that months before the United States was insisting that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and was a threat to other nations, top U.S. officials had been told the opposite.
The Washington meeting dealt specifically with nuclear weapons, but Mr. Ram said it also addressed chemical and biological weapons to a smaller extent. Even there, he said, the danger to the world from such weapons was dismissed by the presenters.
If there were such weapons in Iraq at that time, he said, "they were negligible in quantity and militarily meaningless."
He also rejected Mr. Bush's view that biological and chemical weapons could have been a threat to the world in the hands of Mr. Hussein.
"The major problem that has not been picked up by the media is that nuclear weapons are weapons of mass destruction, whereas biological and chemical weapons are akin to weapons of mass terror. They are militarily ineffective."
Mr. Ram is not the only Canadian military analyst who has believed for months that weapons of mass destruction did not exist to any significant extent in Iraq before the 2003 war.
Scott Taylor, publisher of Esprit de Corps, a magazine on Canadian military affairs, was in Iraq before and after the war and says it was common knowledge — despite insistence of U.S. officials such as Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld — that it was not a certainty that the weapons would be found.
"The unit the Americans had sent (to Iraq) on April 9 (was sent) to find these weapons of mass destruction and secure them (but they) have all come up empty handed," Mr. Taylor said.
"That unit has in fact suspended its operations, and the people (on the team) have a report out to say they do not expect to find any chemical or biological weapons."
Referring to the now-disproved allegation in Mr. Bush's State of the Union address that Mr. Hussein was negotiating for uranium with an African country, Mr. Taylor said: "What's left in his speech isn't enough to justify (the invasion of Iraq), especially when things are not going as smoothly as expected."
Mr. Taylor also believes what has happened is a form of vindication for Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, who refused to send troops to Iraq.
"Obviously this is not a time to gloat," he said. "We can't say at this point 'I told you so,' (but) anybody who had anybody on the ground (in Iraq) or was reading the actual intelligence could have predicted this."
Mr. Taylor also believes that Canada's refusal makes it a likely candidate to take a significant role in rebuilding Iraq. He described the reaction of Iraqi people to the fact that he is Canadian: "I was there and all the time people were actually saying (to me) 'Jean Chrétien No. 1' when they knew you were from Canada."
Mr. Ram, however, had a less sympathetic view of Canada's status in light of its refusal to join the war.
"We are paying a much greater price economically and it is apparent in the way the Bush administration has treated us," he said.
Canadian Press
Friday, Jul 18, 2003
Toronto — A conference of top-level military analysts was told that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction months before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks — a message that later fell on deaf ears in the U.S. capital, analysts say.
Former Canadian military officer-turned-analyst Sunil Ram remembers the January, 2001, conference Understanding the Lessons of Nuclear Inspections and Monitoring in Iraq: A Ten-Year Review.
What he heard at the meeting he has repeated for months, he says, getting little attention from the mainstream media: that U.S. President George W. Bush had no grounds to base the invasion of Iraq on the disarmament issue.
"The people doing the presentation were weapons inspectors and former weapons inspectors and senior members of (U.S. government) agencies," Mr. Ram said in an interview.
"These were the guys on the ground (in Iraq) who had this stuff (weapons facilities) taken apart."
The conclusion they reached, he said, was that "Iraq's nuclear weapons program (didn't exist) because (the Iraqi government) had dismantled it."
He said the message of experts at the meeting was heard loud and clear by many U.S. military and political officials.
He acknowledged that the message did not necessarily mean Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was not trying to acquire nuclear capability, but he pointed out that months before the United States was insisting that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and was a threat to other nations, top U.S. officials had been told the opposite.
The Washington meeting dealt specifically with nuclear weapons, but Mr. Ram said it also addressed chemical and biological weapons to a smaller extent. Even there, he said, the danger to the world from such weapons was dismissed by the presenters.
If there were such weapons in Iraq at that time, he said, "they were negligible in quantity and militarily meaningless."
He also rejected Mr. Bush's view that biological and chemical weapons could have been a threat to the world in the hands of Mr. Hussein.
"The major problem that has not been picked up by the media is that nuclear weapons are weapons of mass destruction, whereas biological and chemical weapons are akin to weapons of mass terror. They are militarily ineffective."
Mr. Ram is not the only Canadian military analyst who has believed for months that weapons of mass destruction did not exist to any significant extent in Iraq before the 2003 war.
Scott Taylor, publisher of Esprit de Corps, a magazine on Canadian military affairs, was in Iraq before and after the war and says it was common knowledge — despite insistence of U.S. officials such as Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld — that it was not a certainty that the weapons would be found.
"The unit the Americans had sent (to Iraq) on April 9 (was sent) to find these weapons of mass destruction and secure them (but they) have all come up empty handed," Mr. Taylor said.
"That unit has in fact suspended its operations, and the people (on the team) have a report out to say they do not expect to find any chemical or biological weapons."
Referring to the now-disproved allegation in Mr. Bush's State of the Union address that Mr. Hussein was negotiating for uranium with an African country, Mr. Taylor said: "What's left in his speech isn't enough to justify (the invasion of Iraq), especially when things are not going as smoothly as expected."
Mr. Taylor also believes what has happened is a form of vindication for Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, who refused to send troops to Iraq.
"Obviously this is not a time to gloat," he said. "We can't say at this point 'I told you so,' (but) anybody who had anybody on the ground (in Iraq) or was reading the actual intelligence could have predicted this."
Mr. Taylor also believes that Canada's refusal makes it a likely candidate to take a significant role in rebuilding Iraq. He described the reaction of Iraqi people to the fact that he is Canadian: "I was there and all the time people were actually saying (to me) 'Jean Chrétien No. 1' when they knew you were from Canada."
Mr. Ram, however, had a less sympathetic view of Canada's status in light of its refusal to join the war.
"We are paying a much greater price economically and it is apparent in the way the Bush administration has treated us," he said.
All articles in this archive are used under "fair use" as they are important to the national discussion of whether or not the people of this country are being deceived by their government. These articles are used as evidence in that discussion.
