VX Nerve Agent and Bad Gubbamint Science Stories- Scott Ritter
McSweegan is INSANE
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Subject: VX Nerve Agent and Bad Gubbamint Science Stories- Scott
Ritter
Date: Mar 18, 2008 7:57 PM
LOL, Well this (BELOW) is a double triple winner about spies,
slimeballs, fools
and stupid scientists in gubbamint. Including incompetent chemical
weaponeers.
So that's: 1) The DHHS is incompetent (includes CDC, FDA and all of
the National
Insitutes), the 2) DOJ is incompetent (and war criminals), the 3)
legislators are
conniving airheads, the 4) Yale-CDC bioweaponeers are the world's
worst lying
bunglers, now 5) Aberdeen...
...and of course the precipitous Great Depression II, which we think
is only to
be headed off by Cheney and McCain in the Middle East, and Condi and
Gates in Moscow
at the present moment. You know. Doing Tehran Foreplay.
KMDickson
=================================
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/03/18/7738/
Published on Tuesday, March 18, 2008 by TruthDig.com
Dinner With Ahmed
by Scott Ritter
As we approach the fifth anniversary of the invasion and occupation of
Iraq, I find
myself thinking back on how we got ourselves into this predicament.
Like many who
played a direct role in the issues surrounding Iraq in the years
leading up to the
decision to invade, I have wrestled with the demons of history,
wondering about
the specific impact my actions (or inaction) may have had on the
course of human
affairs. I've also wondered whether or not I have been witness to any
events that,
if more fully reported, might enable others to have a better
understanding of the
events that shape our world today, for better or for worse. As I
examine where we
are today and contemplate our future and those who are positioning
themselves to
play a role in Iraq, it seems to me that there is at least one such
incident, a
dinner party I attended at the home of Ahmed Chalabi in June 1998 that
is worthy
of a more public illumination.
During my time as a weapons inspector for the United Nations Special
Commission
(UNSCOM), I frequently traveled to Washington, D.C., for liaison
purposes. The usual
customers, so to speak, included the State Department, the CIA and the
Department
of Defense. All such meetings were conducted in accordance with
instructions I had
received from the executive chairman of UNSCOM (from 1991 until July
1997 this post
was held by a Swede named Rolf Ekéus and after July by an Australian,
Richard Butler)
and as such were considered "official business."
I strayed from the umbrella of "official business" only once during my
tenure as
an inspector, when, in June 1998, during a scheduled official trip to
Washington,
D.C., I ventured out into the shadows of back-bench domestic American
politics.
Bill Clinton was president then, and there was a growing undercurrent
of neoconservative
ideology that was gripping the nation's capitol as the right wing of
the Republican
Party, frustrated by its inability to outmaneuver the president on the
domestic
front, chose to instead do battle on matters pertaining to foreign
policy and national
security. Iraq's President Saddam Hussein was deeply entrenched in
Baghdad. Economic
sanctions, which served as the primary vehicle for containing the
Iraqi dictator
by denying him markets for his oil-based economy, were collapsing amid
international
concern for the humanitarian toll that such sanctions took on the
people of Iraq,
and in the face of old-fashioned greed. U.N. weapons inspections were
floundering
and the Clinton administration seemed to lack any coherent plan on how
to bring
order from the foreign policy chaos that was Iraq.
In early June 1998, UNSCOM weapons inspectors received a technical
report from a
U.S. military laboratory in Aberdeen, Md., which specialized in
chemical and biological
agent analysis. In March 1998, UNSCOM had retrieved from Iraq several
fragments
of ballistic missile warheads from a site that had been used by the
Iraqis in their
program of unilateral destruction of WMD in the summer of 1991. The
Iraqis, in an
effort to clarify glaring discrepancies in the accounting of their
weapons-of-mass-destruction
stockpiles, had admitted that a certain number of these warheads had
been filled
with chemical and biological agent, in particular nerve agent, and
anthrax and botulinum
toxin biological agent. In an effort to verify the Iraqi claims,
UNSCOM had excavated
warhead fragments from the declared destruction sites and sent them to
the U.S.
military laboratory in Aberdeen for analysis.
By early June 1998 the results were back, and they were, on the
surface, stunning:
Rather than finding evidence of the declared chemical or biological
agent that the
Iraqis had admitted placing in the warheads, the Aberdeen lab results
showed trace
evidence of the chemical degradation byproduct of stabilized VX nerve
agent, one
of the most deadly substances known to man. The Iraqis had admitted
trying to produce
VX nerve agent in the past, but denied that they had ever succeeded in
stabilizing
the volatile chemical (i.e., preventing the agent from deteriorating
over time and
becoming useless as a weapon), let alone filling any warhead with VX.
The lab results
from Aberdeen, if correct, dramatically contradicted the Iraqi claims
and potentially
turned the entire disarmament effort of UNSCOM in Iraq on its head.
Butler, the Australian diplomat who headed UNSCOM at the time, was
arriving in Baghdad
when the Aberdeen lab results were released. Inspectors in New York
were able to
transmit a copy of the report to Baghdad, and the senior UNSCOM
chemical inspector
in Iraq at the time was able to meet Butler at plane-side to
personally brief him
on the dramatic news. Butler was in Baghdad to undertake a delicate
negotiation
with the Iraqi government on a so-called road map that would serve as
the basis
upon which UNSCOM and Iraq would seek to work together to clarify
outstanding issues,
and seek verification for declarations made by Iraq, such as its
stance on VX nerve
agent, which UNSCOM was unwilling to take at face value. The Aberdeen
lab report
threw a monkey wrench into Butler's tightly scripted plan, and he
decided to keep
the report under wraps for the time being in order to let diplomacy
take its course.
The UNSCOM chemical inspectors were furious. Over the years they had
uncovered one
lie after another about Iraq's VX nerve agent program. Initially, the
inspectors
proved that a VX program existed when Iraq claimed it did not (in
order to prove
that point, inspectors had to burrow down inside bombed-out buildings
to recover
buried documents the Iraqis thought lost). Later, the inspectors were
able to force
the Iraqis to admit that the VX nerve agent effort was in fact larger
than the laboratory-scale
research and development program they tried to peddle once their
denials had been
proved false. The chemists had already contradicted the Iraqis on the
issue of stabilized
VX, by finding traces of VX stabilizer in VX agent recovered from
containers the
Iraqis had thought had been thoroughly sanitized. This discovery
forced the Iraqis
to admit having attempted VX stabilization. But in the end, the Iraqis
maintained
that all of their efforts had failed, and that VX agent had never been
"weaponized,"
or loaded into a warhead or shell. Now, with the Aberdeen lab report,
this last
lie seemed to have been uncovered.
Over lunch in the U.N. cafeteria, I listened while the UNSCOM chemical
weapons inspectors
vented their anger and frustration. Butler was selling out, they
speculated. Why
else wouldn't he make use of this material? I asked the chemists how
certain they
were of the lab results. One hundred percent, they said. The lab
results had discovered
incontrovertible proof of the existence of specific chemicals on the
warhead fragments,
which could be explained only as the result of the degradation over
time of VX stabilizer.
"What would be the ideal situation vis-à-vis this information?" I
asked. Everyone
at the table believed that Butler was being pressured by the Clinton
administration
not to provoke a major crisis with Iraq over the issue of disarmament,
so as not
to break the existing Security Council consensus on maintaining
economic sanctions.
As such, the best scenario would be to have this information made
public, published
in the press so that neither Butler nor the Clinton administration
could ignore
it. Several of the inspectors around the table had served as
background sources
for some of the world's leading journalists. "Why not slip a copy of
the report
to one of these press contacts?" I asked. The lab report, they
responded, was tightly
held. If it was leaked out of New York, suspicion would automatically
gravitate
toward them, a situation none of the inspectors wanted to deal with.
"What if,"
I asked, "I could get the lab report released in Washington, D.C.,
with no UNSCOM
fingerprints?" The chemists liked this idea, and slipped me a copy of
the lab results.
I was scheduled to fly down to Washington to meet with the CIA about
ongoing intelligence
support programs then underway. In my desk I had a business card for
Randy Scheunemann,
the national security adviser to Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., who was at
that time
the Senate majority leader. Scheunemann had been part of a
congressional staff delegation
that had visited the United Nations earlier in 1998, and had met with
Butler and
some of the UNSCOM inspectors to discuss the situation in Iraq. I
dialed the number
listed and told Scheunemann I would like to meet with him while I was
in Washington
to discuss some new developments. He agreed to the meeting and threw
in a twist
of his own: Would I mind meeting with Ahmed Chalabi, an Iraqi
expatriate who headed
an opposition group called the Iraqi National Congress, or INC?
Chalabi maintained
offices in London and Georgetown, Va., and he shuttled back and forth
between the
two carrying out his various political intrigues. He was, at the time,
in residence
in Georgetown, and Scheunemann thought that Chalabi might be of
assistance in any
matter regarding Iraq.
I had previously met Chalabi in January 1998 in London, where we had
discussed various
matters pertaining to Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and how the
INC might be
able to assist UNSCOM in gaining access to new sources of information
about Saddam's
past proscribed programs. Butler had authorized the London meeting, so
I justified
any subsequent meeting organized by Scheunemann as a legitimate follow-
up. Scheunemann
said he would have someone meet me at the airport in Washington.
I landed at National Airport early in the morning. In the terminal I
spotted a man
in a black suit holding a sign with my name on it. I assumed he was a
driver of
a car sent to take me to the Senate offices of Scheunemann. I was
partly right.
The driver was for me, but my destination was not Capitol Hill. "Mr.
Chalabi sends
his greetings," the driver said as he ushered me to an awaiting town
car. "I will
take you to meet Mr. Chalabi now." Ahmed Chalabi's Washington
headquarters was in
a posh red-brick Georgetown town house. Chalabi himself was there to
greet me.
I was ushered into Chalabi's home, where he set out an ambitious
program, including
briefings to senators and their staffs. The meeting went on well into
the next day.
I had an open return air ticket but had not planned on spending the
night, and as
such had not made any hotel arrangements. "Not to worry," Chalabi
said. "You are
welcome to stay with me as my guest. We'll have dinner here tonight,
and you can
sleep in one of my guest rooms."
Chalabi's driver, who turned out to be a Shiite refugee from southern
Iraq, drove
me to the State Department, where my meeting with the CIA was held.
Afterward, I
took a cab to Capitol Hill and then made my way to the Senate office
building where
Randy Scheunemann had his office, right across from Sen. Lott's. Once
there, I got
down to business. I handed Scheunemann a copy of the Aberdeen lab
report and explained
the background of the document. He immediately grasped the importance
of what he
was holding in his hand. "What would you like me to do with this
information?" he
asked. I explained the desire to get this data into the public eye,
which meant
bypassing both Richard Butler and the White House because I and the
inspectors I
had met with believed that both were seeking to suppress the data. "If
it could
find its way into the press in a way that removed any UNSCOM
fingerprints, this
would be ideal. That way the data remains uncompromised, and yet
politically Butler
and the White House can't ignore it." Scheunemann was smiling. "I
think we can manage
that."
I thought my mission complete, but Scheunemann picked up the phone,
speaking in
hushed tones to someone on the other end. Hanging up the receiver, he
rose. "Please
follow me. Sen. Lott would like to have a chance to speak with you."
We made our
way across the hall and into the Senate majority leader's suite. Lott
was meeting
with constituents but broke away and ushered me into a side conference
room, where
we sat around a large wooden table. Scheunemann briefed Lott on the
nature of the
information I had provided, but withheld any suggestion of leaking it
to the press.
Lott thanked me for my "service." "I understand you will be in town
for a little
while, and that you're staying at the home of a mutual friend."
Neither Scheunemann
nor I had mentioned my arrangements with Chalabi to the senator. "I
hope you take
some time to talk with him, and some other interesting people I think
you will be
meeting with. Exchange ideas. See if you can help him in any way.
We're all on the
same side here, and we have to start finding ways to break down some
barriers others
have constructed between us." I told the senator that I had met with
Chalabi previously
and saw no reason why we couldn't engage in an exchange of ideas.
Scheunemann and I left Lott's office, and I took a cab back to
Chalabi's town house
in Georgetown. Chalabi was out when I arrived, but I was met at the
door by Francis
Brooke, an American from Atlanta who was Chalabi's principle adviser.
Brooke was
also a guest at Chalabi's apartment. I changed out of my suit and made
my way downstairs
to relax while I waited for dinner. No sooner had I sat down than the
doorbell rang.
Brooke answered it, and in walked Dr. Max Singer, a noted independent
consultant
on public policy and a senior fellow at the conservative Hudson
Institute who specialized
in what was known as "political warfare." Singer was a busy man, but
he had been
asked by Scheunemann to prepare a paper titled "The Chalabi Factor,"
which outlined
the importance and viability of Chalabi and the INC as a realistic
opposition to
the rule of Saddam Hussein. "Ahmed asked me to drop this off for you
to look at,"
Singer said, handing me the document. "I will be interested in what
you think of
it."
Singer left and I sat down with his paper. The document outlined a
political scenario
that had Chalabi and the INC exploiting the weakness of the regime of
Saddam in
northern Iraq (Kurdistan) and southern Iraq, among the Shiites, to
install himself
as a viable political alternative to the Iraqi dictator. The main
thesis centered
on gaining a physical foothold in southern Iraq and taking control of
the oil fields
surrounding Basra, enabling the INC to become economically viable,
which in turn
created the conditions for political viability. Chalabi, the paper
held, was ideally
suited for this role since he already had a large following inside
Iraq and was
widely recognized outside Iraq as a legitimate contender for the helm
of post-Saddam
Iraq. I was somewhat taken aback by the content of the Singer paper. I
was on dangerous
political ground here, a U.N. weapons inspector charged with the
disarmament of
Iraq, suddenly dabbling in the world of regime change. Far from
advising me on issues
of intelligence regarding Iraqi WMD, Ahmed Chalabi had turned the
tables and had
me advising him on how to overthrow Saddam Hussein.
Within the hour Chalabi returned to his apartment, accompanied by a
tall man in
a gray suit, Stephen Rademaker. Rademaker was the husband of Danielle
Pletka, the
senior professional staff member for Near East and South Asia affairs
on the Senate
Foreign Affairs Committee. Rademaker was the legal counsel for the
House of Representatives
Foreign Affairs Committee and, like his wife, an unabashed member of
the right wing
of the Republican Party, along with being a champion of Chalabi.
Rademaker joined
Francis Brooke, Chalabi and me in the comfortably laid-out living room
of the town
house, where we discussed not arms control but regime change. I
started off with
the premise that the best way to achieve regime change in Iraq was to
hold Saddam
accountable for his requirement to disarm, and that the focus of our
discussion
should therefore be how to get the U.S. government to take more
seriously the work
of UNSCOM, and to put the weight of America behind such smoking-gun
evidence as
the VX nerve agent lab report from Aberdeen. Rademaker interjected at
that point.
"We agree. But we all know Saddam is cheating, and that his days are
numbered. What
we don't have is a plan on what we are going to do once Saddam is out
of office.
Mr. Chalabi represents our best hopes in that regard, which is why
we're delighted
that you and he are meeting like this."
The discussion moved on to the matter of Singer's Chalabi paper. In
the kitchen,
Chalabi's driver had put on an apron and was busy putting together
plates of appetizers
and beginning preparations for dinner. I had spent the better part of
the last three
years investigating the inner workings of Saddam's government, and how
the Iraqi
president shaped his internal domestic constituencies. "The premise of
gaining support
among the Kurds and Shi'a I can't take issue with," I said, "except to
note that
my experience with both groups is that neither represents a
homogeneous movement
that can be treated as a singular element. Things will be much more
complicated
than that. The key to me is what is missing here: any discussion of
the Baath Party
or the Sunni tribes. The Baath Party is the only vehicle that exists
in Iraq today
that unites Sunnis, Shi'a and Kurds alike. It makes modern Iraq
function. How do
you plan on dealing with the Baath Party in a post-Saddam environment?
And what
is your plan for winning over the Sunni tribes? How will you bring the
tribes that
represent the foundation of Saddam's political support into the fold
with your Kurdish
and Shi'a supporters?"
Steve Rademaker and Francis Brooke stared blankly. Chalabi was
grinning ear to ear.
"We have a plan. First, we will do away completely with the Baath
Party. Those minor
members who were forced to join out of survival, of course, they will
be allowed
to retain their jobs. But anyone who profited from Baathist rule will
be punished.
As for the Sunni tribes, we are already in contact with their
representatives. We
feel that the best way to negotiate with them, however, is to make
them realize
that there is no future with Saddam. Once they realize that, they will
come over
to our side." Chalabi's "plan" struck me as simplistic at best, and
entirely unrealistic.
"What about defeating Saddam's military?" I asked as the hors
d'oeuvres were laid
out. "Not just the Iraqi army, but the security forces closest to
Saddam, the Special
Republican Guard and others?" Chalabi said a few words to Brooke, who
got up and
returned with a three-page paper entitled "The Military Plan." Chalabi
handed me
the document. "This was written for me by Gen. Wayne Downing. I
believe you know
him from Operation Desert Storm." Downing commanded U.S. commandos
operating in
western Iraq who were tasked with interdicting Iraqi Scud missile
launches against
Israel. I had participated in that effort.
Downing's paper outlined a plan that had the U.S. military training
and equipping
a force of several thousand INC soldiers who would operate out of
bases in western
Iraq. These forces would be equipped with light vehicles armed with
anti-tank missile
launchers, which Downing believed would be more than a match for any
armored force
the Iraqis might muster. The plan postulated support from the local
tribes in western
Iraq, especially the al-Duleimi in and around Ramadi and Anbar. I
thought this somewhat
fanciful, since the al-Duleimi were among the tribes that provided
manpower for
some of Saddam's most elite units. I said as much, but Chalabi
dismissed my concerns
with a flick of his wrist. "My people have already had discussions
with the tribal
leaders of the al-Duleimi, who are ready to join us once we get
situated on the
ground."
Downing's plan called for the presence of U.S. military advisers on
the ground and
U.S. warplanes overhead. "We don't operate like that," I said. "If we
have forces
on the ground, then we'll need to have a base, with a base support
element, and
base security, and a quick-reaction force in case some of our boys get
in trouble.
The U.S. presence would have to be much greater than what you're
saying here." Again,
Chalabi smiled. "That may be so," he said. "But we don't have to
highlight it at
this time." The "Downing Plan" was a nice bit of trickery, plotting
what was ostensibly
an Iraqi opposition military force with minor U.S. military
involvement, but masking
what was in reality a much larger U.S. military effort with a minor
role played
by Chalabi's INC "army."
There was a knock at the door, and Chalabi's butler answered. In
walked Rademaker's
wife, Danielle Pletka, accompanied by none other than James Woolsey, a
former director
of the CIA. They found seats around the table, and it became clear
that this was
where we would be eating. The discussion moved from the flawed
military planning
evident in Gen. Downing's paper and onto the issue of Chalabi's
political future.
Jim Woolsey was an unabashed supporter of Chalabi, something I found
strange since
Chalabi and the CIA were at odds over many aspects of the INC's past
operations.
"This [criticism] is all bunk," Woolsey said. "Chalabi is an Iraqi
patriot and visionary
who intimidates many lesser thinkers in Langley [CIA headquarters]. My
friend Ahmed
is a risk taker who understands the reality of Iraq, unlike the desk-
bound analysts
and risk-averse operators at the CIA. Chalabi scares these people, so
they have
created false accusations in order to denigrate him and ultimately
destroy him."
Danielle Pletka chimed in. "We cannot allow this to happen. Ahmed
Chalabi has many
friends in Congress, and it is our goal to make sure Ahmed Chalabi
gets the support
he needs to not only survive as a viable opposition figure to Saddam
Hussein but
more importantly to prevail in Iraq."
And so the night went. Dinner with Ahmed had turned into a political
strategy session,
the primary topic of interest being how to breathe new life and
legitimacy into
Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress so that a viable, and thus
politically supportable,
opposition to Saddam Hussein might be formed. According to Chalabi,
this viable
opposition already existed; all that was needed was funding and
political support
(not to mention military assistance in the form of advisers on the
ground and fighter-bombers
overhead). Personally, I doubted whether Chalabi could muster the
forces he claimed
inside Iraq. But my doubts were not shared by my dinner companions
that evening,
and as we sat afterward, sharing drinks and conversation, it was clear
that Chalabi
was being groomed for another run at power.
He had been embraced by the CIA in the early 1990s, only to be
abandoned following
halfhearted coup attempts the U.S. government failed to support, and
accusations
of financial mismanagement. But Trent Lott and the Republican Party
were gunning
for Bill Clinton and the Democrats, and they believed that with Iraq
they had discovered
a chink in Clinton's armor. Chalabi was being resurrected before my
eyes. They had
picked their cause and selected their champion. Now all they needed
was a springboard
issue from which to launch their program. And that, apparently, was
where I came
in.
I rose early the next morning and went downstairs for breakfast before
heading back
to Capitol Hill and another round of meetings with senators that
Pletka had arranged.
Chalabi was already up, and we chatted a bit while I ate. "You see,
Scott," he said,
"I have many friends here in Washington. With what you know about
Saddam Hussein's
weapons of mass destruction, you can be of invaluable assistance to
our cause. The
VX story is but the tip of the iceberg." I was taken aback, as I had
not shared
the VX lab report information with Chalabi. Clearly, one of our co-
diners of the
previous evening had spoken out of school. "Well, I am just a simple
weapons inspector,"
I replied. "In any event, it wouldn't go over well back at the U.N. to
have an UNSCOM
inspector plotting regime change down in Washington, D.C." I looked at
Chalabi directly.
"This is why you must be very discreet about the VX lab report. It
simply won't
do for you to have your fingerprints on this information."
Chalabi smiled and nodded. "I understand completely. As for your
status as a weapons
inspector, you must understand that those days are nearly gone. The
inspection process
has run its course. You need to think about what you are going to be
doing in the
future. I would like you to work for me." I looked over at him. "How
would that
work? As an American citizen I can't be working for you while planning
the overthrow
of Saddam. I believe there are laws against that." Chalabi laughed.
"Of course.
You wouldn't be working for me, but for the U.S. Senate. My friends
would create
an advisory position for you, and you would in turn advise me. It
wouldn't pay much
upfront," he said. "But don't worry. One day I will be the president
of Iraq, and
will be in control of Iraq's oil. When that day comes, I will not
forget those who
helped me in my time of need. Let's just say that my friends will be
given certain
oil concessions that will make them very wealthy." I remained silent.
Chalabi's butler drove me to the Senate office buildings, where I met
up with Pletka.
She escorted me to the office of Sen. Sam Brownback, a Kansas
Republican. He had
been fully briefed on the VX story. He was also interested in my
description of
how the Clinton administration was balking at fully supporting the
work of the UNSCOM
inspectors. "This will not stand," he said when I was finished.
"Believe me when
I say you and your colleagues have friends here in the U.S. Senate who
will make
sure America honors its commitments and obligations, especially when
it comes to
disarming a cruel tyrant such as Saddam Hussein."
Afterward, Pletka and I met with her husband, Steve Rademaker, in the
Senate office
building cafeteria. Rademaker had been hard at work briefing
influential congressmen,
especially Ben Gillman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, about
the VX lab
report. "We've got their attention," Rademaker said, "and I think
you'll find that
serious pressure will be brought on the Clinton administration to
better support
your work." Pletka then took me back to where I had started, the
office of Randy
Scheunemann. Once again I was ushered in to see Sen. Lott, who thanked
me for my
service. "This is very important, and we're very glad you brought the
lab report
to our attention. Be assured that this matter will be handled with the
utmost discretion."
As I got up to leave, Scheunemann brought up the issue of future
collaboration.
I said that my being a weapons inspector made such collaboration
difficult. Lott
intervened. "Well, maybe we can find a way to bring you down here
working for us.
That might be the most useful thing to do." Chalabi's schemes seemed
to have some
substance behind them.
Armed with that potential job offer, I left Washington and returned to
New York.
Richard Butler was due back at the U.N., where he was planning to
announce a "major
breakthrough" regarding Iraq's approach to disarmament. There was to
be no mention
of the specific details of the VX lab report findings, although Butler
had alluded
to their existence, and the Iraqi rejection of these findings. Butler
was to make
a presentation to the Security Council on June 25th. However, my visit
to Washington
produced results that dramatically altered his planned presentation.
On June 23rd, The Washington Post published a front-page story
headlined "Tests
Show Nerve Gas Agent in Iraqi Weapons." The article made the main gist
of the Aberdeen
lab results public. It also reported on the political work undertaken
by Lott and
the Republicans based on that information. According to the Post
story, "The new
indications of Iraqi deception also are likely to reverberate in U.S.
politics,
where conservative Republicans are increasingly critical of what they
see as a failure
by the Clinton administration to support strongly either aggressive
UNSCOM inspections
for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction or efforts to overthrow Iraqi
leader Saddam
Hussein."
Senate Majority Leader Lott was quoted in the article as being "deeply
disturbed"
by reports that the administration had not acted on the VX
information. "The latest
example of a failed policy toward Iraq will not be swept under the
rug," the Post
quoted him as saying. I was just about to conclude that my visit had
been a tremendous
success when I caught a line in the middle of the article. "The
Washington Post
obtained a copy of the U.S. Army lab report from officials of the
Iraqi National
Congress, the principal Iraqi exile opposition group." After watching
the Republicans
build up Chalabi, I should have known that they could not have passed
up this opportunity
to interject his name into the limelight. "This is a smoking gun,"
Chalabi said
to The Washington Post. "It shows that Saddam is still lying, and that
this whole
arrangement based on his turning his weapons of terror over to the
United Nations
is not workable." The Post then quoted a "Republican Senate source"
who echoed Chalabi's
concern: "This report means that they have VX out there now, and can
use it. They
have lied from the start."
Today, in the aftermath of the American invasion of Iraq, I think back
on my visit
to Washington and my dinner with Ahmed Chalabi and his friends. The
ramifications
of that visit were many.
Butler's report to the Security Council, delivered in late June of
1998, was dramatically
revamped in order to take into account the need to discuss the VX
findings. The
"major breakthrough" in disarmament work with the Iraqis was, as a
matter of course,
pushed to the sidelines. The Clinton administration, caught off guard,
had to come
out with public statements proclaiming its support for the work of
UNSCOM at a time
when Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and National Security
Adviser Sandy Berger
were lobbying hard behind closed doors for the U.S. to pull back from
blanket support
of the inspection process.
The Republicans, led by Lott, had a new cause around which to rally in
their effort
to confront the Democrats: the failure of disarmament and the need to
overthrow
Saddam Hussein. Randy Scheunemann used the impetus created by the VX
nerve agent
scandal to draft legislation, the so-called Iraq Liberation Act, which
was passed
by both the House of Representatives and the Senate in October 1998.
This legislation
solidified regime change in Iraq as the official policy of the United
States, and
certified Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress as the American
choice for replacing
Saddam. The Chalabi machine was on a roll, and was not to be stopped
until the overthrow
of Saddam in April 2003.
Ahmed Chalabi remains a controversial figure today. The U.S. case for
war with Iraq
was built around the notion of Iraq retaining stockpiles of weapons of
mass destruction,
in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions. Much of the case
was built around
so-called intelligence provided by Chalabi's INC. All of this
intelligence proved
flawed. Chalabi and the INC have been singled out as the scapegoats
for this failure,
accused of deliberately misrepresenting data and even fabricating
intelligence reports
to shore up the U.S. government claim that Iraq did indeed possess
proscribed weapons.
As for the Aberdeen VX lab report, the Iraqi government in the end had
been telling
the truth. It had not succeeded in stabilizing VX nerve agent, and it
had never
filled any weapons with the agent. Far from representing
"incontrovertible evidence"
of Iraqi duplicity, the Aberdeen lab results were flawed. Even under
ideal circumstances,
laboratory analysis conducted at approved facilities operating under
strict protocols
established in accordance with the Chemical Weapons Convention had an
incredibly
high rate of misidentification, and this occurred in known test
samples. Detection
of a specific chemical agent simply wasn't a slam-dunk proposition.
The Aberdeen
samples were taken from metal fragments that had been subjected to
explosive demolition
and buried in the ground for many years. Subsequent retesting done by
French and
Swiss labs proved inconclusive. In the end, I was wrong to have pushed
so hard to
have the lab results made public.
Chalabi's bid for the leadership of post-Saddam Iraq has stalled, but
not stopped.
In the aftermath of the Jan. 30, 2005, elections in Iraq, a new Iraqi
government
was formed, and Chalabi emerged as deputy prime minister responsible
for energy
policy. In this role, he was given interim responsibility for
overseeing the Iraqi
Ministry of Oil in April-May 2005 and December 2005-January 2006,
which meant he
had control over Iraq's vast economic resources. Chalabi had told me
that this had
always been his goal. He also told me that he would use his access to
Iraq's riches
to "take care" of those of his friends who had supported his rise to
power.
Exploiting Iraq's oil resources for his own benefit has always been a
Chalabi goal.
Prior to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Chalabi took a
leading role
in planning how the Iraqi oil sector would be managed in post-Saddam
Iraq. He chaired
a meeting of oil executives at London's prestigious Royal Institute of
International
Affairs, the title of which was "Invading Iraq: Dangers and
Opportunities for the
Energy Sector." Chalabi also took a leading role in advising the State
Department's
Oil and Energy Working Group; in a conference of the group held in
December 2002
he pushed for using a revitalized Iraqi oil industry to pay for the
cost of the
U.S. invasion (former Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz relied
heavily on
Chalabi's input when he testified to the U.S. Congress that Iraqi oil
would more
than offset the cost of invading Iraq). Chalabi argued that the best
way forward
for Iraq's oil industry was to privatize as quickly as possible, and
seek to free
it of OPEC-imposed production quotas. Many of Chalabi's policy
positions are reflected
in the stalled National Oil Law of Iraq, still pending ratification by
the Iraqi
parliament.
Chalabi no longer sits as Iraq's oil czar. In the twists of fortune
that mark the
instability inherent in the disastrous American occupation of Iraq,
Chalabi was
compelled to step aside from the Oil Ministry in January 2006,
replaced by former
nuclear weapons scientist Hussein al-Shahristani. Chalabi's political
aspirations
had fallen short in Iraq's national elections, with his party failing
to win even
one seat in the Iraqi parliament. Down but not out, Chalabi continues
to this day
to operate on the fringes of Iraqi politics. In the fall of 2007 he
was appointed
by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to be the chair of a so-called
services committee,
helping coordinate the provision of health care, electricity,
education and other
governmental services to Baghdad neighborhoods in coordination with
the American
military "surge." Chalabi's link to the ongoing "surge" is no
accident, since it
maintains the connection between him and those in the neoconservative
establishment
in American politics who have consistently advocated for him in any
post-Saddam
Iraq.
One of the most visible, and vocal, of these advocates was Randy
Scheunemann, the
former national security adviser to Trent Lott, who left his job as a
Senate staffer.
In 2000 he served as the foreign policy adviser to Sen. John McCain's
unsuccessful
bid for the Republican presidential nomination. In 2001 he served a
short stint
as a consultant to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. In November
2002, Scheunemann
helped form a political advocacy group known as the Committee for the
Liberation
of Iraq, whose membership included McCain, who was an honorary co-
chair. With Scheunemann
guiding him, McCain said in 2003 that Ahmed Chalabi was "a patriot who
has the best
interests of his country at heart." Scheunemann is a key figure behind
McCain's
unabashed support for staying the course in Iraq, and helped shape the
"surge" strategy
currently being pursued in Iraq. Today, once again, he serves as a
senior foreign
policy adviser to a McCain presidential campaign.
Danielle Pletka left her job with the Senate to take a position as
vice president
of the neoconservative think tank American Enterprise Institute, where
she continues
to be a vocal and unapologetic advocate of Ahmed Chalabi. In 2006,
Pletka helped
form AEI's Iraq Planning Group, which authored a report released in
January 2007
that advocated surging 50,000 troops into Iraq as a remedy to the
ongoing impasse.
This report took precedence over the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group
findings, which
articulated a more nuanced approach inclusive of diplomacy and
reduction of forces
in Iraq. She is an avid supporter of Sen. McCain's presidential
aspirations. Pletka's
husband, Stephen Rademaker, served in the Bush administration as an
assistant secretary
of state for nonproliferation and disarmament issues before leaving in
2006 to join
the high-profile Washington, D.C., lobbying firm Barbour, Griffith and
Rogers, where
he actively operates in support of undermining the current Iraqi
government of Nouri
al-Maliki and advocating for Iraqi Kurdish oil autonomy. Another
Pletka associate,
former CIA Director James Woolsey, has been the pro bono counsel for
Chalabi over
the years. Woolsey, who openly advocated for the invasion of Iraq
prior to March
2003, today is an adviser to McCain's election campaign, with a
primary focus on
oil security policy.
Ahmed Chalabi no longer directly controls Iraq's oil. But at one time
he did, and
it will be interesting to see how he chose to distribute this largess
to his friends
and allies. Even more interesting will be how Chalabi leveraged his
control of Iraq's
economic wealth to support his continuing claim to the ultimate
position of power
in Iraq. With the Shiite fundamentalists in Baghdad stumbling in their
effort to
form a stable government, and with the U.S. balking at Maliki's
theocratic tendencies,
rest assured there are many in Washington who continue to look upon
Chalabi as the
go-to guy to bring secular stability to Iraq. Whether he can
accomplish this task
is questionable. But, in the meantime, Chalabi is in a position to
write many checks,
a factor that today makes him so attractive to so many, especially
those in the
neoconservative establishment with whom he has maintained a
relationship over time.
Just how attractive will be determined once there is a better
understanding of when,
and to whom, Chalabi writes his checks, or, more important, who is
writing the checks
on his behalf.
Scott Ritter was a Marine Corps intelligence officer from 1984 to 1991
and a United
Nations weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998. He is the author
of numerous
books, including "Iraq Confidential" (Nation Books, 2005) , "Target
Iran" (Nation
Books, 2006) and his latest, "Waging Peace: The Art of War for the
Antiwar Movement"
(Nation Books, April 2007).
(c) 2008 TruthDig.com
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