Something stinks

Christopher Hitchens nails it again. Writing for Slate today he discusses the NY Times revelation over the weekend about systematic "looting" of Iraqi WMD sites in 2003.

On the surface of the story, there are similarities with the al-Qaqaa saga the Times rushed to print just prior to the election in November. Whatever similarities there are, they stop at the surface. As Hitchens points out:

It was eye-rubbing to read of the scale of this potential new nightmare. There in cold print was the Al Hatteen "munitions production plant that international inspectors called a complete potential nuclear weapons laboratory." And what of the Al Adwan facility, which "produced equipment used for uranium enrichment, necessary to make some kinds of nuclear weapons"? The overall pattern of the plundered sites was summarized thus, by reporters James Glanz and William J. Broad: The kinds of machinery at the various sites included equipment that could be used to make missile parts, chemical weapons or centrifuges essential for enriching uranium for atom bombs.

Glanz and Broad's disclosures beg two questions, which Hitchens then takes up. 1) "How can it be that, on every page of every other edition for months now, the New York Times has been stating categorically that Iraq harbored no weapons of mass destruction?" and, 2) "What's all this about "looting"?"

The first question presents a non-sequitur for all who have so certainly proclaimed that WMD can't, don't and never did exist in Iraq. The fact that machinery existed in-place that is universally understood to have uses in production of weapons and systems that were prohibited by UN resolution only highlights the potential threat that the Bush Administration sought to deal with in taking action against Sadaam Hussein. The capability plus uncertainty of what exactly was going on only strengthens--in my opinion--the Administration's post-9/11 argument.

Hitchens' second question is even more salient than the first. The Times' reporting says it all:

"In four weeks from mid-April to mid-May of 2003 … teams with flatbed trucks and other heavy equipment moved systematically from site to site. … 'The first wave came for the machines,' Dr Araji said. 'The second wave, cables and cranes.' "

The word that jumps from the page is "systematically." Hitchens describes it this way:

But obviously, what we are reading about is a carefully planned military operation. The participants were not panicked or greedy civilians helping themselves—which is the customary definition of a "looter," especially in wartime. They were mechanized and mobile and under orders, and acting in a concerted fashion. Thus, if the story is factually correct—which we have no reason at all to doubt—then Saddam's Iraq was a fairly highly-evolved WMD state, with a contingency plan for further concealment and distribution of the weaponry in case of attack or discovery.

Such a systematic approach implies planning. This was no collection of native Iraqi's and their borrowed pick-up trucks as alleged at al-Qaqaa. So the question that is left is simply, "Why?"

Hitchens next and last target are the inspectors themselves. Hitchens writes: "The U.N. inspectors, who are solemnly quoted by Glanz and Broad as having "monitored" the alarming developments at Al Hatteen and elsewhere, don't come out looking too professional, either. If by scanning satellite pictures now they can tell us that potentially thermonuclear stuff is on the loose, how come they couldn't come up with this important data when they were supposedly "on the ground"?"

Why indeed. Why would inspectors monitor yet say nothing about this situation? Why would they monitor yet do nothing about this situation, as limited as their ability might have been? Why indeed!

One last point. I wrote last week about the claim former head of inspections Rolf Ekeus made last week that Tariq Aziz had offered him a bribe. I certainly don't know, and it may not be possible to know certainly one way or the other, whether or not these two situations might be related. All I do know is that they prompt more questions than they answer, and that viewed together the inescapable conclusion is that something stinks here.

Even if either or both turn out not to offer proof of the Administration's WMD-claims, I think at the very least they point out the ineffective and utterly un-trustworthy nature of the inspections-regime that so many argued was the best way to approach the problem of Sadaam Hussein in 2003.