06/06/2002
Again, Why Saddam Must Be Removed
Last October, PBS ran a special on its “Frontline” program titled “Gunning for Saddam” and featured interviews with experts such as Richard Perle, Richard Butler, James Woolsey, and Iraqi defector Khidhir Hamza.
I’m currently overseas in Europe but I brought along the full transcripts of the interviews conducted with these individuals and with the understanding that maybe 20% of their comments, max, made the actual program, I thought I would give a few of their quotes, which, today, are as pertinent as they ever were. Nothing has changed in Iraq, only since these remarks were solicited, Saddam has had another 7+ months to operate without any supervision whatsoever, over 3 years total now. The little bombmaker is merrily plying his trade and the West is about to get another shock if we don’t act quickly.
[All of what follows are direct quotes, unless otherwise indicated.]
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Richard Butler, former chairman of UNSCOM, the operation that was established to find and dismantle Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction.
Butler: The degree of resistance that the Iraqis showed to our investigation of their biological weapons program exceeded all other deceptions and resistances. So I had to conclude that, for Saddam, biological weapons were his weapons of choice. He seems to be really attached to the idea of killing people with germs, because they tried so hard to keep us away from their biology program. What did they have? Everything. Anthrax, plague, botulinum, gangrene, camelpox. Would you believe there’s a thing in Iraq called camelpox?
Anthrax, however, (is the) leading biological agent, leading candidate, because of its nature. We know that Saddam loaded this into shells, bombs, and missile warheads. I had in my own hand pieces of a destroyed missile warhead that we swabbed and it had anthrax residue in it.
..Saddam (has an) addiction – a compulsive behavior, a deep belief that somehow (weapons of mass destruction) will open up the world or make him the leader of the world, the new Nebuchadnezzar from biblical times, whatever…
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James Woolsey: Former Director of the CIA from 1993-95.
Re going after Saddam as a result of 9/11:
I think it’s pretty clear that we have him dead to rights on trying to assassinate former President Bush in the spring of 1993…. President Clinton believed that. That’s why he launched the 24 cruise missiles at the empty building in the middle of the night in the summer of 1993, after Saddam tried to assassinate former President Bush and the bomb didn’t go off. The CIA looked into the forensics of the bomb and told President Clinton that it was an Iraqi government bomb. He then asked the FBI to double- check and sent an FBI forensics team over; they did the same thing. We both said, “Yes, this is an Iraqi government plot.” That was the occasion for the launching of the cruise missiles against the empty (Iraqi security service) building in the middle of the night.
Q: So we have possible involvement in the World Trade Center bombing (1993), definite involvement in the plans to assassinate a former president of the United States. What else?
If the U.S. government would now go back and look at all of these previous terrorist incidents – the bombings in East Africa, the Cole, all the others – and look beyond bin Laden, beyond the terrorists, and see if there is anything anywhere that points toward foreign government involvement – and by the way, some of these may be Iran and not Iraq; it’s not only a possibility of Iraq – I think they might turn some things up.
Q: Is this really a story that hasn’t really been written yet – a detective story, if you will?
I think things will continue to come out tying Iraq – possibly Iran – but tying Iraq to terrorism directly against the United States in the 1990s and possibly September 11. We weren’t really looking under those rocks hard from the early 1990s on. And now that, I hope, the U.S. government and its friends and allies are starting to look under those rocks, they might find some things that they didn’t find before…
Q: What of Saddam and working with the fundamentalists?
He’s, I think, perfectly happy to work with fundamentalists. People who say he would never work with fundamentalists are about 15 years out of date. He’s restructured the Iraqi flag in his own calligraphy to show ‘Allah Akbar – God is Great’ across the face of it. That’s roughly equivalent to, if during World War II when he finally decided he needed the Russian Orthodox Church, if Joseph Stalin had written in his own hand across the Soveit flag, ‘In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.’
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Richard Perle, chairman of the Defense Policy Board, an advisory panel to the Pentagon. Also former assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan Administration.
Saddam is probably the most dangerous individual in the world today…(He is) capable of anything. Capable of using weapons of mass destruction against the United States, capable of launching other military maneuvers as soon as he thinks he can get away with it.
There can be no victory in the war against terrorism if, at the end of it, Saddam Hussein is still in power – not only because he supports terrorism, not only because he trains terrorists and gives them refuge – but because he is the symbol of defiance of all Western values. He succeeded in throwing the United Nations out. He’s violated all of the undertakings that followed the end of the Gulf War…
He is winning. Because he is winning, and because he has awesome capabilities, he poses a continuing threat to us and to others.
…I think the regime of Saddam Hussein is far weaker than most people believe, and what it would take to topple it is a tiny fraction of what was necessary to expel Iraq from Kuwait in 1991.
…It’s certainly true it’s not easy. It’s not simple. On the other hand, simply waiting until biological weapons show up in this country because we didn’t take action against Saddam when we had the opportunity would be foolish and shortsighted, just as it was foolish and shortsighted to not act with vigor against terrorism in the period in which Al Qaeda was developing into the organization it became. Ten years ago, Al Qaeda was nothing. We watched it grow, because after each terrorist act, it was stronger than before. We never challenged it. We never took significant action against it. And these acts of terror were regarded as great triumphs and the basis upon which Al Qaeda became a magnet for people who want to destroy us.
Q: What about the issue of the anthrax. Does it have to be proven that it was in the hands of terrorists and, thus, Iraqi anthrax?
No, not at all. In fact, I rather doubt that it’s Iraqi anthrax. But what the delivery of anthrax through the mail forces us to consider is a range of options available to Saddam Hussein that we didn’t consider before. Because the argument that we could deter Saddam by threatening to destroy him if he used weapons of mass destruction against us is no longer relevant, if you allow the possibility that he could deliver weapons of mass destruction through anonymous third parties. And there’s no question he has the capacity to do that.
…Look, I don’t believe that we will again experience an attack exactly like that of Sept. 11. For one thing, we now know that you never yield control of the aircraft. Instructions to pilots were exactly the opposite, before Sept. 11. So it isn’t going to be a repetition.
We’re always fighting the last war. I can’t tell you what form a new terrorist attack will take. The one that troubles me the most is the use of biological weapons, disseminated not by Iraqi intelligence officials, but by terrorists who are prepared to commit suicide, who would cheerfully kill millions of Americans, if they could do it. All that remains is to organize their entry into the United States together with those biological agents. And that is something that Saddam Husesein and his intelligence apparatus is in a position to do.
…This is a question of protecting ourselves, and we are in a situation where the only credible defense has to include a strong offense. It is too easy to get into the United Staes. It is too easy to recruit suicide bombers. It is too easy to disseminate weapons of mass destruction. So either we take this to the enemy, or we wait, and hope the enemy chooses not to take it to us. But if we wait, it will be his choice, and not ours.
…An attack (such as Sept. 11) was inevitable, because we failed to respond to lesser attacks, and the terrorists were emboldened by their successes. And make no mistake about it: every time they killed Americans or carried out an attack against American property abroad, they considered that they had achieved a victory. They determined to go from victory to victory, and we did not interfere with that.
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Khidhir Hamza, former head of Iraq’s nuclear weapons program who defected to the West in 1994.
Saddam believes that security starts abroad. Always he thinks that way. Think outside…If someone is endangering you, go after him one way or the other. And Saddam is vengeful. Remember, he tried to kill former President Bush even after he left office. It’s his nature. And, I think, it’s an impression he wants to leave, ‘Don’t do me a bad turn; I never forget it.’
…a guy like bin Laden (is) an excellent complement to the operation he wants. They supply him with the foot soldiers ready to blow themselves up. He could train those foot soldiers, support them with his operations, ongoing, including the arm of the military industry, which is very sophisticated, and know-how for acquiring technology, knowing where to go and where to get things.
Q: Why the special interest in biological weapons?
Biological are much less easily detectable than any other. You could have a plastic bag of anthrax in your pocket and take it, if it is well sealed, or doubly sealed, and take it anywhere without being detected.
Chemical is harder. There are always traces of chemicals, which would be a give-away. Nuclear, you have the radiation problem. And I don’t believe radiological weapons are effective anyway; we tried them. They don’t create the terror that biological weapons can create.
[Ed: But here Mr. Hamza is not understanding that you could still contaminate half of Manhattan, with an enormous financial impact on the United States.]
Q: If the United States for whatever reason decides that its war on terrorism should not include Saddam Hussein, his long-term goals, does he still feel that this war started ten years ago, supposedly finished ten years ago, is ongoing, whether we go at him or not? Is this war for Saddam Hussein continuing?
Yes, it will be continuing to him as long as you keep on him the sanctions. Limit him and how much weapons he can make. Limit his military capability. Limit his ability to domineer the region. Limit his movements. Limit his power. You are his enemies. It makes no difference whether they go after him or not. Not going after him will relieve him from trying to defend himself, but it would not get him out of the box he is in. Because he believes if he stays weak, he’s dead. So he’ll fight you one way or the other – through terrorism (and) all the kinds of weaponry he has.
Source: PBS.org
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Next week, a further report on Turkey (on top of my “Week in Review” commentary).
Brian Trumbore
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