Deadly Intent
The Bush administration's attempt to put a good face on its failure to find WMDs in Iraq seemed hardly convincing to an increasingly sceptical American public, reports Khaled Dawoud from Washington
Standing next to senior legislators late last week, the Chief US Weapons Inspector in Iraq David Kay grimly admitted that after more than three months of intense work carried out by 1,400 experts, "we have not found at this point actual weapons." To ease the effect of the lack of a smoking gun, the former UN inspector who long supported the war against Iraq, added "we have found substantial evidence of an intent of senior- level Iraqi officials, including Saddam, to continue production at some future point."
Kay pleaded for time, saying he needed another six to nine months to finish his work. However, at the same time he implied that nothing could ever be found in Iraq any time soon. "Believe me, if I wanted to go into business, I would go into the metal detection business in Iraq. I think for 100 years they will be digging up the relics of Saddam's empire that is buried all over the country." He added "we could go on for 25 years, and I think we'd still discover some stuff."
Senator John Rockefeller, Democrat of West Virginia and senior member of the Intelligence Committee, could not hide his frustration, saying that it was not enough to only admit that the Bush administration did exaggerate the threat Iraq posed to US security, but that it should also reconsider its entire preemption doctrine. "I don't think there were any new surprises. And I don't really believe there are any impending surprises," he told reporters. "And to be where we are today, without any evidence, talking about intent, talking about facilities, but nothing we can point to, and then asking for another six to nine months and a good deal of money (to continue inspection effort, estimated at $500 million), leads me to do some serious thinking about the doctrine of preemption," he said.
The role of intelligence agencies, Rockefeller added, should also be re-examined. "Did we misread it, or did they mislead us, or did they simply get it wrong? Whatever the answer is, it's not a good answer."
Senator Pat Roberts, Republican and chairman of the Intelligence Committee, while agreeing that Kay and his team should be given more time, saying that he had only presented a preliminary report, was also unsatisfied. "I'm not pleased with what I heard today, but we should be willing to adopt a wait-and-see attitude," he said. "That's the only alternative we really have."
President George Bush and US Secretary of State Colin Powell rushed to defend the report, pointing to information that indicated that the former regime was in defiance of UN resolutions, and failed to declare some equipment it possessed that could be used to produce WMD, particularly in the field of missiles. But senior administration officials failed to provide an answer for the key question many people asked on the basic premise of the Bush war: that Iraq posed an "imminent threat" to its security that had to be eliminated sooner than later.
In an editorial in the Washington Post on Tuesday, Powell said that Kay's report "describes a host of activities related to WMDs that 'should have been declared to the UN'". Yet, again, the US secretary spoke mainly of "Hussein's intentions" to continue working on WMDs. None of the banned biological material which Kay seized, and which Powell referred to in his opinion piece, were found in a weaponised form, but merely "could be used" to produce the banned weapons in the future.
However, William Kristol, editor of the conservative, Washington-based Weekly Standard, in an interview with Al-Ahram Weekly, dismissed the latest controversy over Kay's report as nothing more than a "political wash" by Democrats seeking to oust Bush from the White House in 2004's presidential elections. Kristol, who supports the administration and the war in Iraq, said he believed President Bush "still had time to improve the situation in Iraq", although he admitted that he was worried by the declining popularity of the US president seen in the latest opinion polls. "I think he still has 12 months to prove that he can make it work in Iraq."
A decision revealed on Monday to form a new working group headed by US National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice named "Iraq Stabilisation Group", was seen by most observers as an indication that Bush has become aware of the challenge that Iraq posed to his chances of winning the upcoming elections. So far, the Department of Defence (DOD) has been the sole decision-maker in Iraq, sidelining the State Department and deepening inter-agency fighting.
Paul Bremer, head of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Iraq reports directly to Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld. But according to the new structure, some of the key decisions will be taken by Rice, a key confident of Bush who tried to distance herself from infighting between the defence and state departments.
President Bush and senior administration officials denied the formation of the new group meant that the DOD wouldn't be the leading agency in running Iraq, but that it was simply one way to coordinate and assist the ongoing effort, especially after the decision to spend $20.3 billion in Iraq on the reconstruction effort.
"President Bush knows if he was to be re- elected, it would be over his foreign policy, namely in the war against terror, and Iraq. It won't be domestic issues," said Kristol. The decision to form the new group, he added, should be seen as a positive sign that indicates his commitment to Iraq and how it has turned into the real test for his success.
Steven Metz, director of research and chairman of regional strategy and planning department at the US Army War College, said the administration was now paying the price for a number of incorrect assumptions it made before the war, namely the lack of resistance from Iraqis and the need to use more troops to bring stability in Iraq after the fall of the government. Warning that the situation in Iraq could turn into an insurgency war similar to Vietnam, he said the US should consider new tactics in countering the ongoing insurgency by increasing coordination with local Iraqi police and integrate all decision- making bodies related to Iraq, as indicated by the latest move to form the group headed by Rice.
But he also warned that Iraq wouldn't be a success without pressing for reforms in the region as a whole, including in countries known to be allies for Washington. "Even if we spent billions of dollars in Iraq, it won't be a success without pressing for change in the rest of the region."
But in light of the growing problems in Iraq, opinion polls indicate that the US public has no appetite for more nation-building projects in a clearly hostile region. More important, the same polls say that the American society is equally divided on the issue of putting trust in the current administration to carry similar projects, creating more enemies for the United States by launching wars and preemptive strikes, mainly on the basis of intentions.
