Saddam, WMD’s and Terror: What the ISG Found

Strangely undercited in the blogosphere is an essay the appeared last Thursday in the Wall Street Journal, “Have War Critics Even Read the Duelfer Report?” by Richard Spertzel. Mr. Spertzel, as a member of the team that produced the report, is perhaps in a good position to highlight the findings that have real signficance. Here is what he says:

While no facilities were found producing chemical or biological agents on a large scale, many clandestine laboratories operating under the Iraqi Intelligence Services were found to be engaged in small-scale production of chemical nerve agents, sulfur mustard, nitrogen mustard, ricin, aflatoxin, and other unspecified biological agents. These laboratories were also evaluating whether various poisons would change the texture, smell or appearance of foodstuffs. These aspects of the ISG report have been ignored by the pundits and press. Did these constitute an imminent threat? Perhaps it depends how you define “threat.”

The chemical section reports that the M16 Directorate “had a plan to produce and weaponize nitrogen mustard in rifle grenades and a plan to bottle sarin and sulfur mustard in perfume sprayers and medicine bottles which they would ship to the United States and Europe.” Are we to believe this plan existed because they liked us? Or did they wish to do us harm? The major threat posed by Iraq, in my opinion, was the support it gave to terrorists in general, and its own terrorist activity.

The ISG was also told that “ricin was being developed into stable liquid to deliver as an aerosol” in various munitions. Such development was not just for assassination. If Iraq was successful in developing an aerosolizable ricin, it made a significant step forward. The development had to be for terrorist delivery. Even on a small scale this must be considered as a WMD. . . .

Documentation indicates that Iraq was training non-Iraqis at Salman Pak in terrorist techniques, including assassination and suicide bombing. In addition to Iraqis, trainees included Palestinians, Yemenis, Saudis, Lebanese, Egyptians and Sudanese.

Quite simply, the Ba’athist regime in Iraq concentrated on perfecting chemical and biological weapons specifically for terrorism. To ignore that fact and assert that Saddam Hussein was “no threat” because he didn’t maintain a WMD arsenal for a conventional war is a supreme instance of “distraction from the War on Terror”. President Bush didn’t fear that the Iraqi army would deploy chemical and biological arms to reconquer Kuwait or invade Saudi Arabia. His central concern was that, if left to fester, Iraq would become a supplier of money and weapons to a variety of terrorist groups. The Duelfer Report demonstrates that Saddam was working toward exactly that end.

Any evaluation of the decision to depose the Ba’athists is frivolous unless it takes into account the costs of not acting. One of those costs is that Saddam Hussein would have been free to continue on the same trajectory, a trajectory that, unless we were extraordinarily lucky, would have led to terror strikes more deadly than 9/11. The people whose lives were saved don’t know who they are, which impresses me as a good reason for all of us, as equally potential casualties, to cast grateful votes for George W. Bush.