Top U.S. Official Alleges Iraq Had Illicit Weapons Programs

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The United States was justified in invading Iraq this year because it had secret chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs and was a significant sponsor of terrorism, a senior U.S. Department of Defense official said last night.

The administration eliminated “one of the regimes in the world that was a prominent supporter of terrorist organizations and aspired to chemical, biological and nuclear weapons and there is no question they had those programs,” said Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, speaking to the Council on Foreign Relations.

Those assertions remain a major subject of dispute within Washington, tied to the larger debate of whether the administration was justified in invading Iraq. Feith’s allegations of unconventional weapons programs, in particular, appear to differ with those of other senior officials and independent experts following a preliminary postwar assessment of Iraqi capabilities last month.

David Kay, who leads the CIA’s Iraq Survey Group, said in an interim report last month that no evidence was found indicating Iraq had either an active chemical or nuclear weapons program prior to the war (see GSN, Oct. 3).

Kay furthermore wrote Iraq had no biological weapons and that no evidence of biological weapons production was found. He said there were found a number of biological weapons “activities,” including a vial containing a “reference strain” of botulinum, alleged research on biological weapons-“applicable” agents, and concealment efforts. He also reported the discovery of a network of biological laboratories and safe houses run by Iraqi intelligence. Whether all of that would constitute a biological weapons program, however, is disputed by independent experts (see GSN, Oct. 6). 

Event moderator Robert Gallucci, who was the State Department’s special envoy on WMD proliferation during the Clinton administration, challenged Feith’s assertions on Iraq’s nuclear capabilities and terrorist links, calling his claims “strained.”

Feith said while Kay’s team had found no chemical or biological stores yet, it had “obtained corroborative evidence of Saddam’s nuclear, chemical and biological programs, covert laboratories, advanced missile programs and Iraq’s program — active right up until the start of the war — to conceal WMD-related developments from the U.N. inspectors.”

Since the Oct.3 Kay report, however, many top administration officials have interpreted Kay’s findings to indicate Iraq had either a biological weapons program or comparable activities, but not chemical or nuclear weapons programs.

Iraq was “actively seeking a weapons of mass destruction program,” said national security adviser Condoleezza Rice on Oct. 8, in a major address arguing justification for the administration’s decision to invade.

Bush, in an Oct. 9 speech, also did not allege chemical or nuclear programs. He said, “Since the liberation of Iraq, our investigators have found evidence of a clandestine network of biological laboratories. They found advanced design work on prohibited longer-range missiles. They found an elaborate campaign to hide these illegal programs.”

At an Oct. 28 news conference, Bush said Hussein “had a weapons program, he’s disguised a weapons program, he had ambitions.”

Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton, in an address on WMD threats last month, did not address the Iraqi program question directly. He said instead that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein “had ambitions to reconstitute his weapons arsenal” and cited the Kay report’s comment that Iraq had “dozens of WMD-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in late 2002.”

Vice President Richard Cheney, who reportedly joined Feith as a leading proponent of the war, appeared to have an assessment closer to Feith’s in an Oct. 17 address to the Heritage Foundation.

“We could not accept the grave danger of Saddam Hussein and his terrorist allies turning weapons of mass destruction against us or our friends                     and allies. And, gradually, we are learning the details of his hidden weapons                     programs,” he said.

Gallucci also challenged Feith’s allegations of Iraqi sponsorship of terrorism. 

“There is no connection, I think it’s been admitted, to 9/11 itself,” Gallucci said in a critique following Feith’s comments.

He disputed Feith’s characterization of the war against Iraq as part of the administration’s so-described “war on terrorism.”

“I think the key for a lot of us is … do we feel as though we are safer from international terrorism by devoting all these resources to Iraq?” he said.

Feith defended his assertions, saying the purpose of invading Iraq was to deny terrorists bases of operation and state support.

“We did that with one of the regimes in the world that was a prominent supporter of terrorist organizations and aspired to chemical, biological and nuclear weapons,” he said.

He said U.S. officials knew Hussein “had relationships with various terrorist organizations and supported them in various ways, including … with training and exercising regarding chemical weapons. We had information about that and exchanges between the Saddam Hussein regime and terrorist organizations in that area.”

Prior to the war, Feith created an office of “special plans” that has been criticized for reportedly re-evaluating evidence collected by the intelligence community to make the case of an Iraqi threat. He said the operation was not intended to serve as a substitute for traditional intelligence community intelligence.

“What those people did in that so-called intelligence unit that’s been written about, was simply help me read and absorb the intelligence produced by the intelligence community, the CIA and other members of the intelligence community,” he said.

Feith said conspiracy theories emerged about the office after it was given a nondescript name to disguise its relevance to Iraq from the press.

“If it would have been called the Iraq office, [it] would have probably, in and of itself, created headlines,” he said.

“We chose the kind of name that the government gives to offices throughout the government that’s kind of nondescript, you know, ‘special plans,’ ‘long-range plans,’ that kind of thing. … And it’s been grist for the conspiracy mongers ever since.”

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