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   From: oO@oO.com   
      
         Responding To Colin Powell   
      
         by Rahul Mahajan; February 06, 2003   
      
     By If one believes everything Colin Powell said to the Security Council   
   yesterday, one's first response ought to be that there's no reason to fight   
   a war, since U.S. surveillance capabilities are so awesome that Iraq's   
   weapons of mass destruction (WMD) can easily be found. And one's first   
   question should be why has the United States for over two months withheld   
   this apparently so damaging evidence from those weapons inspectors, who   
   could have verified conjectures and destroyed WMD stocks and production   
   facilities.   
      
     If indeed the evidence presented is of the character claimed by Powell,   
   then the United States has chosen to sabotage UN Security Council Resolution   
   1441, clause 10 of which "Requests all Member States to give full support to   
   UNMOVIC and the IAEA in the discharge of their mandates, including by   
   providing any information related to prohibited programmes."   
      
     The actual evidence may not even warrant that conclusion. What Powell   
   served up to the Council was a sorry mess of fuzzy aerial photographs of   
   buildings, a cute "organizational chart" of supposed al-Qaeda operations in   
   Iraq, a couple of tape recordings that are capable of multiple   
   interpretations and, as before, a large number of undated reports by unnamed   
   Iraqi defectors.   
      
     Given the history of U.S. government use of disinformation to drum up   
   support for war, from relatively subtle measures like doctoring satellite   
   photos to convince the Saudi government that Iraq was massing troops for an   
   invasion of Saudi Arabia in 1990 to incredibly crude ones like the   
   continuing claims by officials from George W. Bush on down that Iraq   
   "expelled" weapons inspectors in 1998 (as covered in the press at the time,   
   the inspectors were withdrawn at the behest of the United States), a skeptic   
   need not actually accept any of the evidence as presented. Even so, it's   
   useful to go through it.   
      
     Evidence about Iraq and al-Qaeda   
      
     The weakest part of the whole presentation, and the most important, was   
   the claims trying to link Iraq with al-Qaeda operations. In the past, the   
   link depended on the claims about one man, Mohammed Atta, meeting with Iraqi   
   intelligence in Prague (we've since found out that he was almost certainly   
   in the United States at the time of the alleged meeting); now it depends on   
   one man, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.   
      
     Al-Zarqawi is apparently a high-level operative of an Islamist group   
   called Ansar al-Islam, which is operating in northern Iraq (currently an   
   autonomous region with a provisional Kurdish government that is aligned with   
   the United States). Although there is no evident link between this   
   organization and the Government of Iraq (GOI), Powell claims that the GOI   
   has a high-level agent in Ansar, who "offered al-Qaida safe haven" -   
   although apparently few if any accepted the offer, since the supposed   
   presence is in the part of Iraq not controlled by the GOI. The full extent   
   of the connection between al-Zarqawi himself and the GOI is apparently that   
   he got medical care in a hospital in Baghdad, hardly an indication of   
   high-level Iraqi complicity in terrorist attacks against American targets.   
      
     There is no attempt to link Ansar itself to the 9/11 attacks. In fact,   
   while apparently the mere presence of al-Zarqawi, a subordinate in Ansar, in   
   Iraq is sufficient reason for war, the head of Ansar, known as Mullah   
   Krekar, is living unmolested in Norway, and the United States has not even   
   made an extradition request. Krekar denies any connection of Ansar with   
   al-Qaeda.   
      
     Powell also claims that one al-Qaeda detainee has told them that Iraq   
   provided information about biological and chemical weapons to al-Qaeda   
   members. Given the condition al-Qaeda detainees are being held in and the   
   obvious incentives for them to tell a story the U.S. government wants to   
   hear, this is very far from being actual evidence. The claim also flies in   
   the face of common sense. Saddam Hussein has always been seen by al-Qaeda as   
   an enemy and has himself seen Islamists as the biggest internal threat to   
   his rule. To give them the ability to make chemical or biological weapons,   
   weapons he sees as essential to the survival of his regime (many analysts   
   think the primary reason the United States didn't implement "regime change"   
   in 1991 was the threat that the GOI would use its stocks of chemical weapons   
   in self-defense), potentially destabilizes his own rule.   
      
     Evidence about Iraq's WMD   
      
     The heart of the presentation, however, was claims about Iraq's violation   
   of UNSCR 1441 and about its attempts to acquire WMD. This included evidence   
   like a photograph of a shed and a truck next to a bunker, followed by a   
   claim that such a configuration of truck and shed (the truck is apparently a   
   "decontamination" truck) is an infallible indicator that the bunker has   
   chemical weapons in it, and even a photograph of what an Iraqi UAV (unmanned   
   aerial vehicle) "would look like."   
      
     Powell claimed that Iraq was reviving attempts to acquire a nuclear   
   weapon, telling us that two out of three elements were in hand. The third   
   element, fissile material, is and has always been the stumbling block.   
   According to Powell, "we have more than a decade of proof that he [Hussein]   
   remains determined to acquire nuclear weapons," but no acknowledgment that   
   in more than a decade he has been entirely unable to do so.   
      
     Nor was there acknowledgment of the assessment that Mohammed el-Baradei,   
   chief of the IAEA team charged with Iraq's nuclear disarmament, delivered to   
   the Council:   
      
     "No evidence of ongoing prohibited nuclear or nuclear-related activities S   
   has been detected to dateS Nor have the inspections thus far revealed signs   
   of new nuclear facilities or direct support to any nuclear activity. The   
   IAEA expects to be able, within the next few months, barring exceptional   
   circumstances and provided there is sustained proactive cooperation by Iraq,   
   to provide credible assurance that Iraq has no nuclear weapons programme."   
      
     He also resurrected claims that Iraq's attempts to acquire certain   
   aluminum tubes show that it is trying to make centrifuges for production of   
   fissile material, disputing the IAEA's conclusion that those tubes are   
   better suited to conventional artillery.   
      
     Most of the other "evidence" was unsourced or from one of the legion of   
   defectors that has always conveniently cropped up when the United States has   
   needed them.   
      
     The most compelling evidence was audio recordings of two conversations   
   apparently showing Iraqi attempts to conceal evidence from inspectors. It's   
   not possible to know whether the tapes are real, whether they are recent or   
   from the previous inspection regime, or what exactly they are referring to.   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)