This article in the Washington Post is an absolute must-read on the subject of the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. And not just because it bolsters my theory that there was a WMD program still intact in Iraq at the time of the war, and that the incompetence of the Bush Administration in allowing sites to be looted is largely to blame for our failure to find them. (Although not completely.)

First off, there are growing indications that a WMD program did exist, as evidenced by a number of dual-use facilities that have been discovered.

The search is not over, and one major part of it -- interrogation of Iraq's senior scientists and leaders -- is concealed from view. Some of Team 3's counterparts have unearthed ingredients and gear -- including transportable biological laboratories -- that could be used to build illegal arms. Any such concealment breached Iraq's obligation, under U.N. Security Council resolutions, to disclose all "dual-use" facilities.

As I said before about the mobile biolabs, I don't think Saddam's plan for the labs was to manufacture antibiotics for orphaned puppies.

Another equally important thing the article has to say is that the team itself searching for WMD's feels that it needs more time for the search.

Of those interviewed, the great majority said they remained convinced of President Bush's charge that Hussein concealed forbidden weapons to the end. But many also said they no longer know how they will find proof.

"The way everybody was talking, the way the intel was -- we're still waiting to find it," said Smith, who normally works in biological and chemical arms treaty enforcement. "But we haven't even begun to scratch the surface of 1 percent of the land mass. It might be right next door."

This isn't actually so difficult to believe. I mean, if your enemy announces, two months ahead of time, that it knows where your secret, illegal weapons are, it's not too much of a stretch to think that you might move them.

But the article also points to two areas of gross negligence on the part of the Bush Administration. First, as I've pointed out a myriad number of times, is the fact that U.S. troops failed to secure any suspected WMD sites.

Nasiriyah became an unhappy template for Team 3's search. The invading forces came and went, and Iraqis found opportunity in chaos. Sometimes looters stripped a building to its bare frame -- pulling even sockets and wiring from the walls. Sometimes they burned what they could not carry. Often enough, by the time Team 3 reached a site, someone had done both.

"We should have known from our experience of past wars that this would happen," said Christopher Kowal, who last week left the his military intelligence assignment and an assignment on Mobile Exploitation Team Charlie, one of Team 3's fellow search units. "A huge amount of intelligence just walked away."

The emphasis is mine. Seriously--is it that much of a stretch to assume that if you leave sites wide open like that, they might be looted? Again, this happened not only with suspected sites, but more damningly, to the nuclear sites as well.

Just that morning, according to U.S. and U.N. sources, the Vienna-based IAEA had sent an urgent message to Washington. The twin complexes at Tuwaitha, the message said, were "at the top of the list" of nuclear sites requiring protection of U.S. and British forces.

A Marine engineering company had found the sites abandoned a few days earlier. The captain in command reported looters to be roaming the compounds. Allison's task was to measure the radiation hazard.

"We couldn't get close because we were receiving too high a dose" of radiation, Allison recalled. But the team found disturbing signs, even from a distance. The door to a major storage building, one of three known jointly as Location C, stood wide open.

Deal's personal dosimeter warned him to leave the scene, but first he shot a few seconds of videotape, by reaching his hand with the camera around the doorframe. The jerky images showed office debris strewn alongside scores of buried drums. Those drums, and others nearby, were supposed to contain 3,896 pounds of partially enriched uranium and more than 94 tons of yellowcake, or natural ore.

Looters had plainly been inside. At a minimum, they had exposed themselves and their families to grave health risks. More ominously, they might have taken some nuclear materials with them.

Again, is this making anyone sleep better at night? Where are those nuclear materials now? Where are the chem/bio weapons or their components? We don't know, because Rumsfeld and Franks didn't bother to plan for securing the goddamned sites!

To make matters worse, the article also reports several indications that the suspected WMD sites weren't looted randomly--they were ransacked by people who knew what they were doing.

The Baghdad Research Complex, reached April 19, might have provided investigators with months or years of work. Adjacent to the University of Baghdad, the broad campus featured laboratories and office space for some of the disciplines most important to military science: applied chemistry, biological and nuclear engineering, aviation and space research. The site was so large, yet pillaged so comprehensively, that Team 3 picked over the bones for two days without a discovery. "On a scale of one to ten," Smith said, describing the looting, "it was an eight-plus."

Some of the damage appeared to be calculated, hinting at another explanation for the frustrated weapons hunt. Outside an alternative energy lab, Deal said he found computers and paper file boxes arranged in a stack and burned. "Looters are stealing computers," he said. "Why would they burn them?"

In a biology lab, the team found broken glassware and supplies but only bare mounts where work tables and ventilation hoods had been. "There's an obvious difference between looting and professional removal," Deal said.

And if that doesn't display the incompetence of planning on the part of the Bush Administration enough, read this part of the article:

The language barrier loomed larger as time went on. If Team 3 had found vats of nerve agent, as its leaders once hoped, part of the mission could have been accomplished with instruments and technical expertise. But if the team had to look for subtler clues, it lacked the tools.

Around present-day Hilla, not far from Baghdad, archaeologists believe the Tower of Babel once stood. Team 3 is a Babel in miniature. Among its 25 men and women are Turkish, Spanish, Russian and Chinese speakers, but no one understands the local language.

Can somebody please, please explain to me why none of the higher brass in the Pentagon thought that perhaps somebody who reads and speaks Arabic might come in handy on a search for banned weapons programs? Oh wait--let me guess--all the available Arab speakers were discharged for the crime of being gay, right?

The more I read about the hunt for WMD's in Iraq, the more I'm convinced that my initial theory is correct. The evidence that Iraq did have a WMD program at the time of the war is being found, in addition to the intel that existed before the war. It is also increasingly clear that Rumsfeld and Franks did not, as a part of their planning for the war, bother to secure the suspected WMD sites properly. And while some of these sites may have been looted by random Iraqis, it's increasingly probable that at least some materials and files were either destroyed by people who had a lot to lose by their existence or they were stolen, either by terrorists or people who know their value and are willing to sell them. Sell them to who? Well, terrorist groups is the obvious choice. Iran is another--no doubt they could use some uranium and would probably appreciate any files about Iraq's nuclear weapons program that could aid them in their own.

When you put it all together, it's quite possible that this war may well represent a setback in the war on terror. If it turns out that Iraqi materials or weapons have fallen into the hands of terrorists, and those weapons are used against Western targets, then Bush, Rumsfeld, and Franks will all have a lot to answer for. And as I've said before, for their simple negligence in failing to secure suspected WMD sites, I think that Rumsfeld and Franks should be sacked. At the very, very least.

Posted by Alex Knapp at May 19, 2003 01:54 AM | TrackBack

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Posted by: Mark Garrity at June 7, 2003 09:46 PM

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