If They Find Weapons of Mass Destruction
by Milan Rai
Dissident Voice
February 2, 2003
Chemical
Warheads in Iraq - A ‘Less Than Trivial’ Find?
The chemical warheads
found in Baghdad may be breaches of Iraq's disarmament duties, but they may be
'less than trivial', according to one US weapons expert.
"Whether
they are of recent origin or not, we do not believe they justify war. The
Government has not presented any evidence that Iraq intends to use whatever
weapons it does possess, and the success of the inspectors in finding the
warheads merely reinforces the case for allowing the inspectors to continue
their work in peace."
UNMOVIC
inspectors have found eleven empty 122mm chemical warheads and 'one warhead
that requires further evaluation' at the Ukhaider ammunition dump 75 miles
south of Baghdad.' (Telegraph, UK, 17 January 2003, p. 8) 'They were in
excellent condition and were similar to ones imported by Iraq during the late
1980s,' said a UN spokesperson. (Telegraph, 17 January 2003, p. 1) Hiro Ueki,
the UN spokesperson, said, 'It is probably not a smoking gun.' (Financial
Times, 17 January 2003, p. 1)
'US sources said
the information that led to the find had not come from intelligence provided by
the CIA'. (Telegraph, 17 January 2003, p. 8)
On the other
hand, 'Weapons experts said the fact that the warheads were in excellent
condition in bunkers built in the late 1990s meant they were likely to have been
handled recently.' (Financial Times, 17 January 2003, p. 1) ' "They were
in very good condition, so they were not just lying around said Terence Taylor,
a former UN weapons inspector now with the International Institute for
Strategic Studies. (Financial Times, 17 January 2003, p. 10)
Warheads 'likely
to be for the 122mm Saqr-30 multi-barrelled rocket launcher', Egyptian- built
system with range of up to 20miles, designed with French assistance and based
on Warsaw Pact BM-21 multi-barrelled rocket launcher known as the Katyusha.
(Telegraph, 17 January 2003, p. 8)
'Scott Ritter,
an opponent of military action, said the key question was whether Iraq had
attempted to conceal the warheads of whether it had simply overlooked them.'
(The Guardian, UK, 17 January 2003, p. 5)
Iraqi Position on Warheads ‘Entirely Credible’
‘Charles Heyman,
the editor of Jane's World Armies, said that given the state of the Iraqi armed
forces, the official response from Baghad that the missile warheads had been
forgotten was entirely credible. In the reports on stocks of chemical weapons
that it was forced to compile at the end of the 1991 Gulf War, Iraq reported
that it had 2,500 122mm Saqr-30 warheads filled with sarin which were buried
under the rubble of a building destroyed by the allies' bombing raids.’
(Telegraph, 17 January 2003, p. 8)
‘Matthew
Meelson, a weapons expert at Harvard's International Security Programme, said
that the US had in the past lost track of chemical and biological weapons from
abandoned programmes and that warheads had turned up from time to time.
"If these canisters are new and show signs of recent machine-shop work,
then that is one thing, but if not, it's less than trivial," he said.
"It would be unfortunate if they go to war over bad book-keeping".’
(The Guardian, 17 January 2003, p. 5)
Two factual
questions remain:
1) Were the
warheads declared in the December declaration?
2) Was that one
warhead being investigated ever filled with chemical weapons material?
1) There are conflicting
reports. They probably were not declared. It is not yet clear whether this was
omission or deception. Either way, it would constitute a violation of
Resolution 1441 - but this is not by itself grounds for a finding of 'material
breach' by the Security Council. (Please see ARROW
Anti-War Briefing 25: Material Breach: The Mysterious Phrase That Could
Trigger War for more details.)
2) Loren
Thompson, a Pentagon consultant at the Lexington Institute in Arlington,
Virginia, said that if no traces of chemical weapons are found by UN tests and
no chemical agents are found nearby, there would be no conclusive evidence of
an active chemical weapons programme.’ "This is not the proverbial smoking
gun. A real smoking gun would be an armed weapon," Mr Thompson said. On
the other hand, the good condition they are in "doesn't draw one to think
they are old weapons that were simply overlooked." (Guardian, 17 January 2003,
p. 5)
Either way, the
inspectors must be allowed to work in peace. There is no evidence that Iraq
poses a serious and imminent threat to its neighbours or to the West.
‘In the White
House there was a sense of near-jubilation as aides realised immediately that
the empty warheads, plus another one that the inspectors said required
"further evaluation", represented the political equivalent of manna
from heaven... it suddenly seemed that the crucial evidence might have arrived
at the perfect moment.’ (Telegraph, 17 January 2003, p. 8)
This ‘crucial’
evidence may be a ‘less than trivial’ bookkeeping error of the kind that the US
itself has made many times. It is not a justification for war.
If They Find Weapons of Mass Destruction
Some opponents
to war on Iraq say that if weapons of mass destruction are found, they will
change their minds. We disagree. We oppose war even if weapons of mass
destruction are found in Iraq.
The Right
Approach
British
Vice-Admiral Sir James Jungius KBE observed recently in a letter to The Times
(1 Jan. 2003, p. 25) that ‘Tony Blair had failed to produce evidence of the
existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq: This inevitably leads to the
suspicion that no such evidence exists.’
‘Even if the
weapons do exist, where is the evidence of intent to use them? War is too
important and unpleasant a business to be undertaken on the basis of a hunch,
however good that hunch may be.’
Former Tory
Cabinet Minister Douglas Hogg recently (12 Jan.) revealed on BBC Radio 4's The
World This Weekend that a majority of Conservative MPs have very serious
reservations about a war on Iraq.
He added, ‘The
real question is not whether he’s [Saddam Hussein] got weapons of mass
destruction, but rather whether - if he has got those weapons - he is a grave
and imminent threat to the rest of us.’
‘There are lots
of other countries in the world that do have weapons of mass destruction, or
are likely to acquire them, but we don't necessarily conclude that they are a grave
and imminent threat sufficient to justify war.’
‘So even if he
had these things, unless he's a grave and imminent threat there isn’t a moral
basis for war, because the doctrine of self-defence isn't properly invoked.’
Effective
Inspectors
FT
journalist James Blitz asks, ‘if UN inspectors do find evidence of weapons of
mass destruction, should that trigger war? Or will it be the first sign that
the UN is actually getting somewhere in its bid to close down Iraq’s weapons
arsenal and should therefore continue its work?' (FT, 9 Jan. 2003, p. 5) We say
yes. ‘Worried Whitehall officials ask: even if evidence is found, and Saddam
Hussein is discovered to have lied, is it not better to keep the UN inspectors
- the best deterrence against the use or development of such weapons - on the
ground?’ (Guardian, 6 Jan. 2003, p. 14) We say yes.
Milan Rai is author of War Plan Iraq: Ten Reasons Against War
(Verso, 2002) and a member of Active Resistance to the Roots of War (Arrow). He is also co-founder of Voices in the
Wilderness UK, which has worked for the lifting of UN sanctions in Iraq.
Related Link:
William Rivers Pitt
vs. CNN: Flawed Report on Iraqi Warheads Found