LA Times Takes Step in Right Direction

Over the weekend the Los Angeles Times offered a glimmer of hope that there are once again main-stream media outlets who are truly behaving as journalists and investigating stories rather than simply regurgitating talking points and press releases.

On Sunday (Feb 25) the LA Times ran a front page article under the headline U.N. calls U.S. data on Iran's nuclear aims unreliable. Some of the more pertinent information contained in the article includes the fact that very little if any information provided by US intelligence services regarding weapons programs within Iran have panned out.

"Since 2002, pretty much all the intelligence that's come to us has proved to be wrong," a senior diplomat at the IAEA said. Another official here described the agency's intelligence stream as "very cold now" because "so little panned out."

The reliability of U.S. information and assessments on Iran is increasingly at issue as the Bush administration confronts the emerging regional power on several fronts: its expanding nuclear effort, its alleged support for insurgents in Iraq and its backing of Middle East militant groups.


This article is encouraging in that the Times writers have done some investigating of their own on a topic that is of crucial importance as the Bush Administration continues to increase the fervor of the accusations it levels against Iran. In light of the faulty intelligence that was used to mislead America into Iraq it is imperative that the public, particularly the main stream media outlets upon whom so much of the public relies for their information, demand that accusations be backed with clear evidence and that rhetoric alone not be allowed to pass for truth unchallenged.

Unfortunately the LA Times is alone in its desire to investigate the evidence being proffered as to Iran's nuclear weapon ambitions and plans. The New York Times failed to even pick up on the reporting done by their west coast colleagues. The Washington Post offered little better, with no mention in their print editions and one paragraph linking to the LA Times story on the fourth of five pages of an online column. None of the major wire services (with the exception of the Tribune Service, the LAT is a Tribune owned paper) picked up the story. It was similarly ignored by all of the major broadcast and cable television outlets.

In startling contrast to this dearth of actual journalism all of the major main-stream media outlets have been running full coverage of the Bush Administration and UN Security Council claims of continued Iranian defiance.

While Iran may well be pursuing nuclear options it is important that more than just the easy story offered by those in power here in the US be provided to the American People. This road has been traveled recently with disasterous results. The main-stream media owes it to the American People to fulfill its journalistic responsibilities and ensure that the tough and necessary questions concerning the Bush Administration's dealings with Iran are not only asked but answered as well.

(The LAT article is also on CommonDreams)

Frank Gaffney Can’t Handle The Truth

When backed into a corner the current right-wing strategy appears to be complete and utter fabrication. Whether in the media, be it main-stream or not, or the halls of a federal courthouse, neo-con politicians and pundits are continuing to rely upon and retell blatant falsehoods. The American people were lead into the current quagmire in Iraq, to say nothing of our present domestic problems, on the shoulders of fabricated evidence and outrageous lies perpetrated upon them by the Bush Administration.

The public is finally beginning to see the light and demand a change. And what are they offered by their duly elected leaders, more lies and more pernicious and noisier ones at that. We can only hope that the public has realized, at long last, that when the President and his supporters tell them that something is true, it should be taken with several of the largest grains of salt to be had.

An excellent recent, although not widely observed by the main-stream media, example of such shame faced duplicity were neo-con pundit Frank Gaffney’s claims as to the conclusions of the Iraq Study Group Report (also known as the Duelfer Report, after its chief author, and by its technical name Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq’s WMD). Mr. Gaffney made these claims while engaged in a debate with Salon.com blogger Glenn Greenwald on Alan Colmes’ syndicated radio show of February 15.

(the audio replay can be accessed on Crooks and Liars, what follows is my own transcription)

Begining at about 8:50 into the second segment

GAFFNEY: The Iraq Survey Group, the guys who went in and did a forensic analysis of what was the status of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction program, found -- contrary to what Glenn keeps saying -- that there was a hot production line for chemical and biological agents in Iraq, that there were plans to ramp it up when sanctions were lifted, which was imminent, and to place the products of those lines into aerosol cans and perfume sprayers for shipment to the United States and Europe. That's documented fact.

COLMES: Why isn't the Administration making that argument?

GAFFNEY: I don't know why they're not, but I'm telling you that's a fact!

When you ask why were people like me concerned about insuring that Saddam Hussein was not allowed to continue and to build upon relationships he did have with al-Qaeda and with people like al-Qaeda but also why it was imperative that he be removed from power that’s a precise example of why it was not only right but clearly justified.

COLMES: The Administration itself has not made that argument.

Beginning at about 13:20 into the second segment

GAFFNEY: I'm simply asking you to square what you just said with what I pointed out is the fact of what Saddam Hussein had -- which was active production of chemical and biological weapons, albeit at low levels, with the plans to ramp them up for use as terrorist weapons against the United States and Europe. That's not something I'm making up. That's not something that was misled, fraudulently presented to the American people. That's what we now know on the basis of the facts we discovered when we finally liberated Iraq.

Colmes: What about that Glenn does he have a point?

Greenwald: That is just pure fiction. That’s about as true as the Abe Lincoln quote that started off his column. We sent weapons inspectors; The Bush admin hand picked the people to search Iraq, to scour it up and down. They issued a report, the Duelfer Report and others saying that there were no weapons of mass destruction, that there were no active programs pursuing those, that that was all a fiction.

Gaffney: Glenn, you don't know the facts! You're a stickler for the facts, and you don't know the facts!

Greenwald: Don’t lie to the American people. Read the Duelfer Report

Gaffney: I did, I’m quoting to you from it. I’m citing the Duelfer Report at this very moment.

What it said is they did not find large stockpiles of chemical weapons. What happened to them is a mystery they weren't able to explain. But what they did find, and what is in the Duelfer Report, and what I'm citing, and what is fact, is that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction programs, and plans to ramp them up and use them against us. You may choose to ignore that. You may choose to say that's irrelevant.

Colmes: Cheney claimed Rumsfeld claimed before the war not that he had programs but he actually had weapons of mass destruction that was the claim. Now you are saying, then the Administration said he had weapons of mass destruction related programs, they really played with the language and added a few qualifiers didn’t they.

Gaffney: May I be clear about this? On the basis of the intelligence that was uniformly accepted by democrats and republicans, not George Bush’s manufactured certainly not mine. There was evidence Saddam Hussein had actual stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction.

Colmes: Well they were wrong.

Gaffney: There is evidence they were removed across the border into Syria. I don't know. But what is not in dispute, except from Glenn, who apparently chooses to ignore it, or at least won't come to grips with the fact it validates my position and undermines his, is that the Duelfer Report said he had production of these chemical and biological agents and he planned to put them in weapons to ship to the United States. Now that's the kind of thing that did require, I believe, the liberation of the country.

Colmes: Glenn did the Duelfer Report say that or didn’t it?

Greenwald: Everyone knows the Duelfer Report didn’t say that. I feel like I’m debating with somebody who is arguing the earth is flat and just keeps insisting.

Gaffney: Would you like to make a little wager, would you like to make a little wager on this?

Mr. Gaffney is offering as his defense wholesale fabrications of the conclusions contained within the Duelfer Report as well as other previously debunked tales of collusion and cooperation between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.

Mr. Gaffney’s claims of an Iraq – al Qaeda link have already been expertly dispensed with. The 9-11 Commission Report concluded that:

The reports describe friendly contacts and indicate some common themes in both sides’ hatred of the United States. But to date we have seen no evidence that these or the earlier contacts ever developed into a collaborative operational relationship. Nor have we seen evidence indicating that Iraq cooperated with al Qaeda in developing or carrying out any attacks against the United States.[1]

The Report of the Select Committee on Intelligence on the U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq also dealt with this supposed link that was so central to the Bush Administration’s justification for the invasion of Iraq, stating in their findings that:

There were likely several instances of contacts between Iraq and al-Qaida throughout the 1990s, but that these contacts did not add up to an established formal relationship.

We have no credible information that Baghdad had foreknowledge of the 11 September attacks or any other al-Qaida strike.[2]

The conclusions of these two reports should more than dispel any notion that Mr. Gaffney is being straight with his audience when he says:

When you ask why were people like me concerned about insuring that Saddam Hussein was not allowed to continue and to build upon relationships he did have with al-Qaeda and with people like al-Qaeda but also why it was imperative that he be removed from power that’s a precise example of why it was not only right but clearly justified.

It is nothing short of amazing that proponents of the War in Iraq continue to this day to allege an Iraq – al Qaeda link in the face of all available evidence. It is disheartening to see such allegations continue to go unchallenged by members of the press, and even more disturbing to hear them repeated in the main stream media.

Mr. Gaffney’s most blatant falsehoods concern the conclusions contained within the Duelfer Report. He first claims that:

The Iraq Survey Group, the guys who went in and did a forensic analysis of what was the status of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction program, found -- contrary to what Glenn keeps saying -- that there was a hot production line for chemical and biological agents in Iraq, that there were plans to ramp it up when sanctions were lifted, which was imminent, and to place the products of those lines into aerosol cans and perfume sprayers for shipment to the United States and Europe. That's documented fact.

A careful and systematic search of the Duelfer Report revealed no mention of “hot production line[s] for chemical and biological agents”. While the Report does mention that it was apparently Mr. Hussein’s intention to begin production of chemical weapons if sanctions were lifted, it ascertained that such production was not ongoing or available at the time of the US led invasion. The Duelfer Report does have the following to say in regards to chemical weapons in Iraq (bold and italics are original):

While a small number of old, abandoned chemical munitions have been discovered, ISG judges that Iraq unilaterally destroyed its undeclared chemical weapons stockpile in 1991. There are no credible indications that Baghdad resumed production of chemical munitions thereafter, a policy ISG attributes to Baghdad’s desire to see sanctions lifted, or rendered ineffectual, or its fear of force against it should WMD be discovered.[3]

The Duelfer Report is even more definitive in dismissing Iraq’s biological weapons capability:

In practical terms, with the destruction of the Al Hakam facility, Iraq abandoned its ambition to obtain advanced BW weapons quickly. ISG found no direct evidence that Iraq, after 1996, had plans for a new BW program or was conducting BW-specific work for military purposes. Indeed, from the mid-1990s, despite evidence of continuing interest in nuclear and chemical weapons, there appears to be a complete absence of discussion or even interest in BW at the Presidential level.[4]

Hardly Mr. Gaffney’s “hot production line”.

Mr. Gaffney’s reference to “aerosol cans and perfume sprayers” does actually have a basis in reality. In an annex to the section on Iraq’s Chemical Warfare Program the report found that:

The Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) M16 Directorate—Iraq’s Undeclared Poisons and Toxins Research

The IIS M16 directorate utilized a set of covert laboratories to produce, research, and test various chemical compounds, including the BW agent ricin. While there is no definitive evidence that M16 scientists produced CW agents in these labs, the M16 directorate may have been planning to produce several agents including sulfur mustard, nitrogen mustard, and Sarin.

· Site visits to several M16 labs, safe houses, and disposal sites have turned up no evidence of CW-related production or development, however, many of these sites were either sanitized by the regime or looted, limiting the obtainable information from site exploitations.

· ISG has had to rely heavily on sensitive reporting to understand the activity that took place at these sites, and there has only been limited, uncorroborated reporting that the M16 had produced CW agents. Several reports have stated that ricin was produced at one of these sites in the early 1990s.

· A former IIS officer claimed 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. The source claimed that they could not implement the plan because chemicals to produce the CW agents were unavailable.

Concerning these IIS labs the Duelfer Report further stated that:

ISG assesses that the IIS used these labs to develop substances that kill or incapacitate targeted individuals. Intentions of senior regime leadership with regards to these labs have been difficult to determine due to the compartmented nature of the work. ISG judges that these small-scale endeavors were not part of a WMD program.[5]

ISG uncovered information that the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) maintained throughout 1991 to 2003 a set of undeclared covert laboratories to research and test various chemicals and poisons, primarily for intelligence operations. The network of laboratories could have provided an ideal, compartmented platform from which to continue CW agent R&D or small-scale production efforts, but we have no indications this was planned.[6]

Once again the report contradicts Mr. Gaffney’s claims. Mr. Gaffney selected the un-corroborated story of a single source who claimed that there was a plan to use “perfume sprayers and medicine bottles”, a plan that was never implemented, according to the same source, because they were not able to produce the chemical weapons agents that were needed. The Duelfer Report clearly offers no support to Mr. Gaffney’s claim that Iraq had imminent plans to ship chemical weapons to the United States. Such a plan, especially its feasibility, is anything but “documented fact” according to the report.

Mr. Gaffney continued to insist that “what is in the Duelfer Report, and what I'm citing, and what is fact, is that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction programs.” He went on, claiming; “There was evidence Saddam Hussein had actual stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction.” And “the Duelfer Report said he had production of these chemical and biological agents and he planned to put them in weapons to ship to the United States.” As stated above a careful and systematic search of the Duelfer Report found no conclusions that Iraq had functioning weapons of mass destruction programs or stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons. The main conclusions offered by the report concerning chemical and biological weapons were (already stated above):

While a small number of old, abandoned chemical munitions have been discovered, ISG judges that Iraq unilaterally destroyed its undeclared chemical weapons stockpile in 1991. There are no credible indications that Baghdad resumed production of chemical munitions thereafter

ISG found no direct evidence that Iraq, after 1996, had plans for a new BW program or was conducting BW-specific work for military purposes.

The Duelfer Report drew the following conclusion regarding Iraq’s nuclear weapons capability:

Iraq Survey Group (ISG) discovered further evidence of the maturity and significance of the pre-1991 Iraqi Nuclear Program but found that Iraq’s ability to reconstitute a nuclear weapons program progressively decayed after that date.

· Saddam Husayn ended the nuclear program in 1991 following the Gulf war. ISG found no evidence to suggest concerted efforts to restart the program.[7]

Mr. Gaffney also suggested that Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction might have been shipped to Syria. No mention whatsoever is made of this scenario in the Duelfer Report. As is so often the case the burden of proof lies with the information’s professor; because Mr. Gaffney or President Bush says it is so does not make it true. Not even offering to bet on it, as Mr. Gaffney so immaturely did, can create truth from fiction. The only thing that will do is lighten Mr. Gaffney’s wallet.

Mr. Colmes did well to ask Mr. Gaffney why, if his claims were true, the Bush Administration was not also making them. Unfortunately far too few journalists have maintained their integrity and managed to ask such important questions. One of which would be; If Iraq did indeed posses weapons of mass destruction, and harbored a desire to use them against the United States, why did Iraq not use said weapons against American troops invading their country? The answer is obvious, and must be that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction. This is in fact the answer that the Duelfer Report gives:

Discussions concerning WMD, particularly leading up to OIF, would have been highly compartmentalized within the Regime. ISG found no credible evidence that any field elements knew about plans for CW use during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

· Uday—head of the Fedayeen Saddam—attempted to obtain chemical weapons for use during OIF, according to reporting, but ISG found no evidence that Iraq ever came into possession of any CW weapons.[8]

Mr. Greenwald and other columnists and bloggers have been left to pick up the slack and ask the tough questions that need answering. The main stream media has abandoned its responsibility to its audience, the American People, and in the place of effective honest journalism based upon fact we are left with nothing more than the fantasies of the right-wing public relations machine.

---

[1] The 9-11 Commission Report, p. 66, http://www.gpoaccess.gov/911/pdf/fullreport.pdf

[2] Report of the Select Committee on Intelligence on the U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq, p. 364, p. 338, http://www.gpoaccess.gov/serialset/creports/iraq.html

[3] Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq’s WMD, Vol. 3 – Iraq’s Chemical Warfare Program – Key Findings, https://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd_2004/index.html

[4] Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq’s WMD, Vol. 3 – Biological Warfare – Key Findings

[5] Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq’s WMD, Vol. 3 – Iraq’s Chemical Warfare Program – Annex A

[6] Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq’s WMD, Vol. 3 – Iraq’s Chemical Warfare Program – Key Findings

[7] Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq’s WMD, Vol. 2 – Nuclear – Key Findings

[8] Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq’s WMD, Vol. 3 – Iraq’s Chemical Warfare Program – Key Findings

Useful links concerning this post:

Duelfer Report

Glenn Greenwald

Frank Gaffney

A Tiny Revolution (similar post)

Wikipedia on Iraq Study Group