Investigating the Weapons That Weren’t
Many international online observers are not impressed by the announcement this week of blue-ribbon inquiries seeking to learn how U.S. and British intelligence agencies managed the intelligence about Saddam Hussein’s apparently non-existent weapons of mass destruction.
In much of the world, commentators expect a double dose of stalling and dodging designed to scapegoat the intelligence agencies and protect President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair. A minority of observers call for a thorough accounting of what they regard as a profound but honest mistake.
The commentary on the parallel probes points to the continuing convergence of postwar politics in London and Washington.
In each capital, doubts about the Iraq war were stoked last summer by media scandals, starring characters distinctive to their cultures.
The British version focused on David Kelly, a shambling weapons expert who committed suicide after being exposed as the source of an inaccurate BBC story highly critical of Blair. The American scandal featured Valerie Plame, a comely CIA undercover officer outed by unknown White House officials eager to discredit her husband, a critic of the Iraq war.
In both countries, these doubts culminated in the conclusion of former U.S. weapons inspector David Kay that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction at the time of the coalition attack. Now, both Bush and Blair have been forced to accept outside scrutiny of their handling of pre-war intelligence.
For the Madrid daily, El Pais (in Spanish) , the two investigations will mainly serve “as a shield to protect Bush and Blair, for they won’t discover the political reasons for invading Iraq. Moreover, their findings, whose independence stands in doubt, will not be issued in the case of Washington until after the elections in November.”
The editors of the Hindustan Times in India, say that Bush and Blair “may still try to change the argument by saying that, whether there were WMD or not, the world is a safer place with Mr. Hussein behind bars. But such ploys will not dilute the main charge against them — that they launched a pre-emptive strike on the basis of wrong information.”
Attempting to blame the intelligence agencies, the editors add, “may backfire if it comes to light that the White House and 10 Downing Street put pressure on the agencies to provide the information which Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair wanted to hear.”
But Bush and Blair’s defenders warn against politicizing the inquiries.
“The most you can say is that Blair and his ministers presented information they thought to be true in a fashion designed to be supportive of their general argument for war,” argues The Australian. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“This mystery has many layers yet to be uncovered. But on the evidence, Bush, Blair and (Australian President John) Howard told no lies and deserve no censure.”
The Madrid daily, ABC (in Spanish, registration required) says, “the still undiscovered weapons of mass destruction have highlighted not deception but a collective error. Finding out how everyone was mistaken is a necessary exercise.”
Some commentators say the investigations call into question Bush and Blair’s ability to effectively carry out the war on terrorism.
Analyst Stefano Silvestri, writing in the Milan daily Il Sole 24 Ore (in Italian) , says Kay’s admission had “a devastating political impact” on Bush by forcing him “to run for the shelter” of an independent inquiry.
Bush’s biggest problem now, Silvestri argues, is that people question his grand strategy for the war on terrorism. Waging preemptive wars on the basis of intelligence is “clearly impossible, or at least far more difficult, if the intelligence provided is not genuinely credible.”
“The result of this creeping crisis,” he concludes, “could turn out to be highly dangerous for the security of all of us. International terrorism may well emerge the stronger.”
In South Africa, The Sowetan , a Johannesburg daily with a mostly black readership, is harsher, saying the justification for the Iraq war “has never been weaker” and U.S. image “as a defender of human rights and democracy has never been more vulnerable.”
Bush and Blair, the editors say, “stand criminally liable for the death of thousands of defenseless Iraqi civilians killed in US and British bombing raids. Both should rightly be held accountable before an international tribunal. For obvious reasons, that will not happen.
“But this does not render the development insignificant,” they conclude. “On the contrary it vindicates the majority in the world who were opposed to the war. ”
In London, columnist John Pilger of the tabloid The Mirror echoes the angry tone. The American and British leaders, he writes, “ordered an unprovoked invasion of another country on a totally false pretext. [The] lies and deceptions manufactured in London and Washington caused the deaths of up to 55,000 Iraqis, including 9,600 civilians.”