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The Honolulu Advertiser

Posted on: Thursday, May 29, 2003

EDITORIAL
Rumsfeld remark on Iraq raises questions

In response to a question after his speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York the other day, a question about why American forces have yet to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that it's "possible" that the Iraqis "decided they would destroy them prior to a conflict."

We wonder if Rumsfeld understands the potentially monstrous implication of that remark.

In February, in what then seemed his finest hour, Secretary of State Colin Powell sought to prove to the U.N. Security Council that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction poised for use. That case formed the principle cause for the war against Iraq.

The Iraqis, in the run-up to the war, maintained steadfastly that they had no prohibited weapons, that those they once had possessed had been destroyed.

Rumsfeld now acknowledges the possibility that this is true.

If so, it's hard to escape the conclusion that either the United States and its allies are guilty of mounting an invasion resulting in the deaths of several thousand Iraqis, about 150 allied soldiers and widespread destruction on the basis of a mistaken presumption; or that the claims about the Iraqi threat were somehow twisted or fabricated.

The issue, however, is subject to complications:

• First, there are tantalizing indications of Iraqi WMD capabilities. Indeed, a total absence of WMD would be very surprising. Examination of two trailers has found them capable of producing biological agents. But there is no evidence the trailers produced such agents, nor has any operable delivery system been matched to these trailers.

But the Bush administration claimed not only that the Iraqis were capable of producing WMD, which is a well-established fact, but that these weapons existed in massive quantities and constituted an imminent threat. A couple of trailers falls far short.

• Second, the armed threat presented by Iraq, whatever its true nature, never was the sole reason for war. Another stated reason was liberation from Saddam Hussein's tyranny and establishment of a democracy, a goal now being pursued with a puzzling lack of urgency.

Other goals, discussed by administration officials only off the record, had to do with control of Iraq's oil and the strategic advantage of being able to locate military bases there. The United Nations now has placed Iraq, and its oil, under U.S. and British administration, and Washington has not hesitated to use its new leverage against Syria and Iran.

Was the American public and the U.N. misled? Former Sen. Sam Nunn has urged Congress to investigate the possibility that President Bush's policy against Saddam influenced — and perhaps distorted — the intelligence that indicated Baghdad had weapons of mass destruction. The CIA has embarked on its own review of this issue, and an unclassified report must eventually be made public.