Duelfer Report on Iraqi WMD’s – A Former Analyst’s Preliminary Reaction

Charles A. Duelfer, head of the CIA's Iraq Survey Group has issued a a comprehensive report on the search for Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction.

I’m writing an opinion column on this to be published next month. Based on my reading of the report’s key findings, here is the case I intend to make:

• The Bush administration got it partly right – Iraq did have WMD programs.
• The urgency of proving the existence of these programs caused them to overlook a key question: have the programs reached the final stages necessary to be a current military threat?
• These programs were all in early stages, although some of them could have progressed rapidly (i.e. in a few years) after the removal of UN sanctions on Iraq.

The Bush administration could have made a different, stronger case: As the nerve agent attack on a Tokyo subway in 1995 showed, a terrorist threat can be mounted without elaborate WMD programs. The administration had to have assumed that Iraq could release small amounts of WMD to a terrorist group. It was not necessary to show a connection with Al Qaeda, there were other terrorist groups. In 1995, the attack by the Japanese “supreme truth” cult was considered minimally effective – only 10 people died. After September 11, 2001 a similar attack would have been perceived as striking against a vital national interest.

(Note that I was making this case in March and again in in July).

This case would, however, raise another question: it is not clear to me that Operation Iraqi Freedom was the best way of interrupting this lower level threat.

Comments

[Herb Ely]

Jim,
Thanks for your comment – and for the link to the CDC report. When I used the word “elaborate”, I was thinking of the kind of program a conventional military must use if they want to be trained and ready to use a new weapon. In the case of a WMD these programs must be even more thorough. As such, they are more easily detectable by intelligence. The Aum Shinrikyo case is instructive. Terrorist organizations can conduct extensive WMD programs – especially if they can get help from a country that already has such programs in existence. This is the threat that should have occupied most of the Bush administration’s attention prior to the war. Had they done so, they might have taken actions other than a large-scale invasion. It was not necessary to document the presence of Al Qaeda. There were other terrorist organizations in contact with Saddam.

All of this, of course, is analysis done with the benefit of hindsight.
Randy,
You are right. There is a risk in reaching conclusions before all of the evidence is in. This morning’s news about nuclear materials found in Iraq is only more evidence of this. However, there is another side to the question: The right answer, gathered after all the evidence has been collected and evaluated, but delivered late to the decision maker, is useless.

Further evidence may change my basic conclusion: the intelligence community was so focused on proving the existence of Iraqi WMD programs that it failed to assess the progress of these programs. (The intel analysts had to assume that they could be fooled again. Saddam had concealed much of his nuclear program during the 80’s.)

[randy]

herb,
as an analyst, you know the inaccuracies of making conclusions before all the evidence is in.
did not dalfeur on cspan mention that they had triaged 400,000 documents with 450,000 to go?
did you catch the cns article which stated they had 42 pages of documents which showed hussein had wmd? don't know cns creditability so i can't verify.
just some more fodder for your article. looks forward to it
R

[Jim Holman]

The lesson of the Tokyo subway attack is not that " terrorist threat can be mounted without elaborate WMD programs." Rather, the lesson is that if you want to stage a terrorist attack, you can get everything you need in-country, as we have seen time and again. Aum Shinrikyo actually had an elaborate WMD program, but built and funded internally.

I discuss this issue on my blog at
http://analyst.typepad.com/passionate_intensity/2004/09/homegrown_wmd.html