What administration had argued
With its thunderous air and missile assault against Afghanistan on Oct. 7, 2001, the Bush administration began its campaign against state sponsors of global terror. The goal: to intercept terror overseas, rather than suffer it at home.
That agenda grew into a more controversial policy of pre-emptive strikes against governments judged as threats–either for what they themselves might do or for the terror groups they might covertly assist.
In 2002 and early 2003, the White House included in its case for war the charge that with Afghanistan no longer a haven for terror groups, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was its likely successor.
Speaking in Cincinnati on Oct. 7, 2002, President Bush told the world that he and his countrymen “must never forget the most vivid events of recent history. On Sept. 11, 2001, America felt its vulnerability–even to threats that gather on the other side of the Earth. We resolved then, and we are resolved today, to confront every threat, from any source, that could bring sudden terror and suffering to America. …
“Some have argued that confronting the threat from Iraq could detract from the war against terror. To the contrary, confronting the threat posed by Iraq is crucial to winning the war on terror.
“When I spoke to Congress more than a year ago, I said that those who harbor terrorists are as guilty as the terrorists themselves. Saddam Hussein is harboring terrorists and the instruments of terror, the instruments of mass death and destruction. And he cannot be trusted. The risk is simply too great that he will use them, or provide them to a terror network.
“Terror cells and outlaw regimes building weapons of mass destruction are different faces of the same evil. Our security requires that we confront both. And the United States military is capable of confronting both.”
Bush expanded on this theme during his 2003 State of the Union address: “Today, the gravest danger in the war on terror–the gravest danger facing America and the world–is outlaw regimes that seek and possess nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. These regimes could use such weapons for blackmail, terror and mass murder. They could also give or sell those weapons to terrorist allies, who would use them without the least hesitation.
In his Feb. 5, 2003, presentation to the United Nations Security Council, Secretary of State Colin Powell said: “Our concern is not just about these illicit weapons. It’s the way that these illicit weapons can be connected to terrorists and terrorist organizations that have no compunction about using such devices against innocent people around the world. Iraq and terrorism go back decades. Baghdad trains Palestine Liberation Front members in small arms and explosives. Saddam uses the Arab Liberation Front to funnel money to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers in order to prolong the intifada. And it’s no secret that Saddam’s own intelligence service was involved in dozens of attacks or attempted assassinations in the 1990s.”
Vice President Dick Cheney put Powell’s argument in historical context during a March 16, 2003, appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press”: “If you look back at our strategies that we used in the 20th Century, specifically, say vis-a-vis the Soviet Union during the Cold War, we had a policy of containment, alliances, NATO in particular [was] very successful at containing the Soviet Union, a policy of deterrence. … [W]e were able to forestall a conflict throughout that whole period of time. Enormously successful policy.
“Then you look at the proposition of a handful of terrorists operating in a part of the world where they find sanctuary and safe haven in a rogue state or in an area that’s not even really governed by anybody, developing these capabilities to use against the United States. And how do you apply containment to that situation? How do you deter terrorists when there’s nothing they value that they’re prepared to defend, when they’re prepared even to sacrifice their own lives in the effort to kill Americans ….
“Now, if we simply sit back and operate by 20th Century standards with respect to national security strategy, in terms of how we’re going to deal with this, we say wait until we are hit by an identifiable attack from Iraq. The consequences could be devastating for the United States. …
“We have to be prepared now to take the kind of bold action that’s being contemplated with respect to Iraq in order to ensure that we don’t get hit with a devastating attack when the terrorists’ organization gets married up with a rogue state that’s willing to provide it with the kinds of deadly capabilities that Saddam Hussein has developed and used over the years.”
What we know today
The drumbeat of White House warnings before the war made Iraq’s terror activities sound more ambitious than subsequent evidence has proven. Future disclosures from Iraq’s and other governments’ secret files likely will fill numerous blanks in Hussein’s record of support for terror. But, based on what we know today, the argument that Saddam Hussein was able to foment global terror against this country and its interests was exaggerated.
Intelligence reports that the Bush administration had in hand before the war said Hussein was contemplating the use of terror against the U.S. or its allies in and beyond his region. But he evidently had not done so on a broad scale. Nor is it clear whether some of Hussein’s interest in cultivating international terror groups, as recorded in those intel reports, was primarily a defensive plan to counter a U.S.-led invasion.
Cutting to three chase scenes:
– Have discoveries since the invasion of Iraq proven that Saddam Hussein was, at that time, a significant sponsor of global terror?
No. The most menacing of these prewar allegations involved Iraqi connections to Al Qaeda, an intriguing topic that will be probed in the seventh installment of this series. Administration critics who say Iraq and Al Qaeda didn’t, and couldn’t, have links evidently are mistaken. But based on what we know now, the White Houses fanned more fear about those links than subsequent disclosures have justified.
Did Hussein funnel any illicit weapons to terrorists? The most succinct, if unsure, response came from chief U.S. weapons inspector David Kay in his January 2004 testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee: “I consider that a bigger risk than the restart of his programs’ being successful…. [T]hat probably was a risk that, if we did avoid, we barely avoided.”
In its July 9, 2004, report criticizing the work of U.S. spy agencies, the Senate Intelligence Committee cited numerous analysts’ assessments, produced from 1999 into 2003, of Iraq’s terror connections. One theme of those assessments: “Iraq’s actions and various intelligence reports suggest [Hussein at that time was] contemplating the use of terrorism in and beyond the region, sabotage and subversive activities in Kuwait and/or Saudi Arabia, and limited military strikes against these states and regionally based U.S. forces.”
A January 2003 CIA document cited by the committee, “Iraqi Support for Terrorism”, stated: “Iraq continues to be a safe haven, transit point or operational node for groups and individuals who direct violence against the United States, Israel and other allies. Iraq has a long history of supporting terrorism.”
In general, the Senate report treated these warnings about Iraq and terror as more authoritative than it did the intelligence agencies’ debunked assertions about Hussein’s weapons programs. The disturbing corollary, of course, is that the same agencies that got the weapons so wrong were, and are, the primary sources of intelligence about Iraq’s connections to terror.
– Would Hussein’s Iraq have become the new Afghanistan, treating terror groups to the freedom of movement that comes with state sponsorship?
That we’ll never know. Hussein stands defrocked, and a new government rules Iraq. But postwar disclosures do not paint Iraq as a latter-day Afghanistan, where the Taliban had welcomed expansive Al Qaeda operations.
There is evidence that a number of Al Qaeda members did locate in Iraq, and it appears Hussein did harbor the notorious Abu Abbas, convicted of hijacking the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro in 1985.
Also, numerous intelligence reports bolster Colin Powell’s assertions that Iraq supported Palestinian terror against Israel. Powell’s accusations on such issues as bounties to the families of suicide terrorists have survived scrutiny from subsequent probes. The CIA gave the Senate Intelligence Committee 53 reports on Iraq’s links to Palestinian groups. The regime’s support of Palestinian attacks on Israel, the CIA said, included payments of $10 million to $15 million to families of suicide bombers. The committee concluded: “The CIA was reasonable in judging that Iraq appeared to have been reaching out to more-effective terrorist groups, such as Hezbollah and Hamas, and might have intended to employ such surrogates in the event of war.”
The committee did not buy the assertion by critics that the administration had stretched what intelligence agencies recounted: “None of the portrayals of the intelligence reporting included in Secretary Powell’s speech differed in any significant way from earlier assessments published by the Central Intelligence Agency.”
Taken as a whole, though, the administration’s assertion that Hussein was, in Bush’s words, “harboring terrorists and the instruments of terror,” overstated what we know today.
– The Bush administration portrays conflict in Iraq as part of a challenge to terror prompted by Sept. 11, 2001. Years from now, will the war in Iraq be judged a blow to global terror–or a foolish diversion that allowed it to flourish?
Historians easily will discern that coalition and Iraqi forces prevailed against radical Islamists mounting their Alamo moment against the advance of liberal democracy–or, conversely, that the extremists scored a galvanic victory by forcing the Great Satan to retreat.
Iraq has served as a unifying cause for Islamist extremists, many of whom have been killed or captured there. That said, those who survive will carry what they’ve learned about jihad and terror to their homelands. The ultimate answer to whether the war is a blow to global terror likely pivots on who prevails: the troops or the terrorists.
The bottom line on Hussein as a past and probable instigator of global terror: The administration’s case reflected the intelligence community’s evidently exaggerated surmise–and the administration’s convictions–beyond the less bombastic facts on the ground.
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Without proof that Hussein armed, or would arm, global networks, how could an American president assert that the possibility of such ties was a compelling argument for war?
One man’s thoughts:
“After 9/11 … if you had been president, you’d think, Well, this fellow bin Laden just turned these three airplanes full of fuel into weapons of mass destruction, right? Arguably they were super-powerful chemical weapons. Think about it that way. So, you’re sitting there as president, you’re reeling in the aftermath of this, so, yeah, you want to go get bin Laden and do Afghanistan and all that. But you also have to say, Well, my first responsibility now is to try everything possible to make sure that this terrorist network and other terrorist networks cannot reach chemical and biological weapons or small amounts of fissile material. I’ve got to do that.
“That’s why I supported the Iraq thing. … You couldn’t responsibly ignore [the possibility that] a tyrant had these stocks. I never really thought he’d [use them]. What I was far more worried about was that he’d sell this stuff or give it away.”
Bill Clinton has since hedged his support for his successor’s war in Iraq. But it is hard to read Clinton’s you-are-there parable in the June 28, 2004, issue of Time magazine without sharing, if only for a moment, the burden every American president will carry from this era forward.
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PREVIOUS INSTALLMENTS TODAY
Biological and chemical weapons
(Nov. 20) Was Iraq a serious threat?
Iraq rebuffs the world
(Nov. 25) Would the UN enforce its edicts?
The quest for nukes
(Nov. 30) Could Iraq wield the bomb?
TODAY
Hussein’s rope-a-dope
Was he stalling for advantage?
UPCOMING
Waging war on terror
Did Iraq play a menacing role?
Reform in the Middle East
Would democracy advance security
Iraq and Al Qaeda
Did a connection exist?
The Butcher of Baghdad
Why did world avert its eyes?
Iraqis liberated
Would rivals birth a government?
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ON THE INTERNET: Find links to earlier installments, to the texts of administration officials’ speeches and to the full investigative reports at chicagotribune.com/
