Top US intelligence expert: Saddam 'destroyed weapons in 1990s'

[shanek]

Professor Richard Shultz, one of the United States' top intelligence experts, contends that at some point before 2000 the Iraqis changed their strategy. "I think US intelligence misunderstood the WMD issue. But then so did everyone else," he said.

"It is almost certain that Saddam ordered the weapons dismantled or destroyed some time in the 1990s. Sanctions had seriously impeded the Iraqi efforts to obtain materials and equipment for their WMD programmes.

"The Iraqi strategy was to get sanctions lifted and they mounted a deception ... But then [Osama] bin Laden got in the way. After September 11 the Bush administration turned its attention firmly to Iraq," says Prof Shultz, who believes that the World Trade Centre attacks disrupted the Iraqi strategy.

Dr Magnus Ranstorp of St Andrews University says Prof Shultz's explanation is "very valid": "I think they will eventually find evidence of a WMD programme but I think we have already had indications that it was dispersed."

Evidence given in the US this week suggests that US intelligence analysts lacked new, hard information about Saddam's weapons after United Nations inspectors left Iraq in 1998. The CIA had to rely on data from the early and mid-1990s, from which it concluded in months leading up to the war that those programmes continued into 2003. These are the leaked preliminary findings of a CIA internal review panel.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=422099

[crackmonkey]

Why would one of the world's leading authorities on intelligence be working for Tufts University's school of law and diplomacy?
This article has no facts backing up their purported authorities' musings, but let's assume that Saddam did destroy his WMD stocks in the 90s. Why, then, wouldn't Saddam announce the fact with great fanfare, and produce documents, witnesses, and the sites of WMD disposal as evidence? If he wanted sanctions lifted, he merely had to turn over a few documents to a mostly sympathetic UN. The best way for Saddam to checkmate the US would be to give the UN a reason to dismantle sanctions and go home... Saddam would be free to rebuild his military. No, this 'leak' just doesn't add up.

[shanek]

Originally posted by crackmonkey
This article has no facts backing up their purported authorities' musings, but let's assume that Saddam did destroy his WMD stocks in the 90s. Why, then, wouldn't Saddam announce the fact with great fanfare, and produce documents, witnesses, and the sites of WMD disposal as evidence?

He did, as was discussed here at the time. This would have been the ones that Scott Ritter was referring to, but people both here and in the Bush Administration said that there was new evidence of new weapons and if Saddam wanted to avoid sanctions he'd turn over evidence that he destroyed those, too.

But that evidence was bad...So, how could Saddam provide proof of the destruction of weapons that never existed?

[corplinx]

Intelligence outside expert? Intelligence insider? This is ambiguous at best. I take it he is someone who studies our intelligence agencies and is therefore an intelligence "expert" yet is still an outsider?

Is this an attempt by the Independent to mislead the reader through the reader's own assumptions?

In the case of nuclear technology we know for certain that it was not destroyed. It was merely buried in someone's backyard. Why would Saddam bury one technology and destroy another? I could see him destroying bio agents that have gone bad obviously.

[Crossbow]

Originally posted by corplinx
...

In the case of nuclear technology we know for certain that it was not destroyed. It was merely buried in someone's backyard. Why would Saddam bury one technology and destroy another? I could see him destroying bio agents that have gone bad obviously.

That is a good question and I think it bears an answer.

If you recall, there was considerable discussion prior to the last war as to just what type of person Saddam was. He was known to be very egotistical, very brutal, and very paranoid, however he was also very much a survivor. It is due to his strong survival trait that he buried one technology and destroyed another for he knew that he and his country would be destroyed if he was actually caught with WMDs.