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About Those WMDs...
"A concerted effort by the US intelligence and political world to stifle... an explosive revelation of their own lethal incompetence."
Former US Air Force special investigator Dave Gaubatz claims that he found Saddam Hussein's chemical, biological and nuclear weapons bunkers.
Gaubatz says he visited the facilities - buried deep underground, in four separate sites - between March and July 2003. He advised the Iraq Study Group to excavate the bunkers, "before someone else did." The group failed to do so, citing dangers and numerous conflicting reports of other potential WMD sites at the time.
British, Iraqi and CIA insiders later told him others did get to the sites: Iraqis and Syrians, with Russian help, moved their contents to Syria.
As Melanie Phillips, who reports Gaubatz's version of events in this week's Spectator writes,
"The location in Syria of this material, he says, is also known to these intelligence agencies. The worst-case scenario has now come about. Saddam’s nuclear, biological and chemical material is in the hands of a rogue terrorist state — and one with close links to Iran."
She reports on Guabatz's claims that all 60 of the reports he filed went missing; that the US mainstream media has depicted him as a rogue agent or a crank; and that the FBI leaned on a US news channel to prevent an interview with him being broadcast.
Phillips says that Republicans won't touch Guabatz's claims because they demonstrate the Bush administration's incompetence; the Democrats aren't interested in proving that the causus belli of Saddam's WMD was right all along.
There are so many hows and what-ifs in the story that, even while it merits investigation, raise eyebrows. How was Saddam's complete WMD programme smuggled to Syria from four locations, even in the confusion of war? How did the Russians help, and whatever for? If Moscow is determined to ensure Syria and Iran have Islamic Bombs with which to threaten or attack the rest, well, there are easier ways to supply them than a risky trek across war-torn Iraq.
Also, surely as the month's following the March invasion of Iraq passed and no credible evidence of weapons sites emerged, the Iraq Study Group would have come under desperate pressure to uncover secret bunkers? In retrospect, yes, Bush's supporters don't need the public to know WMDs were smuggled out but at the time, they were extremely eager to find evidence - any evidence - of their existence. And if they discovered they had been smuggled to Syria, well, there were 100,000 troops in the region ready to pursue this angle of enquiry.
EURSOC doesn't know Mr Gaubatz or much about his service history, but if he is as respected as Phillips claims, then surely his warnings would get first response, at least back in 2003?
Despite these questions, and many others, it's a compelling story. It doubly strange that conspiracy theories like those claiming the US was behind the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, receive such attention, while Gaubatz's tale has been shuffled to the sidelines.
