Carnegie Report
WMD in Iraq: Evidence and Implications
Thu Jan 8 15:17:19 2004
64.140.158.96

WMD in Iraq: Evidence and Implications
http://www.ceip.org/files/projects/npp/resources/iraqintell/home.htm

This new Carnegie Report studies what the intelligence community understood about Iraq's WMD programs before the war and outlines policy reforms designed to improve threat assessments, deter transfer of WMD to terrorists, and avoid politicization of the intelligence process.

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• Two-Page Summary
• Key Findings and Summary of Recommendations
• Chapter 1: Introduction
• Chapter 2: Iraq's WMD Capabilities
• Chapter 3: Findings and Recommendations
• Supplementary Report Materials
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The following is taken from Iraq: What Next, a report published by the Carnegie Endowment detailing concerns over Iraq's weapons capabilities and assessing the status of inspections. The report is available in its entirely below.

Failure would be an Iraq with weapons of mass destruction in the possession of a hostile regime, and the United States and/or the Security Council discredited and powerless to reverse this situation.

Success as defined by the Security Council and accepted by the broader international community would be an Iraq verifiably free of weapons of mass destruction. Notwithstanding the heinous nature of the Iraqi regime, Security Council Resolution 1441 clearly states its aim in paragraph 2 as "bringing to full and verified completion the disarmament process." The resolution does not address the regime's removal.

Success could come about as the result of voluntary Iraqi action that is verified to UNMOVIC's satisfaction, or as the result of hidden Iraqi weapons being discovered and thereafter destroyed by UNMOVIC. Both of these outcomes are envisioned under Security Council Resolution 1441. There would be no need for the elaborate rights and resources accorded to UNMOVIC if complete Iraqi cooperation-in effect, voluntary surrender of its WMD and related programs-could be realistically expected.

A Third Possibility would be an Iraq disarmed as the result of a U.S.-led invasion and post-war process of occupation, inspections, and disarmament. Though this variant has not yet been endorsed by the international community, depending on the degree to which others judge the reasons for launching a war to be compelling, it might be obtained. If the United States were to begin a war without such an endorsement, the costs and risks of both the war and its aftermath would escalate steeply. Even if carried out through a coalition, a war would be seen in the region as an American war and would almost certainly bring many new recruits to the ranks of anti-American terrorists. Though the military outcome would be a victory, it could come at an enormous near- and long-term cost.

Realistic variants of failure include an inspection process that yields no clear outcome-either that Iraq has been verifiably disarmed, or that it possesses weapons of mass destruction. Some permanent members of the UN Security Council would likely conclude from this nebulous denouement that military pressure on Iraq should be scaled back and sanctions should be relieved. The United States would strongly disagree on both counts.

Another variant of failure would be regime change in Iraq (by coup or outside hands), withdrawal of international disarmament inspectors, and a subsequent decision by the new Iraqi government to retain or acquire some WMD capability as a deterrent against another such attack or against other threats in a dangerous neighborhood.

One could argue further that it would be a failure if a military action prompted an otherwise contained Saddam Hussein to unleash chemical or biological weapons against Israel and/or U.S. forces, prompting Israel and/or the United States to use nuclear weapons in response. Beyond the humanitarian consequences, and even assuming the defeat of Saddam and disarmament of Iraq, this use of nuclear weapons against a Muslim people would cause lasting political and moral upset in the international system. The United States (and Israel) would find it exceedingly difficult to manage the ensuing backlash.

Initially, the aim of U.S. policy was to prevent an imminent threat of attack by Iraq against the U.S. and allied forces, territory, and friends. That goal has, for now, been achieved. Saddam Hussein is effectively incarcerated and under watch by a force that could respond immediately and devastatingly to any aggression. Inside Iraq, the inspection teams preclude any significant advance in WMD capabilities. The status quo is safe for the American people.

If, as President Bush has stated and the UN Security Council has determined, the current aim is to achieve and verify Iraq's compliance with its obligations to disarm itself of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and long-range missiles, then the intended process has not yet been completed. Indeed, it has barely begun. Inspections have neither failed nor succeeded, and much more time is required to reach either outcome. This is not due to delay by Iraq or to a less than all-out effort by the inspection teams. The tight deadlines in Resolution 1441 were meant to jumpstart a process, not to define its extent.

The crucial issue before the United States at this moment then is on what grounds it would terminate inspections in midcourse in favor of an immediate invasion. Iraq's failure to produce a complete declaration does constitute a material breach of Resolution 1441. The question, however, is whether it constitutes a wise, compelling, and necessary casus belli. We believe that it does not. Only if the administration's true aim is to remove the current government of Iraq as a matter of principle would a turn to war at this moment make sense. If that is the case, of course the inspection and disarmament process now underway is irrelevant.

Given the immense costs and risks of war, all of which rise sharply without broad international support, inspections should continue until they are obstructed (which should trigger their immediate end, followed by invasion) or succeed. This requires the United States, and the international community as a whole, to keep intense pressure on Iraq. U.S. forces will have to-and can-continue their deployment until Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction and missile capabilities have been verifiably disarmed. There is an economic and human cost to this deployment that is a tiny fraction of the costs in both dimensions that would be incurred by a war.

Jessica T. Mathews is president of the Carnegie Endowment and George Perkovich is vice president for studies. Joseph Cirincione is a senior associate and director of the Carnegie Non-Proliferation Project.

Additional Resources:

* "Iraq: What Next?" report by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, January 2003
http://www.ceip.org/files/projects/npp/pdf/Iraq/webfinalv2.pdf

* Complete Resources on the Crisis in Iraq
http://www.ceip.org/iraq
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Report Criticizes U.S. on Iraq
U.N. Should Be Part of Weapons Program Probe, Group Says

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 8, 2004; Page A17
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63272-2004Jan7.html
 
The United States should bring U.N. inspectors into the probe of Iraq's weapons programs to accurately understand how effective the United Nations was in using inspections, sanctions and monitoring to constrain Saddam Hussein, concludes a new study by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.


The report, to be released today, also criticizes the Bush administration's public assessments of the danger posed by Hussein's Iraq in the months leading to the war. It describes as "questionable" and "unexamined" the threat cited by administration officials that Iraq or another rogue state would turn over chemical, biological or nuclear weapons to terrorists.

More logical, the Carnegie report said, is the possibility that terrorists could get such weapons from "poorly guarded stockpiles in Russia and other former Soviet states" or countries such as Pakistan and North Korea, where "instability, corruption or a desperate need for cash could allow terrorist groups to gain access to nuclear weapons or materials."

The solution Carnegie proposes is to make security of nuclear weapons and materials "a much higher priority" for U.S. national security policy.

Much of the Carnegie report examines prewar intelligence reports and statements by administration officials about Hussein's Iraq.

For example, the report said that in mid-2002, "official statements of the threat shifted dramatically toward greater alarm regarding certainty of the threat and greater certainty as to the evidence." The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) produced by the administration for Congress in October 2002, it said, "went far beyond the consensus intelligence assessments of the preceding five years." It adds, "The declassified NIE contained 40 distinct caveats or conditions usually dropped by officials" in their public statements.

On ABC's "Nightline" program last night, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell was asked about the administration's prewar statements and about the failure of the United States' Iraq Survey Group, led by David Kay, to find weapons of mass destruction.

Powell said he had worked to convey as accurate a picture as possible in public comments, given the limited information available before the war. He emphasized that intelligence, and the fact that Hussein's government had used chemical weapons in the late 1980s, "led us to the conclusion, led the intelligence community to the conclusion that they still had intent, they still had capability and they were not going to give up that capability." How many weapons were there, he said, "we'll find out when Dr. Kay finishes his work."

The Carnegie report noted that the United States has resisted allowing U.N. weapons inspectors -- who have seven years of experience in Iraq -- to participate in the work of its Iraq Survey Group. That resistance, the report said, interferes with the goal of figuring out whether years of sanctions and U.N. weapons inspections worked, and might work again in another country.

"The role and impact of each of the several constraints imposed on Iraq need to be isolated and clarified so that useful lessons can be drawn," the report said. "The United States and the United Nations should collaborate to produce a complete history of Iraq's WMD and missile programs."

The report urges U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to study the U.N. inspection history in Iraq to determine the success of visits to suspected weapons sites, and to investigate better ways to use technology and intelligence. Both these areas were problematic while U.N. inspectors were operating in Iraq before the war.

Results of such a study could help in carrying another of the report's recommendations to the U.N. Security Council: consideration of creating a permanent inspection agency to monitor proliferation of chemical and biological weapons material.

Currently, the International Atomic Energy Agency studies nuclear weapons issues, but only in countries that have signed the nuclear nonproliferation treaty. The U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission was established to look into Iraq's chemical and biological programs and its missile systems. Some nations believe that agency should be retained and given a broader mission.

The Carnegie report also urges the Security Council to make it a violation of international law for any nation to transfer weapons of mass destruction to any other government, regardless of whether those nations have signed nonproliferation treaties.

© 2004 The Washington Post Company
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• A Short History of Regime Change and WMDs — Grant Wakefield, Fri Jan 9 00:53
• BUSH, "F**K LEAKGATE" — LEAK-GATE, Thu Jan 8 22:49
• Iraq weapons report draws another blank — BBC News Online, Thu Jan 8 15:56
• CIA Key Judgements: Iraqi Weapons Program — cia.gov, Thu Jan 8 16:05
• US withdraws 400 weapon hunters from Iraq — New York Times, Thu Jan 8 17:06
• Still Time for an Investigation — Carnegie Endowment, Thu Jan 8 16:26