INDCJournal: The Real Lesson from the NY Times <br><br>(Reports on the Status of "Dual-Use" Material)

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October 27, 2004

The Real Lesson from the NY Times

(Reports on the Status of "Dual-Use" Material)

Posted by Bill

Individuals that were against the war to disarm Saddam Hussein are suddenly terrified over the fate of 380 of the over 1 million tons (0.03%) of conventional explosives that are currently estimated to exist in Iraq. The pointed US effort that has thus far destroyed 400,000 tons of munitions, yet failed to immediately account for 380, somehow respresents an unacceptable US failure and subsequent terrorist risk to the IAEA, NY Times and other overt critics of the Bush Administration.

But perhaps they draw the wrong lesson from this situation.

For example, considering the IAEA's current deep concern over the location of the explosives and their potential use "in standard nuclear weapons design," why didn't the UN destroy the deadly material when it had the option?

After the Persian Gulf war in 1991, the United Nations discovered Iraq's clandestine effort and put the United Nations arms agency in charge of Al Qaqaa's huge stockpile. Weapon inspectors determined that Iraq had bought the explosives from France, China and Yugoslavia, a European diplomat said.

None of the explosives were destroyed, arms experts familiar with the decision recalled, because Iraq argued that it should be allowed to keep them for eventual use in mining and civilian construction.

Coincidentally, this bolsters the famous "dual-use" argument that the Bush Administration cites so often - and is typically ignored by the media. Iraq was permitted to keep high-explosive material that was specifically intended for use in the construction of a nuclear bomb because they successfully argued to the UN that someday, they might like to use it for "mining and civilian construction." But what about that - did they use it for mining?

But Al Qaqaa was still under the authority of the Military Industrial Council, which ran Iraq's sensitive weapons programs and was led for a time by Hussein Kamel, Mr. Hussein's son-in-law. He defected to the West, then returned to Iraq and was immediately killed.

Kamel revealed interesting details about Iraq's ostensibly civilian program when he defected:

What Kamel divulged about Iraq's weapons programs was shocking. Kamel described where the material and facilities were, what was built, the existence of an extensive biological program, the existence of a far more more extensive nuclear program than was ever known, who was running Iraq's deception programs and how they worked.

To recap thus far - after the first Gulf War, Saddam Hussein convinced the IAEA to allow him to retain the high explosives that they're now so worried about being used for terrorism or a nuclear weapon, under the guise of potential use in mining and construction. Despite that supposed intention, the explosives remained under the control of the Military Industrial Council, whose leader defected in 1995 and revealed that the explosives were indeed part of a secret nuclear weapons program that was "far more more extensive ... than was ever known."

After the information about the covert nuclear weapons program was revealed to the world, three years before inspectors were booted from the country, the UN failed to destroy or confiscate the explosives that are now missing:

The Qaqaa stockpile went unmonitored from late 1998, when United Nations inspectors left Iraq, to late 2002, when they came back. Upon their return, the inspectors discovered that about 35 tons of HMX were missing. The Iraqis said they had used the explosive mainly in civilian programs.

Once the inspectors returned in 2002, the Iraqis explained that nearly 10% of the explosives - previously kept for "mining and civilian construction" but later revealed to be part of a nuclear weapons program - disappeared because the Iraqis claimed that they had been primarily used for - you guessed it - "mining and civilian construction." No viable evidence backed up Iraqi claims to the IAEA about the whereabouts or use of the missing HMX material.

A comprehensive Google search also reveals no NY Times report about the UN's failure to secure 35 tons of missing explosives at the time.

From the IAEA's 2002 report to the Security Council pursuant to Resolution 1441:

2. HMX

53. The relocation and consumption of HMX (a high explosive of potential use
in nuclear weapons), as described in Iraq's backlog of semi-annual
declarations, has been investigated by IAEA. In those declarations, Iraq
stated that, between 1998 and 2002, it had transferred 32 of the 228 tons of
HMX which had been under IAEA seal as of December 1998 to other locations.
In addition, Iraq stated that a very small quantity (46 kilograms) of HMX
had been used at munitions factories for research and development. At the
request of IAEA, Iraq has provided further clarification on the movement and
use of the HMX, indicating that the 32 tons of HMX had been blended with
sulphur to produce industrial explosives, which had been provided mainly to
cement plants for quarrying, and that the research and development using the
small quantity of HMX had been in the areas of personnel mines, explosives
in civilian use, missile warhead filling and research on tanks.

54. The IAEA inspectors have been able to verify and re-seal the remaining
balance of approximately 196 tons of HMX, most of which has remained at the
original storage location. The movement of the blended HMX and the other
small quantity of HMX has also been documented by Iraq. However, it has not
been possible to verify the use of those materials, as all of it is said to
have been consumed through explosions and there are no immediately available
technical means for verifying such uses. The IAEA will continue to
investigate means of verifying the Iraqi statements about the use of the HMX
and blended HMX.

In the same report where the IAEA reveals dubious Iraqi claims that they used the explosives - that were previously part of a secret nuclear weapons program - for "quarrying," we also learn about the equivocal nature of the "debunked" aluminum tubes that war detractors seize on as proof of the Bush Administration's "deception" as they built their case for war:

66. The IAEA has started to work at resolving the key issue of whether Iraqi nuclear activities or nuclear-related capabilities have changed since December 1998 ... and it appears, prima facie, that the high strength aluminium tubes were to be for the production of rockets and not for use in centrifuges for uranium enrichment, although assessment of the possibility that Iraq may have intended to modify the tubes in question later for use in centrifuges remains to be completed.

Given Iraq's plain history of deception and the UN's willingness to accept their good faith arguments about alternate use of material, it was certainly reasonable to be uncomfortable about trusting the Iraqis with any item that can be modified to enrich uranium. The section ends:

Following the provision by Iraq of its backlog of semi-annual declarations, a thorough analysis of the movement and use of the dual-use equipment and material made it possible to reduce the areas of concern to a minimum. The disposition of the 32 tons of the previously monitored HMX that Iraq declared to have been used for civilian purposes, however, will be difficult to confirm.

As of the invasion of Iraq, the IAEA could not account for nearly 10% of the "especially worrisome" high explosives that had previously been revealed to be part of a secret nuclear weapons program that had taken place under the noses of inspectors in the early 90's. The UN allowed Iraq to maintain the deadly material because it had a dual-use capacity for industrial purposes. This begs the question: what else was the regime allowed to maintain for dual-use industrial purposes?

For the sake of illustration, let's skim their chemical weapons programs:

The Bush administration says it has been told by an Iraqi scientist that Saddam Hussein in past years decentralized the chemical and biological weapons programs by putting production equipment within commercial facilities so that it would not be discovered but could be used when needed to produce deadly agents.

The scientist, in a May 7 White House document made available to The Washington Post, describes Iraq as having "carefully embedded its [weapons of mass destruction] infrastructure in dual-use facilities" with chemical weapons production "on demand" or "just in time."

The document noted that "facilities for making deadly nerve agents were also producing legitimate products like pesticides," but "such sites also could employ 'just in time' manufacturing and delivery systems to reduce the need for stockpiles."

And some of the lowlights (pdf document) from the Duelfer Report's assessment of Iraq's Chemical Weapons programs:

The way Iraq organized its Chemical industry after the mid 1990's allowed it to conserve the knowledge base needed to restart a CW Program, conduct a modest amount of dual-use research, and partially recover from the decline of its production capability caused by the effects of the Gulf war and the UN-sponsored destruction and sanctions.
...
Iraq's historical ability to implement simple solutions to weaponization challenges allowed Iraq the capability to weaponize CW agent when the needs arose.
...
ISG uncovered information that the Iraqi Intelligence Service maintained throughout 1991 - 2003 a set of undeclared covert laboratories to research and test various chemicals and poisons, primarily for intelligence operations.

* The IIS included the use of human subjects for testing purposes.

Iraqi "intelligence operations" = "terrorism."

Saddam's chemical weapons capability and domestic industry peaked in 1991, suffered decline during the inspections and sanctions process of 1991 -1996, and as the Oil-for-Food program blossomed and funds were diverted, entered a phase of "Recovery and Transition" from 1996 - 2003, even though UNSCOM inspectors were actively searching the country for two of those years. And once Saddam booted them ...

* The lack of inspectors allowed further dual-use infrastructure to be developed. The lack of effective monitoring emboldened Sadam and his illicit procurement activities.

This post barely scratches the surface of the Duelfer Report's assessment of Saddam's chemical weapons program, capability and intent, and doesn't even venture into the details of Saddam's biological intent.

Yet for some reason, despite these still unaccounted-for chemical and biological stockpiles ...

*** 360 tonnes of chemical warfare agents, including 1.5 tonnes of VX nerve agent;

*** 3,000 tonnes of chemical precursors (which are developed into chemical weapons) including 300 tonnes uniquely used for VX.

"According to Iraq, 1.5 tonnes of VX were discarded unilaterally by dumping on the ground. Traces of one VX-degradation product and a chemical known as a VX-stabilizer were found in the samples taken from the VX dump sites. A quantified assessment is not possible."

*** Growth media for 20,000 litres of biological warfare agents. Any Iraqi claims that this will have degenerated will not be accepted as mustard gas found in shells in 1997 was active;

*** Shells for use in biological warfare - 20,000 are missing say the British, 15,000 say the Americans.

... the NY Times is upset about .03% of the country's conventional explosives that were possibly, but doubtfully, lost under America's watch.

To sum up the alternate lessons from the NY Times' article:

*** In addition to many, many other violations, Iraq was in violation of both UN sanctions and UN Resolution 1441 for its mere failure to account for the dual-use HMX explosive that the UN failed to previously destroy, find or account for before the war.

*** The media only cares about missing munitions or dual-use materials when the information can hurt the Bush Administration just prior to the election, not when it upsets the credibility of the UN or the former regime of Saddam Hussein.

*** The media is aghast at the disappearance of 380/1,000,000 tons of explosives in Iraq (with 400,000 tons successfully destroyed), but ambivalent about the prior disappearance and failure of Saddam Hussein to account for massive stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and the reinvigoration of dual-use research and infrastructure that was intended to reconstitute stockpiles of WMD ... much of it under the watch of UN inspectors from 1996-1998.

*** The NY Times is a partisan rag.

UPDATE: Jeff Goldstein has an excellent post about the assumptions inherent to buying the hype around this story.

UPDATE: My conclusions are correct. In today's New York Sun:

Nine years ago, U.N. weapons inspectors urgently called on the International Atomic Energy Agency to demolish powerful plastic explosives in a facility that Iraq's interim government said this month was looted due to poor security.

The chief American weapons inspector, Charles Duelfer, told The New York Sun yesterday that in 1995, when he was a member of the U.N. inspections team in Iraq, he urged the United Nations' atomic watchdog to remove tons of explosives that have since been declared missing.

Mr. Duelfer said he was rebuffed at the time by the Vienna-based agency because its officials were not convinced the presence of the HMX, RDX, and PETN explosives was directly related to Saddam Hussein's programs to amass weapons of mass destruction.

Instead of accepting recommendations to destroy the stocks, Mr. Duelfer said, the atomic-energy agency opted to continue to monitor them.

By e-mail, Mr. Duelfer wrote the Sun, "The policy was if acquired for the WMD program and used for it, it should be subject for destruction. The HMX was just that. Nevertheless the IAEA decided to let Iraq keep the stuff, like they needed more explosives."

(Via Instapundit)

Posted by Bill at October 27, 2004 12:00 PM | TrackBack (9)

Comments

Saddest excuse for an October Surprise in the history of dirty politics. Sadder still is that there is no penalty for the NYTimes...

Posted by: Kathy at October 27, 2004 12:05 PM

So the UN had a hand in this mess. Gee, what a surprise.

Posted by: Retread at October 27, 2004 12:08 PM

But you can take pictures of Bush and put them side by side to chimps and it's uncanny. Why would you vote for someome so chimpy? Right or wrong, the man can't say 'nuclear' and sleeps with Halliburtonblogforoilll!!!!!

/LLL-mode-off

Posted by: Sharp as a Marble at October 27, 2004 12:09 PM

If they're not careful, the NYT is going to find itself in the position of helping to prove the existence of the WMD they so much want not to exist.

Posted by: Retread at October 27, 2004 12:10 PM

Bill,

/Sarcasm ON:

What are you nuts?

You can't mention the real reasons we went to war, you know like United Nations resolutions authorizing force and the such.

You can't mention wording contained in those resolutions,(like 1441) either, that talk about recalling, and subsequent resolutions.

No...No....No....

You are mad, you must be....

/sarcasm Off

In all seriousness, if people actually understood the meaning of two words in those resolutions, RECALLING, and SUBSEQUENT, they would understand the LEGAL permissions that we used to go in, which had everything to do with resolutions ignored over 13+ years, and Kofi and his hypocritical lying was simply a ruse scheme.

Dual use technologies were excused by the left, the UN, and the Coalition of the bribed and Coerced, (Insert France, Russia, Germany here).

And now all of a sudden, a measely 380 tons is missing and apparently has been since military units got there.

I always think it is funny when you read the congressional permission, and the UN resolutions, to see the justification. I at least am convinced the only reason France, Germany, et al, did not join us was purely economical, and fear of the exposure of their hypocrisy which is now known to be true in the Oil for Food Bribe scandal which is bigger than any of this, and is hardly mentioned as an after note by the media, except for Fox who has been right on top of it in its reporting.

Regards,
Sonar5

Posted by: Sonar5 at October 27, 2004 12:12 PM

this is one of the most devestating arguments regarding the violations of Iraq and the danger Saddam's regime posed to the world. It's also a devestating indictement against the NY Times and the anti-war Left.

it should be required reading for every journalist, pundit and voter.

well done, Bill.

Posted by: JK at October 27, 2004 12:18 PM

It is disgusting and sad that our mass media will be complicit in the death of thousands, maybe millions because of their
failure to be responsible in reporting 'just the facts ma'am'.
The media unjustly accuses Bush of falling down on the job, with absolutely NO evidence of when these explosives were moved. Guilty before the fact. Wow! Freedom and justice for all in action!
This is all the justification for not reading or watching any news media.
And thank you for all of the efforts you put into your blog to keep the pubic informed.

Posted by: mshyde at October 27, 2004 12:38 PM

Help spread the word about this documentary that's about to air in Florida....

http://humaneventsonline.com.edgesuite.net/unfittolead.html

Posted by: veritas at October 27, 2004 12:40 PM

Isn't this whole 380 tons story just a new vehicle for those who were opposed to the war to vent their frustation that Bush rushed off to war without a plan to win that peace? By the way, i am really sick and tired of that phrase. But, I do think it's true that the war planning did not really worry about securing these weapons. We weren't thinking there might be an ongoing insurgency. So, all this is just blaming Bush again. It's not a smoking gun. But it doesn't need to be. Its incremental, its repetitive, and probably gets Kerry some more votes.

On another topic, my wife went to go early voting yesterday. A young girl entered in the back of the room and cheered "USA" to no one in particular. The couple standing in front of my wife carrying their GOP-voter guides said aloud, "neat, she must be a Republican!" What? Only Republicans cheer "USA"???????

Posted by: milowent at October 27, 2004 12:51 PM

Instead of relying on a link from reliefweb, here's a link direct from IAEA on the same report.

That link comes from this page which is a piece of the timeline of what the IAEA inspectors were doing on a day by day basis. There's only a couple of visits to the 23,000 acre Al Qaqaa site after January - and they seem to have clearly stated goals not involving explosives. Missile parts, a chemical plant on site, etc.

They were 'on site' in March, but they were destroying missiles - not checking seals for instance.

Posted by: Al at October 27, 2004 01:35 PM

Considering that the UN was enriching itself and Hussein through the Oil-For-Graft program, while the people of Iraq were starved and denied medical supplies, and that the IAEA is giving very stern, reproving looks at Iran while they race towards developing nuclear weapons, I'm hard-pressed to believe a word of what the IAEA has to say.

Posted by: Noah D at October 27, 2004 01:46 PM

Kathy - I wouldn't be so quick to assume the NYTimes does not face any consequences for becoming the transcription service of the Kerry campaign.

It's third in national circulation (behind the dumbed down USA Today and The Wall St. Journal). They've had to fire their executive editor Howell Raines for gross incompetance. And even though advertising revenue rose 4% in the last quarter, the Old Gray Lady reported a 4% decline in earnings.

This once was a great newspaper, but is doing it's best to relegate itself complete irrelevancy.

God Bless America, and God Bless George W. Bush.

Posted by: mt at October 27, 2004 02:20 PM

NYT is getting hammered in the markets.
It has lost over 20% of its value in the last year, with most of that loss coming since June. Looking back further, it took a sharp hit over Jayson Blair, but recovered quickly.

This is costing them. It costs everyone who has options, as well as the stockholders. At some point, it's going to cost Sulzburger his job.

Posted by: Dishman at October 27, 2004 05:27 PM

there seem to be lack of common sense in this story. Even if you assume that the explosives were there when 101st left, that leaves just 5 weeks for the explosives to be taken. Why do I say just 5 weeks as if that is not a lot of time? Well because there were 380 TONS of this stuff. Its not like it could have been strapped to the back of a camel. Are there any truckers out in indcJournalLand who know what the average semi can tow behind in a trailer? Lets assume that there were more than 10 truck loads. A pretty safe assumption I'm sure. All of which had to be loaded in this window of opportunity and transported unnoticed from a sight just 25 mile from baghdad without being noticed during the first few weeks after the war. This is absurd. If any truckers out there read this please email me to tell me what kind of payload a semi can haul. Thanks

Posted by: alex white at October 27, 2004 07:07 PM

IAEA and Libya.

game set match... Worthless...

Posted by: Sonar5 at October 27, 2004 07:13 PM

Good post Bill. Now, I remember why I voted for you in the WaPo poll.

This story is a dead letter. The NY Times took it off the front page today; it's now on page 10, with news from Madagascar. It's been widely questioned and/or ridiculed by CNN, NBC, Fox, WSJ, etc. It's going nowhere.

However, I wouldn't be at all surprised by another "story" this weekend, out of CBS or the Times.

Posted by: MD at October 27, 2004 07:45 PM

"However, I wouldn't be at all surprised by another "story" this weekend, out of CBS or the Times."

"Surprised"? You can count on it!

Posted by: j.pickens at October 27, 2004 07:54 PM

Well one more indication of the UN's utter incompetence. Why the left loves that organization is beyond me.

Also, I find it interesting that the UN is trying to influence a US election and using an apparantly more than cooperative media to do so.

Posted by: Just Me at October 27, 2004 09:35 PM

I am concerned with one of your facts. The million tons appears to include a wide range of things that are not explosives. I am not particularly one way or another on this story (though I am not satisfied with anyone's point of view yet) except the information that is unsettling appears to come out mainly of the Iraqi government, rather than US media which is being attacked - which is fine as par for the course - but the figure as to the volume how much really dangerous explosives as opposed to all munitions from bullets to missiles was laying around appears to be in serious flux. There certainly was no million tons of plastic explosives laying around - what percentage does the 380 tons constitute of that?

Posted by: Alan at October 27, 2004 10:13 PM

Alan,

A standard US 500-pound bomb contains 192 pounds of explosive:

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/dumb/mk82.htm

If this ratio is representative, the million tons of ordinance in Iraq would contain 384,000 tons of explosive, making the Al Qaqaa cache a whopping 0.1% of the total.

Posted by: ADK at October 27, 2004 10:43 PM

Alan -

re: my facts

The 1 million figure was gleaned from cable news (Fox Special Report), I assume it includes all forms of munitions, as you mention. The 400,000 that has been destroyed is all over the net, I believe it's from the Pentagon. Another blogger cites a report of 2,000,000 tons of all forms of munitions from a soldier that's working to detonate the material.

http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/002859.php

So let's say you magnify the 380 tons by its power multiplier compared to TNT, about 1.5 - you've got 570. Then let's say that the weight of the condensed explosives magnified it's efficiency by 100x, comparitively. You get 57,000.

57,000 still reprersents only 5.7% of the 1 million figure, 2.85% of the 2 million figure, and 100% more than the amount of explosives that would be destroyed and out of Saddam's Control if we would have left it up to the IAEA and prewar Iraq.

I don't have exact numbers, but the point of my post remains, even with exponential increases in multipliers for condensed explosive power.

Hope that helps a bit. As I get better figures I'll update.

Posted by: Bill from INDC at October 27, 2004 10:47 PM

I didn't see ADK's post, but that's certainly a more relevant estimate.

Posted by: Bill from INDC at October 27, 2004 10:49 PM

What is amazing is Kerry's charge that these explosives were removed are so dangerous while at the same time denying that WMD ever existed. Are we to believe that these explosives outweigh the WMD? Kerry's logic, as always, remains an enigma.

Posted by: Thomas J. Jackson at October 27, 2004 11:02 PM

Thanks Bill.

Posted by: ALan at October 28, 2004 07:52 AM

What amazes me is that you people don't understand the difference between the explosives that are missing and a firecracker. They are both explosive, but the missing explosives are somewhat worse shall we say??

And all of your whining that the NYT should face some kind of punishment is goofy as hell. You are the same people who watch Fox and believe it is objective. It is interesting that you will condemn other news sources who on occasion do what your favorite news source does in every broadcast!

Posted by: 1proudliberal at October 29, 2004 04:47 PM

1proudliberal, thems some good points you brung up. The NYT is egregious in its use of non-facshul noozitemz

Posted by: puppitz at October 30, 2004 01:58 AM