56th in blog series on the administration push to war.
December 9-19, 2002:

 
 

Dec. 9, 2002 – Former BBC correspondent Tim Lewellyn reports for the Middle East Economic Survey after a visit to Baghdad:
 

“The Iraqis are awaiting a solution, however it may be delivered, from out of whatever alien landscape. The Iraqi people have no control over any function of their lives except that of sheer survival. They can no more organize themselves to rid the nation of Saddam Husain and the extraordinary network of power and solidarity he has built for himself over 34 painstaking and brutal years than they can appeal to the better nature of the new Imperium in Washington and ask to be considered as members of a deserving human race.

          I can put it no better than in the words of an Iraqi intellectual, a political animal licensed to speak, but perhaps, in the circumstances, better left unnamed: ‘The Iraqi people are resigned and frightened but they are not panicking. We are getting used to this. No-one cares about us or listens to us, neither the Anglo-American alliance nor the regime here in Baghdad. If there is some answer they are looking for it is in the field of religion. Karl Marx said “religion is the spirit of a spiritless world.” We Iraqis are living in a spiritless world. There is no more interest in our human rights in Baghdad than there is in London. Nothing remains for us except metaphysics.’"
(“Iraq Under Siege,” M.E.E.S. Dec. 9, 2002)

 

This excellent article is ignored in U.S. media, although presumably many people in the petrochemical industry see it.

 

December, 2002 – Elliott Abrams, within days of being appointed Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Near East and North African Affairs for the NSC, drafts a proposal saying that the U.S. should assert control over Iraqi oil fields.

 

The conservative Insight magazine, part of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon’s media conglomerate, discusses the proposal thus:

“A proposal drafted by Elliott Abrams, a special assistant to President George W. Bush on the National Security Council(NSC), arguing for the United States to assert de facto control of Iraqi oil fields has stunned State Department officials. It doesn't help that Abrams (right) was convicted of withholding information from Congress during the Iran-Contra scandal, only to receive a presidential pardon from the current president's father.

          Bush-administration "moderates" have raised legal and practical objections to the Abrams proposal, arguing that only a puppet Iraqi government would acquiesce to U.S. supervision of the oil fields and that one so slavish to U.S. interests risks becoming untenable with Iraqis. Furthermore, they argue, the move would trigger a wide political backlash in the Middle East and confirm overseas suspicions that U.S. actions against Saddam are driven by oil politics.   

Abrams, who in early December was promoted within the NSC to senior director for Near East and North African affairs, heads one of a dozen administration working groups tasked with drafting post-invasion plans. But critics in the State Department say his group has been going beyond its authority--officially, it is meant to focus on planning for a humanitarian crisis in the immediate wake of an invasion--and is involving itself in post-Saddam politics and broader issues of economic reconstruction.”

 

Dec. 15, 2002 – George Will compares Iraq to Germany before World War II. (“A Retrospective on Disarmament,” Washington Post B7)

 

Dec. 17, 2002 -- Intelligence analysts produce a paper for the NSC, responding to Iraq’s disclosure on its WMD programs to the U.N., U.S. Analysis of Iraq’s Declaration. The paper mentions the uranium allegation, but without including the caveats. “An e-mail from the INR Iraq nuclear analyst to a DOE analyst . . . indicated that the analyst was surprised that INR’s well known alternative views” were left out. (Sen. Select Committee on Intelligence Report, 60)

 

Dec. 18, 2002 -- The State Department requests a ‘fact sheet’ to respond to Iraq’s UN statement, to be published after U.N. Ambassador John Negroponte delivers a speech to the U.N. Security Council the next morning.

 

Same day -- A Nonproliferation special assistant drafts the fact sheet and sends it to the intelligence community; the mention of uranium is included but not discussed by intelligence analysts, i.e. debunked. The “fact sheet” draft is based on a draft of Negroponte’s speech. (SSCI Report, 60)

 
“Separately, the NSC staff coordinated the Negroponte speech directly with [an analyst] and he recommended that ‘Niger’ be replaced with ‘Africa’ in the speech.” (61)

 
Thus the correction inserted by the CIA at this point is to broaden ‘Niger’ to ‘Africa’ -- making the item harder to refute but not more accurate or realistic. In a behind-the-scenes rush, the INR notes its caveats to the language of the speech draft and recommends changes, but too late. Unfortunately, nobody tells the INR the deadline.

 

Dec. 19, 2002 – The first version of a State Dept ‘fact sheet’ on Iraq comes out, headed “Illustrative Examples of Omissions from the Iraqi Declaration to the United Nations Security Council.” Under the heading “Nuclear Weapons,” it reads: “The declaration ignores efforts to procure uranium from Niger. Why is the Iraqi regime hiding their uranium procurement? The mention of Niger uranium is apparently inserted by John Bolton. The item is taken out afterward. (Wilson’s Politics of Truth, 302)

 
In all probability Bush and Blair, and possibly their top people, were warned that the documents were rubbish before El Baradei told the U.N. The International Atomic Energy Agency says that it sought evidence about the Niger connection from Britain and America immediately after the fact sheet. But the IAEA, despite repeatedly requesting access to the papers, was not given the documents until February 2003 -- six weeks later. This does not look like confidence on the part of the possessors of the documents, namely the administrations of the U.S. and U.K.