‘Only regime change will avert the threat’

 

 

This is an article that Dr David Kelly, UN weapons inspector, authored just prior to the Iraq war….curiously the BBC never refers to anything Dr Kelly said that confirms the intelligence that Saddam was considered a threat…..Kelly was a world renowned and highly respected expert on WMD….John Humphrys? Not  so much.

 

‘Only regime change will avert the threat’

In the past week, Iraq has begun destroying its stock of al-Samoud II missiles, missiles that have a range greater than the UN-mandated limit of 150 kilometres. This is presented to the international community as evidence of President Saddam Hussein’s compliance with United Nations weapons inspectors.

But Iraq always gave up materials once it was in its interest to do so. Iraq has spent the past 30 years building up an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Although the current threat presented by Iraq militarily is modest, both in terms of conventional and unconventional weapons, it has never given up its intent to develop and stockpile such weapons for both military and terrorist use.

Today Iraq shows superficial co-operation with the inspectorates. Weapons such as 122mm rockets specific for chemical and biological use have been discovered and the destruction of proscribed missiles and associated engines, components and gyroscopes has begun.

Iraq has established two commissions to search for documents and weapons under the direction of Rashid Amer, a former head of Iraq’s concealment activities, and a commission has started to recover weapons from Iraq’s unilateral destruction sites. (These sites, dating back to 1991, were destroyed by Iraq, illegally, without UN supervision and as part of Iraq’s concealment of programmes.) Amer al-Saadi – formerly responsible for conserving Iraq’s WMD, now its principal spokesman on its weapons – continues to mislead the international community.

It is difficult to imagine co-operation being properly established unless credible Iraqi officials are put into place by a changed Saddam.

Yet some argue that inspections are working and that more time is required; that increasing the numbers of inspectors would enhance their effectiveness. Others argue that the process is inherently flawed and that disarmament by regime change is the only realistic way forward.

The UN has been attempting to disarm Iraq ever since 1991 and has failed to do so. It is an abject failure of diplomacy with the split between France, China and Russia on the one hand, and Britain and the United States on the other, creating a lack of ‘permanent five’ unity and resolve. More recently Germany, a temporary yet powerful member of the Security Council, has exacerbated the diplomatic split. The threat of credible military force has forced Saddam Hussein to admit, but not co-operate with, the UN inspectorate. So-called concessions – U2 overflights, the right to interview – were all routine between 1991 and 1998. After 12 unsuccessful years of UN supervision of disarmament, military force regrettably appears to be the only way of finally and conclusively disarming Iraq.

In the years since 1991, during which Unscom and the International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA) destroyed or rendered harmless all known weapons and capability under UN Security Council Resolution 687, Iraq established an effective concealment and deception organisation which protected many undisclosed assets. In October 2002, Resolution 1441 gave Saddam Hussein an ultimatum to disclose his arsenal within 30 days. He admitted inspectors and, with characteristic guile, provided some concessions, but still refuses to acknowledge the extent of his chemical and biological weapons and associated military and industrial support organisations – 8,500 litres of anthrax VX, 2,160 kilograms of bacterial growth media, 360 tonnes of bulk chemical warfare agent, 6,500 chemical bombs and 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical and biological warfare agents remained unaccounted for from activities up to 1991. (Even these figures, it should be noted, are based in no small part on data fabricated by Iraq.)

Less easy to determine is the extent of activity undertaken since 1991. In its 12,000-page ‘disclosure’ submitted to the inspectors in December 2002, Iraq failed to declare any proscribed activities. Today the truly important issues are declaring the extent and scope of the programmes in 1991 and the personalities, ‘committees’ and organisations involved.

There are indications that the programmes continue.

Iraq continues to develop missile technology, especially fuel propellents and guidance systems for long-range missiles. Iraq has recovered chemical reactors destroyed prior to 1998 for allegedly civilian activity, built biological fermenters and agent dryers, and created transportable production units for biological and chemical agents and the filling of weapons. Key nuclear research and design teams remain in place, even though it is assessed that Iraq is unable to manufacture nuclear weapons unless fissile material is available.

War may now be inevitable. The proportionality and intensity of the conflict will depend on whether regime change or disarmament is the true objective. The US, and whoever willingly assists it, should ensure that the force, strength and strategy used is appropriate to the modest threat that Iraq now poses.

Since some WMD sites have not been unambiguously identified, and may not be neutralised until war is over, a substantial hazard may be encountered. Sites with manufacturing or storage capabilities for chemical or biological weapons may present a danger and much will depend on the way that those facilities are militarily cancelled and subsequently treated.

Some of the chemical and biological weapons deployed in 1991 are still available, albeit on a reduced scale. Aerial bombs and rockets are readily available to be filled with sarin, VX and mustard or botulinum toxin, anthrax spores and smallpox. More sophisticated weaponry, such as spray devices associated with drones or missiles with separating warheads, may be limited in numbers, but would be far more devastating if used.

The threat from Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons is, however, unlikely to substantially affect the operational capabilities of US and British troops. Nor is it likely to create massive casualties in adjacent countries. Perhaps the real threat from Iraq today comes from covert use of such weapons against troops or by terrorists against civilian targets worldwide. The link with al-Qaeda is disputed, but is, in any case, not the principal terrorist link of concern. Iraq has long trained and supported terrorist activities and is quite capable of initiating such activity using its security services.

The long-term threat, however, remains Iraq’s development to military maturity of weapons of mass destruction – something that only regime change will avert.

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16 Responses to ‘Only regime change will avert the threat’

  1. Rob in Cheshire says:

    A very interesting article from Dr Kelly.

    He argues persuasively for regime change, and that was indeed the only solution to the problem of Saddam Hussein’s regime. The problem, as I understand it, is that regime change as an objective was “illegal” unless it was endorsed by the UN, and as Dr Kelly wrote, Russia, China, France and Germany were not on board for that. Thus, the only justification for the war had to be WMD, and when these were not found, many considered the war to have been illegal anyway.

    For what it’s worth, I believe that regime change in Iraq was a good and necessary idea, but the failure to plan for the aftermath was the true policy disaster.

       14 likes

    • Deborah says:

      Part of the reason that no proper plans were made for the aftermath was the pressure put on by the BBC (and I guess the press in the US) to influence public opinion to bring the army home and not stay to carry out reconstruction.

      The BBC never puts Iraq into context. The US had suffered the Twin Towers attack; Saddam had murdered over 1 million of his own people and was harbouring extremists who hated the West. Right war but I still loathe Blair, his trembling lip and his lies.

         9 likes

  2. chrisH says:

    You can`t understand where we are in that benighted part of the Middle East without the following, so I`d have thought.
    1. Sunni-Shia split in Islam
    2. Third way Communalislam that flowered under Nasser, Gadhaffi, Assad (Snr) snd Hussain himself…Islam meets socialism.
    3 Efforts at Pan Arab unity, such as the UAE, and Gadhaffis offer to blend with Egypt etc in a North African uluma.
    4. The Shah and Khomeini with his Third Way…which became the cul-de sac for the idiot left who gave him his head….but lost theirs in the process.
    5. Iran-Iraq war.
    6. THE GULF WAR 91…and Bush Snr failing to finish the job
    7. 9/11 and the world view that this was now global,not merely for Bora Bora
    8. BUSH Jnr having his dads old cronies as advisers
    9. BLAIRS recent “successes” in moral wars as he`d seen them..and the FULL BACKING OF HIS ELECTORALLY SUCCEEDING PARTY as a result.
    10. A GENERATION OF HIPPIE LEADERS WHO`D DESPISED THE MILITARY because they`d never even joined the scouts-Woodcraft folk privately educated nonces.
    11. NO ISLAMIC MILLENNARIAL KNOWLEDGE of the likes of Ahmadinejadh who was on the rise by now-and his mindset.
    12. MEDIA DEADLINES AND NOT BEING SEEN AS RACIST TO COLIN POWELL.
    13. THE GODAWFUL BBC and THE US LIBERAL MEDIA
    14. THE GODFORSAKEN LABOUR PARTY and the useless Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld etc.
    That`ll do pig….but the trite crap to hound Blair only covers the rest of them -the maggot on the cherry alright…but he`d been put them right on top of the cake by the Labour Liberal thickies and the BBC-all of who seem to have left the room re THEIR role in this debacle.
    But it`s all on the Net now…oh dear,oh dear.
    Remember Tesaa Jowell trying to prevent the “Stop The War” march to London because it had rained and heels might get stuck in Hyde Park..about the only time, any duty of care was ever considered by Labour of anybody but themselves.
    As long as Corbyn stays in power…then the liberal left loonies at the BBC and Labour today won`t rest easily.
    Which is no less than the scum deserve,,,and for ever!

       15 likes

    • Dave S says:

      Just about sums it all up. I would add that at the time I felt that we were making a mistake attacking Iraq in the way we did.
      The West had overwhelming military superiority but so infected by neo liberalism and neo consevatism were the US and the UK in particular that we failed to use this correctly.

      Saddam should have been made an offer he could not refuse in the old fashioned way. This could have been done by demonstrating our power by destroying his palaces for example one by one. He could have been turned into a compliant vassal by using force and bribery. Regime change seems to be a liberal absurdity. As if the countries could be turned into a passable imitation of Surrey or Texas.
      No point at all.
      The vital interests of this country did not depend on removing Saddam. Or Ghaddafi come to that or Assad now. Realistic goals and strictly self interested ones should always be at the forefront of policy. This has not been true since the 1990s and we are in a real mess now.
      It still goes on as the liberal attitude to the invasion of Europe by the third world shows. No realism and no courage to admit that reality cannot be denied for ever and that if you want to conserve and protect your nation and people then what is necessary sometimes has to be done.

         7 likes

      • embolden says:

        The failure was in the operationalisation indeed the weaponisation of the liberal delusion that Arab societies were / are just crying out for the opportunity to become liberal democracies.

        They aren’t, as anyone who has more than five minutes experience in the Middle East knows.

        The British, in particular had an unhappy colonial history in Iraq that no one appeared to consider as a caution to the modern day hubris of Bush and Blair.

        The old colonialists knew how to form useful alliances with local sources of power….this of course takes time, experience, a sense of history and of cultural self confidence and the ability to judiciously apply soft and hard power….tasks requiring abilities beyond those who created the Iraq clusterf*ck.

           7 likes

      • Stuart Beaker says:

        It is the lack of rationality such as you describe that did indeed lead to disaster, both during and more importantly, after the actual war.

        It has been pointed out that the first identifiable root of this whole stream of disastrous foreign policy initiatives is the success of the left-wing fifth column in the US which created its defeat in Viet-Nam. A war which was winnable if rational policies had been followed without being sabotaged on home ground by a Marxist elite.

           1 likes

    • Amounderness Lad says:

      The reason which created the problem in your point 6 was a result of the whining and propaganda from those in your point 13, not to mention that useless, defunct and dangerous organisation the UN which has far more failures to it’s name than it ever has had, or is ever likely in the future to have, successes.

      When Iraqi troops started to leave Kuwait, taking as much of that country’s movable property as they possibly could, they walked straight into the troops of the Allied Forces who immediately began destroying them and their ability to wage war. The regular Iraqi Army, aka the much acclaimed, at least by Saddam Hussein, and fanatical, but largely ineffective, Republican Guard had already withdrawn to avoid obliteration.

      The pictures broadcast by the BBC, and the rest of the leftist liberal media both here and in the US, was accompanied by their usual weeping, wailing, gnashing of teeth and moralistic handwringing about the poor Iraqi soldiers being slaughtered by the butchers of the nasty Western Imperialists. They immediately and conveniently cast out of their minds the horrific behaviour of those vary same Iraqi troops only a matter of weeks before when they occupied Kuwait or their attempts to cause irreparable damage to the environment of the whole area and to spread the war to the whole area. Their main aim was, as they did in the more recent Iraq war, to heap as much vilification as possible on the troops of both the US and UK whilst depicting those they were fighting as being as being poor sweet innocents being picked on by bullies.

      The usual feeble and totally watered down UN Resolution didn’t help matters as it only covered the Iraqi’s being made to leave Kuwait and made no mention of rendering Iraq incapable of behaving that way in the future. The Media outcry, aided by the usual Leftist agitprop in support of their nice cuddly hero Saddam and the usual weak and jittery attitude of the UN, forced the governments of the time to withdraw their troops long before it was prudent to do so. Of course the BBC and those who wept their crocodile tears over Saddam’s poor troops being killed averted their eyes when those same troops were used to butcher countless Iraqis, using gas and chemical weapons on civilians, for daring to oppose the Saddam regime.

         1 likes

  3. Thoughtful says:

    If he did write that just days prior to the war, it runs counter to other things he is known to have said:

    “Kelly was unhappy with some of the claims in the draft, particularly a claim originating from August 2002 that Iraq was capable of firing battlefield biological and chemical weapons within 45 minutes of an order to use them (known as “the 45-minute claim”). Kelly’s colleagues queried the inclusion of the claim, but their superiors were satisfied when they took it up with MI6 through the Joint Intelligence Committee.”

    Kelly believed it was most likely that Iraq had retained some biological weapons after the end of inspections.[7] After the end of the ground war, he was invited to join the inspection team attempting to find any trace of weapons of mass destruction programmes and was apparently enthusiastic about resuming his work there. He made two attempted trips to Iraq. The first was on 19 May 2003 when he was prevented from entering Iraq from Kuwait because he did not have the proper documentation.

    The second trip was from 5 June 2003 to 11 June 2003 when Kelly went to view and photograph two alleged mobile weapons laboratories as a part of a third inspection team. Kelly was unhappy with the description of the trailers and spoke off the record to The Observer, which, on 15 June 2003, quoted “a British scientist and biological weapons expert, who has examined the trailers in Iraq.” The expert said:

    They are not mobile germ warfare laboratories. You could not use them for making biological weapons. They do not even look like them.
    They are exactly what the Iraqis said they were – facilities for the production of hydrogen gas to fill balloons.
    It was confirmed in the Hutton Inquiry that Kelly was the source of this quote.

    Basically Kelly was saying that Blairs dodgy dossier was falsified and untrue, as we now have confirmed to us.

       5 likes

  4. Deborahanother says:

    I don’t believe it was right to invade Iraq at that time .George Bush was looking for a war at any cost and to punish someone for 9/11. Saddam Hussein was a handy bogey man. Chilcott says the case for war was made and massaged to fit in with the aim of a war rather than war being a last resort. The after planning was a disgrace given they were intent on war from the start.

    At the time ,one of my sons was going through the process of joining the marines .Fortunately an ankle injury kept him out for which I am forever grateful. I feel for those whose children were killed .

       3 likes

    • Rob in Cheshire says:

      I disagree. George Bush was not looking for a war at any cost, he had decided that after 9/11 he was not prepared to have someone like Saddam Hussein get hold of WMDs and threaten the USA with them. Before 9/11 it might have seemed inconceivable that the USA could suffer a WMD attack, after 9/11, not so much.

         2 likes

  5. richard D says:

    I remember very well the run-up to the Iraq war. Tony Blair lied to Parliament about the imminent direct threat to the UK of Saddam Hussein being able to lob warheads (the implication, of course, being that they could well be chemical warheads) into our country, in order to win the support of MPs for his planned action. The Labour Party cannot today point to the fact that other parties’ MPs voted for the Iraq war as a defence for the Labour Party’s actions at the time – MPs were fed false information by the then Prime Ministers and his cohorts concerning the safety of their constituents, and therefore voted accordingly. (Speaking of cohorts, just where has Jack Straw come under any scrutiny after the Chilcott Inquiry Report ?)

    Secondly, George Bush took the US into war against Saddam Hussein with one of his key, and overtly stated, objectives being regime change in Iraq. Tony Blair, at the time, was adamant that regime change was absolutely NOT, under any circumstances, one of the UK’s objectives (since he knew that might affect any vote on the matter in the UK Parliament). However, he now almost completely relies on regime change being the absolute key result of the Iraq war, with virtually his sole defence against any criticism of him in the matter being that the world is a much better place since he was instrumental in organising the removal of Saddam Hussein from the face of this planet.

    Hypocrite and liar.

       6 likes

  6. Thoughtful says:

    unquestionably the people of Iraq were better off under Saddam than they are now. How many times has it been said on these forums that the Muslim countries absolutely need strong dictators who will put down any Islamic violence ruthlessly and swiftly.

    Before our Saudi inspired invasion there was no ability of the Mullahs in Fallujah to stir up Jihad because Saddam tortured them to death first!
    We need to realise that this is the only way to control these people and that Democracy far from being welcome, is the wrong solution in this instance.
    This perverted thinking stems in large part from the Blairite vision that those in charge know best, and should impose their will on the people, by force & oppression if necessary.
    Today in Britain we are living with the legacy of this, and a lazy PM who just couldn’t be bothered to undo the damage because it didn’t make him any money!

    There is no reason to believe that his successor will be any different.

    The one outstanding thing a Labour leader did for this country, was to tell the Americans NO when it came to their overseas adventuring in Vietnam. I don’t believe there is a politician alive today with the backbone to do the same.

       1 likes

  7. chrisH says:

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3681714/MONSTROUS-HYPOCRITE-Blair-s-liar-chief-Alastair-Campbell-claims-moral-high-ground-Chilcot-chilling-memos-reveal-touted-work-rebrand-one-world-s-repressive-tyrannies.html

    Just the guy to tell us the truth eh?
    Len McClusky tells us that Portland Communications are behind the campaign to Bin Corbyn.
    Makes a lot of sense now-Tolpuddle may be worth an extra few minutes.
    Keep an eye out-long haired guy on a bike, cream teas by the Martyrs Arms eh?
    Wonder if we`ll see Geoff Hoon?…who`s very much a Macavity in the Brown tradition of New Labour rebrushings and dustings

       3 likes

  8. Fred Bloggs says:

    Hutton inquiry/inquest said the Dr Kelly papers of the inquest are sealed for 100 years. Papers to Chilcot were released well before time, should not Hutton’s dictat be overturned?

       3 likes

    • chrisH says:

      Why the hell 100 years?
      Who writes these rules-and how do they get away with it?
      What do UKIP and Andrea say?..i`ll not be asking anybody else.

         1 likes

      • Grant says:

        chrisH,

        It must be serious if even the Grandchildren must be protected.

           1 likes