Saddam Hussein was a WMD threat after all

Some people might have been surprised to learn that ISIS had secured chemical weapons from a facility in Iraq (LINK), albeit degraded ones.

When we went to war in Iraq, people expected us to find a fully fuelled ICBM, loaded with a chemical agent, pointed at London. This was a natural result of our exaggerated claims.

Unfortunately this meant that the media, and most voters, switched off a few months after the invasion: they mentally ticked the boxes “No WMDs exist” and “Bush lied”.

This is a shame, because the reality was a bit more subtle. According to the Duelfer Report (LINK):

• “Saddam never abandoned his intentions to resume a [chemical warfare] effort when sanctions were lifted and conditions were judged favourable.”
• “Iraq’s historical ability to implement simple solutions to weaponization challenges allowed Iraq to retain the capability to weaponize [chemical warfare] agent when the need arose.”
• “Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) maintained throughout 1991 and 2003 a set of undeclared covert laboratories to research and test various chemicals and poisons, primarily for intelligence operations. The network of laboratories could have provided an ideal, compartmented platform from which to continue CW agent R&D …”
• “Available evidence indicates Iraq destroyed its hidden CW weapons and precursors, but key documentation and dual-use equipment were retained …”
• “[W]e have clear evidence of his intent to resume WMD production as soon as sanctions were lifted.”

Another interesting tid-bit: in 2004, the US government removed 1.77 metric tons of low-enriched uranium that, according to the Department of Energy, “could potentially be used in a radiological dispersal device or diverted to support a nuclear weapons program.” (LINK)

One of the problems is that people’s memories seem locked in 2003. This is evidenced by the recent argument that the rise of ISIS reinforces the mistake of invading Iraq. It’s important to remember that the situation in 2003 was not static. The oil-for-food programme, which involved industrial-scale corruption, was replenishing Iraq’s resources. The Duelfer Report describes how the country was able to start rebuilding its chemical industry during the years before the invasion. Further, the sanctions regime was arguably breaking down. Saddam may not have been a brilliant strategist but he was playing a long game. As the quotes above argue, he would have rebuilt his WMD programme once sanctions had been lifted — so he was a latent WMD threat.

There remains some debate over the extent to which Saddam supported terrorists. Certainly he funded Palestinian suicide bombers (LINK). The Salman Pak facility was probably not a terrorist training camp (LINK), but there’s no dispositive proof either way. Exactly how Saddam treated Abdul Rahman Yasin, who was involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, is also a bit unclear (LINK). Of course Stephen Hayes has made a case for a connection between Saddam and al Qaeda in The Connection (LINK). (UPDATE: more recent information on the link between Iraq and al Qaeda is below).

On the whole, it’s highly unlikely that Saddam would ever have equipped terrorists with a chemical weapon. But given the weakness of many Middle Eastern states (e.g. Syria), it’s not inconceivable that they would have obtained them from Saddam anyway. It makes us a bit nervous to imagine ISIS carting around shells filled with degraded mustard gas. Imagine if they instead took over Al Muthanna State Establishment, returned by Saddam to its former glory as “the world’s most modern and best-planned CW facility”.