The New McCarthyism
My new Daily Standard column, which builds on my blog posts concerning the whole Mary McCarthy matter, is now up. While there is some doubt surrounding the exact reasons for the CIA's termination of Mary McCarthy at this point, there is no doubt that the media has been quick to lionize her. On Sunday, for example, The New York Times ran a ridiculous piece that argued McCarthy had an "independent streak" because she challenged the Clinton administration on its decision to destroy a Sudanese pharmaceutical plant named al-Shifa.
I say that the Times piece was ridiculous because the Old Grey Lady left out or spun nearly every salient fact surrounding the matter. Now, I realize that the strike on al-Shifa was controversial. Many public commentators to this day insist that the strike was a mistake. Christopher Hitchens made this argument for Slate yesterday. But, as I point out in my Daily Standard piece, the public discussion of the events in August 1998 has been quite lacking. The New York Times, in particular, has made no real attempt to understand the facts of the matter.
I laid out some of the facts in my Daily Standard piece. But, I'll summarize and add to the evidence here:
(1) Several Suspected Facilities. Most importantly, al-Shifa was not the only facility in Sudan where Iraqi chemical weapons scientists were suspected of collaborating with al Qaeda. John Gannon, a former director at the CIA, told Stephen Hayes that there were "several" facilities that were suspected. Contemporaneous open source accounts confirm this as well. According to those same accounts, the Clinton administration chose al-Shifa, instead of other possible targets, because it was not close to any residential buildings. The Associated Press reported that the Pentagon decided not to strike another suspected facility because of “its proximity to residential neighborhoods, including a diplomatic enclave. Instead, strike planning focused on the Shifa plant in an industrial section of Khartoum.”
(2) NSA Intercepts. Much of the criticism of the al-Shifa strike centers on a soil sample taken outside the facility that purportedly contained traces of EMPTA, a precursor used in the production of VX nerve gas, which is a particularly nasty weapon. If you read the Times account you would think that this was the strongest, or even the only, piece of evidence used to justify the strike.
That's not the case. As I recount in my piece, President Clinton authorized the intelligence community to discuss the multiple threads of evidence used to justify the strike. One thread, in particular, was more important than the others. The NSA intercepted communications between the father of Iraq's chemical weapons program, Emad Al Ani, and the plant's management. Thus, the soil sample was not the only, nor even the strongest piece of evidence used.
(3) CIA's Declassified Reporting to Congress. For years after the strike, the CIA reported to Congress that Iraq was working in Sudan on chemical and possibly even biological weapons. You can read those reports for yourself via the links provided here. I continue to wonder why this reporting was, apparently, never futher investigated by the CIA's own Iraq Survey Group or any other official government body.
(4) The CIA's Michael Scheuer. Before his own flip-flop on the issue of Iraq-al Qaeda, Michael Scheuer cited open source reporting on the Iraq-Sudan-al Qaeda connection in his book Through Our Enemies Eyes (2002). The CIA's first bin Laden hunter wrote:
Whatever progress bin Laden made in Sudan toward arming al Qaeda with CBRN weapons appears to have had Turabi’s approval and was supported by the Khartoum factories of the Military Industrial Corporation (MIC) - where bin Laden had a private office – or other NIF-controlled facilities. A Sudanese military engineer named Colonel Abd-al-Basit Hamza – who now builds military factories and once built roads for bin Laden’s Al-Hijra Company – reportedly manages a ‘group of companies…run by NIF in cooperation with Iraq and bin Laden. The operation of this program is led by Iraqi scientists and technicians, led by Dr. Khalil Ibrahim Mubaruhah, and by Asian and foreign experts. The New Republic quotes a Sudanese military defector as saying that “up to 60 Iraqi military experts rotate through Sudan every six months, and that some of these experts are involved in some kind of munitions development” at the MIC. In addition, Sudanese oppositionists – not the most unbiased sources – claim Iraq’s technicians are helping Sudan build chemical weapons at MIC facilities in Khartoum and, in return, Iraqi chemical weapons have been hidden by Sudan at the Yarmuk Military Military Manufacturing Complex in Sheggara, south of Khartoum. (Chapter 9, p. 125)
Other laboratory and production facilities available to bin Laden are reported in the Khowst and Jalalabad areas, and in the Khartoum suburb of Kubar. The latter facility is said to be a ‘new chemical and bacteriological factory’ cooperatively built by Sudan, bin Laden, and Iraq, and may be one of several in Sudan. In January 1999, Al-Watan Al-Arabi reported that by late 1998, ‘Iraq, Sudan, and bin Laden were cooperating and coordinating in the field of chemical weapons. The reports say that several chemical factories were built in Sudan. They were financed by bin Laden and supervised by Iraqi experts.’ (Anonymous, pp. 188-189)
There are lot more quotes to choose from, but you get the picture.
(5) The State Department's Explanation. State Department deputy spokesman James Foley addressed the press after the strike. He described the plant as part of the Sudanese military-industrial complex that was operated by bin Laden and that “we believe there were links between the Sudanese and Iraq on this issue.” Foley told reporters that “hundreds of Iraqi experts have worked in Sudan since the war, including in the manufacture of munitions.” He added, “we have evidence of ties between Sudan's chemical weapons aspirations, the Shifa facility and other chemical weapons actors” and “there is evidence that Sudan sought help in the pursuit of a CW (chemical weapons) capability from other countries, principally Iraq.”
(6) The Clinton Administration's Original Indictment of Osama Bin Laden. The Iraq-al Qaeda cooperation at several facilities in Sudan may have been what Clinton administration prosecutors were thinking of when they included this allegation in the original indictment of bin Laden:
"In addition, al Qaeda reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the Government of Iraq."
The original indictment of bin Laden, including the language above, was filed just a few months before the strike on al-Shifa. Critics have tried to argue that since this language was dropped from the new indictment of bin Laden months later that it has no merit. But, the updated indictment of bin Laden focused narrowly on the August 1998 embassy bombings. That indictment contained facts directly relevant to the embassy bombings, as opposed to the more generic earlier indictment. In short, just because it was dropped it doesn't mean it was wrong.
(7) Richard Clarke and Mary McCarthy's fellow NSC staffers. Richard Clarke, Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon have all defended the intelligence surrounding al-Shifa from the beginning. The indictment referenced above was unsealed in November 1998. The 9-11 commission report notes that when Clarke read the passage above it "led Clarke, who for years had read intelligence reports on Iraqi-Sudanese cooperation on chemical weapons, to speculate to Berger [National Security Advisor] that a large Iraqi presence at chemical facilities in Khartoum was ‘probably a direct result of the Iraq-Al Qida agreement.’ Clarke added that VX precursor traces found near al Shifa were the ‘exact formula used by Iraq.’” [Emphasis Added.]
So, Clarke was clearly familiar with the broader set of intelligence surrounding Iraq's activities in Sudan. Clarke also publicly defended the intelligence in the pages of The Washington Post on January 23, 1999.
One of the points of my piece in the Daily Standard is to ask why the press has not challenged Richard Clarke and his fellow NSC staffers on this issue. They now claim that none of this means that Iraq and al Qaeda were really working together.
(8) The Iraqi Regime publicly praises bin Laden just one week after the strike on al-Shifa. As Stephen Hayes reported in his The Connection, “On August 27, 1998, twenty days after al Qaeda attacked the U.S. embassies in Africa, Babel, Uday Hussein’s newspaper, published a startling editorial proclaiming bin Laden ‘an Arab and Islamic hero.” It is also worth noting that senior level Iraqi officials traveled to Sudan in the aftermath of the strike to publicly condemn the U.S. There were, actually, a number of visits back and forth between Sudanese and Iraqi officials.
(9) An "increase" in the Iraqi presence in Sudan following the strike. The New York Times reported in November 1998 that, according to the Clinton administration, there was an “increase in the Iraqi presence in Sudan” in the wake of the strike. This one additional piece of evidence that the Clinton administration used to bolster its argument that it had made the right decision.
(10) Former Clinton Administration officials defend the decision to stike al-Shifa to this day. Self-explanatory.
These are 10 quick facts concerning August 1998. There are dozens more. It takes willful ignorance to pretend that none of this happened.
I say that the Times piece was ridiculous because the Old Grey Lady left out or spun nearly every salient fact surrounding the matter. Now, I realize that the strike on al-Shifa was controversial. Many public commentators to this day insist that the strike was a mistake. Christopher Hitchens made this argument for Slate yesterday. But, as I point out in my Daily Standard piece, the public discussion of the events in August 1998 has been quite lacking. The New York Times, in particular, has made no real attempt to understand the facts of the matter.
I laid out some of the facts in my Daily Standard piece. But, I'll summarize and add to the evidence here:
(1) Several Suspected Facilities. Most importantly, al-Shifa was not the only facility in Sudan where Iraqi chemical weapons scientists were suspected of collaborating with al Qaeda. John Gannon, a former director at the CIA, told Stephen Hayes that there were "several" facilities that were suspected. Contemporaneous open source accounts confirm this as well. According to those same accounts, the Clinton administration chose al-Shifa, instead of other possible targets, because it was not close to any residential buildings. The Associated Press reported that the Pentagon decided not to strike another suspected facility because of “its proximity to residential neighborhoods, including a diplomatic enclave. Instead, strike planning focused on the Shifa plant in an industrial section of Khartoum.”
(2) NSA Intercepts. Much of the criticism of the al-Shifa strike centers on a soil sample taken outside the facility that purportedly contained traces of EMPTA, a precursor used in the production of VX nerve gas, which is a particularly nasty weapon. If you read the Times account you would think that this was the strongest, or even the only, piece of evidence used to justify the strike.
That's not the case. As I recount in my piece, President Clinton authorized the intelligence community to discuss the multiple threads of evidence used to justify the strike. One thread, in particular, was more important than the others. The NSA intercepted communications between the father of Iraq's chemical weapons program, Emad Al Ani, and the plant's management. Thus, the soil sample was not the only, nor even the strongest piece of evidence used.
(3) CIA's Declassified Reporting to Congress. For years after the strike, the CIA reported to Congress that Iraq was working in Sudan on chemical and possibly even biological weapons. You can read those reports for yourself via the links provided here. I continue to wonder why this reporting was, apparently, never futher investigated by the CIA's own Iraq Survey Group or any other official government body.
(4) The CIA's Michael Scheuer. Before his own flip-flop on the issue of Iraq-al Qaeda, Michael Scheuer cited open source reporting on the Iraq-Sudan-al Qaeda connection in his book Through Our Enemies Eyes (2002). The CIA's first bin Laden hunter wrote:
Whatever progress bin Laden made in Sudan toward arming al Qaeda with CBRN weapons appears to have had Turabi’s approval and was supported by the Khartoum factories of the Military Industrial Corporation (MIC) - where bin Laden had a private office – or other NIF-controlled facilities. A Sudanese military engineer named Colonel Abd-al-Basit Hamza – who now builds military factories and once built roads for bin Laden’s Al-Hijra Company – reportedly manages a ‘group of companies…run by NIF in cooperation with Iraq and bin Laden. The operation of this program is led by Iraqi scientists and technicians, led by Dr. Khalil Ibrahim Mubaruhah, and by Asian and foreign experts. The New Republic quotes a Sudanese military defector as saying that “up to 60 Iraqi military experts rotate through Sudan every six months, and that some of these experts are involved in some kind of munitions development” at the MIC. In addition, Sudanese oppositionists – not the most unbiased sources – claim Iraq’s technicians are helping Sudan build chemical weapons at MIC facilities in Khartoum and, in return, Iraqi chemical weapons have been hidden by Sudan at the Yarmuk Military Military Manufacturing Complex in Sheggara, south of Khartoum. (Chapter 9, p. 125)
Other laboratory and production facilities available to bin Laden are reported in the Khowst and Jalalabad areas, and in the Khartoum suburb of Kubar. The latter facility is said to be a ‘new chemical and bacteriological factory’ cooperatively built by Sudan, bin Laden, and Iraq, and may be one of several in Sudan. In January 1999, Al-Watan Al-Arabi reported that by late 1998, ‘Iraq, Sudan, and bin Laden were cooperating and coordinating in the field of chemical weapons. The reports say that several chemical factories were built in Sudan. They were financed by bin Laden and supervised by Iraqi experts.’ (Anonymous, pp. 188-189)
There are lot more quotes to choose from, but you get the picture.
(5) The State Department's Explanation. State Department deputy spokesman James Foley addressed the press after the strike. He described the plant as part of the Sudanese military-industrial complex that was operated by bin Laden and that “we believe there were links between the Sudanese and Iraq on this issue.” Foley told reporters that “hundreds of Iraqi experts have worked in Sudan since the war, including in the manufacture of munitions.” He added, “we have evidence of ties between Sudan's chemical weapons aspirations, the Shifa facility and other chemical weapons actors” and “there is evidence that Sudan sought help in the pursuit of a CW (chemical weapons) capability from other countries, principally Iraq.”
(6) The Clinton Administration's Original Indictment of Osama Bin Laden. The Iraq-al Qaeda cooperation at several facilities in Sudan may have been what Clinton administration prosecutors were thinking of when they included this allegation in the original indictment of bin Laden:
"In addition, al Qaeda reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the Government of Iraq."
The original indictment of bin Laden, including the language above, was filed just a few months before the strike on al-Shifa. Critics have tried to argue that since this language was dropped from the new indictment of bin Laden months later that it has no merit. But, the updated indictment of bin Laden focused narrowly on the August 1998 embassy bombings. That indictment contained facts directly relevant to the embassy bombings, as opposed to the more generic earlier indictment. In short, just because it was dropped it doesn't mean it was wrong.
(7) Richard Clarke and Mary McCarthy's fellow NSC staffers. Richard Clarke, Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon have all defended the intelligence surrounding al-Shifa from the beginning. The indictment referenced above was unsealed in November 1998. The 9-11 commission report notes that when Clarke read the passage above it "led Clarke, who for years had read intelligence reports on Iraqi-Sudanese cooperation on chemical weapons, to speculate to Berger [National Security Advisor] that a large Iraqi presence at chemical facilities in Khartoum was ‘probably a direct result of the Iraq-Al Qida agreement.’ Clarke added that VX precursor traces found near al Shifa were the ‘exact formula used by Iraq.’” [Emphasis Added.]
So, Clarke was clearly familiar with the broader set of intelligence surrounding Iraq's activities in Sudan. Clarke also publicly defended the intelligence in the pages of The Washington Post on January 23, 1999.
One of the points of my piece in the Daily Standard is to ask why the press has not challenged Richard Clarke and his fellow NSC staffers on this issue. They now claim that none of this means that Iraq and al Qaeda were really working together.
(8) The Iraqi Regime publicly praises bin Laden just one week after the strike on al-Shifa. As Stephen Hayes reported in his The Connection, “On August 27, 1998, twenty days after al Qaeda attacked the U.S. embassies in Africa, Babel, Uday Hussein’s newspaper, published a startling editorial proclaiming bin Laden ‘an Arab and Islamic hero.” It is also worth noting that senior level Iraqi officials traveled to Sudan in the aftermath of the strike to publicly condemn the U.S. There were, actually, a number of visits back and forth between Sudanese and Iraqi officials.
(9) An "increase" in the Iraqi presence in Sudan following the strike. The New York Times reported in November 1998 that, according to the Clinton administration, there was an “increase in the Iraqi presence in Sudan” in the wake of the strike. This one additional piece of evidence that the Clinton administration used to bolster its argument that it had made the right decision.
(10) Former Clinton Administration officials defend the decision to stike al-Shifa to this day. Self-explanatory.
These are 10 quick facts concerning August 1998. There are dozens more. It takes willful ignorance to pretend that none of this happened.
posted by Thomas Joscelyn at 11:29 AM
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