What the U.S. Intelligence Community Believed, Pre-Bush
Daniel McKivergan reminds us that U.S. intelligence community, or at least a significant portion of it, believed that Saddam had reconstituted much of his WMD programs...before President Bush even came into office. It is the conventional wisdom now that the Bush administration exaggerated the intelligence concerning Saddam's WMD's. But while there were certainly mistakes made, it is disingenuous to pretend that the Bush administration was simply exaggerating the threat.
McKivergan quotes from Kenneth Pollack's piece in the The Atlantic Monthly in early 2004. Pollack also wrote The Threatening Storm (2002), in which he aggressively argues that Saddam's WMD programs were a threat that required U.S. intervention. Pollack is no Bushie. As the book jacket explains, he spent fifteen years "as an analyst on Iraq for the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council." His two stints at the National Security Council were both under President Clinton.
Pollack's work gives us a useful window into the conventional wisdom that had formed within the intelligence community prior to the Bush administration. With that in mind, consider this paragraph (among many) from Pollack's book:
One obvious way Saddam could counterattack (and undoubtedly would if he believed his grip on power were seriously threatened) would be to employ his residual WMD and ballistic missile arsenal against U.S. allies in the region to try to persuade them to halt the attack. As Chapter 5 described, Saddam has retained roughly twelve to thirty-six Scud-type missiles, probably with WMD warheads. He may also have several dozen shorter-range al-Samud missiles, which may also have WMD warheads. He has the capability to produce anthrax and other biological agents, as well as VX nerve gas and other chemical agents. We would have to be prepared for Saddam to use those weapons wither to stave off defeat, or simply as an act of final vengeance if our operations were successful.
This is the threat that one of President Clinton's NSC members worried about. Pollack discounts the threat of Saddam's relationships with terrorist groups like al Qaeda, but he was certainly concerned about Saddam's WMD's.
McKivergan quotes from Kenneth Pollack's piece in the The Atlantic Monthly in early 2004. Pollack also wrote The Threatening Storm (2002), in which he aggressively argues that Saddam's WMD programs were a threat that required U.S. intervention. Pollack is no Bushie. As the book jacket explains, he spent fifteen years "as an analyst on Iraq for the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council." His two stints at the National Security Council were both under President Clinton.
Pollack's work gives us a useful window into the conventional wisdom that had formed within the intelligence community prior to the Bush administration. With that in mind, consider this paragraph (among many) from Pollack's book:
One obvious way Saddam could counterattack (and undoubtedly would if he believed his grip on power were seriously threatened) would be to employ his residual WMD and ballistic missile arsenal against U.S. allies in the region to try to persuade them to halt the attack. As Chapter 5 described, Saddam has retained roughly twelve to thirty-six Scud-type missiles, probably with WMD warheads. He may also have several dozen shorter-range al-Samud missiles, which may also have WMD warheads. He has the capability to produce anthrax and other biological agents, as well as VX nerve gas and other chemical agents. We would have to be prepared for Saddam to use those weapons wither to stave off defeat, or simply as an act of final vengeance if our operations were successful.
This is the threat that one of President Clinton's NSC members worried about. Pollack discounts the threat of Saddam's relationships with terrorist groups like al Qaeda, but he was certainly concerned about Saddam's WMD's.
posted by Thomas Joscelyn at 11:04 PM
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