Boston Globe >> Did US know Iraq had no WMDs?

[sabra]

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/03/06/did_us_know_iraq_had_no_wmds/

Did US know Iraq had no WMDs?
By Kevin McKiernan | March 6, 2006

WHAT IF the Bush administration wasn't entirely convinced before the Iraq war that Saddam Hussein had WMDs, but simply invoked those ''mushroom cloud" images to rally necessary public support? One source of such speculation lies in the administration's puzzling prewar failure to supply Iraqi Kurds, Hussein's closest and most likely targets, with gas masks and other promised protection.

While the White House has publicly maintained that the decision to go to war was not made until early 2003 -- and only as a last resort after the failure of both inspections and diplomacy -- I knew a full year before that Kurdish leaders were quietly tipped off to war plans just weeks after the events of Sept. 11, 2001.

The Washington, D.C., representative of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, which controlled the eastern portion of the Kurdish region, told me early in 2002 that he and other Kurdish leaders had been summoned to the Pentagon in October 2001 to meet Donald Rumsfeld, the secretary of defense. One of the topics of conversation was the 1988 gassing of the Kurds by the Iraqi regime.

...

In February 2003, with the US attack now imminent, Kurdish leaders Jalal Talabani and Massoud Barzani published an impassioned letter to President Bush, complaining they ''have yet to receive any of the protective equipment promised by your officials to deal with the very real risk of chemical and biological weapons attacks on the cities of Iraqi Kurdistan."

...

The alternative scenario was just too disturbing: that the Pentagon knew all along that the Kurds, an exposed population of almost 4 million, would have no need for masks. Could the White House have conducted the war with actual knowledge that there were no WMD in Iraq? Was that why no one saw fit to protect the Kurds?

[LSK]

1. well considering the UN inspectors reported finding nothing

The whole world knew!

Also why does the story say inspections failed??? HOW???

[sabra]

5. it's saying that the WH claimed that it failed, and it was a "last resort"

[LSK]

11. how come nobody is taking on the admin with this lie???

[Nickster]

2. This just in......sky still blue!

[MadMaddie]

3. Water is still wet.....

[TAPat]

4. Isn't this old news?

I mean we knew about this over 3 years ago.
Are they calling this news?

[LSK]

8. it is never old news until the Bush admin is held accountable n/t

[Tesha]

9. "The Globe" has a lot of catching-up to do.

They destroyed their reputation (by fellating Bush)
and now they're trying to build it back.

News for the Globe: Won't Work. Can't Trust them
Anymore. Wouldn't be Prudent.

Tesha

[Tracer]

13. Where do you get the idea that the Globe is pro-Smirky?

I'm a daily subscriber, and I cannot recall ANY editorial by the Globe staff that props up the *administration.

Yes, they've got Jeff Jacoby spouting off right-wing editorials, but his mewlings are more than crushed by Derrick Jackson, James Carroll, Tom Oliphant (now gone, dammit), H.D.S. Greenway and others.

[Tesha]

16. Oh, just their everyday news coverage in the run-ups to...

> Where do you get the idea that the Globe is pro-Smirky?

Oh, just their everyday news coverage in the run-ups to and
aftermaths of the Selection of 2000 and the Elections of
2002 and 2004.

(Deliberately or not,) They were part of the vast megaphone
used by the Reich Wing to smear Gore and help "elect" Shrub.
And like the rest of the media, the completely failed to
cover the truth of what happened in Florida in 2000.

Tesha

[endarkenment]

17. They have certainly catapulted their share of bullshit.

Also they didn't exactly do Sen. Kerry a lot of favors, even though they did endorse him. I seem to recall quite a few negative investigations into the senator. The globe is yet another corporatist media outlet playing footsie with its liberal/progressive readership while spewing the usual disinformation.

[The_Casual_Observer]

6. The invading army wasn't prepared for WMD.

It was reported at the time. Whatever equipment they had wasn't adequate. It was clear that they knew they wouldn't have to use it. In fact, they shed what they did have long before they reached Baghdad.

[sabra]

7. exactly, the Kurd angle just reaffirms that either they didn't care

or knew that there were no real concerns...

[Arkansas Granny]

10. What if the US had allowed the UN weapons inspectors to

complete their investigation before they were made to leave the area so the invasion could begin?

Of course, if they had done that they couldn't have justified the invasion. I think we all see now, and most of us probably saw it at the time, that Bush wanted to invade Iraq from day one and was just looking for an excuse that the majority of the American public would buy.

[endarkenment]

12. Did they lose the 'L' section of their dictionary?

"While the White House has publicly maintained that the decision to go to war was not made until early 2003 -- and only as a last resort after the failure of both inspections and diplomacy -- I knew a full year before that Kurdish leaders were quietly tipped off to war plans just weeks after the events of Sept. 11, 2001."

c'mon Kevin, just say it: They Lied. They are LIARS.

[paineinthearse]

14. This is NOT a Globe editorial, it is an op ed written by Kevin McKiernan

"Kevin McKiernan has covered the Iraq war for ABC News and he wrote and directed the PBS film ''Good Kurds, Bad Kurds." His new book is ''The Kurds: A People in Search of Their Homeland.""

[The Stranger]

15. It took them four years to ask this question?