"Programs?" Resist this License to Kill

by Marc Pienaar Thursday, Jun. 12, 2003 at 10:34 AM
marcpienaar@hotmail.com

A doctrine of pre-emptive war, together with a disingenuous and aggressive intention to declare facilities "dual-use", is a a licence to kill. We need to see the evidence that there were bio-chemical weapons, not conceivably "dual-use" or defunct programs. Given recent history, any claim that there was an active program would have to be subjected to the most intense scrutiny. Investigative committees should guard strictly against allowing the administration to morph "weapons" into "programs", otherwise a frightening precedent will be set.

There appears to be a systematic program to downgrade claims that Iraq had WMD, to ones that he had WMD progams. This started at the Whitehouse yesterday:

http://usinfo.state.gov/cgi-bin/washfile/display.pl?p=/products/washfile/latest&f=03061004.tlt&t=/products/washfile/newsitem.shtml

Q: One question on the weapons of mass destruction issue. The President yesterday said three times in a row "weapons programs," rather than "weapons." Did the President intend to shift the focus here or establish a new position to in any way suggest a change in what he alleged before --

MR. FLEISCHER: No, as you know from listening to the President on this issue repeatedly, when the President talked about weapons programs, he includes weapons of mass destruction in that.

Q: So he means by weapons, weapons programs, he means weapons, themselves?

MR. FLEISCHER: That's correct.

Q: I mean, but he used "weapons programs" three times in a row. What should we make of that?

MR. FLEISCHER: You know how the President has addressed this issue repeatedly over time. I'm telling you I don't think you should make anything of it, because I know what the President meant. When he said "weapons programs," he includes weapons of mass destruction, as you heard him say on numerous occasions.

Q: So he uses them interchangeably?

MR. FLEISCHER: That's correct. He did yesterday.

The new spin is also being carried in the media. For example:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,89117,00.html

A doctrine of pre-emptive war, together with a disingenuous and aggressive intention to declare facilities "dual-use", is a a licence to kill.

Evidence of such disingenuity has been seen with the aluminium tubes fiasco, and it appears to happening again with the "germ trailers".

http://www.iht.com/articles/98939.html

With appropriate modifications, your bath tub could be a fermenter.

One can declare thousands of facilities in any country "dual use" with the sort of criteria we have seen from the CIA in the above two cases. Just declare the legitimate application a "cover story".

It's a short step from there to a "WMD program"; surely we cannot allow such a short step to war.

Investigative committees should guard strictly against allowing the administration to morph "weapons" into "programs", otherwise a frightening precedent will be set.

We need to know what the evidence was for actual WMD's in Iraq, not just weapons programmes. The President took us to war saying there were weopons, not programs. What was the evidence, Mr Tenet?

Any claim of a "program", especially if it involves dual-use isues, would have to undergo the most intense independent scrutiny. And it seems it would have to be non-American scrutiny, given the deceitful fiascos we have seen to date.