The report by the Duelfer-headed Iraqi Survey Group (ISG) also said that former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had “essentially destroyed” that country’s banned weapons programs in 1991, after the end of the first Gulf war, with the last secret factory, a biological weapons plant, reportedly shut down in 1996.

The claim that Baghdad possessed these weapons was one of the pretexts used by Washington to launch the invasion of Iraq last year. The fact that the so-called inspectors sent by Washington and its imperialist allies to Iraq haven’t uncovered such weapons has been a central theme of the campaign of Democratic candidate John Kerry, coverage in liberal dailies like the New York Times, and echoed by much of the middle-class left. None of these forces dispute the notion that Washington, which possesses the most nuclear weapons and is the only government to have ever used them, would have had the “right” to “disarm” Iraq if such weapons did in fact exist.

Despite its length—918 pages—the report contained little new. Its conclusions repeated most of what was said earlier this year by Duelfer’s predecessor, David Kay. Duelfer, a CIA special adviser, has headed the ISG since January. Formed by the occupying powers in mid-2003, the ISG organized more than 1,400 U.S., British, and Australian agents to hunt for Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction.”

Kay, interviewed on CNN evening news October 7 on the conclusions of Duelfer’s report, restated his support for the Bush administration’s course. Asked by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer whether another six months of “inspections” before the U.S.-led invasion could have led to a clear conclusion then that no “weapons of mass destruction” existed in Iraq, Kay said no. He asserted that the Hussein regime did everything it could to keep ambiguity going about what kind of weapons it possessed—a point Duelfer also made in his report.

“Saddam’s primary goal from 1991 to 2003 was to have UN sanctions lifted, while maintaining security of the regime,” the Duelfer report said. After the 1990-91 U.S.-led war on Iraq, the United Nations, at Washington’s request, imposed the harshest sanctions ever implemented by that body, including a total economic embargo that devastated the country.

While dismantling Iraq’s chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons programs after 1991, Hussein continued to give the impression that Iraq might still have such weapons, mainly as a deterrent to Iran, the ISG report said. Baghdad waged an eight-year war against Iran, following the 1979 revolution in that country that overthrew the U.S.-backed regime of the shah. Right up to the eve of the U.S. invasion in March 2003, Hussein misled his own top advisors and military leaders about whether the government still had such weapons, according to the ISG report.

The report also concluded that the Hussein regime did everything it could to retain the scientific personnel and know-how to reconstitute these weapons programs as soon as feasible.

In addition, the ISG “uncovered Iraqi plans or designs for three long-range ballistic missiles” with ranges from 250 to 620 miles, and for a cruise missile, “although none of these systems progressed to production and only one reportedly passed the design phase,” the report stated. Components for such missiles, spare parts for tanks, and night-vision equipment were purchased by the Hussein government from a range of governments, despite the UN sanctions.

The report claimed that the Iraqi government was able to mitigate the effects of the sanctions through the UN-sponsored “oil for food” program, started in 1996, by raising some $11 billion through the sale of oil vouchers. These vouchers, which could be resold for a profit, were given to government officials from Indonesia, France, Russia, China, and other countries, along with private companies, including two from the United States. Official denials of these transactions appeared the following day from the governments of many of the cited countries.

The government of France was particularly incensed. “The report does great damage,” French ambassador to Washington Jean-David Levitte said, according to the New York Times. “There really is a sense of outrage in Paris.” The French government especially objected to the naming in the ISG report of French individuals and companies involved in the oil deals, while not disclosing the U.S. companies, citing “privacy laws.”

Both Republican and Democratic politicians used the report’s conclusions to try to bolster their election campaigns.

The ISG report showed that “delay, defer, wasn’t an option,” said Vice President Richard Cheney during an October 7 campaign meeting in Miami. “As soon as the sanctions were lifted he had every intention of going back,” to his weapons program, Cheney said. “The suggestion is clearly there by Mr. Duelfer that Saddam had used the [oil for food] program in such a way that he had bought off foreign governments and was building support among them to take the sanctions down.”

Kerry, speaking to reporters in Colorado, said the same day that the ISG report proved his position that Bush acted prematurely in invading Iraq and overthrowing Hussein.

Kerry also cited statements the same week by Paul Bremer that more U.S. troops on the ground in Iraq after the invasion would have been useful. Bremer, who headed the Coalition Provisional Authority, was Washington’s civilian “administrator” in Iraq for 14 months, until June 2004. “Ambassador Bremer finally said what [Democratic vice-presidential candidate] John Edwards and I have been saying for months,” Kerry said. Bremer quickly rebutted these statements (see article in this issue.)
 
 
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Controversy over Paul Bremer remarks highlights debate among U.S. rulers on training Iraqi military  
 
 
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