WMD In Iraq

I served 14 months in Iraq back when the Iraqis had visions of sugar-plumbs dancing in their heads, back then they were actually glad we were there. I never had anyone give me flowers but men would come up to me on the street and kiss me, kids followed us around wanting to take a picture with us or get a treat. The women would wave as we went by and we would wave back. Only twice in the hundred or so trips I made out into Baghdad do I remember someone actually doing or saying something disparaging toward us.

Upon my arrival in early 2003, I began work on a SST (Site Survey Team) working for the ISG (Iraq Survey Group) which was responsible for the search for WMD in Iraq and answered directly to Don Rumsfeld. Everyday we would visit two or three sites in Baghdad which had been previously designated by U.S. intelligence as possible WMD related facilities. We made a great many trips out into Baghdad with our convoy of 6-8 vehicles, toting all kinds of detection equipment, chemical detectors, geiger counters and radiation detectors, sniffers, all kinds of protective equipment, forced entry gear, EOD people, medics, intel, security, etc. Every day, for several months, we went out into the city to search for some remnant of Saddam’s notorious WMD program. We never found even a trace of this supposedly lethal and burgeoning WMD program. We were only one out of a dozen teams that were assigned specifically to Baghdad and there must have been a hundred or more other teams all over the country (although I don’t have specific knowledge of exactly what ISG had going on in other parts of Iraq).

We searched hundreds of facilities, office buildings, warehouses and factories. We dug up fields with backhoes following reports that barrels of caustic substances had been buried there, we broke down doors into secret facilities, rummaged through bunkers, dug into rooms 18 inches deep with the ash of burned documents. We never found even a trace of evidence. Neither did any of the other teams. One of the detection experts said once that in a warehouse the size of a football field (and we searched many of them), if we were at one end with our sniffers and there was a piece of paper at the other end with just a single drop of chemical agent, those sniffers would pick it up. Every night we talked about what we had seen, and we saw some pretty amazing things. But, we never found a shred of evidence that Saddam had WMD or production facilities for same.

Later in my deployment I had opportunity to do what I had actually trained most of my military career for, Intel. I was lucky enough to be assigned to the High Value Detainee facility where most of the top 300 or so personalities were being detained for questioning. I was the case handler (head interrogator) for a few of those and got to be in the interrogation booth with several others. Amazingly, their stories all corroborated the evidence I had seen on that SST. Of course we had to ask why Saddam would have kept telling the international community he had no WMD, then wink at the camera, like he was crossing his fingers behind his back. They largely reported that he was afraid of loosing his position as the regional hegemon. He had to keep his neighbors thinking he had WMD to retain his position of regional dominance. Their stories were all the same, “After 1998, we had no WMD or WMD programs. Saddam would have reconstituted them if given the chance but we had none after 1998, and he wasn’t going to try to develop them further until sanctions were lifted and the international community backed off.” Of all those 300 or more detainees who had intimate knowledge of the inner workings of Saddam Hussein's regime, there would have been at least one who saw it in his best interest to spill the beans. But there was none, only broad consensus. No WMD.

Our reports were going up and we would get memos in return from the office of the Secretary of Defense telling us what their assessment was, “now go out and find evidence to support it.” They should have taken the word of David Kay and figured something was up when he resigned. Instead they hired another goon to go in and do what Kay had failed to do. Of course, he failed too. It was about that time the media blitz started, “Oh, we didn’t go into Iraq for WMD, we went there for regime change. Iraq is a much better place now that Saddam is out of power, and Iraq will become a beacon of democracy in the Middle East.” The Right swallowed that line hook and all. The Left rolled their eyes and gagged. About now, many Americans are waking up to the reality; 3,000+ American body bags and 60,000 (apx) Iraqis dead since the invasion. David Kay said in his testimony before congress that the intelligence failure leading up to the Iraq invasion was “most disturbing,” then he said “it’s important to acknowledge failure.”

Wow, Mr. Kay, you’ve really got something there.

Ego/Ethno-Centrism In America

Someone like Sean Hannity would wet himself that I am anti-American for what I am about to publish. I think Americans are very ego/ethno-centric and have no clue what is going on in the rest of the world. Nor do they care. Many would say, "Why should I care?" The answer seems obvious.

While I was in Baghdad I had opportunity to work in very close proximity to, in total, about 70 Iraqis. The Army had hired them to do repairs on the palace complex we were living in and operating out of. The conditions those guys had to deal with, even at that time in late 2003 (it has gotten much worse since then), were horrendous. They had to risk getting shot up as they stood at the gate of the complex waiting to get in for cavorting with the American infidels, they risked being kidnapped, murdered, etc. Just watch the news and you'll know what they were putting up with from day to day. They were all pretty good guys and I became good friends with some of them. Some were crooked and thieves (Ali Babba, as they said) but for the most part they were just family men trying to make a living for their families. They were mostly laborers to clean up bomb rubble but we hired some for their skills such as carpentry, plumbing, and electrical. We paid the laborers $3/day and the skilled workers $5/day. They were happy for the income, and if I believe what they told me, it was a very good income compared to what they had been accustomed to. One guy told me he made that much in a month under Saddam, doing the very same work.

Here is an email I sent to my family while I was in Baghdad:

"Mon, 8 Sep 2003 06:17:28 -0700 (PDT) Last week was a good one for language. I learned a lot and I'm finally able to get some elementary thoughts across. I think M. (our 2 year old) speaks better English than I speak Arabic. One of my guys, Thamr, told me last week that his dad was driving his car and four armed men came up while he was stopped and carjacked him. They shot him twice in the leg and robbed him of his car. The people here live in fear for their lives because there is no law, nor order. The same guy, Thamr, told me that he wants to marry a girl he has known since childhood. He is 22 and she is 20. He told me that she has to be 23 years old before she can wed and he has to pay her dad $300 to do it. That's difficult for him because he is supporting his parents and 4 brothers with his $3/day wage. Perhaps within the 3 years he can come up with the money.

"Another guy, Salaam, told me that he had worked on Saddam's palace, the same one where we live. He was doing some marble work. Saddam came through one day to inspect the work. All the workers at the palace had been told not to look up at him. Salaam inadvertently looked up as Saddam was walking through and caught Saddam's eye. Saddam called him over, pulled out a pistol, and shot him in the head...for looking at him. He was in a coma for several months. He showed me the bullet hole...actually he let me feel it because hair had grown over. It was weird to put my finger into a bullet hole in a man's scull.

"It is so saddening to see the conditions and poverty that these people live in. The anarchy they have to experience. They are, for the most part, such good people. Today a Major got angry with me because I wasn't being their overseer. Some of the army types here are so uptight about this stuff. They figure the hajis have to be driven like slaves. They just can't see them as people. Some Americans are so racist. There's a lot of arrogance in people's hearts over here.

"Well, I guess this email has gone on long enough. I am again scheduled to go to Qatar to help on a doc-ex project. I'm praying I'll be able to stay. Thanks for all your support and prayers."

I struggle to have hope in human nature. It seems that as soon as a person is given a little authority, or as he may so suppose, he'll immediately begin to abuse that authority. It seems so clear to me that people will become depraved and inhuman the moment they perceive they can get away with it. One can easily see it in our civic leaders, occasionally our police officers, military personnel, people who, when given a little authority over others, immediately begin to debase themselves by abusing and maltreating those over whom they have authority.

At the same time I have reason to hope because obviously the majority of people are decent well intentioned people. Most police officers are good people, a good many in the military (although I frequently disagree with their morals) are decent hearted folks. My struggle is with the direction it seems a few powerful people are taking this country. As I mentioned in my email, that Major was so concerned that I (the first line of inferior beings) was being too nice to the hajis (the second line of inferior beings). What was so wrong with giving those guys a break who worked in horrendous heat every day, 7 am to 5 pm doing hard manual labor so that joker didn't have to, for a pittance of $3-$5/day. This Major Joker couldn't figure that out. I always wonder what various people would do with power if they had it. I'm often skeptical in this regard.

As a side note, I was listening yesterday to NPR and there was a short news program about slums in poor countries, specifically not the United States. The conditions described were terrible and unimaginable. I remember one line that said, "a stream of sewage comes from the rich part of town. It flows into the slum and never flows out." People live in shacks of cardboard and tin, plastic bags, pretty much anything they can get a hold of. The specific slum being discussed was in Kenya and the speaker said it didn't have an official population because it wasn't even an official place, but it was estimated that the population was about that of San Francisco.

The reason I mention this is that the people said they were happy there, and there was a sense of community. People treated each other with dignity and respect and they looked out for one another. Perhaps that may have been an exception rather than the rule but the principle is certainly there. How can people be humane to one another while living in such destitute circumstances while people in the United States who have everything they could ever desire be so ruthless and inhumane? Clearly wealth doesn't make people good, nor does poverty make people bad. Clearly ethnic, national and racial lines don't define the quality of a person's character.