>
>'Irrefutable and Undeniable'
>
>February 6, 2003
>By WILLIAM SAFIRE
>
>
>
>
>
>
>WASHINGTON - It isn't the crime that gets you - it's the
>cover-up.
>
>Defenders of Saddam Hussein demanded absolute smoking-gun
>proof of illegal Iraqi possession of terror weaponry.
>Contrary to U.N. Resolution 1441, which demanded active
>Iraqi cooperation in demonstrating disarmament, Saddam's
>protectors place the burden of proof on the U.S.
>
>To their surprise, Colin Powell made the case, with a
>half-dozen smoking guns, of a huge Iraqi cover-up. In
>criminal law, that obstruction of justice would be called
>hiding incriminating evidence, spying on law enforcement
>officials and intimidating witnesses.
>
>Prosecutor Powell laid out on tape and in photographs hard
>evidence that would convince any jury. A colonel is
>overheard telling his superior: "We have this modified
>vehicle. What do we say if one of them sees it?" The
>general, amazed at the stupidity of failing to remove
>equipment purchased from a known weapons-systems company,
>replies: "You don't have one of those, do you?" The
>panicked colonel, to reassure his boss, blurts, "We
>evacuated everything." Concealment of evidence. Cover-up.
>
>Another tape from a different obstructor of inspectors: "We
>sent you a message yesterday to clean out all of the areas.
>. . . Make sure there is nothing there. . . . After you
>have carried out what is contained in this message, destroy
>the message. . . ." Destruction of evidence. Cover-up.
>
>And then, contrary to all expectations, there was an "Adlai
>Stevenson moment": The U.S. secretary of state displayed to
>the world aerial photographs showing trucks next to a
>bunker storing what signs say are chemical munitions.
>Behind the truck is what he called "a signature item: It's
>a decontamination vehicle in case something goes wrong."
>
>Then he showed a photograph of the same area just as U.N.
>inspectors are arriving. Gone were the trucks and the
>telltale decontaminators. The area had been sanitized for
>inspection, not only showing cover-up but also
>demonstrating that the U.N. team has been penetrated by
>Iraqi wiretaps and bugs.
>
>Need more? Saddam's agents, aware of our electronic
>surveillance, transmitted cover-up instructions by hand and
>not over telephone wires. "Remove the expression `nerve
>agents,' " ordered one official who forgot that the purpose
>of his call was to conceal those words from our Big Ear,
>"in the wireless instructions."
>
>Powell did not try to prove that Saddam had nerve gas to
>fill 16,000 rockets; it was enough that he gave conclusive
>proof of the cover-up.
>
>Reasonable people take as a clear indication of underlying
>crime such activity as lying about that crime, suborning
>perjury about it in others, and intimidating scientific
>witnesses.
>
>But unreasonable or fearful or self-interested people - the
>leaders of France, Germany, Russia, China and Luxembourg
>(where is Ambassador Perle Mesta now that we need her?) -
>do not want to find the crime that would necessitate war.
>That's why they shrug off the cover-up. Their reaction to
>Powell's graphic presentation of smoking guns: Send more
>inspectors to meet more delays, and tell the C.I.A.'s
>George Tenet to keep those tapes and pictures coming.
>
>He won't. Rather than tell the Iraqis or the penetrated
>U.N. inspectors what we know about portable and underground
>sites, which would be quickly moved elsewhere, we will mark
>them as targets for destruction.
>
>But the inspection chiefs will obey Saddam's summons to
>Baghdad for another round of rope-a-dope. Having gained
>three months of delay about U.N.-ordered overflights, the
>Iraqi will graciously accede to a U-2 overhead, buying more
>time. Then he will enter interminable negotiations about
>"private" visits to scientists - not outside Iraq, of
>course - who know their every word will be secretly taped
>by his secret police and with death the penalty for telling
>the truth.
>
>Powell also pointed to evidence about the nexus of Al Qaeda
>and Saddam, the connection of terrorist groups and the main
>terrorist state. The C.I.A.'s Tenet sat behind him,
>endorsing Powell's charges of the nexus by his presence,
>knowing that an angry minority of his analysts, to justify
>years of mistaken estimates, are still telling media
>outlets that the boss is cooking the books.
>
>At Powell's insistence, Tenet supplied the picture of the
>Zarqawi poison works in northern Iraq that Kurds told us
>for years was the redoubt of Al Qaeda escapees from
>Afghanistan. As a mop-up to that war, why haven't we
>obliterated it?
>
>http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/06/opinion/06SAFI.html?ex=1045631225&ei=1&en=
>59d0e8b789cc1661

>Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, visit:

        http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/aam.html

AAM Website:  http://www.danenet.wicip.org/aam
----------------------------------------------------------------------------