Iraqi Foreign Minister Told US Saddam Had 500 Metric Tons of "Chemical Warfare Agents" Pre-War

That's my headline, not MSNBC's. MSNBC chooses this headline:

Iraqi diplomat gave U.S. prewar WMD details

Saddam’s foreign minister told CIA the truth, so why didn’t agency listen?

The article concerns Saddam's Foreign Minister, Naji Sabri, who met with CIA cut-outs in 2002, before the war, in a meeting arranged by French Intelligence. He told our cut-outs Saddam had no "significant, active" biological warfare program and was further from developing a nuclear weapon than the CIA believed.

So, Lisa Meyers and the liberal media want to know, why didn't we listen?

Um, here's a possibility: Because he was a high-ranking member of Saddam's team telling us, with regard to bio- and nuclear weapons, precisely what Saddam was. Does Lisa Meyers consider the possibility that we didn't listen because we figured was precisely what he seemed to be -- a mouthpiece for Saddam Hussein?

Futhermore, after all of her huffing, she wants to know "why we didn't believe him." Well, okay. If we had believed him -- and it seems, perhaps, we did -- then we also would have believed what he said about Saddam's poison-gas capabilities:

On the issue of chemical weapons, the CIA said Saddam had stockpiled as much as "500 metric tons of chemical warfare agents" and had "renewed" production of deadly agents. Sabri said Iraq had stockpiled weapons and had "poison gas" left over from the first Gulf War. Both Sabri and the agency were wrong.

The MSM wants to know why we chose not to believe him with regard to bio and nuclear weapons, but doesn't seem interested in why Bush did believe him with regard to chemical weapons.

If a high-ranking member of Saddam's inner circle tells you point-blank that Saddam is hoarding chemical weapons -- a statement against the regime's interests, and therefore more plausible than the statements in support of the regime, like the claims about bio and nuke weapons -- shouldn't you, you know, act on that amazing admission?

Apparently not. Lisa Meyers thinks Bush should have listened to Sabri as regards the former and completely disregarded him as regards the latter.

The media is of course spinning this as a debacle for Bush. Actually, it vindicates him. If one of Saddam's top people says:

* he doesn't have a "significant, active" bioweapon program, suggesting he does have a small-scale, inactive program, at least that the official knows about;

* he can acquire a bomb, just in a longer period of time than is estimated;

* and he has 500 metric tons of prohibited chemical weapons he's still lying about

... what should Bush have story?

Thanks to Scott.

posted by Ace at 12:30 PM

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