Nikola Drobac – 10/19/04

This page was last updated on October 19, 2004.

Hold Bush accountable; Nikola (Nick) Drobac; Beaver County Times; October 19, 2004.

This is the ninth anti-Bush rant by Mr. Drobac since July 1^st.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.

“The 9-11 Commission Report stated that before the war, the CIA purposefully did not believe Iraqis who said that there were no weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).

“The CIA believed Dr. Ahmad Chalabi, Curve Ball and other Iraqis who said there were such weapons programs.

[RWC] I’m sure Mr. Drobac believes the previous statements support his position, but they do not even if they were true. Here’s why.

· Hussein used chemical weapons in his eight-year war with Iran.

· Hussein used chemical weapons against the Kurds.

· In 1991, Hussein gave his field commanders permission to use chemical weapons if the coalition marched on Baghdad.

· Hussein used chemical weapons during the Shia uprising after Desert Storm.

· To this day, Iraq still has WMD unaccounted for.

Given this information, if someone told you Hussein didn’t have WMD but another person told you Hussein had WMD, whom would you be more inclined to believe? There’s one other point. The intelligence community has a record of underestimating the weapon capabilities of our enemies. Iran, Libya, and Red China are only three recent examples.

“Before the start of the war, chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix told the world that Iraq had no WMDs. In the USA Today (Dec. 16), Blix said he thought most of Iraq’s WMDs were destroyed in 1991.”

[RWC] You’ll note Mr. Drobac didn’t provide full dates for the articles he references. Why? Mr. Drobac wants us to believe they were published before the Iraq War to make it appear President Bush lied about what he knew.

The USA Today article was dated December 16, 2003, nine months after we attacked Iraq and after coalition forces had lots of time to look for WMD unhindered by Hussein’s minders. Before the Iraq War, Blix’s reports indicated Iraq’s WMD reports were fraudulent and incomplete.

“On the front page of The Times (Oct. 7th), it says that, ‘Saddam ended his nuclear weapons program in 1991, after the Gulf War, and that there was no evidence he tried to restart it.’”

[RWC] The Iraq Survey Group report (September 30, 2004) made this conclusion, but also stated in a key finding, “Nevertheless, after 1991, Saddam did express his intent to retain the intellectual capital developed during the Iraqi Nuclear Program. Senior Iraqis — several of them from the Regime’s inner circle — told ISG they assumed Saddam would restart a nuclear program once UN sanctions ended.” In another key finding, the ISG found, “By 2000-2001, Saddam had managed to mitigate many of the effects of sanctions and undermine their international support. Iraq was within striking distance of a de facto end to the sanctions regime, both in terms of oil exports and the trade embargo, by the end of 1999.”

“In the USA Today (March 2), David Kay, the U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq, agreed with Blix and reported that Iraq had no banned weapons before last year’s U.S-led invasion.

“In the same article, other U.N. weapons inspectors concluded that there were no WMDs of any significance in Iraq after 1994.”

[RWC] The full date of the article is March 2, 2004, one year after we attacked Iraq.

Here’s something Mr. Drobac didn’t tell us. When David Kay testified before Congress in 2004, he said, “All I can say is if you read the total body of intelligence in the last 12 to 15 years that flowed on Iraq, I quite frankly think it would be hard to come to a conclusion other than Iraq was a gathering, serious threat to the world with regard to WMD. I have said I actually think this may be one of those cases where it was even more dangerous than we thought.”

“All of the above information was passed on to Bush.”

[RWC] Yes, months after we attacked Iraq. Unfortunately, most presidents can’t see the future.

“When you listen to Bush say that everyone knew Hussein was a danger and had WMDs, you know that he is lying. There was no mistake or failure in intelligence as Bush would like us all to believe.”

[RWC] Mr. Drobac hopes you won’t read the various reports issued this year about pre-war WMD intelligence and that you will accept his representations. Every report confirms the Bush administration acted in good faith with the intelligence provided and that the Bush administration made no effort to influence the intelligence community. Indeed, after a pre-war WMD presentation by the CIA, President Bush asked CIA chief George Tenet, “George, how confident are you?” Tenet replied, “Don’t worry, it’s a slam dunk.” Tenet – also Clinton’s CIA director – made the “slam dunk” comment again after President Bush repeated his question.

On February 24, 2003, John Edwards said, “I mean, we have three different countries [Iran, Iraq, North Korea] that, while they all present serious problems for the United States – they’re dictatorships, they’re involved in the development and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction -- you know, the most imminent, clear and present threat to our country is not the same from those three countries. I think Iraq is the most serious and imminent threat to our country. … And they do, in my judgment, present different threats. And I think Iraq and Saddam Hussein present the most serious and most imminent threat.”¹ President Bush never said Iraq was an imminent threat, but John Edwards did.

“Bush needs to be held accountable.

“Bush and the Republicans are now saying that just before the war started Hussein had the WMDs moved to another country. How can you move something that you did not have since 1991 or 1994?”

[RWC] If Iraq has not had WMD since 1994, perhaps Mr. Drobac can explain how coalition troops were attacked in Iraq in May 2004 with mustard gas and sarin shells. They were old shells, but old WMD still kills. Fortunately, the attacked troops were successfully treated.

Charles Duelfer, who took over the Iraq Survey Group after David Kay, recently told the Senate Armed Services Committee, “A lot of materials left Iraq and went to Syria. There was certainly a lot of traffic across the border points. We’ve got a lot of data to support that, including people discussing it. But whether in fact in any of these trucks there was WMD-related materials, I cannot say.”

“Do Bush and the Republicans have no decency? How long must we listen to their lies? How many more American soldiers must die because of these Republican lies?

“We can do better. Help is on the way.”

[RWC] Mr. Drobac has a problem. Both John Kerry and John Edwards agreed with the pre-war assessments of Iraq’s WMD capability. Between the two of them, they have been on the Senate Intelligence Committee since 1993. Because they were on the Intelligence Committee, they saw virtually the same reports as President Bush. If Mr. Drobac expects us to believe President Bush lied, he must also concede John Kerry and Democrats lied.

1. CNN Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer; CNN.com; February 24, 2003.