Saturday the Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen was appointed as the next Secretary General of the NATO alliance. NATO leaders agreed unanimously to appoint the Danish PM.
Mr. Anders Fogh Rasmussen is to succeed the current NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, who leaves office this coming August 1st.
Until the last minute NATO member country Turkey resisted the appointment of Mr. Rasmussen. Turkey considered Mr. Rasmussen as a controversial choice because of how he handled the 2006 Cartoon-crisis over caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad, printed in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.
There could be other reasons to consider the appointment of Mr. Rasmussen as controversial, as the following article will show. Mr. Rasmussen was a close friend of former president George W. Bush and under Mr. Rasmussen, Denmark took part in the coalition of the willing that attacked Iraq in March 2003.
The lies of the war - the war of the lies
By Bo Elkjaer
Published in Denmark by Ekstra Bladet
(On edit: Sorry about huge diary. My first. The full article can be found at insert link to PDF-document. The Danish author has released the article under fair use. A more recent boook on the Danish governments part in the Iraq war was published in 2008. A full copy of this book - in Danish - has been released in full through Google Books. A copy can also be found on the Danish parliaments website.)
5 October 2003
Second edition February 2004
http://www.fredsakademiet.dk/...
Bo Elkjær's account of the lies behind Denmark's participation in the invasion of Iraq - English translation.
Bo Elkjær shared the Danish equivalent of the Pulitzer, the Cavling Prize for 2003 with two other journalists for their exposure of the Danish government's collusion in the invasion of Iraq. The Danish original of this account, entitled "Løgnen om krigen - krigen om løgnen", was originally published as a supplement to the Danish daily newspaper, Ekstra Bladet, on 5 October 2003.
Declaration of war
IT WAS 4:15 AM when the phone rang at the home of Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen. The caller was head of department Nils Bernstein from the Prime Minister’s Office in Copenhagen. Nils Bernstein was calling to tell the Prime Minister that Baghdad was under attack from the first wave of American bombs and cruise missiles. Fifteen minutes later, US president George W. Bush went live on TV in the States, telling the American people that US was now at war with Iraq.
Denmark was not yet officially part of the attack force.
It was not until the early evening the next day, on March 21 2003, that Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen could call for a press conference in the Prime Minister’s Office and announce that Denmark was at war with Iraq. Anders Fogh Rasmussen said that a majority in the Danish parliament had voted for proposal for a parliamentary resolution B118 concerning Danish participation in the attack to disarm Iraq.
"It is important to remember what this is all about," said Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen and summarised the charges against Iraq and its leader Saddam Hussein in bullet points:
- "That Saddam Hussein is a dictator, oppressing his own people and killing and torturing his opponents."
- "That Saddam Hussein has started several aggressive wars against his closest neighbours."
- "That Saddam Hussein has used poison gas against his own people."
- "That Saddam Hussein has had obvious connections to terrorists, and possibly still does so."
- "That Saddam Hussein for 12 years has chosen to ignore the international community's demands to disarm."
- "That Saddam Hussein in 1998 threw out the UN weapons inspectors."
- "That Saddam Hussein has not declared thousands of litres of anthrax, approximately 6,500 chemical bombs, at least 80 tons of mustard gas and large quantities of biological toxins."
- "On top of that comes the dangerous threat from long-range missiles and the risk that he will soon possess nuclear weapons."
With these words Denmark was officially taking part in a war of aggression that was not sanctioned by the United Nations and, as time would tell, was based on evidence that was incorrect, purposefully distorted or forged.
The day terrorism rose to the top of the agenda
THE PLANE THAT LANDS IN Copenhagen Airport on 17 February 2001 is carrying
some 50 delegates from the Confederation of Danish Industries (Dansk Industri).
They have just completed a trip to Iraq. The delegation is part of the largest Danish export venture ever to the Middle East. To Iraq.
- There's nothing unusual in sending business delegates to Iraq. We're the 28th delegation this year, and practically all other European countries and the US have made similar arrangements, says the CEO of the Confederation of Danish Industries, Hans Skov Christensen, in an interview with the Danish daily newspaper, Politiken.
The same day that the delegation leaves Baghdad, American and British planes bomb the Iraqi airport’s radar installations. The bombing raid is part of the control of the airspace over Iraq that the US and UK have been maintaining over Iraq since the Gulf War in 1991. The bombings do not worry Hans Skov Christensen:
- I don't think the bombings have altered the situation in Iraq or our relations with the country, he says.
35 Danish companies are negotiating trade deals with Saddam Hussein's Iraq. They are all in the food and health industries, and all trade will be managed through the UN Oil-for-Food Programme.
This programme gives the Iraqis the opportunity to alleviate the worst injuries from the post-war sanctions by trading oil for foodstuffs, medicines and the like.
The Confederation of Danish Industries is optimistic. It has placed an order for more than 7,000 square feet of exhibition space in the Baghdad congress centre in connection with the trade fair in November the same year. The organisers are expecting visitors from 50 countries. Over the summer, a visit by Iraqi officials to Denmark has been scheduled, and in the autumn a new Danish delegation is planned for Iraq.
IT IS NOT JUST THE Danish industries who have begun to gaze with interest at Iraq.
At the same time, the Danish Immigration Service (Udlændingestyrelsen) is planning a fact-finding mission to Iraq. Preparations have been long under way. The immigration service has been in contact with Iraqi authorities and visas have been arranged for the officials who are travelling to Iraq. The mission takes place as planned in March 2001, and in June 2001 the immigration authority publishes its "Report from fact-finding mission to Iraq".
This report concludes that Iraqis who have legally left the country can safely return without risking persecution by the Iraqi authorities. Until the report was finished, Denmark had automatically granted asylum to Iraqis arriving from the part of the country controlled by Saddam Hussein's regime. This automaticity is now cancelled.
Iraq is a safe country, is the assessment, and the immigration service immediately starts to reject Iraqi asylum-seekers.
"On the basis of the report, we felt that the situation in Iraq had changed so that you could return safely if you had left the country legally. So we refused asylum in several cases - unless the persons could document that they had been persecuted," says deputy director Anni Fode of the Danish Immigration Service in an interview with the Danish daily newspaper, Berlingske Tidende, on 14 April 2002.
In 2001 and 2002, this means that by far the majority of Iraqi asylum-seekers are refused. In 2002, more than two-thirds of the pending cases end in refusal.
IN MARCH 2001, IRAQ is safe enough for the Danish industries. Three months later, in June 2001, Danish authorities assess that Iraq is safe enough for Iraqi refugees to be returned. Less than two years later, in March 2003, the Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen declares war on Iraq on the grounds that "Saddam Hussein is a dictator who suppresses his own people and kills and tortures his opponents."
What happened?
11 September 2001 changes everything. Nobody is in serious doubt that the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon is masterminded and performed by the terrorist group Al-Qa'eda, orchestrated by the Saudi terrorist ringleader, Osama bin Laden. The US intelligence services have long been following bin Laden and immediately knows who is behind the terrorist attack.
But the same morning, while the World Trade Center is still standing in flames, the White House is already implicating Iraq in the terrorist attack. NATO’s former Supreme Allied Commander Europe, General Wesley Clark, tells Meet the Press's Tim Russert on NBC on 15 June 2002 that he got a call and was asked to identify Iraq as being responsible for the attack.
Clark: - There was a concerted effort during the fall of 2001, starting immediately after 9/11, to pin 9/11 and the terrorism problem on Saddam Hussein.
Russert: - By who? Who did that?
Clark: - Well, it came from the White House, it came from people around the White House. It came from all over. I got a call on 9/11. I was on CNN, and I got a call at my home saying, "You got to say this is connected. This is state-sponsored terrorism.
This has to be connected to Saddam Hussein." I said, "But--I'm willing to say it, but what's your evidence?" And I never got any evidence.
When General Wesley Clark goes on CNN, he avoids mentioning Iraq.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK’S remarks are substantiated by CBS Evening News almost a full year after the attack. Evening News says that less than five hours after Flight 77 struck Pentagon on 11 September 2001, the US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld asked his aides to get information that could implicate Saddam Hussein as the mastermind behind the attack.
This was based partly on notes written by a Pentagon aide the same day at 2.40 pm. The notes, quoted by journalist David Martin from CNS on 4 September, 2002, say that Donald Rumsfeld asked for the "best info fast" to "judge whether good enough to hit SH at the same time, not only UBL".
The initials SH and UBL stand for Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. The notes then quote Rumsfeld as demanding, ominously, that the administration's response "go massive ... Sweep it all up, things related and not."
Axis of Evil
IN JANUARY 2002, four months after the devastating terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President George W. Bush gives his long-awaited State of the Union speech. In the speech, Bush describes the results of the War on Terrorism and the attack on Afghanistan. After that, he poses a blistering charge against three countries that are claimed to be an "axis of evil": North Korea, Iran and Iraq.
- Our second goal is to prevent regimes that sponsor terror from threatening America or our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction. Some of these regimes have been pretty quiet since September the 11th. But we know their true nature. North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens, says President George W. Bush.
- Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror. The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax, and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over a decade. This is a regime that has already used poison gas to murder thousands of its own citizens - leaving the bodies of mothers huddled over their dead children. This is a regime that agreed to international inspections - then kicked out the inspectors. This is a regime that has something to hide from the civilized world.
- States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic, says the President of the United States in his speech to the nation.
AT THIS TIME, The US is already way ahead in construing the burden of evidence against Iraq. A few days after the speech, the retired ambassador Joseph Wilson travels to Niger in Africa. It is the Central Intelligence Agency CIA that is sending Wilson to Africa, on orders from Vice President Dick Cheney.
Ambassador Wilson is supposed to investigate whether claims that Iraq has attempted to buy uranium in Niger are true. Joseph Wilson travels back from Africa with decisive information about the uranium deal. His report is analysed by the CIA and on 9 March 2002 his information is forwarded to the White House and the State Department.
Here it stops.
It is not until July 2003 that Joseph Wilson's conclusions concerning Niger are published.
This happens when Joseph Wilson himself writes a column in The New York Times entitled: "What I didn't find in Africa".
THE DEFINING INFORMATION that Joseph Wilson brings back from Africa and that the public only gets to know about a year later, is that all claims that Iraq has attempted to buy uranium in Niger are false. They are simply not true.
Wilson is not he only American guest in Niger in February 2002. The country is also visited by General Carlton W. Fulton, Jr., who is in Niger to investigate the country's nuclear safety precautions.
The four-star general meets with the president of Niger, among other people, and reports back home to the American military leadership that Niger's safety precautions concerning uranium stocks are completely up to date.
Rumbling war drums
THE MONTH AFTER the American mission to Niger, Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen is visiting the White House and the Pentagon.
First Fogh meets President George W. Bush in the White House on 25 March 2002. During the subsequent press conference the same day, Prime Minister Anders Fogh is asked how Denmark will respond to an initiative against Iraq. Anders Fogh Rasmussen replies:
"In connection with terrorism, obviously we discussed Iraq. The President told me about his attitude to Iraq and Saddam Hussein. I emphasized that we should ensure first and foremost that international inspectors could gain free access to Iraq to investigate and ensure that Saddam Hussein is not developing weapons of mass destruction."
Two days later, Anders Fogh Rasmussen is visiting the Pentagon. Here, the Danish Prime Minister is escorted up the steps by the American Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, one of the hawks in the Pentagon. The meeting between Wolfowitz and Anders Fogh Rasmussen deals with "defence topics of mutual interest".
During the course of 2003, Ekstra Bladet sought access under the Danish freedom of information act to all documents in the Danish Prime Minister’s Office concerning the decision to participate in the war. This includes the documents from the visit to Washington.
The Prime Minister’s Office is still holding on to most of the key documents. Several of the requests for access to documents under the freedom of information act have ended as complaints to the ombudsman of the Danish parliament.
THE DANISH FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT is quite clear: All papers shall be released as quickly as possible. If it is not possible to close the case and deliver the papers within ten days from the time of application, the ministry in question must state why the case has been delayed and when the papers will be released. At the same time, the ministry is obliged to show the press "particular amenability", as it is expressed in the guidelines of the Danish Ministry of Justice.
Ekstra Bladet sought access to the papers concerning the decision to go to war on 16 June 2003, and has subsequently continually complained about the handling of the case.
The latest response from the Prime Minister’s Office came on 10 December 2003, and the ministry has yet to release more than two-thirds of the documents in the case. The day before, 9 December 2003, the Ombudsman of the Danish parliament criticised the Prime Minister’s Office for not stating how long it would take to conclude the case and release the documents.
During the summer of 2002, intense work proceeds in the CIA, Pentagon and White House to build up a case against Iraq.
The intention is that the case will be presented to the world on 12 September 2002. On that day, American President George W. Bush will hold a speech about Iraq to the General Assembly of the United Nations.
WHILE EVERYBODY IS WAITING for Bush, the Danish debate about Iraq gradually
picks up speed. On 6 September, the Danish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Per Stig Møller, says that "the evidence must be able to hold up in the city court." The same day, Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen says to the Danish news agency, Ritzau, that "I am not in the least in doubt that he has weapons of mass destruction and wishes to manufacture them."
On 9 September, 2002, President George W. Bush telephones the Prime Minister of Turkey, the United Nations’ Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen - who at this point is also the president of the European Union. The press release from the American State Department reveals that President Bush in all three telephone calls made identical requests to listen very carefully to the speech Bush will make to the General Assembly three days later. The intention is that the speech will define the threat to world peace that Iraq constitutes.
Exactly a year and a day after the terror attack on the World Trade Center, on 12 September 2002, President George W. Bush presents his speech to the General Assembly of the United Nations. Bush sets the agenda for the speech from the start: the battle against terrorism. After this, he directs the spotlight towards what George Bush designates as the greatest current threat: Iraq.
"Our greatest fear is that terrorists will find a shortcut to their mad ambitions when an outlaw regime supplies them with the technologies to kill on a massive scale. In one place - in one regime - we find all these dangers, in their most lethal and aggressive forms, exactly the kind of aggressive threat the United Nations was born to confront," says President George W. Bush.
IN CONNECTION WITH the speech, George W. Bush presents the document "A Decade of Deception and Defiance". The speech and the document attack Iraq for having breached a long series of UN resolutions and for having continued to develop weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons, and for having associations with terrorists.
As evidence of the development of nuclear weapons, it is mentioned that Iraq has attempted to buy "thousands of specially designed aluminum tubes which officials believe were intended as components of centrifuges to enrich uranium."
As evidence for Iraq’s associations with terrorists, the document mentions that Iraq is sheltering "the Mujahideen-e-Khalq Organization, which has used terrorist violence against Iran and in the 1970s was responsible for killing several U.S. military personnel and U.S. civilians."
In addition, among other things, the document mentions that the Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal is in Baghdad. In his speech to the General Assembly of the United Nations, President George W. Bush says that "al-Qaida terrorists escaped from Afghanistan and are known to be in Iraq." This assertion is not followed up in the document, which does not specifically mention al-Qa'eda.
But now a name has been given to the Iraqi threat: weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons, and the fear that Iraq is using its associations with terrorists to disseminate these weapons.
The elusive Iraqi bomb
THERE IS A DEEP, serious resonance in president George W. Bush's voice as he presents his charges against Iraq for trying to develop nuclear weapons, in his high-profile and long-awaited speech for the UN General Assembly. The evidence is, according to Bush, most importantly that Iraq is trying to procure equipment needed for the development of an Iraqi nuclear device:
- Today, Iraq continues to withhold important information about its nuclear program
- weapons design, procurement logs, experiment data, an accounting of nuclear materials and documentation of foreign assistance. Iraq employs capable nuclear scientists and technicians. It retains physical infrastructure needed to build a nuclear weapon. Iraq has made several attempts to buy high-strength aluminum tubes used to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon. Should Iraq acquire fissile material, it would be able to build a nuclear weapon within a year. And Iraq's state-controlled media have reported numerous meetings between Saddam Hussein and his nuclear scientists, leaving little doubt about his continued appetite for these weapons.
The matter of the high-strength aluminium tubes is one of two concrete pieces of key evidence against Iraq for attempting to build nuclear weapons. The second defining item of evidence is that the country has tried to buy uranium in Africa.
President George W. Bush presents the first piece of evidence in his speech to the UN General Assembly in New York on 12 September, 2002.
In contradiction, the Iraqis claim that the aluminium tubes are purchased for reverse engineering of artillery rockets that most probably will not be illegal according to the many UN resolutions.
In December 2002, three months after Bush has presented the evidence of the tubes, the US Department of Energy receives an analysis of the intercepted aluminium tubes. The CIA receives a copy of the report, which concludes that the intercepted tubes match down to fractions of a millimetre and type of aluminium the Italian-designed rockets, Medusa 81.
These rockets are produced by the Italian arms company, Simmel Difesa. So there is reasonable doubt concerning the function of the tubes.
This doubt is never put forward.
At the same time, several American nuclear experts express doubt as to whether the tubes can be used for gas centrifuges for enrichment of uranium at all. The founder of the US Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Houston G. Wood III, says that "it would have been extremely difficult to make these tubes into centrifuges. It stretches the imagination to come up with a way. I do not know any real centrifuge experts that feel differently."
Houston G. Wood III is probably the leading expert in gas centrifuge technology. Apart from founding Oak Ridge, Houston G. Wood III has had a highly scientific career specialising in gas centrifuge technology for more than thirty years.
He has written several reports, books and articles on the subject.
SO NOW, IN DECEMBER 2002, the situation is this:
- Iraq says the tubes are for rockets.
- The CIA and the State Department know that an Italian rocket matches the specifications and aluminium type of the tubes.
- And American experts in gas centrifuges have reasonable doubts as to whether the tubes can be used in centrifuges at all.
These doubts concerning the US claims are withheld. The US maintains the charge that the intercepted tubes were meant for uranium enrichment. Two months later, on 5 February, 2003, this is one of the key charges in Secretary of State Colin Powell's speech in the UN Security Council.
A week before Powell's speech, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohammad ElBaradei, presents an interim report in the UN Security Council. Mohammad ElBaradei tells the council that the IAEA has given particular consideration to answering the question of the tubes and whether they can be used for the construction of uranium enrichment centrifuges.
ElBaradei also reports that the Iraqi authorities claim that the tubes were meant for reverse engineering of conventional artillery rockets.
- The IAEA has conducted a series of inspections at sites involved in the production and storage of reverse engineered rockets, held discussions with and interviewed Iraqi personnel, taken samples of aluminium tubes, and begun a review of the documentation provided by Iraq relating to contracts with the traders. While the matter is still under investigation, and further verification is foreseen, the IAEA's analysis to date indicates that the specifications of the aluminium tubes sought by Iraq in 2001 and 2002 appear to be consistent with reverse engineering of rockets. While it would be possible to modify such tubes for the manufacture of centrifuges, they are not directly suitable for it.
THE SECOND PIECE OF EVIDENCE on which claims that Iraq has revived or maintained its nuclear arms programme are based is even more problematic. It is the question of whether Iraq has attempted to purchase uranium in Africa. In September 2002, now seven months have passed since the CIA investigated the Niger uranium claims. Six months have passed since the report concluding that the claims are false was delivered to the White House. Now, British Prime Minister Tony Blair enters the stage. On 24 September 2002, Blair publishes a dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. It is in this dossier that the British government claims that "there is intelligence that Iraq has sought the supply of significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Iraq has no active civil nuclear power programme or nuclear power plants, and therefore has no legitimate reason to acquire uranium."
In the White House, President George W. Bush's press secretary, Ari Fleischer, supports the British claim in a press conference later the same day.
Later, it will be revealed that the only documentation that can substantiate the claim is a series of documents from Niger procured by a European intelligence agency - probably the Italian - and passed on to the CIA, among others. The documents are crude forgeries.
In the beginning of October 2002, the US intelligence community delivers a 90-page classified National Intelligence Estimate of Iraq and its weapons of mass destruction to the White House.
In this estimate, doubts concerning the alleged uranium deal are upheld. At about the same time, CIA director George Tenet personally warns the White House against using the allegations against Iraq.
ON 10 OCTOBER 2002, the American House of Representatives passes a resolution
authorising the use of force against Iraq, followed by the Senate the next day. In the weeks before and after the vote, numerous members of Congress specifically cite the nuclear threat as their main reason to support the resolution giving the President the authority to declare war. Several senators specifically mention the alleged uranium deal:
- As reported in the U.S. intelligence community document made public on October 4, 2002, he has been seeking to revamp and accelerate his nuclear weapons program, says senator Olympia Snowe (R. Maine) on 9 October 2002.
This information is echoed in the September 24, 2002, intelligence dossier released by British Prime Minister Tony Blair - a critical voice and ally in our war on terrorism. ... Tellingly, the report also documents Iraq’s attempts to buy large quantities of uranium from Africa, even though Iraq has no civil nuclear power program.
The Republican Chair of the House Rules Committee, David Dreier, also promotes the alleged uranium deal as decisive:
- Perhaps more frightening, we know that Iraq is actively seeking to reestablish its nuclear weapons program and has reportedly been seeking uranium to achieve that goal.
NINETEEN DAYS AFTER the US vote to hand over the authority to declare war to the President, and seven months and twenty days after the White House and the State Department received CIA reports that the Niger uranium allegation was false, the allegations surface in the Danish foreign ministry. On 29 October 2002, the ministry’s Security Policy Office writes and delivers the confidential memorandum, "Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction (WMD)", addressed personally to the Minister for Foreign Affairs Per Stig Møller.
In this memorandum, the office writes that "even though the country has no civilian use of uranium (nuclear power), Iraq has attempted to buy uranium from Africa."
Two weeks later, on 14 November 2002, Minister for Foreign Affairs Per Stig Møller refers to the memorandum during a debate in the Danish parliament concerning resolution 1441 on Iraq.
During the debate, Minister for Foreign Affairs Per Stig Møller says that Iraq is less than a decade from having nuclear weapons and that "if Iraq gets its hands on enriched uranium or plutonium, the country could possibly possess a nuclear device within a year."
The fact is that there is no evidence to substantiate Minister for Foreign Affairs Per Stig Møller's allegation.
A COUPLE OF WEEKS LATER, on 7 December 2002, Iraq delivers the 12,200-page "Currently Accurate, Full and Complete Declaration" of illegal arms programmes
that the UN Security Council demanded in resolution 1441. On 19 December 2002, the United States is ready with a reply to the declaration. It is Secretary of State Colin Powell and the US ambassador to the UN, John D. Negroponte, who reply to the Iraqi declaration. Says Colin Powell:
- Our experts have also examined the Iraqi document. The declaration's title echoes the language of Resolution 1441. It is called, "Currently Accurate, Full and Complete Declaration." But our experts have found it to be anything but currently accurate, full or complete. The Iraqi declaration may use the language of Resolution
1441, but it totally fails to meet the resolution's requirements.
- Most brazenly of all, the Iraqi declaration denies the existence of any prohibited weapons programs at all. The United States, the United Nations and the world waited for this declaration from Iraq. But Iraq's response is a catalogue of recycled information and flagrant omissions. It should be obvious that the pattern of system14
atic holes and gaps in Iraq's declaration is not the result of accidents or editing oversights or technical mistakes. These are material omissions that, in our view, constitute another material breach, says Secretary of State Colin Powell.
In connection with the remarks, the State Department publishes a fact sheet with examples of Iraqi omissions. Concerning the allegations of Iraqi attempts to clandestinely develop nuclear weapons, the fact sheet says:
"The Declaration ignores efforts to procure uranium from Niger. Why is the Iraqi regime hiding their uranium procurement?"
In fact, this false allegation is the only example given by the State Department in the fact sheet that Iraq is trying to hide a project to build nuclear weapons.
IN DENMARK, THE AMERICAN views are discussed the next morning in a telephone
conversation between Dan Lawton, who resides as the ‘POL MIL Officer’ at the US embassy in Copenhagen, and Jakob Brix Tange and Jens-Otto Horslund from the Ministry for Foreign Affairs Security Policy Office.
After the conversation, Dan Lawton faxes printouts of the US presentations to the two aides. In the UN on the same day, Mohammad ElBaradei, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), asks the US to hand over the evidence
of the alleged uranium deal so the UN weapons inspectors can investigate the matter. The evidence consists of the documents that the US has received from a European intelligence service, most probably the Italian. The documents are not delivered to the UN.
Meanwhile, the inspectors are striding towards the first deadline on 27 January 2003. On this day, the UN inspectors, led by Hans Blix and Mohammad ElBaradei, are supposed to present their report to the UN Security Council, declaring their findings in the Iraq.
In his report, Mohammad ElBaradei is unable to substantiate the allegations that Iraq has attempted to buy uranium abroad. The IAEA has still not received any evidence from the US. In the end, Mohammad ElBaradei falls back to declaring that he needs the evidence to be handed over to further investigate the matter:
"A fourth focal point has been the investigation of reports of Iraqi efforts to import uranium after 1991. The Iraqi authorities have denied any such attempts. The IAEA will continue to pursue this issue. At this stage, however, we do not have enough information, and we would appreciate receiving more."
BUT THE US STILL withholds the evidence. The next day, US President George W. Bush gives his TV-transmitted State of the Union speech.
It is now a year since the US directed the world’s attention towards Iraq with Bush's speech on "the axis of evil". At the same time, eleven months have now passed since the White House received the CIA report denying any Iraqi attempts to buy uranium in Niger.
In his speech, President George W. Bush says that "the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
It is later revealed that no documentation exists to substantiate this allegation, other than the falsified Niger documents. And these still have not been presented to the UN.
On 5 February 2003, US Secretary of State Colin Powell gives the speech in the UN Security Council that is meant to constitute decisive evidence against Iraq. Powell never mentions the alleged uranium deal. At about this time, the US finally sends the documents to the IAEA.
Iraq is immediately asked to provide further information concerning the country's contacts with Niger. But Iraq maintains that no attempts to procure uranium as described in the documents have taken place. After ten days of investigation in Iraq and Niger, the IAEA reaches the conclusion that Iraq can in no possible way have attempted to purchase uranium as described in the documents and as stated in the UK by Prime Minister Tony Blair, in Denmark by the Danish Ministry for Foreign Affairs
and in the US by President George W. Bush.
Now the IAEA officials turn to investigate the documents themselves. On the basis of publicly available information, it is quickly and easily ascertained that the documents are mere forgeries.
AND WITH THIS, THE SECOND major piece of US evidence against Iraq in the area of nuclear developments has collapsed.
On 7 March 2003, the UN inspectors are again supposed to report to the UN Security
Council. This time, IAEA Director General Mohammad ElBaradei says that the information that Iraq has attempted to procure uranium in Niger is based on falsified documents.
"Based on thorough analysis, the IAEA has concluded with the concurrence of outside
experts that these documents which formed the basis for the report of recent uranium transaction between Iraq and Niger are in fact not authentic. We have therefore concluded that these specific allegations are unfounded."
Mohammad ElBaradei concludes that "After three months of intrusive inspections, we have to date found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear
weapon program in Iraq."
This complete and utter rebuttal of the American evidence is sent back in emails directed personally to Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Minister for Foreign Affairs Per Stig Møller on 8 March 2003.
A year has passed since the White House was informed that the uranium deal was false. This knowledge has finally been presented to the UN Security Council, and the Danish Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, and his Minister for Foreign Affairs, Per Stig Møller, have personally been informed of this development.
THEY NEVER INFORM the Danish parliament about this. Eleven days later, on 19 March 2003, the Danish parliament has its first sitting on the decision to take part in the coalition to disarm Iraq. The day before, 18 March 2003, the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs’ Security Policy Office has written a memorandum, a so-called question/
answer-sheet for Minister for Foreign Affairs Per Stig Møller to use during the debate in parliament.
The memorandum contains a short description of the present conclusions concerning
the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction: "After three months of inspections, the inspectors have to date found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons programme in Iraq. On the contrary, the assessment is that the Iraqi industrial capability to start up such a programme is now substantially less than in the late 1980s. The weapons inspectors have rejected the allegations of the illegal use of aluminium tubes and magnets for centrifuges for enrichment of uranium
that Powell presented in his briefing to the UN Security Council on 5 February 2003. Furthermore, Powell's allegations that Iraq has tried to illegally import enriched
uranium since 1991 has been rejected."
Per Stig Møller never reads this part in parliament. Neither during the first sitting, on 19 March 2003, nor the second, on 21 March 2003, does Minister for Foreign Affairs Per Stig Møller or Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen tell the Danish parliament that one of the most important accusations against Iraq has crumbled.
The debate on 19 March 2003 lasts for eleven hours. The second sitting, on 21 March 2003, lasts almost ten hours. Towards the end of the second debate, at approximately
6.30 pm, Minister for Foreign Affairs Per Stig Møller reads from the memorandum that shows that the nuclear evidence against Iraq has been proven wrong and false.
Per Stig Møller delivers the two parts of the memorandum concerning the biological
and chemical weapons to the parliament. The succeeding part, which reveals that the Danish government has knowledge that Iraq can in no way possible be said to constitute a nuclear threat of any kind, is withheld. 15 minutes later, the parliament votes on the proposal. With 61 votes out of the 111 parliamentarians present, Denmark decides to join the war against Iraq. The same night, a press conference is held in the Prime Minister’s Office. It is now 13 days since Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen was informed that Iraq does not have an active nuclear programme, and less than an hour since this evidence has been withheld from parliament. In his speech during the press conference, Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen specifically mentions the "risk that he (Saddam Hussein) will soon have nuclear weapons" as an important argument for taking part in the war.
Everything points to the fact that Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen personally
stretches the information that the Prime Minister’s Office possesses on the subject. The speech notes written by the Prime Minister’s aides for Anders Fogh Rasmussen state only that "there are uncertainties concerning his nuclear programme".
BUT THAT IS NOT what Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen says. On the contrary, he declares that there's a risk that Iraq "will soon possess nuclear weapons". There are no facts to substantiate this claim, and the Prime Minister is obliged to admit this in parliament five months later - after the war.
On 9 April 2003, Baghdad falls. At this time, the US has long had intelligence officials inside Iraq, covertly and openly hunting for evidence for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. But no evidence at all is ever found to indicate that Iraq has resurrected its nuclear weapons programme - neither before nor after the fall of Baghdad.
On 18 June 2003, a meeting is held in the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Danish parliament. During an interview after the meeting, Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen maintains that Iraq was a growing nuclear threat:
- A third element is the risk of nuclear weapons. It has been proven that Saddam Hussein was very far in developing nuclear weapons.
- Yes. Until 1991, when it was stopped?
Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen makes no comment to this question at first. However, a little later in the interview, he returns to the nuclear problem:
- I want to point out that the basis in international law for the military action was that in 1991 it was unanimously agreed upon in the UN Security Council that a ceasefire with Iraq could be upheld on certain conditions. Including the condition that he should stop his nuclear program. Including the condition that he should cease his cooperation with terrorists. None of these conditions were fulfilled by the man over these many years.
- Well, actually, the nuclear weapons program was stopped, you know?
- But ... who says that he didn't continue?
- The Americans say that...
The Prime Minister interrupts the question:
- Yes, well, I can't remember exactly, but I believe it was in 1995 that it was revealed that he was very, very close to having it, but this only shows that he didn't fulfil the conditions from 1991, says Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen on 18 June 2003 - exactly 103 days after he personally was informed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ aides in the UN headquarters in New York that no evidence or credible indications at all had been found that Iraq's nuclear programme had been revived in any form at all since 1991.
A FEW WEEKS AFTER the interview, on 8 July 2003, the White House is forced to acknowledge that the information concerning the Niger uranium deals was based on the forged African documents. On 17 July 2003, the Danish embassy in Rome sends an e-mail message back to the Prime Minister’s Office and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs describing the affair of the forged documents. This information goes no further than the ministries.
On the same day, 17 July 2003, Minister for Foreign Affairs Per Stig Møller answers
a series of questions concerning the government's claims on Iraq in a letter to the Danish newspaper Information.
One of the questions concerns the alleged Iraqi nuclear programme.
"Does the government have any information that substantiates the claim that Saddam
worked towards nuclear weapons up to the war?" the newspaper asks.
Per Stig Møller replies:
"During the debate in parliament on 14 November 2002, I quoted American and British reports that had been published prior to the debate. It is correct that the IAEA has found no evidence that Iraq has revived its nuclear weapons programme. This does not change the substantial concerns that Secretary of State Colin Powell presented in his speech in the UN Security Council on 5 February 2003: That Iraq possessed two of the important three components in the construction of a nuclear device - nuclear physicists and a bomb design. The only thing lacking was enriched uranium. IAEA Director General ElBaradei pointed out in his report in the Security Council on 27 January 2003 that they had found no evidence of an active nuclear programme, but that there was nevertheless a series of uncertainties concerning illegal
aluminium tubes, sophisticated explosives and reports on uranium imports."
NOTE HOW Minister for Foreign Affairs Per Stig Møller refers to Mohammad ElBaradei's
report of 27 January 2003, where ElBaradei is unable to comment on the question of the uranium imports, since the US is still withholding the definitive evidence.
Per Stig Møller writes, that there is a "series of uncertainties" concerning "reports of uranium imports". Per Stig Møller never writes that the uncertainties only exist because the US is withholding evidence. Nor does the Minister for Foreign Affairs reveal that the IAEA and Mohammad ElBaradei are easily able to reject the evidence as mere forgeries when the US finally hands over the documents. There are no uncertainties concerning Iraqi imports of uranium in Mohammad ElBaradei's report to the UN Security Council on 7 March 2003. Minister for Foreign Affairs Per Stig Møller knows this. He is informed of this in an e-mail message from the Danish delegation to the UN headquarters in New York on 8 March 2003.
The letter to the newspaper Information in July 2003 can only be seen as misinformation,
where Minister for Foreign Affairs Per Stig Møller knowingly distorts the facts concerning the forged evidence and the UN rejection of same.
On 11 July 2003 - six days before the letter to Information - Per Stig Møller is asked in the Danish parliament whether the forged information has been "used in the Minister for Foreign Affairs assessment of Iraq's nuclear programme?"
Per Stig Møller replies in writing on 7 August 2003 - just two weeks after referring to the false information in his letter to Information - that "the mentioned information has not been used in the government’s considerations over Iraq's weapons of mass destruction."
THIS IS NOT THE LAST TIME that Anders Fogh Rasmussen's government runs into serious problems with documentation concerning the vanishing Iraqi nuclear weapons. In parliament, Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen is asked in a written
question to present evidence for his allegation, made during the press conference
on 21 March 2003, that Iraq soon could possess nuclear weapons.
The Prime Minister’s Office is unable to present this evidence. Instead, Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen replies that "the mention of the risk that Iraq could possess nuclear weapons expresses the political view that it would be irresponsible
to continue to show compliance with Iraq's failure to live up to disarmament obligations, since Iraq then would have opportunity to pursue its nuclear ambitions."
The same day, Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen confirms in another reply that the Danish government in March 2003 had been informed that the Iraqi nuclear
programme was dismantled.
"IAEA Director General ElBaradei reported to the UN Security Council on 7 March 2003 that IAEA after three months of inspections had not found any evidence or credible indications that Iraq had revived its nuclear weapons programme. At the same time, it was reported that inspections should continue. It should be noted, though, that the US has questioned some of the premises on which the IAEA bases its conclusions," replies Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
With this, the Prime Minister makes practically the same verbal evasive manoeuvre that the Minister for Foreign Affairs performs in his letter to Information in July.
The Prime Minister replies that the United States has questions concerning the IAEA's evidence. He does not say what the questions are.
The American questions are related back in an e-mail message from the Danish embassy in Washington to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs on 16 March 2003. The e-mail describes how Vice President Dick Cheney in a television interview has said that the IAEA's conclusions cannot be trusted because the Iraqi nuclear programme
had earlier, in 1991, been radically underestimated.
It is clear from the message that it is the serious mis-assessments of Iraq's nuclear capacity by the US intelligence community in 1991 that Vice President Dick Cheney uses as an argument for the view that the IAEA's conclusions in 2003 must be wrong.
It is these American questions to which the Danish Prime Minister makes verbal reference, but never mentions in his written answer to the Danish parliament.
"What I didn't find in Africa"
IN FEBRUARY 2002, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) sends the retired ambassador
Joseph Wilson to Niger. The ambassador is assigned on the orders of the US Vice President Dick Cheney.
"In February 2002 I was informed by officials at the Central Intelligence Agency that Vice President Dick Cheney's office had questions about a particular intelligence report. While I never saw the report, I was told that it referred to a memorandum of agreement that documented the sale of uranium yellowcake - a form of lightly processed ore - by Niger to Iraq in the late 1990s. The agency officials asked if I would travel to Niger to check out the story so they could provide a response to the vice president's office," Joseph Wilson writes in an opinion piece published in New York Times on 6 July 2003.
The CIA chose Joseph Wilson because of his experience with both Africa and Iraq. For 23 years, he served as ambassador in several African countries. In 1990, he was chargé d’affaires at the American embassy in Baghdad. In February 2002, he was sent to Niger to investigate the claims that Iraq was trying to purchase uranium in the African country.
All information concerning Joseph Wilson's travel to Niger was withheld until July 2003, when Wilson himself stepped forward with his opinion piece in New York Times:
"In late February 2002, I arrived in Niger's capital, Niamey, where I had been a diplomat in the mid-70s and visited as a National Security Council official in the late 90s."
"The next morning, I met with Ambassador Owens-Kirkpatrick at the embassy. For reasons that are understandable, the embassy staff has always kept a close eye on Niger's uranium business. I was not surprised, then, when the ambassador told me that she knew about the allegations of uranium sales to Iraq - and that she felt she had already debunked them in her reports to Washington. Nevertheless, she and I agreed that my time would be best spent interviewing people who had been in government when the deal supposedly took place, which was before her arrival."
"I spent the next eight days drinking sweet mint tea and meeting with dozens of people: current government officials, former government officials, people associated
with the country's uranium business. It did not take long to conclude that it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place."
"Given the structure of the consortiums that operated the mines, it would be exceedingly difficult for Niger to transfer uranium to Iraq. Niger's uranium business consists of two mines, Somair and Cominak, which are run by French, Spanish, Japanese, German and Nigerian interests. If the government wanted to remove uranium from a mine, it would have to notify the consortium, which in turn is strictly monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Moreover, because the two mines are closely regulated, quasi-governmental entities, selling uranium would require the approval of the minister of mines, the Prime Minister and probably the president. In short, there's simply too much oversight over too small an industry for a sale to have transpired."
"(As for the actual memorandum, I never saw it. But news accounts have pointed 20
out that the documents had glaring errors - they were signed, for example, by officials who were no longer in government - and were probably forged. And then there's the fact that Niger formally denied the charges.)"
"Before I left Niger, I briefed the ambassador on my findings, which were consistent with her own. I also shared my conclusions with members of her staff. In early March, I arrived in Washington and promptly provided a detailed briefing to the C.I.A. I later shared my conclusions with the State Department African Affairs Bureau.
There was nothing secret or earth-shattering in my report, just as there was nothing secret about my trip."
"Though I did not file a written report, there should be at least four documents in United States government archives confirming my mission. The documents should include the ambassador's report of my debriefing in Niamey, a separate report written
by the embassy staff, a C.I.A. report summing up my trip, and a specific answer from the agency to the office of the vice president (this may have been delivered orally). While I have not seen any of these reports, I have spent enough time in government to know that this is standard operating procedure," writes ambassador Joseph Wilson.
"Those are the facts surrounding my efforts. The vice president's office asked a serious question. I was asked to help formulate the answer. I did so, and I have every confidence that the answer I provided was circulated to the appropriate officials within our government."
Exposed a CIA operative
The cost, both in dollars and possible loss of human lives, could turn out to be huge, when former ambassador Joseph Wilson stepped forward with his column in New York Times and exposed how the White House used forged evidence against Iraq. Shortly after the column was printed in July 2003, it was leaked to American media that Ambassador Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was working for the Central Intelligence Agency.
Valerie Plame was working under cover in the CIA's Directorate Of Operations as an expert in weapons of mass destruction. She was - up to the time of the leak - operating a worldwide network of agents. With the leak, Valerie Plame and her many contacts have been put in danger.
It was not only Valerie Plame who was exposed with the leak. Also the CIA front company, Brewster-Jennings & Associates, was dragged out into the light. This company has been used by several other CIA employees, and according to the former leader of the CIA counterterrorism department, Vince Cannistraro, both Valerie Plame, her network of agents in more or less US-hostile countries worldwide
and the CIA operatives who can be related to the front company are in fact in life-threatening danger. Not to mention the fact that the CIA's work of tracking down weapons of mass destruction around the world has suffered a serious blow.
It is believed that the information on Wilson's wife was leaked from the White House, and the CIA has asked the US Justice Department to investigate the matter.
The FBI has launched a formal investigation, and several politicians are demanding
independent investigations.
In December 2003, US Attorney General John Ashcroft recused himself from the case. The investigation has been moved from the Justice Department to the specially
appointed investigator, Patrick J. Fitzgerald from Chicago.
All employees of the White House have been ordered to keep all documents, phone lists, memos, notes and calendar information from 1 February 2002 and forward
that can in any way be related to Joseph Wilson or to the journalists implicated
in the leak. This order was given in writing by the White House legal advisor Alberto Gonzales:
"Pursuant to a request from the Department of Justice, I am instructing you to preserve and maintain the following:
For the time period February 1, 2002 to the present, all documents, including without
limitation all electronic records, telephone records of any kind (including but not limited to any records that memorialize telephone calls having been made), correspondence,
computer records, storage devices, notes, memoranda, and diary and calendar entries, that relate in any way to:
- Former U.S. Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, his trip to Niger in February 2002, and/or his wife's purported relationship with the Central Intelligence Agency;
- Contacts with any member or representative of the news media about Joseph C. Wilson, his trip to Niger in February 2002, and/or his wife's purported relationship with the Central Intelligence Agency; and
- Contacts with reporters Knut Royce, Timothy M. Phelps, or Robert D. Novak, or any individual(s) acting directly or indirectly, on behalf of these reporters.
You must preserve all documents relating, in any way, directly or indirectly, to these subjects, even if there would be a question whether the document would be a presidential or federal record or even if its destruction might otherwise be permitted."
The Minister for Foreign Affairs’ memory lapse
ON 15 MAY 2003, the Danish Minister for Foreign Affairs Per Stig Møller took to the lectern in the Danish parliament and said: "Concerning weapons of mass destruction
I'd like to emphasise that I have said alleged weapons of mass destruction
all along."
One month later, on 18 June 2003, Minister for Foreign Affairs Per Stig Møller repeated and elaborated on this claim during a press conference outside the Danish parliament's Foreign Policy Committee.
- I have always said "presumed weapons of mass destruction".
- Are you saying that you never told the parliament that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?
- I don't have my speeches present. The important thing is that I have at all times stood by the view that the argument concerning weapons of mass destruction was decisive for me. You can probably find a sentence where I have not used the word "presumed".
So the Danish Minister for Foreign Affairs Per Stig Møller claims, both in parliament and to the press, that he as Minister for Foreign Affairs has consistently mentioned the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction with reservations.
But this assertion is not correct.
34 times in the space of six months, in ten different meetings in the Danish parliament, Minister for Foreign Affairs Per Stig Møller asserts without reservation that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. Not one single time in one of his speeches about Iraq's stocks of illegal weapons does Per Stig Møller say "presumed weapons of mass destruction". No other qualifiers, such as "theoretical", "possible" or "presumed", are used in his speeches.
On one single occasion, the Minister for Foreign Affairs says "alleged". This happens
on 15 May 2003 - after the war - when Minister for Foreign Affairs Per Stig Møller claims that he " said alleged weapons of mass destruction all along".
DIRECTLY QUESTIONED about why he now claims that he has qualified his allegations
of weapons of mass destruction all along, in an interview with Ekstra Bladet on 24 June 2003, Minister for Foreign Affairs Per Stig Møller replies:
- That must be a lapse of memory.
- Per Stig Møller, you said weapons of mass destruction without reservation 34 times in six months?
- Well, how many times did I say it with reservations?
- None!
- Well, that's not correct. I have a speech here, from the parliament on 19 March at 10 o'clock: "Those weapons still exist - one must assume," I say. There's your reservation.
- Come on! Honestly! 34 times you say weapons of mass destruction without reservation, Per Stig?
- Yes, but that's not so strange. All along, the UN weapons inspectors have listed a lot of weapons of mass destruction that have not been accounted for. I constantly build on this knowledge, which anybody can check.
- But why did you tell us last week that you said "presumed weapons of mass destruction" all along, when this obviously isn't true?
- Yes, I said that, but then that must be a lapse of memory.
111 times "disarmament" and a single "regime change"
ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN TIMES in the period from 1 November 2002 to 30 April 2003, the Danish Minister for Foreign Affairs Per Stig Møller and Prime Minister
Anders Fogh Rasmussen say that it's disarmament of Iraq that the Danish government
wants. "So we all want this disarmament," says Minister for Foreign Affairs Per Stig Møller on 19 March 2003. Two days later, Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen says:
"The parliament has today voted for Danish participation in the international coalition to disarm Saddam Hussein and liberate the Iraqi people."
A total of four times in May, June, July, August and September 2003, the government
says that the war was about disarming Iraq.
On one single occasion, the two ministers have used the expression "regime change". This occurred on 26 March 2003, when Minister for Foreign Affairs Per Stig Møller says in parliament: "But it is not for a regime change we have gone in. We went in to disarm him of his weapons of mass destruction."
Falsified evidence
IT IS VERY EASY to expose the falsified documents that both US President George W. Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the Danish government have used several times as evidence that Iraq has resumed its nuclear programme.
The President refers to the evidence in his State of the Union speech in 2003, and most recently, Danish Minister for Foreign Affairs Per Stig Møller refers to the documents in a letter to the Danish newspaper Information on 17 July 2003 - six months after the documents have been debunked as forgeries in Mohammad ElBaradei's report to the UN Security Council.
One of the false documents is dated 10 October 2000 and allegedly signed by Niger's
Minister for Foreign Affairs, Ailele Elhadj Habibou. He served as Minister for Foreign Affairs in the period 1988 to 1989.
Another of the forged documents refers to Niger’s constitution of 12 May 1965. This document is dated 27 July 2000 and should correctly refer to the constitution that was adopted the year before, on 9 August 1999.
"You won't find any weapons"
- Iraq's chemical and biological weapons and the country's entire nuclear programme
were almost totally destroyed in 1991 during the Gulf War.
Dr. Imad Khadduri is probably among the best experts in the entire world on the Iraqi
weapons programmes. He managed some of the central nuclear research projects
under one of Saddam Hussein's most important weapons projects, the development
of an Iraqi atomic bomb.
Today, Dr. Imad Khadduri strongly denies that Iraq has hidden stocks of weapons of mass destruction.
From 1968 to 1998, Khadduri worked for the Iraqi atomic energy commission. Up until the first Gulf War, he was in charge of several clandestine nuclear projects. In 1998, Imad Khadduri fled with his family from Iraq. Today, he lives in Toronto in Canada, where Ekstra Bladet has interviewed him several times during the spring of 2003.
- What are the chances that the US and coalition forces will find any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?
- Literally zero. There are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. That was clear already a few months after the end of the war in 1991, when Hussein Kamel, who was in charge of the nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programmes, ordered the destruction of the chemical and biological substances and the warheads.
The nuclear programme was destroyed already on the first night of the air raids in 1991.
At that time, Dr. Imad Khadduri worked at the nuclear plant in Akashat. The plant was bombed by the American forces and has never been rebuilt.
- What is your assessment of the evidence that Secretary of State Colin Powell presented in the UN Security Council, the evidence that President George W. Bush has produced and the evidence that the Danish government has declared must exist?
- It is as I have described in my articles: There is no evidence. Only bad intelligence. Time is running out. Hopes that American and British forces will find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that have not been planted there by themselves
are withering mirages. Bush, Blair and their officials have lied to their people and led a criminal war based on moronic intelligence. Is that a democratic role model for a "liberated" Iraq?
In 1991, Akashat, where Dr. Imad Khadduri worked as a leading nuclear physicist, was one of two plants where Iraq attempted to develop an atomic bomb, based on the constructions developed in the US World War II Manhattan Project leading to the Hiroshima bomb.
Khadduri worked on the calutron separators, which were intercepted after the Gulf War, in 1992, and destroyed under the supervision of the UN inspectors during the UNSCOM inspections.
Dr. Khadduri was never interrogated about his knowledge of the Iraqi nuclear programme by either the Canadian or US intelligence services before the invasion of 2003.
Blix and Ekeus agree: "There are no weapons"
"THERE WERE NO REAL weapons left at the end of ’97-’98."
In an interview with the Australian news –show, Dateline, on 1 October 2003, the former chief UN weapons inspector, Rolf Ekeus, categorically denies that his UNSCOM
inspectors missed significant parts of the Iraqi weapons programmes.
"It was clear when UNSCOM was forced to close down, I finished myself '97 and Richard Butler at the end of '98, that there could be hardly any stockpiles. There could be old weapons here and there, but definitely no massive stockpiles. However, the