Iraq's WMD "Smoking Gun"

[Bumped]

Update:  Having just watched the Nightline report on Saddam's secret tapes (transcript, excerpts) and understanding that they only played about 60 seconds worth of 12 hours of tape, I have to say these recordings are hard to swallow as "secret".  They may have been unavailable for the last 10 years, but the conversations were hardly secret strategy meetings about how and where to hide weapons.

The primary thrust of what I heard tonight was a "Who us?" style PR job, in which Saddam and his henchmen do a lot of agreeing that America sure does have it coming (but note that just about anyone can put together a biological or chemical attack, so don't look their way when it happens).  They then go on to stroke their chins about whether or not to tell the international community about all their weapons capabilities, then shrewdly decide not to.  This is followed by more vigorous agreeing that they sure do have more capabilities than they're owning up to.

If these are the "most dramatic" excerpts, as ABC claims, I don't think the tapes will serve to bolster either side of the WMD debate. It's seems pretty clear to me that Saddam's regime intended these tapes to be heard by the west and that these strategy sessions were nothing more than stage shows.  We already knew that Saddam's MO was to strenuously wink and nudge about his extensive weapons programs, while maintaining a deliberately thin public veneer of compliance with sanctions and inspections.

In that regard, producing "secret" tapes for accidental public consumption seems like an effective way to straddle that line (even if it did take a decade for the message to get out).

Reserving final judgment until the full set of recordings is released on Friday, I'm thus far unmoved (which is to say I remain equally convinced of the regime's possession of WMDs and Saddam's willingness to use them, but recognize that this evidence should do little to sway doubters).

Elsewhere:
Captain Ed finds the conversations banal.  Well put.
John Hawkins shares the view that the tapes shed little new light.  Smart guy.

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[Earlier]

From Cybercast News Service:
(via Ankle Biting Pundits, Macsmind, Drudge, et al)

Secret audiotapes of Saddam Hussein discussing ways to attack America with weapons of mass destruction will be the subject of an ABC "Nightline" program Wednesday night, a former federal prosecutor told Cybercast News Service.

The tapes are being called the "smoking gun" of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq. The New York Sun reported that the tapes have been authenticated and currently are being reviewed by the U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

Not just weapons of mass destruction, mind you.  Weapons of mass destruction that Saddam planned to use in attacks on America.  The tapes are also purported to suggest possible locations of the missing WMDs.

According to ABC News, in footage taken in the mid 1990's, Saddam predicted what he called "terrorism" using WMDs to be inflicted on the Americans and British.

Terrorism is coming. I told the Americans a long time before August 2 and told the British as well … that in the future there will be terrorism with weapons of mass destruction.

Of course we need to treat with great skepticism any sensational MSM expose, but the Sun is indeed reporting that the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has authenticated the tapes, according to Committee Chairman Peter Hoekstra.

The tapes will be made public in full on Friday at the annual meeting of the Intelligence Summit.

Frankly, I question the timing of the release of these tapes.  This seems like yet another attempt by the Bush administration to divert our attention from the real issue at hand, which today is the horrific culture of secrecy surrounding the Vice President.  The way this administration systematically withholds and manipulates information is deeply troubling.  It dates all the way back to the lies they told us to trick us into going to war to depose a regime which we know never had any weapons... of... um... never mind.

Speaking of questioning the timing, the Nightline special isn't going to preempt Lost, is it?

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