Hatfill

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Steven Hatfill

Dr. Steven Jay Hatfill (b. October 24, 1953) is a physician, virologist and bio-weapons expert. The US Department of Justice identified the former government scientist as a "person of interest" in its investigation of the 2001 anthrax attacks but has not sought charges. FBI raids on his home were well attended by journalists and consequently, several news outlets have speculated that Hatfill was the likely suspect for the attacks.

Biography

Hatfill was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and graduated from Mattoon Senior High School, Mattoon, Illinois (1971) and Southwestern College in Winfield, Kansas (1975) where he studied biology. During college he took a year off and worked with a Methodist medical missionary in Kapanga, Zaire. (His mentor was Dr. Glenn Eschtruth, whose daughter Caroline he later married and divorced.)

Hatfill thensettled in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) where his claimed military associations included work with the United States Army's Institute for Military Assistance, the Rhodesian SAS, and the Selous Scouts. He stayed on to study medicine (1978-84) at the Godfrey Huggins Medical School in Salisbury (now Harare). In 1984, he took a board certification in hematological pathology from South Africa. The South African government recruited him to be medical officer on a one-year tour of duty in Antarctica. He claimed a Ph.D. in molecular cellular biology as well as completion of a post-doctoral fellowship at Oxford University in England and three master's degrees (in microbial genetics, medical biochemistry, and experimental pathology). Some of these credentials have been questioned.

The anthrax attacks

Dr Hatfill's postdoctoral appointments included one at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD. He subsequently worked as a civilian researcher at the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), the US Department of Defense's medical research institute for biological warfare (BW) defense at Fort Detrick, MD. There he studied new drug treatments for the Ebola virus and became a specialist in BW defense.

After leaving USAMRIID, he worked for Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), also on Ft Detrick, and later at Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, LA.

Hatfill has maintained that he is innocent of any involvement in the 2001 anthrax letter attacks and is suing the government for compensation for the damage he claims has been inflicted on his professional reputation and employment prospects. His lawyer, Victor M. Glasberg, stated: "Steve's life has been devastated by a drumbeat of innuendo, implication and speculation. We have a frightening public attack on an individual who, guilty or not, should not be exposed to this type of public opprobrium based on speculation."

In an embarrassing incident, FBI agents trailing Hatfill in a motor vehicle ran over his foot when he attempted to approach them in May, 2003.

Steven Hatfill

January 2007

Last year, in the wake of the Yushchenko poisoning, I posed a number of questions about political developments in the former Soviet Union to an ex-dissident I knew at the Hoover Institution. I hadn't paid much attention to the news from that part of the world for a few years; after 9/11, I bought the line that Putin was a good guy, and that we and the Russians were locked in a battle with a common foe. The Yushchenko story had me wondering, though, and I sought a more informed view. The former dissident was highly critical of the Chechen War, but generally approved of Putin — an authoritarian, yes, but basically sound. I asked about the Yushchenko hit; he thought that was classic KGB. I followed up, if that were true, could it have happened without at least the tacit approval of Vladimir Putin? He seemed to find that question quite disturbing. Obviously (to me), if Putin's security people were involved in the plot, then Putin sanctioned the operation. If he did, that could only be because he assumed that nobody would call him on it, because it would be politically inconvenient to do so. And, why should anyone call him on it? After all, the state has the right and duty to protect itself—correct? Wheel of Fortune (01/01/07): So, in the end, Saddam didn't blink, and Bush didn't blink — 2003 all over again. Where does that leave us? Possibly, after the usual posturing, the Baath will lose heart and sue for peace — perhaps after the U.S. sends reinforcements to Baghdad. Alternatively, they may up the ante against the Shiites and force a civil war. If so, we're probably going to end up on the same side, since the Saudis have already signaled they'll back the Sunnis. The maximum risk for the U.S. would be during an escalation in Baghdad — unless the crackdown is skewed against the Sadrists. No doubt this is all being war-gamed out as Bush ponders The New Way Forward. # posted by Jef @ 1:04 PM Tuesday, November 28, 2006 Hoodlum Priest A campaign is underway in the U.S. media to paint Moqtada al-Sadr as the New, New Hitler, and Shiite militias as the main obstacle to progress in Iraq. But, the more we hate Moqtada the more the Shiites respect him. The young cleric's prestige is mostly inherited, and he doesn't come across as any sort of mastermind. Nonetheless, al-Sadr does see clearly certain things which seem to have escaped almost every Western observer. First, the "insurgency" is just the Baathists fighting to get back into power. Second, "sectarian violence" is not a separate phenomenon from the insurgency, but a military tactic, designed to facilitate the Baathists' return. Third, the United States is not serious about empowering Iraq's Shiite majority, wouldn't mind seeing the Baathists back in power, and isn't even commited to finishing off Saddam Hussein. Whether al-Sadr grasps the full calculus behind this last point is anybody's guess. If the demonization effort does culminate in our killing al-Sadr, it will do no good. He will be replaced, and eventually by someone with a bit more savvy — a Nasrallah type. The Sadrist faction probably can be crushed militarily, but it will likely require a great deal of brutality — genocidal brutality — and the U.S. may be forced to distance itself from the action by letting someone else step in to do the honors. What about the story that U.S. decision-makers are tilting towards supporting the Shiites in Iraq's sectarian conflict? I seriously doubt it. What would the Saudis say? Of course, we have to keep Maliki's hopes up until he gets the chop — hence the rumors. Laura Rozen, a correspondent for The American Prospect, broke the we'll-back-the-Shia story in an LA Times piece earlier this month. Rozen also played a role in promoting the person-of-interest story, four years ago. Surprising, perhaps, that national security insiders would be so keen to leak all this sensitive information to a left-wing activist journalist. But then, maybe it's not really information at all. Overtures (12/03/06): President Bush's outreach to SCIRI leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim is being billed as attempt to isolate al-Sadr. On the face of it, though, SCIRI represents a greater threat to U.S. interests than al-Sadr. The party favors increased autonomy for the Shiite South, which risks a break-up of Iraq and a potential overflow of Shiite revolt to Saudi Arabia. Devolution would increase the likelihood that the Shiites would end up with most of Iraq's oil, and that they might collude with Iran to use the oil weapon against the West; giving the Shiites more control over the oil also doesn't seem like a good way to get buy-in from the Sunnis. SCIRI's militia, the Badr Brigade, is trained by Iran, supposedly our greatest regional foe. In contrast, al-Sadr favors a strong, united Iraq, and he and his militia have much more limited ties to Tehran. So, why would we want to align with SCIRI to squeeze al-Sadr? Probably, the truth is we don't want to ally with SCIRI, or give them anything of what they want. However, that doesn't mean the overture is pointless. What we want is to find some way to give in to the Baath without a formal surrender ceremony. A SCIRI official, Akram al-Hakim, has already shown his willingness to negotiate with Saddam's followers — ostensibly with Maliki's support, although one has to wonder about the extent of that. There are reasons why SCIRI could be more open to dealing with the Baath than the Sadrists. For SCIRI, an outcome where Shiites get their own mini-state, guaranteed by the Americans and Iran, even as the Baath return to Baghdad might seem like an acceptable deal. For the Sadrists, on the other hand, a Baathist return in Baghdad means curtains — genocide, ethnic cleansing, the works. For the U.S., ethnic cleansing in Baghdad is not a problem, but a solution. Probably, we don't particularly care for the Shiite mini-state idea, but, that is clearly a question for the Iraqis to resolve, after the Baathists regain power. The divide-and-conquer tactics are straight from Saddam Hussein's playbook. Back in the eighties, Saddam even managed to turn Jalal Talabani, the Kurdish rebel leader and Iraq's current president (Out of the Ashes, p. 177). Talabani wanted to cut out his then-rival, Massoud Barzani, in a struggle for leadership of the Kurds. Still, even Saddam's mastery of realpolitik has its limits: Talabani and Barzani made up and, accepting support from Tehran, staged an uprising in the wake of Saddam's retreat from Kuwait. Saddam still beat the rebels, though. When talking doesn't work, there's still good, old-fashioned violence. I wonder if things will play out differently this time. # posted by Jef @ 10:42 AM Thursday, November 16, 2006 From the Shadows I sat in the Situation Room in secret meetings for nearly twenty years under five Presidents, and all I can say is that some awfully crazy schemes might well have been approved had everyone present not known and expected hard questions, debate, and criticism from the Hill. And when, on a few occasions, Congress was kept in the dark, and such schemes did proceed, it was nearly always to the lasting regret of the Presidents involved. Working with the Congress was never easy for Presidents, but then, under the Constitution, it wasn't supposed to be. I saw too many in the White House forget that. — Robert M. Gates, From the Shadows, 1996 A “person of interest” is someone who comes into being when the government is under intense political pressure to solve a crime but can't do so, either because the crime is too difficult to solve or because the authorities are proceeding in what can mildly be called a wrong-headed manner... This should preferably be a person about whom mysterious questions can be raised, someone with an interesting or colorful background. Then they give him a prejudicial label, “person of interest.” And they leak appropriate rumor and innuendo to the press. — Steven J. Hatfill, press conference, August 2002 False Alarm (11/17/06): Josh Lederberg was also worrying about civilians. Saddam Hussein's statement earlier in the year that he would burn Israel with his "fire" was widely taken as a threat to use chemical and biological weapons. As a member of the Defense Science Board, Lederberg had access to some of the classified intelligence on the Iraqi biological program. "I knocked on every door, got to see Brent Scowcroft, got to see the intelligence people, the FBI," he said. He also asked a simple question" "What are we going to do about the civilian population" No one had thought through which government agencies would respond to a domestic germ attack. Lederberg urged Scowcroft, Bush's national security adviser, to begin planning civil defenses. Saddam Hussein's most likely use of germ weapons, he argued, would be through a surrogate, a terrorist group. White House officials quietly began assembling an emergency-response team centered at the Department of Health and Human Services. The staffer who handled his meeting with Scowcroft was a rising young star named Condoleezza Rice, a Soviet specialist whom Lederberg had known when she was a student at Stanford. The preparations were modest: a training exercise or two and some antibiotics stockpiled in the Washington area. But Lederberg felt he had made a contribution. The nation's capital had been made somewhat less vulnerable to terrorist attack. — Germs, Judith Miller, p. 111-112 The threat of biological weapons seems to have receeded, to judge from media coverage. Osama with a nuke, we should worry about. Iran with a nuke, we should worry about. But bioweapons? Highly implausible. I guess all that fuss before the invasion of Iraq was just hype. We've learned from the Duelfer report that, although Saddam attributed his survival of the Gulf War to his anthrax deterrent, he lost interest in biological weapons thereafter. We've searched high and low in Iraq and not turned up any biologicals, except maybe some small stuff for assassinations. Also, Saddam has given up on the whole revenge thing and, anyway, he'll be dangling from a short rope by Christmas. As for the anthrax letters, as Bob Woodward assured us back in October 2001, they were just a distraction from the war on terror. With that cleared up, we're now free to concentrate on the real focus of the war on terror—Iraq. # posted by Jef @ 10:11 AM Friday, November 10, 2006 The World is Yours Saddam had predicted immediately after Hussein Kamel's flight that his newfound friends would suck him dry of information "until he is burnt out and then throw him into the road." Now he set to work with chilling skill to seduce Kamel into returning. He sent assurances through Kamel's father and to Raghad, through her mother, Sajida, that the defectors could return in safety to Baghdad. On at least one occasion, he called Kamel directly with assurances that the prodigal son-in-law need fear no repercussions. "Do you think I could harm the father of my grandchildren?" asked Saddam with dramatic sincerity. Unbelievably, Kamel began to take him seriously. ... When the assault began, Hussein, Saddam, and Hakim Kamel fought back fiercely from the house. The battle went on for thirteen hours, during which time the Kamels succeeded in killing two of the attackers. When they ran out of ammunition, Hussein Kamel, who had already been wounded, came staggering out of the house and shouted: "Kill me, but not them." He was shot dead. Saddam Kamel was hit and killed by a rocket grenade as he fired from the balcony of the villa. His father, Kamel Hassan al-Majid, his sister, and her children died inside the house. When the fighting was over, Ali Hassan al-Majid stood over his nephew and gave him one last shot in the head, saying: "This is what happens to all those who deal with the midget" (a reference to the diminutive King Hussein). According to one story current at the time in Baghdad, the attackers then put meat hooks in the eyes of the dead brothers and dragged them away. — Out of the Ashes, p 207-211 Decisions, Decisions (11/12/06): In today's NYT, John Burns frets over the problems the U.S. could face overthrowing Nouri al-Maliki in order to install the CIA's favorite, Iyad Allawi, as dictator of Iraq: The mechanism for any such move could hardly be so crude as the American-backed overthrow of President Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam in 1963; he ended up dead, a bullet in his head, in the rear of an American-made armored personal carrier outside Saigon’s presidential palace. Mr. Burns worries too much, I think. Maliki's fall could be engineered in any of a number of ways. The hard part would be dealing with the blowback that would follow from this long-telegraphed gambit. In the idealist view, Allawi, backed by a temporary influx of U.S. troops to Baghdad, would quickly restore order and broker a national reconciliation plan acceptable to secular Baathists and religious Shiites. The U.S. would end up with another friend in the region. A realist view is that the coup would trigger a violent pushback by disenfranchised Shiites, forcing the reinstated Baathists to turn out Saddam Lite and replace him with a more reliably partisan representative of their interests — possibly Saddam Classic. Still, provided America has sufficient time to get out the way and wash its hands of the end-game, this could still be a rosy scenario. We'd get a restoration of the status quo ante and a Shiite genocide thrown into the bargain. How cool is that? On the other hand, reality being what it is, things might not unfold so cleanly, and the U.S. could find itself embroiled in a long and bloody struggle, as it did after JFK offed President Diem. In which case, the beginning of the end may turn out to be the end of the beginning. We'll just have to see. Rewind (11/14/06): The victory for Iraq is that they deter the invasion. When we succeed in crushing the invasion and when we compel the invaders to leave our country, that is the victory, the victory because we’re not fighting the Americans and the British on open land, you see. We’re fighting them in our own land, on our own territory. They are invaders. When we succeed in deterring them, when we succeed in inflicting too many losses on them, and in the end they will find themselves obliged to stop and withdraw. That’s a great victory. — Tariq Aziz, ABC News, March 30, 2003 I have great hope and supreme confidence that, through the agency of God, and of the mighty people of Iraq and its heroic fighters, I shall return to Baghdad on its liberation from the grip of the occupation. — Izzat al-Douri, TIME, July 24, 2006 # posted by Jef @ 10:13 PM Friday, October 20, 2006 Forward Together White House senior adviser Karl Rove, who has known Bush since the early 1970s and is his closest political adviser, said the president has separated what he can control from what he can't control. "I think 35 years from now when everything is coughed up to the public," Rove said in an interview, "I think the sense of fatalism will come across. This view, the sense that if there are more of them [terrorists] and they're coming after me, they're coming after me. And if they want to use X, if they want to use a biological agent in the White House, no matter how much everybody says . . . no matter what steps are taken, they might be able to do it. "But there will never be the moment of agony. There will be no moment of 'Oh, God.' . . . There'll never be a moment of the shudder brought about by the lack of confidence. There's never a moment of doubt as to the course taken. There just won't be." Rove said the president constantly talks about results and his belief that he and his administration will be judged by the outcome of the war. "Everything will be measured by results," Rove said. "The victor is always right. History ascribes to the victor qualities that may or may not actually have been there. And similarly to the defeated." — Dan Balz and Bob Woodward, Ten Days in September, The Washington Post I wonder if it's really in the Democrats' best interests to take the Congress in the coming election. Bush has staked his presidency on the Iraq War. If the war is lost, then Rove's mission for the next two years is clear-cut: diffuse the guilt. Should be a piece of cake. Damage Control (10/22/06): It seems increasingly likely that the U.S. will be forced to seek a return to the status quo ante as the least-awful outcome to the Iraq War. Even in the best case, it will be hard to spin that as anything but a defeat. In the worst case, the sky's the limit. In terms of domestic politics, the Republican Party will undoubtedly suffer significant damage. Still, Karl Rove is celebrated for his ability to turn a weakness into a strength. In retrospect, the downside risk on the Iraq venture has been contained brilliantly. Who shouldered the burden of dissociating Saddam from 9/11? Democrats. Who touted Saddam and al-Qaeda as natural enemies? Democrats. Who exonerated Saddam on the WMD front? Democrats. Who did the spade work burying the anthrax threats? Democrats. In consequence, the exit will be easier for the Republicans, the cover-ups better defended, and the blame spread around when the truth dawns. Pretty neat, huh? Is Rove a genius, or what? Special Purpose Entity (10/23/06): In an August 2002 news conference, Pentagon biodefense expert Steven J. Hatfill, designated a "person of interest" in the anthrax investigation by John Ashcroft, accused the AG of offering him as a scapegoat to the press, to distract from the government's inability to bring the anthrax terrorist to justice. He had harsh words for the Attorney General: Mr. Ashcroft has repeatedly testified to his strong Christian values, and I highly respect him for this. Unlike many others, I was delighted when he was selected for his appointment to this high public office. In practice, however, by openly, repeatedly naming me as a "person of interest," Mr. Ashcroft has not only violated Justice Department regulations and guidelines, which bind him as the nation's top law enforcement official, but in my view, he has broken the Ninth Commandment: "Thou shalt not bear false witness." That makes two Commandments Ashcroft violated at once—the Ninth and the Eleventh. President Bush must have been furious—don't you think? “Made in Baghdad” (10/25/06): Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) has sent Attorney General Alberto Gonzales a letter demanding answers on the nature and status of the anthrax investigation. The FBI, meanwhile, is now refusing to brief Congress on Operation Amerithrax. It appears that the program will henceforth operate without oversight, just like the administration's warrantless wiretap, rendition, torture and secret prison programs. Sen. Grassley's letter strikes me as naive, in some respects, but he does raise a number of salient questions—particularly as to whether the investigation is fundamentally a criminal probe, or an intelligence activity. If the senator knows what's good for him, he will desist from these inquiries, which are useless. Otherwise, he could find himself becoming a "person of interest" to the activity. I mean, "Grassley," "Greendale"—too close for comfort, yes? Peace with Honor (10/26/06): The New York Times has until Friday to disclose the names of Nic Kristof's 'Mr. Z' sources. The three still-unidentified informants include "two Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and a former colleague or friend of Dr. Hatfill at Fort Detrick," according to the paper. If the Times refuses to comply with the judge's order, they will likely forfeit the case. The paper can then pay Hatfill a large sum of money, as happened in the Wen Ho Lee case, and sell it as a stand on journalistic principle. There will be no trial, and the public will be none the wiser — which works for everybody, right? Half the Battle (10/29/06): Days after the Gulf War ceasefire, a White House official explained the Bush administration's thinking to a bemused underling: "You don't understand. Our policy is to get rid of Saddam, not his regime." (Out of the Ashes, p. 37.) It was, after all, the U.S. who installed the Baath in the first place—although not Saddam, who clawed his way to the top by his own devices. No doubt, the current Bush administration would be content to see a Baathist restoration in Iraq, minus the Baath's troublesome leader. That would require retiring the democracy thing, just as the WMD thing and the Prague thing have been retired. From the looks of it, the gold watch is already being engraved for al-Maliki. In an ideal world, the U.S. would prefer to keep Saddam as a hostage for the rest of his days. For now, the rebels are soft-pedaling on the question of returning Saddam to office. Recently, an insurgent spokesman addressed this point in an interview with an Arab newspaper, Ansharq al-Alawsat: On the call by some Sunni tribes for the return of Saddam Hussein, he explained that, "This call is undoubtedly spearheaded and supported by the Baath Party organizations. I believe that if they today offer Saddam Hussein to return to power, he will refuse. Besides, he is today incapable of leading Iraq. We believe that the case of Saddam will be part of a comprehensive solution for the Iraqi question." Quite so. Saddam Hussein obviously needs a vacation. The hostage thing can be revisited later, after there has been a change in the social reality. Saddam is a controversial figure—it would definitely be better to postpone judgment on restoring him to power until after a settlement and U.S. withdrawal. That's something on which both sides can agree, I'm sure. The Final Countdown (10/30/06): We have heard in the news, recently, that American officials think that the source of anthrax is probably the US itself. Is this conclusion or information just a tactic to divert the attention of those who were terrorized to hear that Bin Laden is the source of anthrax, and to hear insinuations to other accusations, that many Americans think that they should not persist in harming the people he cares for, because that would push him to a stronger reaction in this way or by other means? Or have they done this to divert attention from the incompetence of American official bodies in the events of September 11, and they find now that they have achieved their goal and consequently, the act and the actors should be buried?! — Saddam Hussein, Third Open Letter to the American People, October 29, 2001 The Tikritis have a saying: iqtulu waqta' khabarou — "Kill him and end his news." Al-Maliki is chafing at the bit to finish off the most famous Tikriti of them all. Only the Americans stand in the way. Whose news will be ended first, Saddam's or al-Maliki's? The Wisdom of Solomon (11/01/06): Following the events of September 11, 2001, President Bush faced three options: Bury state sponsorship, blame Al-Qaeda, cave to Saddam. Call out state sponsorship, isolate Saddam in Baghdad. Bury state sponsorship, wage limited war with Saddam. Whole books could be written about the implications of each of these three strategies — and, somewhere in the Pentagon, probably were. The 'Decider' picked Option 3 — and here we are, in the worst of all possible worlds. It Then Becomes Necessary... (11/03/06) It is protection for Saddam to have biological and chemical weapons, because, in the final analysis, if pressed, if he is surrounded in Baghdad, he will threaten to use them. He's capable of that. This is a sort of Samson complex -- if you push me too hard, I'll bring the house down, on myself and on everyone else. Washington realizes that this is a possibility. For obvious reasons, it's not talked about openly. No one in Washington wants to tell the American people that Saddam is still capable of blackmailing us. They're acting as if he is capable of blackmailing them, but they are not going to admit it openly. — Saïd K. Aburish, The Survival of Saddam Hussein, PBS Frontline, January 2000 Dead Again (11/05/06): The NYT's John Burns has filed an audio dispatch from the Iraqi tribunal where Saddam Hussein was sentenced to hang today. According to Burns, Saddam may now have only a few months left to live: [The] appeals will go to the Appeal Court within thirty days. The court can take as long as it likes to reach its own conclusion, but many Iraqis believe that the political and military realities will in the end prove decisive, and that the government of Prime Minister Nouri Kamal al-Maliki, a religious Shiite, will do what it can to hasten the appeal process, in the belief that an early execution of Mr. Hussein — possibly as soon as the spring of 2007 — may help turn the tide of the war. After Americans go to the polls and the curfews in Iraq are lifted, reality takes over. It remains to be seen whether Mr. Hussein or Mr. Maliki is the ultimate benefactor. Good Cop, Bad Cop (11/06/05): Per the Washington Post, Democrats suspect the timing of the Saddam verdict was orchestrated from the White House, but they can't quite bring themselves to make an issue of it. White House spokesman Tony Snow was dismissive of the idea, however: Snow dismissed the suggestion as "preposterous" and absurd. "Are you smoking rope?" he replied when a reporter asked about timing manipulation aboard Air Force One on Saturday. "Are you telling me that in Iraq, that they're sitting around -- I'm sorry, that the Iraqi judicial system is coming up with an October surprise?" Corrected on the date, he expressed incredulity, "A November surprise. Man, that's -- wow." Of course the trial is political theater, puppeteered from Washington. That has been evident for along time. The problem for the Dems is, once you get that, all the moves in the process take on a different meaning. And, that is not something they want you to think about. The Beginning of the End (11/07/06): If it is true that Izzat al-Douri has ordered a cease-fire, then a settlement is in the works. In which case, the Iraq War is about to wrap up. We'll find out soon enough. # posted by Jef @ 9:40 AM Sunday, October 08, 2006 Resurrection Party If the United States loses the war in Iraq, as is now widely anticipated, who will emerge as the ultimate victor? The most plausible candidates are the Sadrists and the Baathists. If it turns into a real fighting match, the Sadrists can expect help from Iran, while the Baath can look for tacit support from the United States and friendly Sunni dictatorships. What of the Baathists' leader, Saddam Hussein? Is he completely washed up politically, or could he make another comeback? That possibility, while still remote, seems less fantastic than it did only a year ago. Can we envisage a scenario whereby Saddam claws his way back to power? Can Saddam imagine such a scenario? Certain prerequisites for a return have been fulfilled: Saddam has to stay alive until the tide changes. In concrete terms, staying alive means deterring the U.S. from giving up his custody to the elected government of Iraq. Mission accomplished. Saddam needs a clean bill of health on the terrorism and WMD fronts from the Western powers. For all practical purposes, this goal has been attained. Iraq's new, democratically-elected government needs to be destabilized through political violence. That has been achieved. Blame for the political violence should be deflected, falling disproportionately on the Shiites, Iran, and Al-Qaeda. Check. Now, comes the tricky bit — removing the elected government. The U.S. will naturally be reluctant to give up its last claim to legitimacy for the invasion, which sets the bar for dismissing Maliki quite high. And, it's hard to envisage any form of deconditioning campaign that Bush could use to prepare the public for a direct restoration of Saddam to power. Even if the situation devolves into a civil war and Iran steps in to support the Shia, I can't see the U.S. simply handing back Saddam the keys to his palace. Saddam understands this, I'm sure. As a matter of practical politics, though, if both sides can agree on how things should turn out, a face-saving way can be found to reach that end. To get Saddam back where he belongs, an intermediate step is required, whereby the U.S. can wash its hand of the final outcome. For example, if the sectarian violence continues to escalate, Maliki can be fired, and the U.S. can install a puppet with good relations with the Baath to make a deal with the insurgents. As part of the accord, Saddam can be sentenced to life imprisonment, and turned over to the custody of the emergency government. The Baathists can start returning to their old offices, and America can pull out, citing the internal nature of the ensuing struggle as a pretext. After a suitable interval, the Baathists can remove the American puppet — blow him up at a ceremonial banquet, or something of that nature. His people would then be moved out, and reliable people put in their place. To quell the Shiites and face-off Iran, the Baath can turn over the reins to their old boss, Saddam. After all, he has plenty of experience dealing with that sort of thing. Once the status quo ante is restored, the American people can be told that we don't have a dog in this fight. There'll be some grumbling about the expenditure and loss of life involved in the Iraq campaign, and partisan political points will be traded on the domestic scene. However, since most now think that it was a mistake to remove Saddam in the first place, the American people will eventually shrug their shoulders and move on. It's a challenging project, no doubt, but then so was Saddam's original takeover of Iraq. The creeping suspicion that he might not be finished is a reasonable one, I think. A great deal of doubletalk has been employed to divert us from the reality that we're still fighting Saddam. Why is that, exactly? It's because we might lose — and that means he might win. Coups and Rumors of Coups (10/12/06): The attempted Iraqi coup of 1996 marked one of the most colossal failures in the history of the CIA, deserving the roster of such fiascos with the far more famous Cuban Bay of Pigs operation in 1961. So complete was the disaster that those concerned could only hope to avoid condemnation by pretending nothing much out of the ordinary had occured. "In the Central Intelligence Agency, like everywhere else in the world, they always have risk," said John Deutsch later. "They aren't always successful. These were responsible risks carried out by dedicated individuals coordinated with overall government policy." Asked whether he had understood beforehand that the coup plot had been penetrated (as Chalabi had warned him three months in advance), Deutsch refused to comment. To reinforce the notion that there was nothing for which it had to apologize, the CIA kept Alawi on the payroll, budgeting almost $5 million to support his activities in the following year alone. In the meantime, Saddam, emboldened by his crushing victory, was turning his eyes north. There were fresh defeats and humiliations in store for his enemies. — Out of the Ashes: The Resurrection of Saddam Hussein, p. 230 The idea of deposing Maliki and installing a National Rescue Government headed by Iyad Allawi is being talked up again. Presumably, Allawi would bring the Baathists back in Baghdad and turn the full force of the government on Sadr, while the non-Sadrist Shiites are bought off with a regional autonomy plan. Three questions: How are we going to get rid of Maliki? How long will the Baath allow Allawi to survive? What happens after Allawi goes the way of Maliki? The Bush Doctrine (10/12/06): Why haven't we attacked North Korea? Has the 'pre-emptive war' doctrine already been retired, and so soon? In that regard, it's been interesting to watch the evolution of the WMD debate since Bush's 'Axis of Evil' speech. First, Bush was going to hit Iraq because Saddam had WMDs — for example, a squadron of drone aircraft that could spray anthrax all over the Eastern seaboard. Then, after the invasion, we learned that Bush hit Iraq because he mistakenly believed Saddam had WMDs. It was all a bit of confusion, you see. Now, the conventional wisdom is remaking itself: Bush hit Iraq because he didn't think Saddam had WMDs. Maybe, though, we're just not thinking about this WMD issue very clearly. It could be that the real difference between Iraq and North Korea is that we're not at war with North Korea. If Kim Jong-il's spies infiltrated a terrorist group and got them to crash an airliner into the Capitol, and Bush found out about it, I think he would attack, even in spite of the nukes. Given that he has nukes, there might be some limits on what Bush could do to Kim Jong-il in that situation. So, I suppose Bush would want to lower the stakes before going in. Maybe he could represent it as some sort of discretionary police action, aimed at thwarting a possible future threat — a 'pre-emptive' war. And, maybe the Democrats and the press and the pundits and the people would all agree not to press the point. It wouldn't surprise me a bit. Failsafe (10/13/06): As we walked back, Bush again brought up Iraq. His blueprint or model for decision making in any war against Iraq, he told me, could be found in the story I was attempting to tell — the first months of the war in Afghanistan and the largely invisible CIA covert war against terrorism worldwide. "You have the story," he said. Look hard at what you've get, he seemed to be saying. It was all there if it was pieced together — what he had learned, how he had settled into the presidency, his focus on large goals, how he made decisions, why he provoked his war cabinet and pressured people for action. I was straining to understand the meaning of this. At first this remark and what he had said before seemed to suggest he was leaning toward an attack on Iraq. Earlier in the interview, however, he had said, "I'm the kind of person that wants to make sure that all risk is assessed. But a president is constantly analyzing, making decisions based upon risk, particularly in war — risk taken relative to what can be achieved." What he wanted to achieve seemed clear: He wanted Saddam out. Before he got back in his truck, Bush added another piece to the Iraq puzzle. He had not yet seen a successful plan for Iraq, he said. He had to be careful and patient. "A president," he added, "likes to have a military plan that will be successful." — Bob Woodward, Bush at War In March 1965, facing a deteriorating situation in Vietnam, John T. McNaughton, Assistant Secretary for Defense, prepared a memorandum outlining strategies for salvaging the situation. He identified three not-necessarily-exclusive options: Progressively squeeze North Vietnam; and/or add massive US ground effort in South Vietnam; and/or downgrade the apparent stakes His analysis of the third option is illuminating: If/when it is estimated that even the best US/GVN efforts mean failure (undesirable escalation or defeat), it will be important to act to minimize the damage to US effectiveness and image thereafter by steps such as these: (a) Deliver ultimatum to coup-prone generals to "shape up or we ship out," and when they patently fail to shape up, we ship out. (b) Publicize uniqueness and congenital impossibility of SVN case (e.g., Viet Minh held much of SVN in 1954, long uncontrollable borders, unfavorable terrain, absence of national tradition or administrators, mess left by French, competing factions, Communist LOC advantage, late US start, etc.). (c) Create diversionary "offensives" elsewhere in the world (e.g., to shore up Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia, India, Australia; to launch an "anti-poverty" program for underdeveloped areas). (d) Enter multi-nation negotiations calculated to shift opinions and values. (e) Shift to Saigon focus of decision and of discussion. It was a pretty realistic assessment, all told. No doubt the same calculations are being made today, as the Iraq War goes south. Given the forces in play, I suspect that such contingency plans were drawn up long ago, before we even attacked Iraq. In the real world, victory is never the only option. Savior (10/14/06): In his latest WaPo piece, David Ignatius tells us that Iyad Allawi is "still seen by some Iraqis as a potential "strongman" who could pull the country back from the brink." I wonder which Iraqis he's talking about — I guess the clamor for Allawi gets lost in the din. That some U.S. government officials see Allawi as their savior, I don't doubt. A Times article from February spells out their thinking: Krepinevich believes 2006 is a crunch year for American public opinion. “If we haven’t made any significant progress four years after the invasion, it will be hard to persuade the public that it’s worth sticking with,” he said. In the event of a civil war Americans might “want to wash their hands of Iraq”. Larry Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s former chief of staff at the state department, shares Krepinevich’s view that a new Saddam could emerge. “If a civil war were to break out, we would be faced with a difficult choice. Do we enclave ourselves in Iraq and hope and pray the violence is short-lived or do we throw our weight on one side?” In Wilkerson’s scenario, emergency powers would be granted to a political leader, much as they would be in any threatened democracy. Allawi could be a potential candidate. The Americans would make sure there were “checks and balances” to the leader’s authority, but they might not last. “If you put someone in who is extremely powerful at the top, the key is whether that person turns into another Saddam Hussein,” Wilkerson said. “After a year you might see the political apparatus around him disappearing and he’s there for life.” The alternative could be a war that engulfs the region and leaves Iraq as a haven for terrorism. According to Allawi, if Iraqi politicians fail to agree on a secular government with the power to dismantle the sectarian militias, “the situation will be catastrophic and civil war will break out”. “If this were to happen, it will not be limited to the borders of Iraq but will most certainly spill over and affect a lot of neighbouring countries,” he warned. Last autumn, Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, argued that a civil war “would finish Iraq for ever”. “The Iranians would enter the conflict because of the [Shi’ite] south, the Turks because of the Kurds and the Arabs . . . will definitely be dragged into the conflict.” Their prime motivation would be to prevent an Iranian-backed “Shi’ite crescent” forming across Lebanon through Syria to Iran, Iraq and the Gulf. In its report, the International Crisis Group cautions that Sunni Arab nations, especially Saudi Arabia, would be alarmed by the emergence of an “Iranian-influenced entity in southern Iraq sitting on more than 80% of the country’s oil”. So would the West. Krepinevich argues it would be better if any future despot were an ally of the Americans rather than the Iranians or Syrians. That, too, could encourage America — despite its hopes for democracy — to seek out a strongman. The main problem I have with this scenario is the idea of Allawi turning into a dictator-for-life. Where is his popular base? Where are his loyalists? This is not a banana republic we're talking about. Allawi would be a regent, nothing more than that. The new Iraq — or the new Sunni statelet — would need a real "strongman" to stand up to Iran and America. The question is, who? Deus Ex Machina (10/17/06): The latest date for a verdict in the Dujail trial is November 5. The verdict will probably be 'guilty,' with a sentence of death. An automatic appeal process will then commence. Saddam has told his supporters, through his lawyers, that while he fully expects the court to sentence him to death, or 'even worse,' there is a sliver of hope that he will be spared, in exchange for a deal to end the insurgency. He doesn't make it a condition that he would have to be directly reinstated as President of Iraq, although he thinks that he may eventually be called upon to play that role again, to face down Iran. At the same time, there is a perception abroad that the U.S. has set some sort of timetable for al-Maliki; if he doesn't succeed in turning Iraq around very soon, he's going to be replaced. The deadline for this isn't explicit, and may be elastic. However, sometime after the mid-term elections, around about Thanksgiving, seems to be favored. The alternative to Maliki hasn't been spelled out, but there is talk of a 5-man junta, possibly to be headed by Iyad Allawi. The national salvation plan would likely involve some kind of deal with the Baathists — or so runs the speculation, and it seems logical. Is there a link between the course of Saddam's trial and this Track II plan for saving Iraq? That seems like an obvious possibility, but I haven't seen any pundit willing to entertain it. But, there are a lot of no-go areas for the pundits these days, aren't there? # posted by Jef @ 8:16 AM Tuesday, September 26, 2006 Hidden Variable They turned to the hot topic of anthrax. The powder in the letter mailed to Senator Daschle's office had been found to be potent, prompting officials to suggest its source was likely an expert capable of producing the bacteria in large amounts. Tenet said, "I think it's AQ" – meaning al Qaeda. "I think there's a state sponsor involved. It's too well thought out, the powder's too well refined. It might be Iraq, it might be Russia, it might be a renegade scientist," perhaps from Iraq or Russia. Scooter Libby, Cheney's chief of staff, said he also thought the anthrax attacks were state sponsored. "We've got to be careful on what we say." It was important not to lay it on anyone now. "If we say it's al Qaeda, a state sponsor may feel safe and then hit us thinking they will have a bye because we'll blame it on al Qaeda." "I'm not going to talk about a state sponsor," Tenet assured them. "It's good that we don't," said Cheney, "because we're not ready to do anything about it." — Bush at War, Bob Woodward If Bob Woodward's account of that October 17, 2001 NSC meeting is a truthful account, then there are certain implications: A wheel-spinning, pro forma investigation of the anthrax letters, destined to go nowhere, would have to be staged. That investigation would have to be represented to the general public as a criminal probe, not a counter-intelligence operation. A 'strategic communications' effort would be needed to supplement the pro forma criminal probe. Certain people in the intelligence community, specifically the biodefense community, would have to be party to the subterfuge. Do these inferences shed any light on the latest round of anthrax talking points surfaced in the press? Probably. In the last few days, the Hartford Courant, the Washington Post, Slate and the New York Times have all run pieces promulgating the following ideas: The anthrax was refined, but not weaponized with any special coating to maximize its dispersal characteristics. The military strain used in the attacks made its way to more labs than previously recognized. In light of the foregoing, the pool of potential suspects is far larger than early reports indicated. The FBI's investigation is ongoing. As some of the reports suggest, the weaponization angle is not new. Official sources have always gone out of their way to minimize the sophistication of the anthrax. This is not just an FBI line — it's the government line. The NYT's story offers a quote from Steven J. Hatfill's mentor, William C. Patrick III, supporting the FBI's position on weaponization: "The material was good, but not weapons grade,” Mr. Patrick said in an interview. “You can’t make that in your basement. It requires sophisticated equipment.” That is also not new. Patrick has said very little publicly about the 2001 anthrax letters, but what he has said is consistent with these latest remarks. And, he should know the real story — he is the government's go-to guy on anthrax. Patrick led the U.S. bioweapons program during the Cold War. In an interview, he told Richard Preston that tests conducted in 1968 convinced him that certain biological agents could serve as strategic weapons, i.e. serve the same function as a nuclear deterrent. It was Bill Patrick who provided Def. Sec. William Cohen with talking points for his famous sugar-bag anthrax demo on This Week, back in 1997. Patrick himself smuggled seven grams of anthrax into a 1999 committee hearing chaired by Rep. Porter Goss, and proclaimed it could take out everybody in the Rayburn House Office Building. So, he knows whereof he speaks. Should we trust Bill Patrick and the FBI on the weaponization thing? No silica, no "polymerized glass," no "fried-egg gunk"? I would take everything we've heard on the anthrax case from the government with a large grain of bentonite. It could well be disinformation. On the other hand, even if the coating stories are themselves mistakes or disinformation, that doesn't tell us very much. Bill Patrick was able to make highly potent dry agent back in the 60s, without the benefit of today's "state of the art" technology. Cohen's TV demo, and Patrick's Rayburn demo, were not predicated on such alleged breathroughs. We know that a tiny amount of material, leaked from an envolope, was able to fill a Post Office sorting room with a lethal concentration of spores. And, we can do the math. We understand what capability was advertized in those letters. The rest — who advertized that capability and why? — we don't understand. And, "it's good that we don't" — right? Alive and Kicking (09/28/06): In post-Persian Gulf war analysis, one critical point has not been stressed sufficiently. This is Saddam Hussein's personality and its significance for the future so long as he is in Baghdad. Again and again, the man has been called a thug, a mafioso, a ruthless dictator, crazed with bloodlust, drunk with self-love, devoid of all humane impulse. All of this is deserved. Less tribute has been paid to his intelligence, his cunning, his adaptability, his perseverance, his coolness under duress — and to his leadership. Indeed, few have noted the heroic measures of these qualities... Saddam Hussein does not forget and forgive. His foes brought him close to perdition and then let him off, being weak fools as he had always known, though their weakness and foolishness turned out differently than he had foreseen. He will strive to exact revenge as long as there is life in his body. He will smirk and conciliate and retreat and whine and apply for fairness and generosity. He will also make sure that within his home base it remains understood that he has not changed and will never change... The day will come when he will hit — we do not know with what weapons, nor does he now know himself. And when he does hit he may, by the grace of God, miscalculate as he has miscalculated in the past. But even so the innocent will pay by the millions. This must never be put out of mind: Saddam Hussein from now on lives for revenge. — Uriel Dann, The New Republic, June 3, 1991 If... (09/30/06): "I'm worried about the BW threat," Cheney said, biological warfare. Several of those present wondered if the vice president knew something, or if he had connected things they had missed. He was a thorough reader of intelligence reports and connector of dots. But there seemed to be nothing specific. — Bush at War, Bob Woodward, page 165 Colin Powell did his own version of Bill Patrick's anthrax demo when he addressed the UN Security Council on February 5, 2003. It was perhaps the most dramatic moment of his presentation. Today's Washington Post offers a post-mortem on Powell's speech, covering the familiar litany of purportedly bogus talking points about Saddam's biological weapons. The story doesn't mention the anthrax vial gambit. And, why should it? Powell didn't make any specific accusation, after all. He was just using the anthrax case to make a point. Clearly, it was just an analogy — the anthrax letters were most likely "domestic terrorism," as we know. So, I guess there's no need to rake him over the coals for that part of the speech. No need to go there. Stuff Happens (10/01/06): In today's NYT, William Safire takes on the vexed question of naming the enemy in the war on terror. Running down the options, he tells us that the "war on Saddam" is over. Is it really? In the end, Safire settles on Islamofascism as the most satisfactory name for the enemy: "the compound defines those terrorists who profess a religious mission while embracing totalitarian methods and helps separate them from devout Muslims who want no part of terrorist means." The problem with this is that, in the "central front" of the war on terror, the preeminent terrorists aren't Islamists. Perhaps we can agree to call the conflict the "War on Stuff That Happens." That covers everything, including stuff that hasn't happened yet, and should offend the sensibilities of no-one. Jets plough into skyscrapers, senators get military-grade anthrax in the mail, shrines blow up, judges' relatives are gunned down. Stuff happens. State of Denial (10/03/06): "These people know what they're doing," Dr. Zelicoff said of the anthrax terrorists. "I'm truly worried. They have the keys to the kingdom." He cautioned, however, that the federal investigation was continuing and had produced results that were preliminary, with no firm conclusions. "But if they have indeed perfected the aerosolization process," Dr. Zelicoff said of the terrorists, "it's strongly suggested they can do large-scale dissemination when they wish." — Contradicting Some U.S. Officials, 3 Scientists Call Anthrax Powder High-Grade, NYT, October 25, 2001 Is the insurgency the only thing about Saddam's strategy Bush wanted out of the New York Times? Special Security (10/05/06): Slate's John Dickerson offers a reader's guide to the new Woodward book here. Among the highlights: Pages 121-22: During the planning for the Iraq war, Army officer Peterson questioned the conventional wisdom about how Saddam might react. A logical strategy for Saddam might be to run and hide, and use the Baathist cell structure to develop an insurgent army that would have weapons and explosives for a prolonged fight until the Americans grew exhausted and lost their political will. A logical counter-move would have been to execute Saddam ASAP, following his capture. But maybe Saddam developed a logical strategy to deal with that possibility, too. Looks that way, doesn't it?

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Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Steven Hatfill

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