Ex-CIA Professionals: Weapons of Mass Distraction, part I

[pynchonoid]

Good, brief overview of the history of the US
government fabricating evidence to justify war,
especially good reading for the Reagan babies who
don't know this history:

<http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0425-11.htm>

Published on Friday, April 25, 2003 by
CommonDreams.org 

Ex-CIA Professionals:
Weapons of Mass Distraction: Where? Find? Plant? 

by David MacMichael and Ray McGovern

 
MEMORANDUM 

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity 

SUBJECT: The Stakes in the Search for Weapons of Mass
Destruction 

The Bush administration’s refusal to allow UN
inspectors to join the hunt for weapons of mass
destruction in US-occupied Iraq has elicited high
interest in foreign news media. The most widely
accepted interpretation is that the US is well aware
that evidence regarding the existence and location of
such weapons is “shaky” (the adjective now favored by
UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix), and that the
last thing the Pentagon wants is to have Blix’
inspectors looking over the shoulders of US forces as
they continue their daunting quest. 

Administration leaders will not soon forgive Blix or
Mohamed ElBaradei, Director General of the
International Atomic Energy Agency, for exposing to
ridicule the two main pieces of “evidence” adduced by
Washington late last year to support its contention
that Iraq had reconstituted its nuclear weapons
development program: (1) the forged documents
purporting to show that Iraq was trying to obtain
uranium from Niger, and (2) the high strength aluminum
rods sought by Iraq that the US insisted were to be
used in a nuclear application. That contention was
roundly debunked not only by IAEA scientists but also
by the international engineering community. 

The normally taciturn Blix now finds it “conspicuous”
that a month after the invasion of Iraq, the US search
for weapons of mass destruction had turned up nothing.
He expressed eagerness to send UN inspectors back into
Iraq, but also served notice that he would not allow
them to be led “like dogs on a leash” by US forces
there. 

The media have raised the possibility that the US
might “plant” weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and
that this may be another reason to keep UN inspectors
out. This is a charge of such seriousness that we
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity have
been conducting an informal colloquium on the issue.
As one might expect, there is no unanimity among us on
the likelihood of such planting, but most believe that
Washington would consider it far too risky. Those
holding this view add that recent polls suggest most
Americans will not be very critical of the Bush
administration even if no weapons of mass destruction
are found. 

Others, taken aback by the in the in-your-face
attitude with which Secretary of State Colin Powell
reacted both to the exposure of the Niger forgery and
to the requiem for the argument from aluminum rods,
see in that attitude a sign that the Bush
administration would not necessarily let the risk of
disclosure deter it from planting weapons. They also
point to the predicament facing the Blair government
in Great Britain and other coalition partners, if no
such weapons are found in Iraq. They note that the
press in the UK has been more independent and vigilant
than its US counterpart, and thus the British people
are generally better informed and more skeptical of
their government than US citizens tend to be. 

While the odds of such planting seem less than even,
speculation on the possibility drove us down memory
lane. Likely or not in present circumstances, there is
ample precedent for such covert action operations.
VIPS member David MacMichael authored this short
case-study paper to throw light on this little known
subject. What leaps out of his review is a reminder
that, were the Bush administration to decide in favor
of a planting or similar operation, it would not have
to start from scratch as far as experience is
concerned. Moreover, many of the historical examples
that follow bear an uncanny resemblance to factors and
circumstances in play today. 

* * * 

1. Faked evidence was a hallmark of post-World War II
US covert operations in Latin America. In 1954, for
example, it was instrumental in overthrowing the
Arbenz government in Guatemala. Arbenz, who was
suspected of having Communist leanings, had tried to
make the United Fruit Company comply with Guatemalan
law. At President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s direction,
the CIA organized and armed a force of malcontent
Guatemalans living in Nicaragua to invade their home
country. 

The invasion was explained and “justified” when a
cache of Soviet-made weapons planted by the CIA was
“discovered” on Nicaragua’s Atlantic coast. Washington
alleged that the weapons were intended to support an
attempt by Arbenz to overthrow the Nicaraguan
government. 

2. One of the more egregious and embarrassing uses of
fake material evidence occurred on the eve of the Bay
of Pigs fiasco in 1961, when Alabama National Guard
B-26 bombers attacked a Cuban Air Force base in
Havana. When Cuba’s UN ambassador protested, US
Ambassador Adlai Stevenson (himself misinformed by the
White House) insisted that the attacking planes were
those of defecting Cuban Air Force pilots. 

Two of the aircraft were shot down in Cuba, however,
and others were forced to land in Miami where they
could be examined. When it became clear that the
planes were not Cuban, Washington’s hand was shown and
Stevenson was in high dudgeon. 

Legends, however, seem to die more slowly than
dudgeon. The US government clung unconscionably long
to “plausible denial” regarding the B-26s. Four
Alabama National Guardsmen had been killed in the
incident and Cuba kept trying to get the US to accept
their bodies. Not until 1978 did Washington agree to
receive the remains and give them to the families of
the deceased. 

3. The war in Vietnam is replete with examples of
fabrication and/or misrepresentation of intelligence
to justify US government policies and actions. The
best-known case, of course, is the infamous Tonkin
Gulf incident—the one that did not happen but was used
by President Lyndon Johnson to strong-arm Congress
into giving him carte blanche for the war. Adding
insult to injury, CIA current intelligence analysts
were forbidden to report accurately on what had
happened (and not happened) in the Tonkin Gulf in
their daily publication the next morning, on grounds
that the President had already decided to use the
non-incident to justify launching the air war that
very day. The analysts were aghast when their seniors
explained that they had decided that they did not want
to “wear out their welcome at the White House.” 

More directly relevant to the current search for
weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is the following
incident, which was related to the author at the time
by one of the main participants. US officials running
the war in Vietnam believed that North Vietnamese
Communist troops operating in South Vietnam were
supported by large, secret supply dumps across the
border in Cambodia. In 1968, the US military in Saigon
drew up plans to raid one of those suspected supply
bases. 

The colonel in charge of logistics for the raid
surprised other members of the raiding party by
loading up large amounts of North Vietnamese uniforms,
weapons, communications equipment, and so forth. He
clearly had supplementary orders. He explained to the
members of his team that, since it would be necessary
to discover North Vietnamese supplies to justify the
incursion into neutral Cambodia, it behooved them to
be prepared to carry some back. 

4. With William Casey at the helm of the CIA during
the Reagan presidency, the planting of evidence to
demonstrate that opponents of governments in Central
America were sponsored by the USSR reached new
heights—or depths. The following are representative
examples: 

(a) In January 1981 four dugout canoes were
“discovered” on a Salvadoran beach. The US claimed
that the boats had carried 100 armed Sandinista
guerrillas from Nicaragua to support leftist
insurgents in El Salvador. Neither weapons nor
Nicaraguans traceable to the boats were ever found,
but Washington drew attention to the fact that the
wood from which the boats were made was not native to
El Salvador. 

This kind of “proof” might at first seem laughable but
this was no trivial matter. The Reagan administration
successfully used the incident to justify lifting the
embargo on US arms to El Salvador that President
Carter had imposed after members of the Salvadoran
National Guard raped and murdered three US nuns and
their lay assistant. The names of those four women now
sit atop a long list of Americans and Salvadorans
subsequently murdered by US weapons in the hands of
the National Guard in El Salvador. 

...continued in part 2, to follow


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