Weekly Standard - I have been told countless times by officials of the executive branch that there is no need to reargue the case for war, that what matters now is winning on the ground, that our intelligence professionals don't have time to review history, so occupied are they with current intelligence about current threats. I'm sympathetic to at least part of that thinking; it's hard to insist in the face of new and evolving threats that intelligence analysts should spend their precious time evaluating the past.
So if the intelligence professionals don't have time to analyze the papers left behind by Saddam Hussein's government, why not let the press and private-sector scholars do it?
Besides, in the end, the notion that the Bush administration doesn't need to continue to make the case for war is shortsighted.
Talk to senior American diplomats and military officers in Iraq today and they will tell you that the insurgents closely monitor the debate here in the United States. As domestic support for the war dwindles, the insurgents increasingly believe they can win; they fight harder, they raise more money, they gain new recruits. If these U.S. officials are correct, then continuing to make the case for war in Iraq--to remind people with specifics, not platitudes, why we're fighting--is not a distraction but a central component of fighting to win.
Don't tell the political left in this country that last bit. They're doing what's best for America! The fact that their empty rhetoric and political opportunism undermines our foreign policy, hurts the war effort and emboldens our enemy matters not. They are furthering their political agenda, and that is all that matters. To them.
It probably does matter to the troops who have to deal with terrorists infused with a new vigor after hearing a former U.S. President talk about the war being a "big mistake" (to a crowd of middle-eastern Arabs, no less).
Anyway, what Hadley is getting at is that he wants access to a wealth of documents unearthed in Iraq after Saddam's regime fell. There are millions of these documents which are currently being translated and put into a database. Unfortunately, the process isn't going pretty slow..
Here's a listing of the document titles, which have been made public:
1. Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) Correspondence to Iraq Embassy in the Philippines and Iraq MFA (Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
2. Possible al Qaeda Terror Members in Iraq
3. IIS report on Taliban-Iraq Connections Claims
4. Money Transfers from Iraq to Afghanistan
5. IIS Agent in Bulgaria
6. Iraqi Intel report on Kurdish Activities: Mention of Kurdish Report on al Qaeda--reference to al Qaeda presence in Salman Pak
7. IIS report about the relationship between IIS and the Kurdish Group Jalal Talibani [sic]
8. Iraqi Mukhabarat Structure
9. Locations of Weapons/Ammunition Storage (with map)
10. Iraqi Effort to Cooperate with Saudi Opposition Groups and Individuals
11. Order from Saddam to present $25,000 to Palestinian Suicide Bombers Families
12. IIS reports from Embassy in Paris: Plan to Influence French Stance on U.N. Security Council
13. IIS Importing and Hiding High Tech Computers in Violation of UN
14. IIS request to move persons, documents to private residences
15. Formulas and information about Iraq's Chemical Weapons Agents
16. Denial and Deception of WMD and Killing of POWs
17. 1987 orders by Hussein to use chemical weapons in the Ealisan Basin
18. Ricin research and improvement
19. Personnel file of Saad Mohammad Abd Hammadi al Deliemi
20. Memo from the Arab Liaison Committee: With a list of personnel in need of official documents
21. Fedayeen Saddam Responds to IIS regarding rumors of citizens aiding Afghanistan
22. Document from Uday Hussein regarding Taliban activity
23. Improvised Explosive Devices Plan
24. IIS reports on How French Campaigns are Financed
25. French and German relationships with Iraq
26. IIS reports about Russian Companies--News articles and potential IIS agents
27. IIS plan for 2000 of Europe's Influence of Iraq Strategy
28. IIS plans to infiltrate countries and collect information to help remove sanctions
29. Correspondence from IIS and the stations in Europe
30. Contract for satellite pictures between Russia, France and Iraq: Pictures of Neighboring Countries (Dec. 2002)
31. Chemical Gear for Fedayeen Saddam
32. Memo from the IIS to Hide Information from a U.N. Inspection team (1997)
33. Chemical Agent Purchase Orders (Dec. 2001)
34. Iraq Ministry of Defense Calls for Investigation into why documents related to WMD were found by UN inspection team
35. Correspondence between various Iraq organizations giving instructions to hide chemicals and equipment
36. Correspondence from IIS to MIC regarding information gathered by foreign intelligence satellites on WMD (Dec. 2002)
37. Correspondence from IIS to Iraqi Embassy in Malaysia
38. Cleaning chemical suits and how to hide chemicals
39. IIS plan of what to do during UNSCOM inspections (1996)
40. Secret Meeting with Taliban Group Member and Iraqi Government (Nov. 2000)
Of course, some of these more sinister-sounding documents could really just contain some innocuous information about internal regime political dealings. But then again, the information could also be explosive.
Al Qaeda members in Iraq? Secret meetings with the Taliban? Hiding information from UN weapons inspectors? Developing and hiding chemical weapons? That is pretty much Bush's case for war in a nutshell.
These documents could, potentially, set the Iraq war debate on it's head.
Jason Smith at Generation Why has more.