Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

The CIA "evolves" on Iraq WMD cooperation with Sudan

Stephen Hayes and Thomas Joscelyn:

AMONG THE MANY unresolved issues of the former Iraqi regime's support for terrorism, few are more potentially important than the activities throughout the mid to late 1990s of Iraqi military officials and chemical weapons specialists in Sudan.

The Clinton Administration, along with a host of Sudanese opposition groups and nonproliferation experts, alleged that Iraqi chemical weapons experts were advising Sudanese military and intelligence officials on the development and production of chemical weapons. This is significant for two reasons, one obvious and one less obvious. First, any Iraqi activity on chemical weapons development inside or outside of Iraq would have constituted a serious violation of U.N. resolutions. Second, throughout much of the 1990s, the Sudanese Military Industrial Corporation (MIC) and Sudanese intelligence were virtually inseparable from al Qaeda. If the Iraqis were providing WMD technology to these elements of the corrupt Sudanese regime--led by Hasan al Turabi, who was openly sympathetic to Osama bin Laden--they were effectively providing it to al Qaeda. Even the most determined skeptics of an Iraq-al Qaeda connection concede this point.

So what, exactly, were these Iraqis doing in Sudan? For clues, we turn to unclassified reports from the CIA on WMD proliferation from 1998-2003.

1998: "Sudan has been developing the capability to produce chemical weapons for many years. In this pursuit, Sudan obtained help from other countries, principally Iraq. Given its history in developing CW and its close relationship with Iraq, Sudan may be interested in a BW program as well."

...

The language evolves over the six-year period. In 1998, the CIA stated categorically that Sudan had received assistance on chemical weapons from Iraq. The agency repeated the claim in 1999, citing the "close relationship" between Baghdad and Khartoum. In 2000, the language was almost exactly the same. In 2001, however, the CIA reporting seems to allow for the possibility that the Sudanese worked on chemical weapons with others, but that these entities were "principally in Iraq." By 2002, the agency was hedging, saying only that the Sudanese "probably received technical assistance from Iraq" and noting that "allegations of CW activities in Sudan were not confirmed." And in 2003, Iraq had disappeared altogether from unclassified CIA assessments.

What accounts for these changes?...

...

It is interesting to note that the reports were prepared by the CIA's Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation, and Arms Control Center, the notoriously politicized CIA office that sent Joe Wilson to Niger "on its own initiative" after his wife recommended him for the job. The significant language changes come in 2002, as the Bush Administration was preparing to make its case for war in Iraq, and in 2003, as that war was being fought.

More evidence of rogue CIA activity intended to undermine the war to liberate Iraq.