False report that WMDs have been “confirmed”

I am as interested as anyone in our finding Saddam Hussein’s WMDs. But Mark Alexander, a pro-war columnist at TownHall and editor of The Federalist, has damaged his own credibility and that of the pro-war side with his positive claim that WMD materiél was moved from Iraq to Syria before the war.

Here’s what Alexander wrote:

This week, there was, for the first time, OFFICIAL PUBLIC CONFIRMATION OF OUR REPORT… . Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. James Clapper, former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, now director of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, told reporters that U.S. surveillance satellites CAPTURED IMAGES OF VEHICLE TRAFFIC DISPERSING WMD MATERIEL to urban locations in Iraq and moving large quantities into Syria as well. [Emphases added.]

Sounds like a pretty exciting development, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, Alexander’s descripion of events does not correspond to the facts as reported by the New York Times and other news sources on which he bases his own column.

First, Clapper’s statement was not an “official” statement, but the personal opinion of Clapper. According to the New York Times, Clapper “said he was providing a personal assessment.”

Second, this was not “confirmation” that WMD’s had been moved to Syria. Clapper did not report hard evidence that WMD materiél had been moved out. All he said that he had evidence of was trucks moving around Iraq and moving into Syria. He specifically denied any knowledge of what was on those trucks. Here is the item from spacewar.com, which is similar to the New York Times story:

Clapper, a former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, acknowledged that there were limits to what overhead surveillance can detect inside trucks.

“But certainly, inferentially, the obvious conclusion one draws is that the certain uptick in traffic … may have been people leaving the scene, fleeing Iraq, and unquestionably, I am sure, material,” he said.

Clapper is thus drawing inferential conclusions, based not on sightings of WMD materiél, but of trucks which he speculates (but does not confirm, let alone officially confirm) may have carried WMD materiél.

And here is the New York Times:

He said he was providing a personal assessment. But he said “the obvious conclusion one draws” was that there “may have been people leaving the scene, fleeing Iraq, and unquestionably, I am sure, material.” A spokesman for General Clapper’s agency, David Burpee, said he could not provide further evidence to support the general’s statement.

In conclusion, Alexander reports things as having been said that haven’t been said, he report things as having been “officially confirmed” that are neither official nor confirmed, but the reasonable speculation of one person speaking in a non-official capacity.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 01, 2003 06:35 AM | Send