The question of whether or not Dave Gaubatz is a rogue agent
or an honest and truthful man is among the most important
that can at present be asked. If he is truthful, then the
fate of the world may well hang on what he has been trying
to tell us since he found weapons of mass destruction in
southern Iraq in 2003.
Mr. Gaubatz was for 12 years an agent in the Air Force
Office of Special Investigations. In 2003, he was posted to
Nasariyah in southern Iraq. His mission was to identify
suspected weapons of mass destruction sites, and he has been
claiming for some time now that he did just that.
Not only that, he says that these sites are now empty
because they were looted by Iraqis and Syrians in the chaos
that followed the inept US invasion of Iraq.
Between March and July of 2003, he claims to have been taken
to four sites in southern Iraq which contained biological
and chemical weapons, nuclear materials, and parts for
medium range missiles of a type prohibited by the UN.
The sites were gigantic bunkers buried beneath the Euphrates
River to hide them. Mr. Gaubatz says that he told the Iraq
Study Group of his findings, but they refused to bring heavy
equipment to the area to open the bunkers.
The upshot of all this is that everything in the bunkers was
apparently taken to Syria. More disturbing are rumors that
the reason that both Republican and Democratic delegations
have recently gone to Syria is that US intelligence is
reporting that centrifuges are now in use there as well as
in Iran, producing the type of fissionable material needed
for use in nuclear weapons.
Two congressmen, Peter Hockstra and Curt Weldon, have both
attempted to follow up his account by reviewing the 60
classified intelligence reports he claims to have submitted.
However, the Defense Department and the CIA claim that they
cannot be found, and the implication is that they never
existed at all.
However, when the CIA eventually did send a visitor to the
sites, the report came back that they had indeed been
looted. What was in them, though, remains an unknown--but
one that should be investigated seriously and quickly, if
only because Mr. Gaubatz and his staff were apparently
exposed to high levels of radiation at some point when they
were in southern Iraq.
But so far, there is little investigative interest. The New
York Times has identified Mr. Gaubatz as a weapons of mass
destruction obsessive. Unfortunately, there may be political
reasons for this. First, there is the Bush Administration
and the Republican Congressional Delegation. They aren't
going to let the world know that the administration, by
sending too few troops into Iraq, actually allowed the WMDs
to be stolen by Syria.
Of course, the last thing that the Democrats want to hear is
that there were WMDs in Iraq after all.
John Loftus, the organizer of the
Intelligence Summit has
asked for a congressional investigation into the situation.
So far, he has been ignored, despite his formidable credentials.
So, it would appear that Washington fiddles while...well, it
could be Washington that will burn.
If, as Loftus suggests, there now exists a nuclear
axis between Syria, Iran and North Korea, supported by
Russian and
Chinese scientific expertise and technology, then
their bomb is well on its way to being completed, and most
likely farther along than western intelligence services
believe.
So, what does that mean?
It does not mean that we will wake up one morning and find
that Tel Aviv has been nuked. The reason is simple: a
nuclear weapon exploding anywhere in the mideast would
devastate the whole region.
The plan is likely to be much more audacious. It will use
the Bush Administration's stunning post-911 failure to
harden the United States against smuggled nuclear materials.
It would begin with a nuclear explosion of undetermined
origin in a great American city--perhaps Los Angeles,
possibly Washington, probably New York.
The reason that New York is more of a target of opportunity
than Los Angeles is that it is a much more concentrated
area, and a small nuke can inflict fantastic casualties
there, whereas Los Angeles is so spread out that even a
Hiroshima-sized bomb would do relatively less damage.
Washington is not the first choice either, for reasons that
will be seen in a moment.
After the bomb exploded, an unknown terrorist group would
then announce that it had nuclear weapons planted in a
number of other cities, American and otherwise, and it would
forbid the US government and the president to leave
Washington, saying that, if they try to protect themselves,
another great city will be destroyed.
A 'tough' president might call their bluff--with the certain
result that another nuclear explosion would occur somewhere
in the west. Possibly, this time, the target would be London.
Still, the "terrorist group" controlling the weapons would
remain unknown and, in fact, any attempt to investigate
would likely result in further nuclear assault.
The west would, in effect, be ended at that point as a
factor in the geopolitical future of the world. "Islamic
fundamentalism"--which is by no means the whole of Islam, or
even a particularly significant part of the religion--would
appear to have won. But not over Christianity, because that
isn't the real
battle and, in fact, this isn't even a religious war. It
would have won over secularism, freedom and
individuality, which is what the war between North Korea,
Syria and Iran, in the form of the Ahamadinejad regime, and
the west is really about. The religious aspects of the thing
are mere posturing. This is about totalitarianism and
freedom, and the totalitarians have, to some extent, wrapped
themselves in the flag of a particular religion, in order to
gain support.
No matter the true nature of the enemy, though, if Dave
Gaubatz is right, we're on a superhighway to
destruction. The fanatical leadership of three rogue
countries are much farther along the road to nuclear
success than we have yet imagined.
So, what can we do? I think that we should certainly write
our congressmen and let them know that his claims need
proper investigation.
More than that, though, we need to send an audacious message
to Syria, Iran and North Korea, and their Russian and
Chinese supporters, to the effect that, if a nuclear weapon
goes off anywhere in the west, the immediate and
unquestioned result will be the total and complete
destruction of all three countries. We will not wait for proof,
or even for evidence of who did it.
It sounds like a hideous and unfeeling policy, and it is. It
is also a policy of desperation, because the actual truth is
that we lack a viable or humane choice.
The policy is not wrong, however, because the detonation
itself will be the proof. Such a
weapon could have come from nowhere else. If they sow the
whirlwind, they must understand clearly that they will reap
the whirlwind.
The doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction kept us out of
a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union. This doctrine must
be replaced with a new one: the doctrine of Certain
Retaliation that states that, if a nuclear weapon is
detonated anywhere in the west at all, North Korea, Syria
and Iran can expect to be destroyed utterly and immediately,
no questions asked.
If this policy is effective, and that can only happen if the
west shows a new unity of purpose and resolve to countries
like Syria, Iran and North Korea, then it will never be
tested, and the world will never taste its horrific
consequences. The point of such a policy must be,
of course, to create a situation, like MAD did, where it
never need be executed.
