Watch Out

The rhetoric was very strong, and Marks took it as an article of faith that the intelligence behind it was equally strong: Saddam had WMD.

Marks thought he and the rest of the ground force generals would be sitting ducks when they deployed to Kuwait ahead of the invasion. What better target for Saddam to hit with a preemptive chemical or biological attack? Odds were he would not be coming home. Marks kept his fatalistic conclusions from his wife and daughters, but he put his affairs in order.

Before going to Kuwait, Marks arranged to meet the top experts on Iraq and WMD at the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA). He thought of these experts as “the smart guys”. There were the overhead satellite smart guys, the chemical, biological and nuclear weapons smart guys, the Middle East regional smart guys, and the overall intelligence collection systems smart guys.

What do we really know about Saddam’s WMD? he asked them. They presented him with their highly classified Weapons of Mass Destruction Master Site List (WMDMSL): the 946 locations where intelligence indicated there were production plants or storage facilities for chemical, biological or nuclear-related material.

Marks had some questions. What would the invading forces do with each WMD site? Destroy it? Test it? Guard it? Render it useless? Who will be doing that? “Well, we don’t have their names,” one of the guys answered.

“Why not?” Marks asked. “What units are doing that?” “Oh, we’ve got units who do that.”

“Have you notified them?”

“Of course not.”

“Well, then — how’s this all going to come together?” Marks asked. “I hate to be a jerk here, but I’m the guy who’s going to be — I and about 400 to 500 guys — are going to be holding the bag on this thing. Can you throw me a bone?” Marks left the meeting very disturbed. He dug into the underlying evidence that suggested each of the 946 sites had WMD. It was thin. There were old satellite images, five years or more in some cases, and some signals intelligence — but nothing conclusive. The WMD list was on a computer network, but much of the information was of doubtful value. In fact, he realised, he couldn’t say with confidence that there were any weapons of mass destruction or stockpiles at a single site.

The top generals and planners for the invasion weren’t very focused on WMD, however.

Marks told Lieutenant-General David McKiernan, the commander of US ground forces: “Sir, I can’t confirm what’s inside any of these sites.”

He amplified his concern about a suspected chemical production plant.