Bad Faith Agreements

Remember the Iraqi nuclear scientist who dug up the centrifuge parts from under his rose garden? Haven't heard much from him since then, have we? Now we know why. Josh Marshall reports that he and his family are being held in Kuwait and prevented from leaving by American officials, because he won't tell them what they want to hear. Namely, he keeps insisting that the much-cited aluminum tubes weren't for nuclear weapons, that no significant amount of chem or bio weapons exist, and there was no significant active nuclear program.

The one thing that no one wants is for Obeidi to make it to the United States where he's liable to end up on Larry King Live telling a story that would, to put it mildly, be very unhelpful to the White House. That means it's in everyone's interest - or at least in the White House's and CIA's interest - to keep Obeidi on ice in Kuwait. Maybe he'll become more helpful. Maybe the search in Iraq will come up with other evidence that will make Obeidi's revelations less embarrassing. Whatever happens, it'll keep him out of reach of journalists and from telling the very off-message story he apparently has to tell. It kicks the can down the road, as they say. No one in the government has any interest in getting Obeidi out of his odd de-nationalized limbo. So it's best just to leave him in Kuwait.

Now, having come forward already at great risk to himself and his family, it seems iffy that he'd revert to lying about the programs now. Marshall ends the post with this teaser: "Coming up later, how Obeidi has told the US about some on-going WMD work by the Iraqis, but why that hasn't come out either." Curiouser and curiouser...