Frontline: "Chasing Saddam's Weapons" 9 pm/ET, PBS

[pandybat]

The Searchers
Frontline: "Chasing Saddam's Weapons" 9 pm/ET, PBS

When this hour aired in Britain in November, it was titled "Still Chasing Saddam's Weapons." Not anymore, it seems. Two weeks ago, the Bush administration quietly scaled back the operations of the Iraq Survey Group, the CIA-sponsored unit that has been scouring the country since July in search of weapons of mass destruction; its leader, former chief UN weapons inspector David Kay, is reportedly on the verge of resigning. So now it's "Chasing Saddam's Weapons."

It's a valuable documentary for several reasons. One is its measured tone. Another is its clarity (rocket science is involved, if only peripherally). According to on-screen correspondent Jane Corbin, it's also an exclusive chronicle of the Iraq Survey Group's wild-goose chase, so it's likely to provide insights you won't find elsewhere (on TV, at least). And the show takes an interesting side trip into the mind of Saddam Hussein as it
explores reasons why he let on that he had WMDs if he really didn't. "Why did he want us to think they were there? Because in so doing, he effectively brought down his own regime," is the way Corbin put it in a telephone interview.

But its biggest asset is chief chaser Kay, who proves to be a stand-up guy. As an administration official, he's not about to brand the ISG's efforts a wild-goose chase, but he doesn't hide his frustrations, either, as he was clearly expecting to find something. This is godsend for any reporter, especially one who's documenting a mission that hasn't worked out as intended.

Kay, known as the CIA's "ramrod," had been convinced that Saddam had been hiding weapons of mass destruction, and Corbin has a prewar clip of him on NBC to prove it ("I think it's there," he said, referring to WMDs in the singular tense, "and it's got to be found"). But as Corbin, a BBC veteran who has been reporting on Iraqi weapons since before the 1991 Gulf War, follows Kay on what she calls "his journey of discovery," he becomes less convinced but no less open, and he doesn't make any excuses.

This is not to say that Kay doesn't think that there might be WMDs somewhere in Iraq. He also remains convinced that Saddam had plans to make them (inspectors have found plans for illegal long-range missiles). But nothing chemical, biological or nuclear to put on top of them?

So far, no one can say, and Corbin speculates that the Bush administration might prefer to keep it that way, because if there's no clear answer it can't be proved wrong. ("Controversy would be preferable to judgment," says former chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix, who's interviewed throughout the hour.) But as for Kay, he seems to have made his peace with the possibility that the WMDs might be an illusion. "If that turns out to be the
truth," he tells Corbin, "so be it." -- Paul Droesch

[FUNdamental]

I just watched it. Who else here on DoD saw the program?