Tommy Franks in the news; first in a series

General Tommy Franks has been in the news lately. Last Thursday (July 29), CNN published an article that was basically a preview of an interview published Sunday in Parade magazine. The New York Times published an article on August 1 about his book (which went on sale August 3), and on August 2 Franks was interviewed by ABC’s Ted Koppel. I have read portions of Franks’s book, American Soldier, and they say pretty much the same thing the articles and interviews do. I am quite sure Bush and his supporters are going to try to use some of Franks’s statements to their advantage. However, they had better be careful, for Franks also said some things that will not help Bush.

This will be the first post in a series about what Franks has said. Before getting into the first topic, I want to say that as a military commander, I have much admiration and respect for General Franks, and I agree with him on some issues. However, there are other issues on which we disagree. With that in mind, here is the first topic:

Franks was told by Egypt and Jordan that Iraq had WMD.

Bush and war supporters just might point to Franks’s claim that in January 2003 King Abdullah of Jordan and President Mubarak of Egypt told him that Iraq had chemical and biological WMD. The Times article says that Abdullah cited "reliable intelligence sources," while Mubarak cited conversations between Egyptian officials and Saddam. In the Parade interview, Franks said that Mubarak told him that "Saddam has WMD–biologicals, actually–and he will use them on your troops," and within an hour Franks passed that information to Washington.

On August 2, the Associated Press issued a report entitled "Egypt Denies Telling U.S. of Iraqi WMD." As reported by the AP, Egyptian presidential spokesman Magad Abdel Fattah said that Franks’s claim "is void of truth." He went on to explain that "What happened was that Franks asked the president for an assessment of reports on Iraq's possession of WMDs, and the president simply said that Egypt had been following the developments in Iraq, but it could not confirm whether Iraq possessed any weapons of mass destruction or whether these could be used against U.S. forces in case of U.S. military interference in Iraq." A similar denial came from a Jordanian Royal Palace official: "His Majesty did not have information that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction."

Koppel asked Franks about these denials, and here’s what Franks had to say: "Uh-huh. Not, not, not surprising, Ted. I think one sort of has to be aware of the way, the way politics works in the Middle East, and so I'm not at all surprised by that. I'll simply stay with what I said." At this point I’ll take General Franks at his word. I see no reason not to. However, this raises several questions.

The first is "Why would Egypt and Jordan now deny making these statements to Franks?" Perhaps Abdullah and Mubarak 1) do not want to look like they were fooled as badly as the U.S. and Britain were on the WMD issue, and 2) do not want the rest of the Arab world to think that they encouraged the U.S. to invade Iraq. Other than these possibilities, I don’t have an answer. That is just as well, for the remaining questions are more intriguing to me.

If Abdullah and Mubarak did make these statement to Franks, why is the Bush administration not shouting this from the rooftops? Why are we hearing about this only now? Why was there no mention of this in the Senate Intelligence Committee Report? I did various word searches on the entire Report and found nothing about these statements. Franks says he passed this information to Washington. It is hard to conceive that the Senate Intelligence Committee knew nothing about this. It is likewise difficult to conceive that the White House did not receive this information and has not previously disclosed it.

As with the first question, I have no definitive answers, but I do have some informed guesses. The first is that raising this issue could cause problems for a big potential arms sale to Jordan. When Franks was in Jordan in January 2003, the AP and Reuters reported that King Abdullah told Franks that Jordan intended to buy an defense system, and the top general in the Jordanian army told Franks that Jordan wanted an American system. The Reuters article also noted that "Jordanian officials have said in recent weeks they are looking to buy an anti-missile system from Russia or Europe," and the AP article said that "Jordan negotiated with Russia last year to acquire the S-300 surface-to-air missile system. Russia had initially suggested that the system would be installed in February at the latest, but recently said delivery was not possible before the end of the year, forcing the kingdom to shop around in Europe. Government officials have said Jordan reached advanced talks with European suppliers, mainly German and Dutch, but that financial terms had not been finalized." So, we have a country wanting to buy a major weapons system from the U.S. while at the same time shopping for other major weapons systems from other countries. Fast forward to August 2, when the AP publishes a story describing how the State Department "defended a prospective deal to equip Jordan with high-tech air-to-air missiles[.]" So Guess # 1 is that the Bush administration has yet to say anything about Abdullah telling Franks about Iraqi WMD because disclosing that could potentially negatively affect a big arms sale.

This potential arms sale leads to Guess # 2. The reason the State Department is defending the possible sale is that Israel is trying to block the sale, according to both Reuters and the AP. Reuters reported that "Israeli security chiefs fear [the] sale to Amman could encourage Egypt to make similar arms deals with Washington, tipping the strategic balance in the Middle East." Thus, in addition to lots of money being at stake for a U.S. defense contractor (which likely has close ties to Bush), this potential arms deal is caught up in Israeli politics and the Middle East peace conundrum. At the very least, that makes the deal a very tricky matter in diplomatic terms. Consequently, a retired General doing anything which could complicate an already dicey situation could be unwelcomed. If the Bush administration was to say anything about Franks’s claims, that could really screw things up. Poor W...caught between making money for one of his defense contractor buddies and upsetting Israel. Either way he goes he runs the risk of losing political support in an election year.

And there is yet another political side to this. Jordan is a moderate (as in non-extremist) Arab nation that is a key player in keeping the peace in the Middle East. It has been at peace with Israel since 1996, when the countries signed a peace treaty. Jordan is a country with which the U.S. has good relations–as in an Arab country which is not openly hostile or a threat to us. As such, Jordan can play a key role in maintaining and rebuilding whatever credibility we have left in the Arab world. In other words, it would be a bad idea to upset or embarrass King Abdullah. So here’s Guess # 3: the Bush administration has said nothing about Franks’s claims because that could strain our relations with Jordan (as could the proposed arms sale).

The bottom line is that the Bush administration appears to risk problems no matter what it says about Franks’s claims, so better to just say nothing at all.