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| How the Americans and British got it all so wrong |
chekhovToo |
07/28/04 |
The Economist July 17, 2004.
How the Americans and British got it all so wrong
ON THE evening of July 11th, George Tenet lit a fat cigar and loitered in the compound of the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Virginia. His last hours as America's spy chief were passing painfully. According to the Senate Intelligence Committee, in a report released two days earlier, America invaded Iraq on the strength of intelligence that was out-of-date, inaccurate, badly analysed and, in short, did not justify the nub of George Bush's case for war.
America did not, as Mr Bush had claimed, have conclusive evidence that Iraq had retained and replenished its chemical and biological weapons, or that it was reactivating its nuclear programme. Nor, from any angle, could the agency find an alliance between Saddam and al-Qaeda. Mr Tenet was seen to pause by a garden feature: a hefty slab of the Berlin Wall. Perhaps the CIA's failure to predict the Soviet Union's collapse seemed suddenly less burdensome. On that, the agency was merely short-sighted. On Iraq, it appears to have been hallucinating.
Mr Tenet's decision to resign "for personal reasons" last month now looks wise. His farewell party was held on the eve of the report's release. But for John Scarlett, the best known British spy, the price of failure seems to be promotion. On July 14th, a British inquiry into intelligence on Iraq's putative weapons of mass destruction (WMD), headed by Lord Butler, a former top civil servant, delivered a broadly similar verdict to the Senate committee's, but in a kindlier tone. Where the senators' report barely contained their dismay at the CIA's ineptitude, his lordship's criticism was more of a finger-wagging, with much talk of collective responsibility.
Mr Scarlett, the newly appointed head of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (known as MI6) and former head of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), was one of the few officials named in the report. In his old role, Mr Scarlett was responsible for the government's "dossier" on Iraq's WMD, published in September 2002, which has proved to be misleading and substantially false. There have been calls for Mr Scarlett's head, which Lord Butler urged the government to ignore.
The British agency's record on Iraq does withstand scrutiny a bit better than that of its American counterparts. The Senate found that the flotilla of intelligence agencies under Mr Tenet, the director of central intelligence, were gullible and incompetent, reflecting a "broken corporate culture and poor management". They had no agents in Iraq since 1998, and even before then relied heavily on information supplied by UN weapons inspectors (some of whom were moonlighting as spies). By September 2002, when the agencies were told to draft a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, which were a key exhibit in Mr Bush's case for war, most of what they "knew" about weapons programmes pre-dated the first Gulf war in 1991.
MI6 did have five agents inside Iraq, but they seem hardly to have improved its intelligence. According to Lord Butler, only two of those agents were wholly reliable; their assessments of Iraq's WMD capabilities were "less worrying than the rest". Intriguingly, Lord Butler notes that intelligence obtained from another agency on Iraq's biological weapons was withdrawn after it was found to be seriously flawed, owing to "misunderstandings".
Making the most of a hard case
In the autumn of 2002, British and American intelligence services found themselves in a similar fix. For years, they, like every other western intelligence service, had advised their governments that Iraq's WMD programmes were a persistent menace. Now, they were being instructed to make that case fully and publicly, and suddenly it didn't look quite such a "slam-dunk," as Mr Tenet is said to have described it.
This was for two reasons. First, spies rarely produce the sort of clinching evidence beloved of investigative journalists and fictional detectives. Intelligence tends to be fragmentary and accretive. It does not lend itself to Powerpoint presentations. Second, due to the difficulties of operating in Iraq and their own deficiencies, both services were pitifully wanting in good current intelligence. In addition, the CIA's job was made especially difficult by Mr Bush and his more warlike followers. They were already making fiery claims about Saddam Hussein and his alleged alliance with al-Qaeda which the agency was unable to substantiate.
Nonetheless, the CIA tried not to disappoint. Into the NIE, according to the Senate report, went a shower of dodgily-sourced and overstretched intelligence. In the estimate's declassified version, possibles became probables, and caveats were cut, as scraps of potentially alarming intelligence emerged as terrifying facts.
Numerous qualifiers--"we judge that", "most analysts believe that"--were excised. Thus were reasonable, though wrong, intelligence suppositions reborn as erroneous facts. To the (now discredited) claim that Iraq was developing its ability to deliver biological weapons was attached the dread phrase, "including potentially against the US homeland."
Much of the intelligence used in the British dossier was also denuded of important qualifiers. This was "a serious weakness", according to Lord Butler, which put more weight "on the intelligence than it could bear". In a perverse example of this, an original statement that the JIC had little information about Iraq's WMD programmes since 1998, was rewritten to suggest that the resulting uncertainty was itself a cause for suspicion. Lord Butler found that the dossier's judgments "went to (although not beyond) the outer limits of the intelligence available."
Mr Powell's smoking guns
In February 2003, Colin Powell, the secretary of state, delivered a presentation to the UN Security Council that has been credited with convincing many sceptics of the case for war. Mr Powell outlined "many smoking guns" in Iraq, including a fleet of mobile biological weapons laboratories. All of these, he said, had been identified with the use of solid intelligence, corroborated by multiple sources. But the Senate committee found otherwise.
Shortly before Mr Powell delivered his speech, a CIA agent read a draft version of it, and reacted with horror. According to e-mails provided to the committee, the agent identified himself as being the only American agent to have interviewed the main source behind the mobile-lab intelligence. He considered the source, codenamed Curve Ball, an unreliable drunkard whose identity was not yet established. Three additional sources who were supposed to have corroborated Curve Ball's claims were either known "fabricators" or had not, in fact, corroborated the claims at all. In reply to these concerns, the agent was told by a senior CIA official: "Let's keep in mind the fact that this war's going to happen regardless of what Curve Ball said or didn't say, and that the Powers That Be probably aren't terribly interested in whether Curve Ball knows what he's talking about."
Similarly slapdash, the British dossier contained the hair-raising claim that Iraq could deploy WMD in a mere 45 minutes. This triggered apocalyptic newspaper headlines across the country. "Brits 45 mins from Doom," screamed the Sun, a popular British tabloid.
The dubiousness of the 45-minute claim (which, it later emerged, applied only to battlefield weapons) has dominated several earlier inquiries into Britain's pre-war intelligence. Hours before Lord Butler's report was released, Iraq's new prime minister, Ayad Allawi, sheepishly told the BBC that his emigre group was behind the claim. Speculation lingers that Mr Allawi's supporters lifted it from the user-guide for a Soviet missile. Lord Butler said that it should not have appeared in the form it did in the dossier.
Both the American and British reports put the agencies' mistakes down to incompetence, not intent. Though consistently wrong on almost every count where Iraq's WMD were concerned, the spies apparently thought they were right. Lord Butler attributes this partly to the fact that Mr Hussein had made fools of the spies often before. There was, he said, "a tendency for assessments to be coloured by over-reaction to previous errors," ensuring that the worst-case scenario ruled.
Faith-based intelligence
The Senate committee explained this phenomen in a colder light. It diagnosed a severe case of "group-think": that is, that the spies were failing to test the general assumption that Iraq had a growing WMD programme. To have done so would have been considered heresy; which may be why Hans Blix, the chief UN weapons inspector, accused America of positing "faith-based intelligence."
Thus programmed, America's spies tended to reject any intelligence that didn't support the thesis. Whatever did corroborate it, they embraced, with little regard to the credibility of the source. Accordingly, defectors who claimed that Iraq had abandoned its pursuit of nuclear weapons by the mid-1990s, were dismissed as untrustworthy. Exiled opposition politicians and their relatives--including the dubious Ahmed Chalabi who had not visited Iraq in decades--were considered more reliable. And egged on by men with a keen interest in demonising Saddam, the CIA (and to a lesser degree the British agencies) were compromised at every stage of their intelligence collection and analysis.
When, in 2002, Iraq was found to be importing aluminium tubes that could theoretically be used to make uranium centrifuges, both the CIA and the JIC decided that this was probably the case. Investigators from the International Atomic Energy Agency then pointed out that the tubes could not be used in centrifuges without modification, and that they were in fact being used to make artillery rockets. The CIA dismissed them as naive.
In the face of such conviction, any evasiveness from Iraq--one of the world's most corrupt and incompetent regimes--was taken as an indication of guilt. In particular, where Iraq tried to hide deliveries of dual-purpose material, western spooks always assumed the worst. In fact, Iraqis typically used front companies to evade UN sanctions, and maximise the potential for corruption, on even their most harmless imports.
In response to the report's criticisms, both Mr Bush and Mr Blair reiterated their opinions that the war remained right. They would hardly have said otherwise. But both had argued a case for war based on the threat of Iraq's WMD. Mr Blair persuaded the British parliament to vote for war on the basis of Iraq's weapons--which the prime minister termed a "serious and current" threat--and the connected argument that Saddam had consistently breached United Nations resolutions. Had MI6's intelligence been a little more accurate, he could not have claimed that Britain was under threat.
Mr Bush did not make quite such a specific argument for war. In the slipstream of the outrages on September 11th 2001, he also suggested that Saddam was too bad a man, and too full of hate for America, to be left in power. But, contrary to what some Bushites now claim, the weapons remained the cornerstone of his case.
This was why he ordered Mr Tenet hurriedly to prepare the NIE in time for Congress to read before voting on whether to authorise the war. Similarly, when the CIA failed to find a link between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, the administration relied on the threat of WMD to keep fears of such a link alive. Saddam "could decide secretly to provide weapons of mass destruction to terrorists for use against us...it would take just one vial, one canister, one crate to bring a day of horror to our nation," said the vice-president, Dick Cheney, a few weeks before the invasion of Iraq began.
Bruised, not mauled
On the face of it, neither Mr Blair nor Mr Bush was mauled by the inquiries. Lord Butler found no evidence that the prime minister's staff "sexed up" the dossier, though he does show that the intelligence was hardened for public consumption as it went through the system. He blames no individual and does not find any sign that Mr Blair doubted the intelligence he was being fed by the JIC.
In signing off, Lord Butler recommended that greater care be taken to maintain the distinction between intelligence and political persuasion. He also pondered the thought that WMD could still be found in Iraq, a good-sized country, with "lots of sand".
For Mr Bush's supporters, the Senate report's best sentence was the one that appeared to absolve his administration of the charge that it coerced and co-opted the nation's spies. The Republican-led committee found no evidence that the "mischaracterisation or exaggeration of the intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities was the result of political pressure." But the president is not off the hook yet.
The report is bad news for Mr Bush because it has given Americans yet another reason to regret supporting him over Iraq. The committee's lead Republican and lead Democrat both said that they would not have voted for the war knowing what they know now. However Senator Pat Roberts, the committee's chairman, nuanced this, saying that he would have considered voting for a conflict more "like Bosnia and Kosovo", which did not involve American ground troops.
Small wonder that an Economist/YouGov poll released this week suggests that 61% of Americans believe they were given false information about WMD in Iraq; 70% blame the CIA for misleading them; and 59% blame the White House. Short of the under-the-sand miracle that Lord Butler mooted, Mr Bush's distrust rating seems destined to rise.
For the Senate committee will now embark on the "second phase" of its inquiry, to consider how the administration used the intelligence agencies and their information to make its case for war. It will not complete this task until after Americans have voted in November. But there is already a good deal to suggest that the administration employed strategies to mould the intelligence to its purpose.
Certain statements, by Mr Cheney in particular, tempt the thought that sometimes the administration could not even be bothered with this formality. And Donald Rumsfeld, the secretary of defence, had little use for qualifying evidence when he announced in September 2002 "We know they have WMD. We know they have active programmes. There isn't any debate about it."
The report contains comments by the CIA's ombudsman, a figure appointed to investigate allegations of political interference in the agency. After interviewing intelligence analysts involved in the drafting of a June 2002 agency paper, which examined possible links between Iraq and al-Qaeda, the ombudsman found that about half a dozen spooks complained of coming under intense pressure from officials. Mostly, this involved being asked the same questions again and again. After conducting a July 2003 investigation into the pre-war intelligence processes, a former deputy chief of the CIA concluded that such "repetitive tasking" was partly aimed at eliciting the desired response.
A more insidious example of the administration's whip-cracking ways was the intelligence-scanning cell established by Douglas Feith, an under-secretary of defence. In mid-2002, Mr Feith detailed two researchers to double-check the CIA's files for links between Iraq and al-Qaeda. Mr Feith has denied that his men had any influence over the gathering or analysis of intelligence. But, in an appendix to the report, John Rockefeller, the committee's vice-chairman, claims that the Pentagon team offered a hawkish alternative to the CIA's analysis, firmly linking al-Qaeda to Iraq. When Mr Tenet rejected the team's presentation, they took it, says Mr Rockefeller, directly to the White House.
Chasing after fragments
Perhaps most tellingly, Mr Rockefeller accuses the administration of putting pressure on its spies to conform to the certainty contained in its own strident pronouncements. The CIA was faced with the risk of failing to support its government, or of failing to anchor its conclusions in the evidence to hand. In the absence of any substantial intelligence linking Iraq and al-Qaeda, for example, the CIA's agents declined to parrot Mr Bush's characterisation of Saddam in October 2002 as a man "who would like to use al-Qaeda as a forward army." But the president would not have thanked them for their restraint.
By the time the Senate judges Mr Bush in the next phase, the verdict will be in from a bigger jury, America's voters. Mr Blair, too, is preparing to face voters next year. The Senate report concludes thus: "While analysts cannot dismiss a threat because at first glance it seems unreasonable or it cannot be corroborated by other credible reporting, policymakers have the ultimate responsibility for making decisions based on this same fragmentary, inconclusive reporting."
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Clarification/Follow-up by Yiddishkeit on 07/28/04 11:23 am:
chechovToo-
At times you've asked some really good questions, but unfortunatley you have a tendancy for not going back and rating replies. I don't particualry care about the value of a rating, just that it was rated. If a person should ask a question and another take their time to answer it should be mutually respected. Of course I speak only for myself and everybody handles their own business, accordingly.
Bobby
Clarification/Follow-up by Itsdb on 07/29/04 9:05 am:
Chek,
It would be well worth your time to read the article. 1441 gave Iraq 60 days to verify compliance, they did not. Since resolution 678 of 1990, "all necessary means" have been authorized to force compliance, as 1441 shows:
"Recalling that its resolution 678 (1990) authorized Member States to use all necessary means to uphold and implement its resolution 660 (1990) of 2 August 1990 and all relevant resolutions subsequent to resolution 660 (1990) and to restore international peace and security in the area"
The US did not go in wearing blue helmets, but we are an 'authorized Member State' are we not?
This asinine myth of the US going in unilaterally needs to be squashed once and for all. Countries that have actually contributed troops in this 'unilateral' coalition (now there's an oxymoron):
United States
United Kingdom
Italy
Poland
Australia
Ukraine
Romania
Netherlands
South Korea
Japan
Denmark
Bulgaria
Thailand
El Salvador
Hungary
Mongolia
Georgia
Kazakhstan
Latvia
Portugal
Lithuania
Slovakia
Czech Republic
Albania
New Zealand
Estonia
Macedonia
Moldova
Tonga
Singapore
Nicaragua
Spain
Honduras
Norway
Dominican Republic
Philippines
Let's see, there are roughly 193 nations on this earth, I counted 36 nations that went to Iraq, so this 'unilateral' coalition consisted of 18.65% of the world's nations, representing some 939 million people. If you think that's 'going it alone' I have some beach front property in the Texas panhandle I'd like to sell you.
Steve
Clarification/Follow-up by Itsdb on 07/29/04 9:12 am:
Sancho,
How's that for more facts?
Clarification/Follow-up by Chouxxx on 07/29/04 11:38 am:
cT::: I'd rather be a FOOL for the goals of civilization [ie, upholding women, not oppressing them in any way; education and kindness toward children, not exploitation; responsible population control; my ususal list
THAN...
be an apologist and propagandist for the French and Egyptian, etc. "Scholars and Philosophers" who by their arrogance and lack of critical thinking about the REAL CONCERNS OF THE WORLD [AMERICA LEADING] in the next fifty years, show their true self-serving goals of self-aggrandizement and opposition to removing as much oppression of humankind as each generation can manage.
It is not lost on me that it is de rigor to bash and propagandize against America in many circles, BUT EVERYONE KNOWS, AMERICA IS THE ONLY HOPE FOR THE WORLD.
Sign me a fool!!
Choux
Clarification/Follow-up by SanchoPanza on 07/29/04 12:58 pm:
It's kind of annoying how you give answers here and people add comments to them that you cannot follow up.
It leaves the answerer at a disadvantage to people who want to make irrelevant comments or take the issue off at a tangent as if there was a chance at further discussion.
Take for example this issue of intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction. I gave an answer and somebody starts banging on about genocide as if its the same subject.
In response Blair has admitted that the thousands of mass graves are also a fallacy there have been no more than 5000 victims found, that may be 5000 too many but it still illustrates the ease with which people are prepared to swallow right wing propaganda.
Now let's have a list of countries that that murdered more than 5000 of their own people I'll start you off with Indonesia and China, can someone arrange 12 years of sanctions followed by a coup?
Every time I see a forum conversation that nails down the Weapons fallacy someone always tries to pipe up that Saddam didn't deserve to remain in power anyway but who the hell has the right to decide that apart from his own people?
I don't happen to think George Bush is a very sound leader nor do I believe he gained power by legitimate means but if I tried to do anything about it I would be labelled a terrorist. What Bush forced Iraq to endure was against all international protocol in that he refused to wait for UN ratification and in that his claims that he was doing it to protect the security of his own nation from an imminent threat has shown to be false.
There is no justification for invading another nation state, because you don't like the way the government treats its people, under international law or protocol.
Clarification/Follow-up by Itsdb on 07/29/04 3:09 pm:
Sancho,
Seems like you figured out how to followup on comments just fine. Now let's examine your followup. You said:
"It leaves the answerer at a disadvantage to people who want to make irrelevant comments or take the issue off at a tangent as if there was a chance at further discussion.
Take for example this issue of intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction. I gave an answer and somebody starts banging on about genocide as if its the same subject."
Since at this point I am the only one to comment on your answer, I assume you mean me.
You pooh-poohed the pre-war intelligence then equated it to imagining "a dossier on Bush that was compiled by Micheal Moore and Mark Thomas with a few quotes from Al Gore and John Kerry."
I asked, "who needed any of this disputed intelligence to justify removing Hussein from power?" That my friend is a 'relevant' question.
I then commented "Your 'dossier' comment is beyond irrelevant. Hussein's genocidal, tyrannical...utterly evil dossier is public knowledge."
There was literally no need for justifying the removal of Hussein beyond what was already public knowledge in my opinion. Genocide and tyranny are a part of Hussein's 'dossier,' your word, not mine. Again, entirely relevant comments, a far cry from 'banging on genocide' or any 'tangent.'
Attitudes like you've expressed are what is dangerous, not a president who is resolved to defend America and protect her interests. Your answers here are reminiscent of the liberal 'illusion' (thought you'd appreciate that word) being put forth that Hussein was some innocent dude singing 'It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood' until the multilateral invasion of Iraq interrupted his tea party.
Regardless of Blair's inflated reports I'd say it's a bit premature to make any conclusions on mass graves. Such 'propaganda' was largely promoted by 'right wing' groups like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. All we know is there are a bunch of Iraqis missing, so where are they, hiding the WMD's?
Aside from all of the other known atrocities by Hussein and his cast of characters, he shot at US and British jets virtually every day for what, 12 years? He has verbally threatened the US with violence numerous times, failed to comply with a host of UN resolutions, and the fact remains that even without discovering WMD's, he has previously used them and had a ready capability to produce them as needed. Mr. Rogers he ain't.
And talk about irrelevant, what does "nor do I believe he gained power by legitimate means but if I tried to do anything about it I would be labelled a terrorist" have to do with any of this? Just 3 months from the next election haven't we heard enough about the fallacy of the 'selection' of Bush for president? Has the Patriot Act taken away your right to freedom of speech...or any other right?
The fallacy that Bush has divided America, taken away our freedoms, scared everyone into believing Iraq was about to pull the nuclear trigger (not once during the lead-up to the war did I ever have that impression), and it's all illegitimate anyway for the mere fact that Bush was never elected, is one the most egregious hoaxes ever played on a nation. If America is divided, they need only watch the DNC this week to see the cuplrits...including the one being coronated who has admitted to having participated in committing atrocities himself in Vietnam.
Steve
Clarification/Follow-up by SanchoPanza on 07/29/04 4:06 pm:
Who needed justification? Bush did, which is why he produced a pile of bullshit.
As it is he removed Hussein without any justification, purely through having bigger weapons than the man he was spooking everyone else over.
My original cooments might have been irrelevent to you because they did not fit your view of the world. Sorry but I can see a bigger picture and my comparison with a dossier drawn up by Bush's opponents was entirely relevant and for you to continue to insist it wasn't is just going to make you look stupid, so I suggest you just accept that it was.
Clarification/Follow-up by Itsdb on 07/29/04 4:24 pm:
Sancho, now that's 'rich,' whining about wanting more discussion and facts and instead of responding to the discussion you go on a personal offensive. Is convincing yourself I'm going to look stupid working for you? It doesn't bother me in the least, that's the nice thing about having truth on your side.
Your 'dossier' comparison is ludicrous. The facts clearly demonstrate Hussein's record of terror, threats made, use of WMD's, genocide, arbitrary executions, displacement of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, violation of countless UN resolutions, etc. The facts clearly show regime change in Iraq has been the US goal since the Clinton administration.
I'm sorry if your world view is too small to see the need to go to Iraq, the collateral benefits, not to mention trying to free a nation from decades of terror is a much grander and nobler a cause than destroying Bush and satisfying your ego.
Steve
Clarification/Follow-up by SanchoPanza on 07/29/04 5:16 pm:
You dismiss my input as irrelevant and, I might add, the entire premise of this thread, on the basis of your own opinion and it's about MY ego!
Yeah well you substantiated my last point.
If you want to substantiate your own how about making a thread with all these "facts" in it and the relevant international law that allows for the removal of a legitimate leader for reasons other than a threat to the security of another nation state which was what all this bullshit about weapons was for.
Now the official justification has fallen apart it's back to ... well we didn't like him anyway.
There is no facility in international law for any state to remove the leader of another state because they do not like the way they are running their country.
The problem now is that having used "faulty" intelligence and what is it? ... "faith based intelligence" the sources are corrupt.
Why should anyone believe anything that American intelligence has to say about anyone? Their service is fundamental flawed like a witness that has just screwed up under oath.
Clarification/Follow-up by Itsdb on 07/29/04 8:38 pm:
Sancho,
Your original comments that I did dismiss are based on the tired notion that Bush lied and/or coerced for the intelligence he needed, all of which have been squashed by the 9/11 commission, the Senate Intelligence Committee, Lord Butler's report and Putin. Yet, the anti-Bush crowd refuses to let it go.
Here's the gist of why your 'dossier' comment is irrelevant. You're making a false comparison, if the intelligence on WMD's was akin to a 'dossier' by the most extreme Bush haters, then the world is Michael Moore. There is no question Hussein had WMD's, the world believed he still did, not just Bush and Blair.
Where are those that are still unaccounted for? If he didn't have them why did he avoid compliance? If he destroyed them why didn't he verify that with UNMOVIC and avoid UN "member states" using "all necessary means" to enforce their "material breach" of the resolutions of the "international" body?
Clarification/Follow-up by SanchoPanza on 07/30/04 4:42 am:
On dear MY comments are based upon YOUR notions.
Lets get right into it. Where in my comments do I mention Bush being involved? My view on Bush's involvement is quite clear in another thread but as you are being such an arse I will leave you to find them yourself.
Why did Saddam do what he did? Don't know, ask him or leave your media to create a solution. This argument is an extension of your faith based intelligence. Nothing factual just a string of circumstantial projections. He did this, he didn't do that, therefore I conclude this. No basis in fact whatsoever.
Let's make a few more projections to illustrate the complete fabrication of your argument.
Why didn't Saddam declare the shells found by the Polish army?
Projection 1: The shells were issued to a combat unit during the Iraq/Iran war and
A) The unit was disabled in combat and the ordnance was unaccounted for.
B) The unit was supposed to have fired the ordnance but the commanding officer disobeyed the order and concealed it instead.
C)The unit concealed the ordnance because it was in danger of being captured in possession of chemical warheads.
Projection 2: The shells were issues to a combat unit during the Gulf War.
A) As above
B) As above
C) As above
D) When the defences of the Iraqi army were penetrated by Coalition forces efforts were made to dispose of such weapons before they were discovered by the enemy.
There isn't really a need to compile a longer list of possible or probable circumstances of how 16 or 17 shells became to be lying in the desert 15 or 16 years after they were produced and this war wasn't waged over 16 or 17 shells that were possibly abandoned during a previous conflict.
The argument that anything not documented was automatically being deliberately concealed in contravention of UN resolutions was the most absurd and aggressive tactic employed to force this issue and one of the major reasons why I found the intent to unilaterally enforce UN resolutions without UN endorsement to be an entirely unsound course of action.
In the UK 80% of the public opposed war without the endorsement of the UN and 36% opposed it with the endorsement of the UN.
It seems to me that there was an opportunity there to establish a precedent, through the UN, to deal with unsound governments and rogue regimes, but Bush did not want to pursue a course of action that would give more jurisdiction to the UN, he wanted to act on his own initiative and wanted to call the shots over the suitability of the Iraqi government himself. That course of action was also unsound as it destroyed a chance to create a kind of universal constitution that any government should reasonably comply with or risk an international intervention in their internal affairs.
Clarification/Follow-up by Itsdb on 07/30/04 9:32 am:
Sancho,
Everyone knows the outrage of the anti-Bush crowd is "Bush lied," used faulty intelligence and coerced the intelligence community. Whether or not you mentioned Bush is irrelevant, your 'dossier' comment is the same argument. I don't know your views on Bush, but you echoed the argument in your own creative way. Bravo, it was clever... but I believe still a false comparison.
No, we're not talking about 16 or 17 shells, and the argument going in was not "that anything not documented was automatically being deliberately concealed in contravention of UN resolutions." The issue formally was a "currently accurate, full and complete declaration of all aspects of its programmes to develop chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, and other delivery systems."
After submitting their 12,000 page declaration, and inspections, many of those issues officially remained 'unresolved' according to UN criteria, and that is entirely factual. No faith is needed, anyone can read the documents for themselves, and if anyone is to indict Bush and Blair for faulty intelligence, they must also indict the world body.
Where you see "an opportunity there to establish a precedent, through the UN, to deal with unsound governments and rogue regimes," I see a resolve to settle the matter once and for all, with the help of 35 other nations. The opportunity you saw was bungled by the UN for more than a dozen years through inaction on countless resolutions. It takes more than a slap on the wrist and a tongue lashing from the UN to deal with rogue regimes.
Clarification/Follow-up by SanchoPanza on 07/30/04 4:19 pm:
Oh I'm irrelevant again, about whether I actually said what you decided I meant, because YOU say so.
Don't put words in my mouth and don't put me in any box that suits your perspective so you can dismiss me as part of any crowd.
Here's a little freedom of speech for you .... BOLLOCKS!
I'm not part of your observer created reality.
Clarification/Follow-up by Itsdb on 07/31/04 1:38 pm:
Come on Sancho, I never said YOU were irrelevant. On the contrary, I am very much a believer that everyone matters and everyone's voice counts. But I know enough to point out a fallacious argument when I see one. At least I didn't use "Mein Kampf or Marx's Communist Manifesto" in comparison of your effort.
Clarification/Follow-up by SanchoPanza on 08/02/04 6:57 am:
Sorry but my comment was to compare one dossier compiled by a leader's opponents to another.
You kicked in with "that's irrelevant."
Either you think the entire subject is irrelevant, in which case you are simply disrupting the conversation with spam, or you are trying to dismiss someone you don't know based upon what you suppose their deeper viewpoints and agenda lies, based upon other people hope you seek to categorise them with.
There is no fallacious argument in comparing the dossier of intelligence on Iraq to a dossier on Bush compiled by Micheal Moore and others.
The comparison is valid and everything else is just hot air designed to cover your gaffe.
The whole world knew that Saddam HAD WMD at some point, that does not mean that making up a bunch of false intelligence backed up by his strongest political opponents doesn't matter because once upon a time he did what you are trying to prove he is doing now.
Of course he had Weapons, there would be no point in the resolutions to remove the weapons if he never had any.
The point was that the dossier attempted to prove he still had them and that it was essential to act before he used them and THAT dear boy was a fallacious argument.
The comparison was valid and now you are blowing hot air to cover your gaffe.
You jumped in to this thread with a bunch of preconceived ideas about me and tried to counter a bunch of arguments you assumed would come from someone who simply appeared to not have the same viewpoint as yourself.
Maybe in the future it might be a better tactic to wait for people to actually say what you assume their views are before you start to attack them for holding them.
The assumptive close is a good sales technique but in debate it as useful as a colander trying to hold a fart and has more holes in it too.
I've encuntered many republican supporters on the Internet who dismiss everyone who does not follow Bush and his party as "whiney Liberals" and the same people are forever critizing the entire population that do not think exactly like them as never agreeing on anything and constantly contradicting each other and even as hypocrites, as if everyone who doesn't agree with them is one entity that does not know its own single mind. A classic exaple of the bi-polarization of American politics into them and us, with us or against us, attitude that ensures the continuation of a redundant political structure.
I do hope you do not prove to be that shallow.
In case you miss the point, again, the comparison was valid and not irrelevant at all.
Clarification/Follow-up by Itsdb on 08/02/04 9:24 am:
Sancho,
My apologies for the offense, I will try and be more restrained in the future.
I'll even grant that your 'dossier' comment was valid in respect to faulty intelligence gained through Saddam's opponents. However, it doesn't change the fact that Saddam's dossier without the faulty intelligence was filled with enough credible evidence to justify action.
Saddam's history remains fact. Iraq's noncompliance remains fact. The UN, for more than a dozen years believed Saddam had proscribed weapons and Blix's inspection report on more than one occasion listed issues that 'remain unresolved.' I'm sorry, but facts are not 'hot air.'
Come on, all he had to was come clean and he didn't, so let's put some responsibility back on Saddam Hussein where it belongs. That should be quite a nonpartisan position to take.
Clarification/Follow-up by SanchoPanza on 08/02/04 1:59 pm:
No "facts" at all.
Come clean? what about? the 17 shells abandoned during the heat of a former conflict?
You cannot prove a negative, Saddam could never prove he didn't have any ordnance that the US could show had once existed on paper. It's simply impossible.
Whatever hoop Saddam was forced to jump through today, there would have been another tomorrow. The idea that "all he had to do was comply" is absurd, as is the notion that reoccupying Kuwait would make him America's bitch for eternity.
Don't imagine for a minute that I have any admiration for this man. I'm not part of your bipolar political structure. Because I can see the absolute wrong in what the US and its allies did does not indicate that I beleive in the right of Saddam Hussein. Two wrongs do not make a right.
I'm beginning to suspect that Saddam martyred himself to free Iraq from the constraints of the Gulf War aftermath and that eventually a new Ba'athist movement that is not expected to grovel before America reemerges.
Try comparing Saddam's weapons to God.
There is no physical proof of either but some people just have an unbending faith.
"However, it doesn't change the fact that Saddam's dossier without the faulty intelligence was filled with enough credible evidence to justify action."
On what basis? Certainly not an immanent threat to another member state's security.
Saddam's history remains fact. History is subjective and the sources are now corrupted.
The latest being that Blair has admitted the hundreds of thousands of mass graves amounts to no more than 5000 souls. What basis does Saddam's history give the United States the right to attack his country and remove him from power? It would be interesting to see other world leaders could be deposed by this precedent if it was ever made clear.
I recall a final ultimatum which was given to Saddam which required him to leave the country hat he was leader of within 48 hours.
Maybe you feel that it was ultimately his responsibility to comply with this ridiculous demand rather than the responsibility of the people who issued it.
How would you feel if an American President was censured by the leader of another nation and told to leave the country or face an all out assault. Regardless of the efficiency of the US defence department the notion is absurd, as was that of the US over invading Iraq because Saddam wasn't a good enough leader.
All the pretence over weapons was simply because the US had no other legitimate course of action and if you think that the US can simply make up its own criteria and judge the rest of the world then you will truly have an eternal war on your hands.
It may come as news to some of the died in the wool Republicans, but the US invasion of Iraq is viewed as an unmitigated disaster, both militarily and politically outside of the US right wing media outlets.
There is no popular support in Iraq from the US puppet regime and it is inevitable that further drama will ensue if America does not maintain direct support of it.
2 deaths a day and no exit policy is the bald facts here.
This was a fight of George Bush's choosing, on his terms and in his time, yet he screwed up on the justification, he screwed up on the reaction from the people of Iraq and he screwed up on restoring order in time for the election. The grim reality is that last month, the 17th month of the conflict was the 6th largest fatal casualty count among coalition forces, all in a war that was fought to protect the security of America from an immanent threat.
Clarification/Follow-up by Itsdb on 08/02/04 2:52 pm:
So, I try to be somewhat conciliatory and this is your response?
I can acknowledge facts on all sides of the issue, I mean was going to Iraq necessary? In hindsight no it wasn't, but unfortunately we have to act on the information we have, not what is learned after the fact.
As noted, this was not about 17 shells, but apparently no amount of arguing what was known matters. It doesn't matter that the UN, even after the last inspection had unresolved issues, felt Iraq was still lacking in cooperation, had not told them much of anything new, that virtually the entire world believed he had WMD's, that he had issued direct threats to the U.S. or that Russia had warned the U.S. Hussein was planning attacks on U.S. interests at home and abroad.
Would it have been more responsible to ignore the potential threat? For crying out loud, Bush is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. His opponents are condemning him both for not doing enough to make the U.S. safe and accusing him of using terror warnings for political gain. If we wouldn't have gone to Iraq and Saddam had carried out one of his threats they'd have Bush's head on another platter in record time.
If I'm Bush and I'd just witnessed the chaos that was 9/11 I wouldn't give a rat's behind what the left or the rest of the world thought, I'd be kicking some butt and taking names later. That, if anything is the disaster in the Iraq war, that we stopped before total submission. But if it was an unmitigated disaster, someone would have to tell me compared to what. What do we compare it to, the UN's effectiveness, the Soviets in Afghanistan, Viet Nam, or Custer's last stand? Let's get this 'disaster' in perspective here shall we?
I for one believe it's much too early to say what the eventual outcome in Iraq will be, but as for now they have at least the beginnings of something better than Saddam would have ever provided.
I'd suppose if our president was threatening other nations without cause, planning terrorist attacks against them, carrying out mass murders and arbitrary executions on his own people, 'disappearing' citizens by the hundreds of thousands, etc., we would take him out ourselves.
Clarification/Follow-up by SanchoPanza on 08/03/04 4:50 am:
Uh I just managed to wipe a lengthy reply so this will be somewhat notarised.
The effect of your conciliation is that I'm still responding!
I mean was going to Iraq necessary? Probably!
I think there were weapons and I think they were found. I think they were supplied during the Reagan years to threaten Iran after the US was so badly embarrassed there during the Islamic Revolution. The problem is that lies begat lies. There was no new threat, just the political climate and opportunity to get out there and get some.
The attack on Iraq has not "made America safer" nor has it achieved any success in combating terrorism, because the nature of terrorism is that terrorists are whole adaptable and opportunist. By attacking Iraq Bush has destroyed a leader that was opposed to Radical Islamic Fundamentalism and placed a target in front of the extremists to hone their hate upon.
The intelligence was not just about removing the perceived threat it was about doing it NOW and doing it on his terms and about substantiating his right to do so at the expense of international accord. Yes, he pulled in plenty of followers but many of them, with the notable exception of Mr Creepy Blair, member of the Bilderbeck Group, were little more than symbolic.
This was a go it alone American show with an open invitation to come along and share the blame.
"If I'm Bush and I'd just witnessed the chaos that was 9/11 I wouldn't give a rat's behind what the left or the rest of the world thought, I'd be kicking some butt and taking names later."
Bingo that's it in a nutshell. Let's get out there kick some butt and show people we are in control. It doesn't matter who we kill but find a good target.
Saddam had nothing to do with 911, once the WMD story falls apart we get 911 or human rights. It just shows how loose the scapegoat story is.
The disaster in perspective is this:
Bush would not wait for UN backing, There were warning noises about the weapons from Blix and others, but Bush was clearly not willing make his plans subject to outside control, had he brokered a UN resolution to intervene in Iraq under any terms he could have led an International force against rogue regimes until 2008 before handing over the reins to someone else.
Of course during that time certain regimes would come under scrutiny that he would rather not have to deal with and in reality it would not suit his administrations purpose to become the strong arm under international control.
Here 36% of people supported the war on his terms and 80% supported it on the UN's terms.
After the debacle of the intelligence and he torture of prisoners that judgement seems even more sound.
The disaster is that once Saddam was ousted, the people did not fall in behind a new leader because the new leader was a former Ba'athist exile who believed Saddam needed to go because he failed to hold onto Kuwait and had lost the respect of the hardliner Ba'athists who want to build a greater Islamic nation.
The disaster is that having taken control from Saddam Bush cannot confidently hand it over to his chosen stooges and walk away.
American forces are pinned to Iraq, that may be the bigger strategy, to replace the base in Iran under the Shah with one in a US freindly Iraq, but that is not how this happy meal was sold. Whatever picture you look at you can see the imperfections.
I'd suppose if our president was threatening other nations without cause HE IS,
planning terrorist attacks against them HE DOESN'T NEED TO HE HAS ALL THE CONVENTIONAL MEANS,
carrying out mass murders and arbitrary executions on his own people, 'disappearing' citizens by the hundreds of thousands, etc., HE HAS HIS OWN WAYS OF ABUSING CIVIL RIGHTS we would take him out ourselves.
No that you would not do, you are far to secure in your own self righteousness to even consider anything of the sort.
You are in denial that anything could be amiss with the great American institution of democracy, despite a history of corruption that extends back beyond the Revolutionary War.
Clarification/Follow-up by Itsdb on 08/03/04 7:55 am:
Sancho, just one thing and that's enough on this thread. You couldn't be more wrong in your last two quotes.
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