(Sigh)
Michael Young | November 11, 2005, 9:33am
Skepticism is no doubt a quality the Bush administration has unintentionally (and legitimately) provoked in many a journalist angry at being suckered by false pre-Iraq war intelligence (though why Ahmad Chalabi should somehow still be regarded by the New York Times as avatar of its own journalistic shortcomings is beyond me).
However, the selfsame skepticism has also served to cast doubt where very little doubt is merited. Recently, for example, Seymour Hersh had this to say on Syria at a conference organized by Washington's Middle East Institute:
I'm exceedingly skeptical, and I have been all along, of the point of view of what happened to Hariri. The American point of view is that it was Syria with the aid of some people in Lebanon. Despite all the back and forth about how the American press corps was totally manipulated, to its embarrassment, about WMD, I would still argue, we're still being totally manipulated by this administration about Syria and Lebanese involvement.
This was disingenuous at best, and at worse showed how Hersh frequently does himself in by confusing healthy doubt and obdurate dislike. In fact, it's not just the American view that Syria was involved in Hariri's death; the argument was first given credibility by Detlev Mehlis, the United Nations investigator, who, it's fair to say, does not speak for the Bush administration, has evidence, and knows more about the matter than Hersh. It's also the view of everyone to whom I've spoken here in Beirut -- politicians, diplomats, security officials, and more -- most of whom also have a better idea of Hariri's murder than Hersh. Admittedly, though, I may be as credulous when it comes to my sources as Hersh has sometimes been with his in recent years.
The fact is, as Hersh indirectly proves by offering zilch in the way of proof for his doubts, no serious alternative theory explaining the crime has ever been floated, whether by Syria, its peons in Lebanon, or anybody who has followed the investigation.
Hersh has apparently caught a rampaging malady among those reflecting on American behavior in the Middle East; it is now fair game, it seems, to interpret any regional news story through the parochial prism of a "wag the dog" scenario, so that the Katrina and Harriet Miers debacles, or George W. Bush's wilting ratings, have become perfectly good explanations for U.S. policy toward Syria, Iran, Iraq, or anything you might want to shoehorn into a preposterous narrative. (The fact is that U.S. policy toward Syria was shaped months before Bush won the 2004 election, at a time when he was doing very well, and this was encouraged by, of all people, French President Jacques Chirac.)
In recent years, Hersh has been peddling the argument that Syria was a useful ally of the United States in the war on terrorism, before Bush and the goddamn neocons screwed it up. He wrote about this in The New Yorker in July 2003, and even quoted a "Syrian foreign ministry official" (whom I would guess was Buthaina Shaaban, now Syria's minister of emigrant affairs) as saying: "It saddens us as much as it saddens you. We could give you information on organizations that we don't think should exist. If we help you on Al Qaeda, we are helping ourselves."
Maybe Sy should sadly reread that line the next time he travels through Damascus airport, from where Islamists, many from Saudi Arabia, have been steadily making their way to Iraq to collaborate in the great adventure of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
(Thanks to Chuck Freund for the VOA link)
Jay Cline | November 11, 2005, 12:55pm | #
Ultimately, skepticism is the responsibility of the individual.
For those of us who knew the global dangers inherent in the Middle East before 9/11, for those of us who heard the clarion call of the 2002 Axis of Evil Speech, long before WMD became the reason for action, for those of us who knew the Iraqi WMD issue as being fundamentally relevant, but only in the context to the larger dangers of the Middle East; for us, when we heard the arguments of Iraqi WMD, we knew it for what is was: a sales pitch, and ultimately, a successful sales pitch.
That is what democratic leaders do, they persuade. Even dumb up an issue, if necessary.
Iraq had to be dealt with. That was evident after 12 years of defiant resistance to world pressure. After 12 years the world, from Saddam's point of view, was irrelevant.
WMD has not been found. But it is an easy argument, given Saddam's past activities and predilections, that he got rid of the material until only for as long as it took for the heat to die down. What does a drug dealer do when the DEA raids his house? Down the toilet, boys. We can get more after we get bailed out of jail. And it has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that Saddam previously did have, and use, WMD material and WMD programs.
Restocking his WMD hordes, reviving his WMD programs would have been, in my humble opinion, his first priority once the attention of fickle and faint of heart democracies been distracted or just tired out. It is no secret that Saddam thought himself a stronger man than any American leader, given that he "outlasted" nearly a half-dozen presidencies. The successful Selling of the Iraqi War is not something I would be ashamed of, if I were in Dubya's shoes. And I don't hold it against him, if only because I have my own cognitive ability to rely upon.
Now, I am not trying to be an Apologist for Machiavellian politics, but it is an oft quoted statement that we get the politics we ask for.
M1EK | November 11, 2005, 2:05pm | #
ironizedyeast:
Get better talking points.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction#UNMOVIC_search_2003
"All inspections were performed without notice, and access was in virtually all cases provided promptly. In no case have the inspectors seen convincing evidence that the Iraqi side knew in advance of their impending arrival."
"More than 200 chemical and more than 100 biological samples have collected at different sites. ... The results to date have been consistent with Iraq's declarations."
"UNMOVIC has identified and started the destruction of approximately 50 litres of mustard declared by Iraq... This process will continue. A laboratory quantity of (1 litre) of thiodiglycol, a mustard precursor, ... has also been destroyed."
"[I]t was concluded that all variants of the Al Samoud 2 missile were inherently capable of ranges more than 150 kilometres and were therefore proscribed weapons systems."
"UNMOVIC has reported that, in general, Iraq has been helpful on "process", meaning, first of all, that Iraq has from the outset satisfied the demand for prompt access to any site, whether or not it had been previously declared or inspected. ... While such cooperation should be a matter of course, it must be recalled that UNSCOM frequently met with a different Iraqi attitude."
"During the period of time covered by the present report, Iraq could have made greater efforts to find any remaining proscribed items or provide credible evidence showing the absence of such items."
