Spies, Lies, and Weapons

Kenneth Pollack has his own overview (under the above title) of the Bush administration's WMD debacle in Iraq, from the January-February issue of The Atlantic. Haven't read it yet, but might as well get all such articles out while the market of interest in the topic is bullish.

Meanwhile, this is one story the administration prefers not to publicize.

Comments

[trainwreck]

Ken Pollock has done his country a great service here.

The real problem with what the Bush Administration did was to destroy the barrier that should be in place between the analyst and the advocate. Analysts must be able to work independently, without concerns about how their work affects policy. Advocates need to respect that function and stay at arm's length from analysis.

People who don't understand the distinction between these two roles have no business making decisions on important public policy matters.

The idea of the CIA as some sort of bastion of PeacePussies (thanks Tom from Texas) is laughable...

[Gene Berkman]

The article by Ken Pollak was balanced, and very interesting. And it concluded that we rushed into war when we did not need to.

Several people have posted messages to the effect that America does not need the rest of the world. If only. Who do you expect to buy the treasury bills to fund the half trillion dollar per year deficit that President Bush has given us?

[Jean Bart]

Doesn't this story (a) show how weak Saddam's Iraq was, and (b) how comical (at least from the standpoint of making WMDs) it was?

[Shady O'Grady]

This administration cover story makes me laugh. Anyone who has read the publications of the PNAC knows the reasons we invaded Iraq, WMDs were simply what the adminstration fed the public.

[Andrew]

The assessment given in the Pollack article appears to be so reasonable that I believe it will probably serve as a platform for any further discussion of the issue. I find that I come away from the article only MORE persuaded of conclusions I had already reached-- and I am sure that others, with different conclusions, will have exactly the same response...AND THEY WILL BE RIGHT.

We will all be right for sticking to conclusions we otherwise find reasonable, because what the article really demonstrates is that intellegence doesn't SETTLE any outstanding policy debate...in fact is scarcely even relevant.

If an issue of importance is out there, and a consequential choice needs to be made, a citizen can come to a sensible conclusion based on the sort of information available to any interested newspaper reader, and he will be as likely to choose correctly as any member of the National Security Council (or the equivalent policy-shaping body in another democratic society).

What Pollack's article demonstrates, is that a modern intellegence apparatus (and no one more than the US) can pile up mounds of data...which don't incontestably support any conclusion. You would be nearly as well off without any of it.

There is lots of data about the stock market. But nobody can call the market short-term, and nobody needs to, long-term (it will go up).

In a way this is reassuring. Debate over foreign policy choices (or any other policy choices) in a modern democracy can proceed among citizens, based mostly on information citizens can reasonably be expected to have.

[Late for the boom]

Last night FOX was reporting that there is evidence that Saddam was as fooled as the rest of the world. Supposidly his scientists were lying to him. Apparently he THOUGHT he had weapons of mass destruction, they took his money, made a bunch of models and showed him plans that looked good on paper, and he fell for it.

Is it me or does it seem like the Administration is floating a dozen different Saddam/WMD stories by the public to see which one sticks. Its amazes me the amount of times there is flip-flopping about the WMDs in Iraq.

Wasnt there a presentation given to the international community with slides and pictures of absolute proof and locations?? What happened to those tankers and factories??

[Andrew]

Late in the boom--

I share your frustration, but you have to admit the Fox scenario could be true (like me, you may think it is quite likely). Your reaction, I take it, is to say "To hell with it-- let's leave it alone!", and my reaction is to say "To hell with it-- let's take Saddam out!" Two different reactions, based on the same data-set. Facts would be relevant to a discussion between us, but they wouldn't incontrovertibly settle it.

[Jean Bart]

Late in the boom,

Which is of course a problem; since by its actions, America has lost a great deal of credibility. In the future, the U.S. (or at least the Bush administration) will have even a more difficult time mustering support for military force.

[late for the boom]

Andrew- I agree, but on the other hand, if the scenerio is true, and we did invade Iraq based on infactual information, and it was that easy to dupe our intellegence, what safe guards will keep it from happening again?

Whats to keep one country or organization from fabricating damning evidence of WMDs and intent to use, hand it over to the Americans and watch thier enemy fall to US forces? Thats what that analysis from a FOX says to me. Because of the very thing you just point out, each will act on the Intelligence in completely different ways.

Personaly, I dont believe that Saddam was fooled into thinking he had WMD that he did not have. I think its a no brainer that Iraq was pursuing WMDs. Did they have them YET, not in the context of WMDs as we know them, but he certainly had the WMDs that were sold to him in the 80s, we looked at the reciept. =)

[Jean Bart]

late for the boom,

Potential pre-cursors (from the U.S. Department of Agriculture no less) for WMDs were sold to Saddam's government; not the WMDs themselves. As I recall, anthrax was one of the items; but such has to weaponized before it is really "useful."

It also may be the case that he was fooled on some projects and not on others. I think that it is abundantly clear that Iraq was not exactly the best run government.

[Andrew]

Late in the boom

I think the rule in the future might be, no democratic government should make a case for any policy based on intellegence data-- at least on anything very specific, and relatively contemorary. There was a case for going to war with Iraq based on generalisations that were (in themselves) non-controversial. It is a case that Pollack makes toward the end of the article. That, I believe, should have been the case the administration presented...I think the ultimate result would have been the same: or, if not, better to lose the right way, then win the wrong way (Whoa!-- maybe I wouldn't go THAT far!...but it bears a thought.)

[Josh]

I think the unstated assumption that JB makes is that the US is concerned about French and German military support, which just isn't true. When he harps on and on about how difficult it will be to convince them to do anything in the future, he's doing so on the pretense that the US needs or wants them involved.

To the contrary, France and Germany's blind contrarianism have made it infinitely less likely that they will get a say in any military action in the future.

[rst]

I love that Carnegie report, too. Issued by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a group that opposed the war in the first place, talking about political pressure that influenced intel. As though we're just supposed to pretend that an anti-war group isn't going to be exerting and bearing massive pressure to produce the report that supports their stance.

[Andrew]

Yeah, and in the future that goes for Britain, too.

If we ask for British help, and Blair says "Give me a minute, I need to massage public opinion." our response will be "Thanks Tony...but don't bother."

[Rick Barton]

"America has lost a great deal of credibility."

No; the American government has lost credibility.

Huge difference there. Time to jettison the neo-cons. The evidence of duplicity is now becoming overwhelming:
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994549

[jon b.]

As far as Saddam being fooled, could someone point me to a link where anybody predicted that WMD were so scarce that none would be found by now? I think everybody I heard before the invasion was fooled to some extent. And as to who we lost credibility with, everybody that watched Colin Powell?s UN presentation (and many other instances of the admin's cavilier attitude toward the truth). He was emphatic and completely wrong in the sites he pointed out. Who can believe any information based on US omnipotence anymore? Only the any-means-to-an-end crowd seem to not mind that the public was lied to about the reasons for war.

[Jean Bart]

rst,

Actually, I wasn't thinking of Europe Union specifically.

And to be frank, it was the U.S. and Russia that drug their feet regarding the Balkans; France placed 10,000 troops there very early in the conflict.

And as I have said repeatedly; if "serious consequences" meant automatically war, then the statement should have said "war."

And the U.S. was as much a beneficiary of the oil for food program as France ever was. Get this drilled into your fattened head - as of 2000-2001, 7% of America's oil imports were from Iraq. Indeed countries like Australia, the U.S., etc. all had more trade with Iraq in the 1990s than France did. One of the things Australia is bitching about now is that there farmers are now in jeapordy of losing a great deal of money because they are owed so much by the Iraqi government for trade that was not paid for in the 1990s.

And oh yes, it was so fattening - In 2002 Iraq accounted for 0.15% of our exports and 0.30% of our imports.

Oil exports from Iraq:

France purchased 8% of Iraq oil exports. As a comparison, the U.S. ranked first in Iraqi oil purchases and bought 40.9% of Iraqi oil exports in 2001.

[late for the boom]

Jean, pevious Administrations sold anthrax, VX nerve gas, West Nile fever germs and botulism according to declassified defense documents. A quick google search on weapons of mass destruction sold to Iraq by united states comes up with a number of credible hits.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0908-08.htm

A link to just one article discussing the declassifed documents.

Iraq was an ally at one time, its not uncommon for the US to either sell, trade, loan or give weapons to them, so I don't condem the choices of the past.

[Jean Bart]

Josh,

It is fairly clear that the U.S. needs other countries after conflicts are over; if it didn't need them, it wouldn't ask for them. Right now Poles are largely opposed to their troops being in Iraq (3-1 according to the polls); such popular resistance will only make an American post-conflict more and more difficult regarding the garnering of troops and money for such.

[Jean Bart]

And I don't care how large you think the U.S. military is; like any institution it has its limits, and those limits are more easily come to when the U.S. cannot garner international support for its actions.

[Andrew]

I think the effort to get other countries involved is more out of a perceived need to get diplomatic support-- but I don't buy it. I am more unilateralist now than ever.

[linden]

"Analysts must be able to work independently, without concerns about how their work affects policy. Advocates need to respect that function and stay at arm's length from analysis."
We found Saddam by throwing this policy out the window. No, what needs to happen is that intelligence agencies need to have intelligence agents on the ground so we have hard intel. The CIA largely moved away from this after the Cold War. They said they couldn't infiltrate Osama's nest, and yet we had darling Johnny Walker Lindh there in the belly of the beast. Read about what the CIA thought of the USSR until more non-agency people began asking questions.

"Several people have posted messages to the effect that America does not need the rest of the world. If only. Who do you expect to buy the treasury bills to fund the half trillion dollar per year deficit that President Bush has given us?"
Who does the rest of the world expect to buy their shit? The truth is that we're stuck with one another.

[Jean Bart]

Andrew,

The Bush administration wants (or rather, wanted) other nations to bear the burden of this great "gift" it has given to the world. I believe they've dropped this plan are now simply aiming to last until June of this year when they have reduced their troop size there to a point where American forces will not be the main line of defense against the insurgency.

[Andrew]

Anyone's help is welcome. But our policy decisions should be based on the assumption that the execution can be borne by us alone. That is what works for me.

[Andrew]

Linden has a point. We are all so focussed on whether the administration was presenting the intel accurately to the public, that we lose sight of the fact that, whether the administration depicted it honestly or not,..the intel was shit.

It is not like the agency did a good job.

[rst]

France placed 10,000 troops there very early in the conflict.

Yes, because when it was in their backyard, utmost haste was called for.

if "serious consequences" meant automatically war, then the statement should have said "war."

That's not how those morons engage in diplomacy, and you know that. Don't be naieve.

In 2002 Iraq accounted for 0.15% of our exports and 0.30% of our imports.

BNP Paribas.

And still none of the rhetoric indicates how the subject of Iraq making WMD was comical; consider the source. I would be surprised to see recommendations to relax emissions control coming from Greenpeace. Likewise I am not surprised to hear the doves singing dove-tunes. At the end of the day, there is no proof either way.

[Rick Barton]

"America America has lost a great deal of credibility.

No; the American government has lost a great deal of credibility. Huge difference! Time to jettison the neo-cons. The evidence of duplicity is now becoming overwhelming:
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994549

[Rick Barton]

Sorry about the double post.

[Andrew]

Patrick

I don't know. There was a lot of special ops stuff, and in news coverage the troops (and imbeds) seem to be contstantly responding to NBC alerts.

[Patrick]

Not sure we can blame everything on the Intelligence community. A lot of things just don't fundamentally jive between the intel justifying the war and the way it was executed. The intel was bad but Defense' war plan did not reflect that they believed it anyway.

I think we can agree that the overriding military objective was to secure the WMD to prevent them from falling into the hands of terrorists. Overthrowing Saddam was a just means to that end.

We repeatedly heard how these weapons were produced in highly mobile, easy to conceal weapon's labs and stored in secret depots in a large country with porous borders, etc. Yet the civilians at Defense insisted on very small force to execute the war and beat down opposition to this among the military leadership.

A small force was obviously all that was needed to topple the government but certainly not to identify and secure numerous WMD caches and labs. Guarding these would be trusted personel, i.e. "dead-enders" with nothing to lose if Saddam fell.

Not supplying enough troops for this job would seem to leave the door wide open to terrorists who can enter through porous borders, acquire some valuable WMD tech from people who don't give a shit about anything anymore (and could use some cash), and walk back out.

Anyway you cut it seems the civilians at Defense either believed that there were no WMD and lied about it or were grossly incompetent in pursuing their primary mission. Hopefully, they lied but that is not acceptable either.

[Douglas Fletcher]

Personally I think we should unilaterally throw the French out of the Ivory Coast. Just a thought.

[Will Spencer]

In a bizarre twist of fate, I am just glad we did not have this information in 2002.

If we had known then what we know now, we very likely would not have gone ahead and done the right thing.

The world is better off now. Iraq is better off now. The United States is better off now.

It's sad, it's true, it's somewhat comical, but that's the way it is.

[Rick Barton]

Will,
and, right is wrong...love is hate...piece is war..

"I am just glad we did not have this information in 2002."

So: the disinformation the neos conned us with via the government was a good thing?

"we very likely would not have gone ahead and done the right thing."

It wasn't "we". It was the government, and had the government not done what you call a "right thing" many Americans who perished for a justification based on duplicity would be alive today.

"The world is better off now. Iraq is better off now. The United States is better off now."

Oh right Will; What other nations can our government attack that are not a threat to us so it may bestow such gifts on all of us?

"It's sad, it's true, it's somewhat comical, but that's the way it is."

War; the mass murder governments commit is never even; "somewhat comical".
What you're spouting (in that post, not your others) is of such an anti-American sentiment that you might as well be spitting on the flag. The founders of our republic would be aghast.