Andrew Leigh has moved to a new, more mnemonic location. He has a post which concludes that, although the Iraq war has turned out badly, it seemed like a good idea at the time. So, on the information available at the time, he suggests, he was right to support it. Much the same point has been made in discussion here. Tim Dunlop criticises this, pointing out that lots of people (in fact, the majority of people in most countries) looked at the same evidence and came to the (ex post) correct conclusion that war was a bad idea.
I want to pick up a different point. It’s still possible to argue (not convincingly in my view, but not absurdly) that who supported the war made a reasonable judgement on the available evidence, including the evidence supporting the existence of WMDs, provided by Bush and Blair. Only if you discounted this evidence, as bogus or at least slanted and exaggerated, could you draw the right conclusion. As we now know, the evidence was bogus and the whole UN process was a sham since Bush and Blair had decided to go to war anyway. But, someone who assumed that they were presenting the best available evidence, and accepted their repeated claims that war was a last resort, might reasonably have support the war.
However, Andrew wants to go further, saying “given the information then available, I still think Blair, Bush and Howard made the right call.” I can’t see how this claim can be defended. Clearly, Bush and Blair had the information that only later became available to the rest of us showing the spurious nature of the ostensible case for war.
As regards the argument for a “war for democracy”, it’s worth noting that this was explicitly repudiated by Bush, Blair and Howard, all of whom said that if Saddam co-operated on weapons there would be no war. More importantly, no hindsight is needed to make the judgement that the likely outcomes of a war were going to be bad – we have thousands of years of experience of war to tell us this. That’s why the bar should be set high for a war of choice, as opposed to the war of self-defence we were sold. So many things invariably go wrong that we should require convincing beyond reasonable doubt that the objectives will be achieved, and that the costs will be modest. In the case of the Iraq war, the experts predicted correctly that success (in the sense of achieving a transition to prosperous, secure democracy) would require many more troops and much more money than was committed.
Update These points don’t really apply to Howard. The decision he made was, in effect, to follow the US lead unquestioningly, as Australian governments have usually done in cases of this kind. I think this was pretty clear in the Australian debate, which is one reason Howard hasn’t suffered as much from the failure of the war as have Bush and Blair.
John Quiggin 
PrQ,
I notice you do not claim Howard had this evidence. As to what information Bush and Blair had who’s to say? I do not believe Powell had the information, and, as Secretary of State, you would think that he would have access to the same information.
Politically, I do not think that, if they had the information that there were no WMD that they could have taken their countries to war. As I have said before, if they knew no WMDs would be found and that was their primary (public) reason the sort of storm that has blown could have been expected, to both of their political detriment. I do not believe that either of them (although I might be a little less sure of Bush) just wanted to go to war for the hell of it. Neither of them needed it for popularity after September 11. Both must of known, as we all know, that war is a risky course to take.
Only if you discounted this evidence, as bogus or at least slanted and exaggerated, could you draw the right conclusion.
But wasn’t it obvious at the time that this intelligence was “at least slanted”? I mean, many credible sources said so, first among them the UNMOVIC and Scott Ritter. As far as I am concerned, I thus have no pity for anyone who believed that Iraq possessed biological or nuclear weapons in significant quantities. They chose, in my opinion deliberately, to be deluded.
AR, I’ve added a bit on Howard. The validity or otherwise of the case was essentially irrelevant for him.
As regards Bush and Blair, they made sure they got the info they wanted – as the Downing St memo said, the Intel was fixed around the case for war. Powell was naive enough to believe it, having demanded that he only be given solid stuff and is, pretty clearly, badly disillusioned about hte whole business.
PrQ,
Whether it was Bush and/or Blair and/or their offices and/or senior members of the intelligence community and/or members of some vast neo-con conspiracy for world domination there was clearly false information circulating. Whoever was responsible, if any one small group was responsible, it will be a matter for historians. To be honest, I doubt a smoking gun will be found any time soon. People in positions like this generally have an effective means of cleaning up after themselves.
IMHO there will not be any Nixon tapes this time.
With reference to Colin Powell, “this is bullshit!“
When the Iraq war proponents claimed that Iraq may be as little as six months away from producing nuclear weapons it became clear to me that they were knowingly lying and not just over-reading intelligence. The descriptions of the highly sensitive methods that WMD inspectors used showed that it was almost impossible for this claim to be true.
The reason they were not concerned about paying a political price for their exagerated WMD claims is they expected the success of post-war Iraq to provide them with a more than compensating amount of political capital. This would make the shaky WMD threat academic and hence quickly forgotten.
“Both must of known, as we all know, that war is a risky course to take.”
Its became pretty clear in the aftermath that most war hawks in Washington did not really feel that way. Both the way the aftermath was managed and what Bush administration officials have said indicate that they really did believe it was not a risky proposition.
Wilful – the “bullshit” comment was on an early draft and he was right to call it that way. The one he read out he apparently believed – i.e. he did not think it was “bullshit”.
SWIO – perhaps, but as I have said it will be a matter for historians to rake over for the next few decades. Finding any agreement on this will be problematic to impossible for many years to come. The important thing to work out is what to do now.
AR, in view of the ample evidence of specific lies from Bush and Blair, I think references to conspiracy theories are a bit silly. It’s true that we are unlikely to get the kind of comprehensive evidence provided by the Nixon tapes, but not that this is a matter for the historians. And the fact that the case for war was built around spurious claims about weapons contributed to the absence of sensible planning.
At some point you really need to look hard at the fact that the advocates of war have been consistently proved wrong in their claims – this suggests that the whole enterprise is based on false premises.
‘Clearly, Bush and Blair had the information that only later became available to the rest of us showing the spurious nature of the ostensible case for war’.
John, Could you explain? Is it that they were committed to go to war anyway or do you mean they knew there were no WMDs?
The US was committed to go to war anyway, and Blair was committed to follow – the evidence from the British side is unequivocal on this
As regards the WMDs they knew the evidence they had was bogus but (I imagine) they thought they would find at least something (old stocks of chemical weapons most likely) once the invasion took place, and that, in the afterglow of victory, it wouldn’t matter too much regardless.
John and Harry,
It is now time to put the Iraq humpty dumpty together again. It is very likely that individuals not encumbered by the history of bad decisions and who are not wedded to the idea that the exante decision was the right one to make, will do a better job in managing the crises we find ourselves in.
So the question now is: Who is likely to do a better job putting out the fire in Iraq? The current leaders or new leaders?
For me the main issue now is that the war on Iraq has been such a catastrophe that those who led us into this disaster should be fired regardless of what motivated them at the time? They have too much at stake (in terms of historical legacy, pride) and are unlikely to be sufficiently clear headed to get us out of the mess.
Harry, if the CEO of your favourite company took a gamble and the gamble went horribly wrong wouldn’t you expect him to resign?
Rabee, Well I suppose it would depend on ex ante whether it was a good gamble. If there was a 0.95 chance of a $1 million reward and a 0.05 chance of a $50 loss and he took the gamble and the outcome was a loss I would still think he was a good CEO. In fact if he didn’t take the gamble I would think him a dill.
On Iraq, you have to get back to the issue of whether invasion made sense at the time it occurred. I certainly thought it did at the time. In a sense you are right – this ex ante analysis is irrelevant as we cannot rerun history. Clearly I reject cut-and-run as a reasonable policy response now. At least in your para 2 you raise the prospect I might be right. We agree at least to this degree. Let’s enjoy a beer at uni house on this rare note when you visit Aus this year.
PrQ,
At what point did the US and British governments commit to war? Was it before or after the last spate of wilful obstruction of the weapons inspectors? They would have known that the UNSC was going to say no (at the very least through the veto process, but as it turned out and you have rightly pointed out, also through the majority vote), so it was either accept the continued defiance of UNSC resolution after UNSC resolution or take action. It may have been insincere to put the case one last time to the UNSC, but then several members of the UNSC had been insincere for the previous 10 to 12 years. If GB the first had been allowed to finish it by the UNSC then perhaps this whole mess would not have happened in the first place.
The reason I was confident that they were going to find WMD was simple – the reported way the Iraqi government was actively hindering the work of the inspectors were not the actions of an open and honest government with nothing to hide.
Harry,
I don’t think that whether the decision made sense at the time is very relevant now. When it comes to politicians who are given the exclusive right to wage wars (that affect millions) there is an efficiency argument for the stopping rule: one wrong decision about war and you are out.
This cuts both ways: equally, when you wage war and the decision turns out to be wrong and when you hesitate, sue for peace, and the decision turns out to be wrong. Of course, this is assuming that there are plenty of people as able (or more able) than Bush, Blair, Howard.
Let me explain through an example why the arguments in this thread concerning exante motivations are a waste of time and irrelevant. Consider the case of Neville Chamberlain. He chose a policy of appeasement towards Nazi Germany. It turned out that this was a disastrous policy, though there are convincing arguments that given the information he had at the time (a piece of paper signed by Hitler) the decision he took was the right decision at the time. Of course, it became apparent expost that the decision was wrong. Would it have made sense to argue about Chamberlains exante motivation? No, there was an urgent need to have a leader suited to war, not encumbered by a history of failure.
Once we agree that the war on Iraq was wrong and that as it happened French/German/Russian/Chinese leaders turned out to be right, and then clearly we should give someone else a go at leading us. The warmongers got it wrong. There is an urgent need for peacemakers, peacetime leaders.
AR,
The US, or Bush at least, was committed before mid-2002 at the latest and according to certain ex-White House staff, shortly after Sept 2001.
Your last para. is a bit of begging the question isn’t it?
That inspections were hindered is inferred from the lack of results, and the lack of results could only be explained by hindering as “we know they have WMD�. Despite the lack of evidence of WMD, hindering implied a Govt with something to hide.
The alternate explanation, that finding nothing meant there was nothing, conflicted with the above articles of faith.
I am of the view that the Americans lied. This was my view at the time which is why I opposed the war.
However one could mount a case that the war was a good idea in spite of the lies on the understanding that it was expected to work out better than it did. Just because leaders lie about their motives does not mean that their motives are unreasonable. In terms of the geopolitical situation there were many good reasons for the USA to want to topple Saddam.
I certainly think that the status quo before the war was not very acceptable. If the war had worked out better I would have been more forgiving of the lies.
If forced to decide I have always positioned myself as against the war. However I don’t see it as being as black and white as many others seem to. Every way I look at the issue I see shades of grey.
Your logic is pretty good rabee and likewise your analogy. There’s a small problem with your solution in that those who were opposed to Iraq from the start, were falling over themselves to support Afghanistan as the worthier, but differentiated product. If, as is likely, that turns out to be wrong for the same faulty logic, where does that leave us all? I’ll tell you where. Shuffling about looking af each other sheepishly and wondering where to next? That certainly leaves a huge political vacuum for someone with the astute policy nous to move us all forward. Got any suggestions who that might be at present, because I’m sure the punters are all ears?
Observa, part of the case against the Iraq war was that it diverted the resources (of all kinds) needed to make Afghanistan a success. Failure in Afghanistan is in large measure, a consequence of the Iraq war.
AR, the commitment to war was made in early 2002 (at the latest – there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that the Bushies had made up their minds shortly after S11). The entire UN process was a sham based on Blair’s miscalculation that it would produce a resolution justifying war (for example, because Saddam would refuse to readmit inspectors). All of this is in the Downing St memos, and backed up by other sources.
Your claims about Iraq actively hindering inspectors are incorrect. The inspectors got easy access to all the sites they visited without notice, including all those nominated in the various bogus dossiers produced by Bush and Blair. The claim at the time, even from the Bushies, was not “active obstruction” but “inadequate co-operation”, which could mean anything.
I suggest you read my archives for the period from the start of the blog in mid-2002 to the beginning of the war. That will help you get some facts straight, without any possibility of retrospective spin.
“the reported way the Iraqi government was actively hindering the work of the inspectors were not the actions of an open and honest government with nothing to hide.”
It would have helped if the inspectors weren’t actively spying for the USA, as they had found to be in the 1990s.
Besides, no-one pretended Hussein’s government was open and honest – it was a dictatorship, for Christ’s sake. Ironically, they were accused of lying most on the subject they were most honest with.
And why is everyone talking about the war as if it began in 2003 with the invasion of land forces? The US, under the guise of enforcing no-fly zones (which, for the record, I considered a good thing) systematically destroyed Iraq’s radars, air defence command posts, etc. Thousands of raids were carried out and thousands of bombs were dropped, in illegal and blatant preparation for invasion.
Andrew
Various middle ranking spies and scientists from the intelligence agencies claimed after the war that they knew even early in 2002 that the main evidence for WMDs (pipes supposedly for missiles, uranium from Niger, satellite pictures of weapon facilities) didn’t stand up to scrutiny, and that their advice to this effect was ignored by their superiors. Do you at least concede this? And since John has twice mentioned the Downing Street memo, what is your reading of that, as a matter of interest?
Rabee,
“Let me explain through an example why the arguments in this thread concerning exante motivations are a waste of time and irrelevant. Consider the case of Neville Chamberlain. He chose a policy of appeasement towards Nazi Germany. It turned out that this was a disastrous policy, though there are convincing arguments that given the information he had at the time (a piece of paper signed by Hitler) the decision he took was the right decision at the time.”
This is one of those enduring and probably unkillable myths. Chamberlain was not so naive as to think that Hitler actually intended peace. Chamberlain had three motivations with his horse and pony show about “the piece of paper”:
1. To attempt to demonstrate to isolationists in the US that Hitler was not a man to be trusted.
2. To buy time for the British armaments industry to crank up.
3. To engage Germany in a war under circumstances that did not involve Soviet beligerency. The right in Britain and France had a greater horror of Stalin than they did of Hitler.
“Of course, it became apparent expost that the decision was wrong.”
Only if you assert, against all evidence, that Chamberlain was surprised when Hitler attacked Poland.
“Would it have made sense to argue about Chamberlains exante motivation? No, there was an urgent need to have a leader suited to war, not encumbered by a history of failure.”
Chamberlain wasn’t forced to resign when Germany attacked Poland in September 1939. He didn’t resign until after the fall of France in mid-1940. In other words, Chamberlain’s prime ministership didn’t end with his failure to keep the peace, it came with the failure of the British to fight the war.
On another issue:
One of the problems prevalent in this and several other discussions about decisionmaking is the anthropomorphisation of nations: the US thought this or Britain believed that.
The fine detail we already have of the circumstances of the decision for war is quite unprecedented given the short elapse of time. Usually this sort of detail takes years, even decades, to emerge. One of the reasons for this is the controversial nature of the decision. The decision outraged some people at the time, subsequent failure has induced others to cover their arses by talking, still others have been motivated by jealousy to spill the beans.
The important point is just how polluted was the flow of information. For example. it seems clear that Cheney knew much more than Bush. And it seems true that Cheney told Bush only what Cheney wanted Bush to know.
Given the influence of Cheney over Bush, it is arguable that Bush came to his decision based on a sincere but very incomplete and possibly falsified accounting of the status of Saddam’s Iraq.
Thus, is it correct to say that “the US” knew what Bush knew? Or is it correct to say that “the US” knew what Cheney divulged? Or is it correct to say that “the US” knew what Cheney knew to be false? Or is it correct to say that “the US” knew what Cheney knew to be concealed?
They can’t all be correct.
“part of the case against the Iraq war was that it diverted the resources (of all kinds) needed to make Afghanistan a success. Failure in Afghanistan is in large measure, a consequence of the Iraq war.”
It’s not the fault of Iraq that the Russians, Chinese, Arabs, etc haven’t got off their fat derrieres and right behind the UN in Afghanistan John and to the extent that Iraq has been flypaper to Islamists from all over the globe, that has largely ameliorated the COW diversion of resources argument. The fundies have heavily concentrated on Iraq and it’s almost certain they would all be in Afghanistan right now, if that were not the case.
We (Aust) of course have two irons in the fire here. Are the critics of Iraq prepared to recommend ditching that theatre now to concentrate on Afgh? I think not, but that was virtually the ALP’s stance at the last election. I’d suggest it’s as untenable a position now as it was then and that’s the rub really. Until such time as the critics of Iraq are prepared to call both theatres stuffed, we drift along staying the course in what is essentially two planks of the same affirmative action policy. Classical Mexican standoff if you ask me, which is made all the more poignant because he who blinks and calls off the troops first, knows only too well what’s coming next.
Interesting take on Chamberlain Katz and you might have to consider Bush and Blair in the same light. Basically they both believe the ME is the key to future peace for the West. They have their finger on the pulse of the ever rising threat of Islamism(Wahabbism) and Sept11 convinces them that if there is no change in the current state of affairs in the ME, the West will inevitably be at war with Islam within the decade. They both agree that on all the evidence, regime change and the BOL for Iraq is probably the best chance they have of averting that. It’s go for broke to see if they can effect a long term change of culture. They are fully aware of the risks, but are fairly certain of the alternative of doing nothing anyway. Now they know the die is cast and they must see through their role in it to the very end like your Mr Chamberlain. Each knows history will no doubt blame them for the Clash of Civilisations if they fail in Iraq, but nevertheless it’s their duty to exhaust the only faint hope they see of avoiding that. They are going to test the theory that Muslims in Iraq are just like them, when given the chance. It’s a test for all ME Islam.
observa, I’d have no trouble calling “both threatres stuffed”. Well and truly stuffed, with Afghanistan in a much more advanced state of stuffedness.
Part of our problem, I think, is a very simplistic picture how civil society or democracy develop and how easily they are wrecked. The planners of the Iraq War seemed to be almost Leninist in their approach. – smash the existing order and the preferred version of social utopia, driven by the hidden hand of historical inevitability, will emerge. Either that or they just didn’t give a toss.
These are usually gradual and erratic processes, often taking decades if not centuries. Personally I think it’s all Japans fault – kick their butts, bomb the cr*p out of them, then throw in some money and a few good intentions and a functioning society emerges. It’s set an expectation that is simplistic and virtual impossible to realise. Japan may have had a few features lacking in Afghanistan. The emergence of the Taliban in Afghanistan had an element (small) of the ‘Pol Pot’ syndrome about it – monstrous organisations arising from shattered societies.
Outside mililtary intervention have played their parts in these situation, and mostly for the worse. As a starting point, the principle of non-intervention has a lot going for it. Intervention always brings with it the issue of whose interest is the intervention made? It’s quite obvious that self-interest is hard to avoid. I’m not saying that all intervention should be avoided, but it needs careful thought about the likely, not just the intended, consequences.
The war was not launched because of bogus evidence. It was launched because of non-compliance with UN resolution 1441.
Katz,
The debate is not about the relative veracity of the classical narrative vis-Ã -vis the revisionist narrative of Chamberlain.
The dogs of war used the classical narrative to justify their case for war. The classical narrative says that Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement was disastrous.
If we agree that in hindsight the war on Iraq is a disaster, then for the reasons I outlined above those who took the decision to go to war ought to be replaced. One can even use the classical narrative of Chamberlain to justify this. That is, when through the course of the war it turned out that the Munich agreement was a disaster (from the perspective of the classical narrative) Chamberlain was, indeed, forced through various methods to step down.
What I’m arguing is that we need to decontextualize the decision processes and replace the leadership that got us into this mess. Of course, I can assemble an argument to this effect using the revisionist narrative of Chamberlain. But there are better ways to do this.
I outlined above those who took the decision to go to war ought to be replaced.
Even when their electorates re-elected them?
Decontextualise it all you want mate, but Saddam is now in the dock for his murderous Anfal campaign.
Rejoice, rejoice!
Observa
> There’s a small problem with your solution in that those who were opposed to
> Iraq from the start,
> were falling over themselves to support Afghanistan as the worthier, but differentiated
> product. If, as is likely, that turns out to be wrong for the same faulty logic, where does
> that
> leave us all?
We naturally hold decision makers to a higher standard than commentators, advocates, and the various “my two cents� folks as well as the opposition. The reason is simple, we have entrusted our government with the exclusive right to declare war in our names. We manage these rights through the obvious career ending trigger rule: One mistake regarding declaration of war and you end your career.
So for me the only argument that can plausibly be made in favor of Bush, Blair, (and perhaps Howard) is that the war has not been a disaster. The war has been an expost success. The expost-failure-but-exante-achievements argument is simply not relevant or coherent.
My own feeling is the war on Iraq has been catastrophic. In fact, we have probably lost the war.
Yes, and like it or not Saddam is now being charged for genocide (Anfal) in an Iraqi court.
Personal feelings aside, that must be a disaster for Saddam and a catastrophe for the Sunni arabs – after 3 years they have had no real success.
“Interesting take on Chamberlain Katz and you might have to consider Bush and Blair in the same light. Basically they both believe the ME is the key to future peace for the West. They have their finger on the pulse of the ever rising threat of Islamism(Wahabbism) and Sept11 convinces them that if there is no change in the current state of affairs in the ME, the West will inevitably be at war with Islam within the decade.”
But that’s akin to arguing that Chamberlain, to counter the Nazi threat, would have been well-advised to invade Greece, because after all, Greece was the ultimate source of all those ugly platonic notions that served as the foundations of fascism.
“They are going to test the theory that Muslims in Iraq are just like them, when given the chance.”
observa, the test has shown a positive result; when invaded the ‘Muslims in Iraq’ try to throw the foreign invaders out. Wow, they really are human!
That’s gotta be one of lamest justifications of the War that I’ve yet heard.
And ‘war with islam’??
What the hell is that? Are ‘we’ going to be bombing mosques?
“If we agree that in hindsight the war on Iraq is a disaster, then for the reasons I outlined above those who took the decision to go to war ought to be replaced.”
I see where you’re coming from Rabee.
You’re right. It’s all a bit nauseating how historical parallels and analogies are cut and pasted over the actual motives of hegemony and ego.
History has this use as justificatory wallpaper because either voters don’t know enough history and/or because voters believe themselves to be beneficiaries of this twisting of the historical record.
Ignorance and false consciousness are frequently punished.
The war was not launched because of bogus evidence. It was launched because of non-compliance with UN resolution 1441.
Firstly the UN didn’t approve of the war, and secondly the Chief Weapons Inspector, Blix, would dispute your comment that Iraq was non-compliant. I suggest you do as John Recommended and read his achieves from mid 2002 onwards.
Decontextualise it all you want mate, but Saddam is now in the dock for his murderous Anfal campaign.
Rejoice, rejoice!
Sadly those who provided him with the weapons, then sat idly by and said nothing because Saddam was an ally, will escape punishment.
“The war was not launched because of bogus evidence. It was launched because of non-compliance with UN resolution 1441.”
on march 7, 2003, hans blix reported to the security council; he stated that he had found no evidence of proscribed weapons. he also stated:
“This is not to say that the operation of inspections is free from frictions, but at this juncture we are able to perform professional no-notice inspections all over Iraq and to increase aerial surveillance.”
blix noted in his march 7 report that iraq was allowing surveillance flights over its territory without advance warning and was also allowing inspectors to conduct private interviews with scientists. rather than concluding iraq was violating governing resolutions, blix’s focus was on continuing the inspections with a view toward completing iraq’s disarmament:
“How much time would it take to resolve the key remaining disarmament tasks? While cooperation can and is to be immediate, disarmament and at any rate the verification of it cannot be instant. Even with a proactive Iraqi attitude, induced by continued outside pressure, it would still take some time to verify sites and items, analyse documents, interview relevant persons, and draw conclusions. It would not take years, nor weeks, but months.”
the war started less than 2 weeks later. whatever the reasons, non-compliance with UN 1441 was not one of them.
see http://www.un.org/apps/news/infocusnewsiraq.asp?NewsID=414&sID=6
I think without 9/11 Bush probably wouldn’t have gone to war with Iraq. But I don’t think 9/11 was the direct reason for the war either. Without 9/11, we could have gone on ignoring Iraq’s noncompliance with UNSC resolutions as we did for 8 years under Clinton. And I was FOR ignoring Iraq’s noncompliance during the entire Clinton presidency, if I thought about it at all. Even in the face of 19 UNSC resolutions demanding that Iraq comply. It just didn’t seem important after we tossed Saddam out of Kuwait to demand that he do what he agreed to in order to get the ceasefire.
To say that Iraq had complied when the UN repeatedly issued resolutions saying that it hadn’t over a 12 year period, is plain silly.
Blix’s report is right here: http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2003/sc7682.doc.htm
Saddam had not met the requirements of UNSC 1441, immediate and complete compliance.
I think Blair said it best. He said something to the effect that after 9/11 the assessment of risk is actually what changed. Saddam wasn’t doing anything AFTER 9/11 that he hadn’t done prior to 9/11, which was to ignore his obligations under the terms of the ceasefire. But he shouldn’t have been allowed to do that even before 9/11. The fact that we (the rest of the world) allowed him to do so for 12 years was OUR failing, even though we failed because we all just wanted to sweep it under the carpet and pretend it was over. You can be very sure the next creep like saddam won’t get 19 chances and 12 years.
The fact is, we all ignored the dysfunction going on in the ME for many decades. As long as it didn’t directly affect our lives, who cared if those people wanted to live in the stone age? After 9/11 we could no longer do that. It wasn’t just Afghanistan or Iraq or Iran or Syria. The entire ME is a basketcase and we all know that. And unfortunately, that basketcase and the associated behaviors, won’t stay contained just in the ME, if it would, we could probably all safely continue to ignore it.
More of Islam’s handiwork here http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,18727784-401,00.html?from=rss
Now this wouldn’t be a bit of ethnic cleansing and Lebensraum going on here would it?
Yes avaroo, perhaps our leaders understood more clearly than us, that the ME and Islam was more than just extremely culturally challenging and their BOL Iraq venture was a last desperate roll of the dice to stave off the inevitable. Blair was still banging out the message(1999 in Chicago) loud and clear when he was visiting here as I recall. That’s probably because he decided to take Islamists seriously at their word after Sept 11. Perhaps it was only me that detected a hint of resigned stoicism in the man, regarding the deafness all about him in the West.
From John Howard’s web site http://www.pm.gov.au/news/media_releases/media_Release454.html
“Mr Wilkie claims that I exaggerated the intelligence received from ONA. Yet my major speeches on Iraq’s WMD capability were checked for accuracy by ONA. In other words, ONA clearly did not consider that I had exaggerated or misrepresented its intelligence assessments in these speeches. ” The key question is then, was ONA an independent body. It is clear from the Joint Parliamentary Inquiry on ASIO,ASIS and DSD : Intelligence into Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction , that on or about the 12-13 , September 2002 ONA started to change its tune about WMD. Why this change occurred has not been satisfactorily explained.
“Yes avaroo, perhaps our leaders understood more clearly than us, that the ME and Islam was more than just extremely culturally challenging and their BOL Iraq venture was a last desperate roll of the dice to stave off the inevitable. ”
I don’t know that that is true. Bush and Blair surely SAID it but I think a lot of people saw it. Likely for the first time. Some don’t see it today.
“Blair was still banging out the message(1999 in Chicago) loud and clear when he was visiting here as I recall. ”
That would have been before 9/11.
“That’s probably because he decided to take Islamists seriously at their word after Sept 11. Perhaps it was only me that detected a hint of resigned stoicism in the man, regarding the deafness all about him in the West.”
It is an oddity that even today some people don’t see that we could no longer safely ignore the risk coming out of the ME. I firmly believe that had the dysfunction stayed in the ME, we wouldn’t have lifted a finger.
While it may be possible to dispute various individual bits of evidence here and there, it was absolutely clear at the time that COW were spinning the case for war to hell and back at every possible opportunity with a constant stream of lies, wild distortions, unsubstantiated assertions, half-truths and outright lies. If you believed that lot, you’d believe anything.
I didn’t need to see any secret intelligence to work that one out.
“Saddam had not met the requirements of UNSC 1441, immediate and complete compliance.
look, apart from anything else [such as whether this claim is true, which it may have been in november ’02 but clearly was not by march ’03], a finding such as this would have to have been made by the security council [by way of another resolution] for it to have any meaning in international law.
Jim Birch I’ll have to disagree with you. The evaluation of WMD in another country is something that you are going to have rely on an intelligence agency. However those agencies should be independent of political interference. The DIO and the ONA were giving reliable intelligence based on reliable evidence until the 12-13 September 2002 when the ONA stopped doing this. The DIO continued to give reliable intelligence. The ONA also failed to give independent advice in the Children OVerboard incident.
Here are Colin Powel’s MBA slides:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq/2003/iraq-030205-powell-un-17300pf.htm
Apart from the date I’m having a hard time reconciling any of these slides with reality.
232 anyone?
Sorry, of course that’s different.
Sorry 242.
Sorry 242.
Only 242?
“The war was not launched because of bogus evidence. It was launched because of non-compliance with UN resolution 1441.�
Hopefully the following will put paid to such nonsense in the future.
The NY Times reported on 27 March 2006 that a memo of a meeting between Bush and Blair on 31 January 2003 recorded “the president and the prime minister acknowledged that no unconventional weapons had been found inside Iraq.”
It goes on: “The U.S. was thinking of flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN colors…If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach.”
Boom-boom.
Hal9000,
Just in case you were not aware – everyone (except perhaps you) knew that the UN inspectors had not found weapons had been found. That was not the point. Absence of evidence does not constitute evidence of absence. Just because the UN inspectors had not found any did not mean that they were not there. As we (subsequently) found out, none could be found. This does not mean that they did not expect to find any when they initially went in.
As for the other thing – it did not happen, so, boom-boom.
Honestly, AR, this is silly. The whole process was a conscious fraud on the part of Bush and Blair, as has been shown by numerous independent pieces of evidence. The ‘evidence’ on WMDs was cooked, and Bush was determined to invade regardless of what happened on the ground or at the UN. This has been pointed out to you on at least half a dozen occasions in this thread, and you’ve dodged the issue every time.
Rather than going on with this nonsense, why don’t you put forward the only defensible case for B&B which is that lies were needed to convince US & UK voters to support the morally justifiable cause of Saddam’s overthrow?
Good suggestion to AR, JQ.
Having finally acknowledged that the “noble lie” is the only refuge of B&B apologists, then AR could then bone up on the Ems Telegram, which has come to be the classic case of lying for reasons of state.)
No doubt, in 1870 the claims to the Spanish throne of German prince Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen was at least as important in the public mind as the fate of Saddam Hussein in the public mind of 2003.
Prussian Chancellor Bismarck recognised how manipulable was the public mind on these hot issues. He “sexed up” the Ems Telegram account of Prussian/French negotiations to provoke a furious popular demand for war on France.
As Bismarck might have said of earnest believers of “noble lies” like AR: “There’s a sucker born every minute.
For a couple of generations school children were taught about the tawdry history of the Ems Telegram as a warning about “noble lies”, even successful ones. Perhaps AR missed those lessons.
A practical point needs to be made. One major difference between Bismarck in 1870 and B&B in 2003 was that Prussia won the Franco-Prussian War, enabling the creation ofthe German empire. On the other hand, B&B have bumbled their way to an unholy mess, putting on delay the advent of the much ballyhooed American Empire.
The moral: be careful with your lies. Noble intentions are no guarantee of success.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ems_telegram
Sometimes I wonder what would be the fate of those who talk as if removal saddam was the START of Iraq’s problems if western countries were run under a legal system such as that which saddam ran……