Errors of Mass Destruction

National Review Online ^ | June 12, 2003 | Michael Novak

[norton]

PS: I dson't care a whit about WMD; every once in awhile the dark forces just need a good slap-down and this was it for 2003.

Or at least the first half of 2003.

[mewzilla]

That's not an answer...Did/do they have anthrax, botulinum toxin, sarin, VX, smallpox...Just the anthrax would do it for me.

[JohnGalt]

Its your hawkish neoconservative and hawkish left-libertarians that favor open borders, not paleo-libertarians, friend.

If you cannot see a major problem with the intelligence apparatus that first allowed 9/11 to happen and apparently encouraged a war in Iraq, the death of American soldiers, and the cost of billions of dollars, then I can appreciate why emotional pleas like 'we done good' are all thats left. I dare say that attitude has implications in its own right and further caution against your approach as a political strategy.

[JohnGalt]

So now its about you?

I am talking about the claims of the trillion dollar central intelligence apparatus and the reality. If they do not reasonably coincide, the incompetents need to be identified and punished.

[JohnGalt]

Thank you, Woodrow Wilson.

[WarrenC]

Look, two things are significant about WMD: Whether Saddam had them, and whether he had the will to use them. He's used them on his own people which answers both concerns. An article in last Sunday's Miami Herald quoted an Iraqi prominently involved in their WMD program to the effect that Saddam was planning to re-start their production of WMDs at the earliest opportunity. The notion that no counter-terrorist action is justified unless it comes five minutes before they attack so as to assure our finding their weapons is silly. As Mark Steyn recently wrote, it would probably be easier to pick the evidence of WMD out of the rubble of a major city but some of us prefer a less painful approach. Thank God the president showed the leadership to take him out. Your concerns are just foolish.

[JohnGalt]

So your prediction is that this will just go away?

New to politics?

[WarrenC]

I'm not new to politics but the more people contrast the silly, fetishistic concerns of critics like you with the reality of the situation, the better for President Bush. A civilization either has the self confidence to defend itself or it doesn't. If Americans let this become a problem for President Bush, they'll be responding to that challenge in the negative, in which case we'll all have problems far more severe than even you imagine.

The day Americans become such irredeemable fools as to punish President Bush's courage in the execution of his constitutional duty to defend this nation and its citizens from a bunch of 7th-century-loving psychopaths is the day I start rooting for the terrorists.

[JohnGalt]

"If Americans let this become a problem for President Bush, they'll be responding to that challenge in the negative, in which case we'll all have problems far more severe than even you imagine. "

Do you really hate your country that much?

To be a patriot is to love the land of your fathers, warts, lefties, et al.

Is it unpatriotic to even ask questions of the intelligence reports?

[chichipow]

Thank you for the link.

"Click on the White House link I provided; there is blatantly misleading at the least 'stuff.'"

I understand that, but from the article link I posted and the excerpt I quoted, it seems the CIA felt Kamal's duplicity was clear. He spoke of cache's and how they were destroyed, but intelligence, for their own reasons, believed him to be part of the Saddam plan to 'out' anti-Saddam forces in his own ranks. It seems Kamal also felt that he could 'play' both sides and pick the winner. One was helping Saddam, one was telling the CIA bits and peices and being put in line as the next President of Iraq. Neither worked because the CIA saw through him, and he went back to Saddam. Problem is, Saddam is so paranoid (and apparently rightly so with guys like this surrounding you) that he killed Kamal upon his return from his disinfo campaign.

Do you read it a different way?

So essentially, the CIA believed in his account of WMD, but not their destruction. Saddam believed he(Kamal) was actually helping the CIA past the point he was supposed to (lie)so he then again began to destroy weapons. Kamal got assasinated for all of his troubles. The game he was in didn't go his way.

Bad intel post 9/11 through the present? Yes. Outright lying from the Bush Administration to go to war? I don't see it.

[norton]

Spent five years in 'the intelligence service' way back when and probably know more horror stories than you'd be able to take in.

However, it has always been so and will continue.

You take the best you have at hand and go with it...
'though it would be nice if some of the analysts were taken out and hanged every once in awhile. (random would be OK, no less precise than any other system)

At bottom, Iraq was a lesson, not an interdiction.

Premise was they'd not cooperated, UN was diddling itself, an active USA would provide an alert to others that the good old days were over.

It worked.

Wilson was a jerk.

How in the name of reason do you come up with "hawkish.." anyone favoring open borders??

[chichipow]

Norton,

What is your take on Kamal? The story I linked has been the only one I've found so far making this assertion (that he was playing both sides to further himself) and that the CIA knew this.

All of the other links are pundits and writers expressing their opinions about what others wrote. Am I wrong here, or did I read the article correctly?

Kamal gambled and lost, and the CIA believed his testimony only to the point of what he knew of each weapon (not that he destroyed them).

[norton]

Don't think you are wrong:
There is only so much original information available and everyone responds to what someone else said about that small sample.

As to defections and bogus defections:
Either a largely personal spat that caused him to run off and pout for awhile, telling our side what they wanted to hear. Or an actual plant who did not realize that silence really is golden and return to Iraq would be a mistake.
In either case, his judgement wasn't all that sound.

What many seem to ignore is that the major goal in intelligence is to VERIFY. Analysis of a single point is only good enough for an opinion. Lots of really good stuff languishes and dies because there is no second source found to confirm it. (Or because the only source was questionable)

Saddam's absolute refusal to give proof of the actions he was supposed to take, and knowldge that he had at ANY time been developing (using) these weapons made it impossible to verify anything. They worked to be sure verification was impossible; perhaps to keep up his tough guy image in the neighborhood?

That in my mind is sufficient to act on the many opinions and fears that surrounded Iraq's weaponry: a sane person would NOT have destroyed the weapons then stiff armed the inspectors and allowed the mystery to remain.

This, of course, assumes the kind of logic common to the west, from what we see in the news daily, that may be asking too much from the islamic world. Too bad, because we have to act on OUR logic rather than attempt to guess at theirs - unless it can be verified.