THE US, THE UN AND THE IRAQIS THEMSELVES, V. 7.0

Lord Butler of Brockwell will deliver his long-awaited verdict on the intelligence as the basis for going to war in Iraq on Wednesday. It comes just after the United States Intelligence Committee delivered its report, and, according to reports in the media so far, Tony Blair faces a difficult few days.

More than 16 months after the war began, we can be sure that there was, as the senate report identifies, serious intelligence failure. How else could it be when no evidence of any weapons, systems or programmes has been uncovered in that time?

The Prime Minister has made repeated assertions that everybody thought Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. This broad-brush approach - the crushing of caveated information and conditional tenses into something categoric - helped persuade the nation of the case for war and also misrepresented the bigger picture. It was writ large in the 2002 dossier, and in Mr Blair's foreword.

I recall a senior foreign intelligence analyst commenting on the dossier, "We think Saddam probably has chemical and biological weapons but we cannot prove it. We are not sure." This reflected the views of the Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS) experts, and was the basis of the dissent I recorded at the time.

Mr Blair dismissed my concerns as "hardly earth-shattering" - he chose to distil them into the difference between the words indicate and show - but they were much more significant than that might imply.

Of course, knowing what we know now would have made a case for war on the basis of Saddam's weapons capabilities a non-starter, so there is indeed a real question about the quality of intelligence. But, back in September 2002, had the executive summary been written in the way I suggest, it would have been much more difficult for the Prime Minister's foreword to make the positive assertions it did about Saddam's chemical and biological warfare capabilities and the threat they represented to Britain.

As for the impact of that exercise on the will of the British people, will Lord Butler address that on Wednesday?

Dr Brian Jones is a former head of the nuclear, chemical and biological branch of the Ministry of Defence's Defence Intelligence Staff

"taking care of themselves ithout a hell of a lot of help from anybody", Moishe?
You couldn't be more wrong on that score.
We send tons of money to Israel. That's A LOT of help. Israel maybe couldn't exist without the USA.
I agree with Mctag's theory, although I wonder why we go to such lengths. What are we getting out of it? Great pic, Gelisgeste!
CI, thanks for those headlines. Interesting indeed.

Actually, i would suggest that without the American alliance, Mubarek's days would be numbered. There is a real possibility that Egypt could go the way of Algeria, with a majority sentiment for Islamic government, and a self-indulgent westernized military sitting on the lid. In fact, the distinction between Egypt and Algeria in this regard is simply a matter of the degree of violence and violent repression. Don't forget what happend to "The Hero of the Crossing."

One of the first major diplomatic initiatives taken by Iraq after the fall of Hussein's government was to pay two decades of arrears to the Arab League. The Foreign Ministry said it had to pay $3.5 million when Zebari took Iraq's seat at the league headquarters in Cairo.

Although overshadowed by the United States even as it tries to resume one-on-one relations abroad, the Iraqi government has no plans to shift its long-standing Arab nationalist orientation and begin diplomatic relations with Israel, Janabai said. "That is certainly the last of our priorities," he added. "I don't think we are interested at the moment in having anything to do with a problem like that."

the difficult question for every war time president has been and continues to be: where shall we draw the line in our attempt to gain information that will save the lives of the innocent.

It is plain that the TMM (i.e., Terrorist Murderers and Maimers) plan to change our luck in extracting sufficient information in time. [..] Short of killing or maiming those homicidal maniacs, we should use force to cause them enough terror/pain/discomfort to tell us what we need to know to protect ourselves.

As I observed to Foxfyre, to inflict pain (but not murder or maiming) or not to inflict pain is a hellish tradeoff in these situations.

Newsweek reviewed the case files of 26 abused prisoners and found that half were common criminals, not terrorists. The hooded prisoner in the infamous "Statue of Liberty" picture was arrested for being a car thief, not an insurgent.

U.S. News has what may be the most comprehensive story on Iraqi-prisoner abuse to date. The magazine obtained all 106 annexes to Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba's report about Abu Ghraib prison. [..] Just as important [in the revelations], however, was the military's failure to prosecute earlier cases of abuse at Camp Bucca, a detention center in southern Iraq.

The documents, which run to several thousand pages, reveal that the violence at Abu Ghraib was the result of an unclear chain of command, poorly provisioned guards, unprepared commanders, and rogue intelligence officers, the magazine writes.

You really think so? What horrifying things had been happening in Iraq that are not currently happening in many other countries we are also not invading? There weren't any particular monstrosities occuring at that time in Iraq that were any worse than years and decades before that, were there? If so, what? What was Iraq doing at the time we attacked that stood out and demanded our being there when we were already warring in another country?

What was Iraq doing at the time we attacked that stood out and demanded our being there when we were already warring in another country?

First, ignoring the horror of Saddam's continuing murder of his own citizens, Saddam was providing financing, training facilities, and equipment to terrorists: most notably to Al Qaeda and Palestinian Terrorists in non-formal [unnecessary emoticon deleted] relationships. Secondly, he was providing (but not formally) [unnecessary emoticon deleted] sanctuary to some of those Al Qaeda who fled Afghanistan.

ican711nm wrote:

First, ignoring the horror of Saddam's continuing murder of his own citizens, Saddam was providing financing, training facilities, and equipment to terrorists: most notably to Al Qaeda and Palestinian Terrorists in non-formal [unnecessary emoticon deleted] relationships. Secondly, he was providing (but not formally) [unnecessary emoticon deleted] sanctuary to some of those Al Qaeda who fled Afghanistan.

There is not a shred of these specioius contentions for which you have provided credible evidence--and i doubt that you can.

As I've said before, I think the Abu G. and related prison abuses are reprehensible and inexcuseable; those responsible merit the full weight of all available legal sanction. Clearly, the issue is one of failed command, and that buck stops at Karpinski's desk, though some disparagement should be placed in the carreer files of her immediate superiors.