The US, UN & Iraq III

Tony Blair faces a fresh crisis over Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, as evidence emerges that two vehicles that he has repeatedly claimed to be Iraqi mobile biological warfare production units are nothing of the sort.

The intelligence agency MI6, British defence officers and technical experts from the Porton Down microbiological research establishment have been ordered to conduct an urgent review of the mobile facilities, following US analysis which casts serious doubt on whether they really are germ labs.

The British review comes amid widespread doubts expressed by scientists on both sides of the Atlantic that the trucks could have been used to make biological weapons.
Instead The Observer has established that it is increasingly likely that the units were designed to be used for hydrogen production to fill artillery balloons, part of a system originally sold to Saddam by Britain in 1987.

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Blatham, excellent post.

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Blatham: hear, hear! Very Happy

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Oh, George, I don't understand what you're saying at all, and further, I suspect you're playing with words to get out of an untenable situation. Roosevelt's deception? Totally different. Look at what had already happened. Hitler, needing no defense, marched into other countries and took them over militarily (before we got there). There were other countries already involved in fighting him. Our help was wanted by other countries, but our Congress resisted, which led to the "deception," which led to our entry into the European War. The Pacfic one, of course, was precipitated by other events.

In other words, we joined a war that had already been started by a military pre-emptive strike (Hitler), and that was already entered into by more than a few nations. In WW II many nations fought together to defeat a common enemy, and there was a common cause.

In this case, GB joined us, and Australia. We had to go looking for a "coalition," and they were difficult to find. And this time so many joined the chorus against us that it was disheartening. There was no common cause. There still isn't.

On deception - a big difference this time is that after this grand and glorious war of liberation against Iraq, the WH is still tring to deceive, and also to defend itself against ever stronger accusations of deception. And it has few if any co-defendants.

I thought among the republicans that lying was lying - after all, wasn't that the biggest accusation against Clinton? The lying? There is no big cause here - nothing to point to as a war of honor. And it's hard to pretend it's defensive when you're the aggressor. There are so many good books out about WW II. Barbara Tuchman authored several. There's no comparison at all between the actions of these two presidents when you start to study the history.

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Blatham, Tartarin, and Mamajuana have all explicitly or implicitly stated that Roosevelt's repeated deceptions in 1940 were excusable by virtue of the circumstances surrounding the conflict then developing. In this case all justified the lies on the basis of the relatively greater merits of the United States joining Britain and Russia in the fight against Germany and Britain against Japan. (For Tartarin, this means ends justifying means.)

All have asserted that the circumstances of 1940 and 2003 are not comparable by virtue of a war already ongoing and unprovoked attacks already made by Germany and presumably Japan on their neighbors.

However, that the circumstances may not be comparable is not relevent to the questions; "Is deliberate deception on the part of political leaders justifiable for entering a war ?", or "Does the fact of deception on the part of political leaders make the resulting war immoral ?". All asserted that deception in such cases can sometimes be justifiable, and that the fact of deception does not necessarily make a resulting war immoral. Clearly they don't think the deceptions of which they accuse Bush are justified, and they have repeatedly suggested the Iraq war was immoral.

I believe the Iraq war was entirely justified for reasons I have already elaborated on this thread. I don't yet know if the Bush administration deceived in this matter, however it seems plausible that the dialogue in the Security Council may have led them to exaggerate, knowingly or otherwise. If the war is justified by those arguments, then the deception, if it was that, doesn't matter.

Accusing someone of lying, even on threads such as this, is, however, a serious matter. I hope that Tartarin's statement to that effect was not deliberate.

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This is from a post about 25 pages back

georgeob1 wrote:

Arab states are endorsing public statements denouncing terrorism directed at Israel and are cooperating in the roadmap process. Israel is responding to the first ever clear demands from the United State that she withdraw from the settlements in the West Bank. North Korea has agreed to multilateral talks with her regional neighbors, including China, which for the first time has acknowledged her interests (if not responsibilities) in the matter. Japan has made its security concerns clear enough to get the serious attention of China. South Korea is beginning to shed its delusions concerning its own responsibilities. The fundamentalist wing of the Iranian government is increasingly in its own defensive crouch with respect to its own internal opposition which is motivated by a desire for greater political freedom and ,in the international community, with respect to its weapons development and support for terrorism. The Saudi government is being made to face the contradictions between its wealth, autocratic rule and its support for Whabbi Islamic fanaticism.

All of this is directly tracable to our firm policy with respect to Iraq,

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And another even more relevant

georgeob1 wrote:

... a comprehensive description of the situation. I doubt that it will satisfy those who are focused on the failure to find WMD, to the exclusion of other factors. However it is clear enough that, as a result of our intervention;
The prospects for long-term stability in the Gulf region are much improved;
The potential for a significant breakthrough in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict has at last been achieved;
A shock has been administered to Arab governments that may cause some to recalculate both their internal policies with respect to Islamic fundamentalism and their external relations with the West;
Our dependence on a failing regime in Saudi arabia is lessened;
Our leverage with respect to North Korea and Iran is greatly increased;
A dangerous real or potential source of funds and weapons to terrorist movements has been eliminated;
And a cruel tyrant has been removed from the backs of the Iraqi people.

That is not a bad return for our effort.

It is difficult to conceive that (1) Saddam would knowingly fail to promptly and fully satisfy the UN inspectors if he knew he was free of WMD and in compliance with Security Council resolutions; and (2) that even a "neo-con" U.S. administration would knowingly falsify intelligence and make assertions about WMD that it knew were false and that would inevitably become public knowledge. These absurd contradictions, of course, don't prove anything. It is entirely possible, perhaps even likely, that some administration figures became victims of their own expectations in analysing the intelligence data. If so this is a serious fault.

Deception and dissimulation are fundamental elements of statecraft. We should not become too exorcised over them. President Roosevelt campaigned on a promise to stay out of WWII in 1940, even as he conspired with Churchill to get us in the fight and even as he ordered U.S. Naval vessels to attack German submarines on sight in the Atlantic.

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There is a saying in the Marines ..... '**** rolls downhill'.
I have a really good feeling that this time, it will roll up hill.

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/6038586.htm

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georgeob1 wrote:

"Is deliberate deception on the part of political leaders justifiable for entering a war ?"

No, it is not. And to suggest that the United States entered the second world war because of a deliberate deception is going to be challenged--by me, at least--simply because you know too much to say such a thing. You can make any case you want about Roosevelt's deceptions, and the postures of the United States Navy and Coast Guard in the Atlantic in 1940 and 1941, but a simple fact will remain. Roosevelt did not go before the public and the Congress to willfully deceive them for the purpose of gaining authorization for a pre-emptive war. Characterize events however you would like, these simply are not analogous cases. The best defense that a defender of Bush can make here, is that he was sincere, but that he was deceived himself--the kind of crap Nixon failed to pull off with regard to CREEP, and which Reagan used as a defense in Iran/Contra. Make that case, and it makes it seem that your boy is not in charge, not able to control his advisors, not able to make sound judgments on the material presented him. Not a good recommendation for someone who is to be the commander in chief of the most powerful military in the world.

Quite apart from all of that, i think you're stooping to a level here which is usually much beneath the level of your dignity, given what you do know of history. "Oh yeah, well, Wilson did it, Roosevelt did it." Leaving aside that it is not historically true that these cases are analogous, that has a very childish ring to it. I can just hear Barbara Bush now: "Well, George, if all the other world leaders set off thermonuclear devices in their largest cities, i suppose you think you'd have to do it too?"

Quote:

"Does the fact of deception on the part of political leaders make the resulting war immoral ?"

Adding "morality" to the question is rather disgusting, in my view. Nations always have had pragmatic reasons to justify their wars, or claimed to have had--and a proper respect for international law requires that a case be made in advance, and diplomatic means exhausted first. I personally believe that people ought to have an individual ethos which guides them, it is to be hoped, in living with decency and honesty toward others in society. The notion of "morality" elicits a sneer from me every time. Those who pound the morality drum most loudly are often those least likely to live up to their own standards. Such types of people (in which i am not necessarily including you) frequently jump all over the least infractions of others, but go into a flurry of special pleading if it seems they will be accused themselves. Morality implies a universal standard. But it gets so bothersome when one is obliged to attempt to wear a shoe one has forced upon others in the past. I won't go into the hypocricy of Republicans towards Clinton's pathetic peccadiloes, which were meaningless on the international stage other than to make the U.S. look like the tight-assed Sunday school teacher types the Europeans love to hate. Were one to apply a universal moral standard, than either the Shrub is a liar on a vastly greater scale than poor Slick Willy ever dreamed of, or he is too incompetent to manage an administration composed of the liars he appointed. Either way, it's not lookin' good for the spoiled little rich boy from Connecticutt--sorry, Texas--that's the image they promote, right? Country boy from Texas?

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George: Those are two very good posts, I read them as very hopeful and a little naive. Recall that that same dissimulation and deception that you are so enamored of when practiced by the Bush administration can be just as easily practiced by any or all of the parties you mentioned. Having not yet suffered a significant counter-attack to our recent actions, both these seem a bit like whistling past the graveyard, but each day brings us some new possibility, doesn't it? Let's hope you are right, that in the face of what seems to be an American administration that will not see any other solution other than what they have offered, the factions around the world will get up this morning and as one say "Of course, why didn't we see this before?" and apply themselves to getting in line with the USA.

BTW We're still waiting.
Tar wrote:

Quote:

While you're at it, I'd like to hear from you which specific lies Bush told about Iraq you believe to be defensible -- and how you would defend them.

And on a side note to this discussion but one that doesn't seem to come up often, reports yesterday and from the IFAD (International Fund for Agricultural Development) for the past five years, say that more than half of the world's people live in abject poverty, that worldwide unemployment, like that of the US, is at it's highest levels in decades. For most of the world's people life has little joy. Working long days on end in order to just survive, more than half of the world sees not the vast workings of governments, but seeks only to feed their children and to find some place to sleep out of the weather.
Just something
to add to our equations,
as we sit this morning,
at our flickering screens,
in our well kept houses,
while our children and spouses sleep,
and
we solve the world's problems
then sip our coffee.

Joe

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Setanta wrote:

georgeob1 wrote:
"Is deliberate deception on the part of political leaders justifiable for entering a war ?"

No, it is not. And to suggest that the United States entered the second world war because of a deliberate deception is going to be challenged--by me, at least--simply because you know too much to say such a thing. You can make any case you want about Roosevelt's deceptions, and the postures of the United States Navy and Coast Guard in the Atlantic in 1940 and 1941, but a simple fact will remain. Roosevelt did not go before the public and the Congress to willfully deceive them for the purpose of gaining authorization for a pre-emptive war. Characterize events however you would like, these simply are not analogous cases.

I suppose Setanta has answered a question here. Unfortunately it is not the question which I posed and he quoted. It is true that Roosevelt did not "...go before the public and the Congress to willfully deceive them for the purpose of gaining authorization for a pre-emptive war." (I made no reference to preemption in the very clear question I posed.) However it is also true that Roosevelt campaigned in 1940 on a neutrality platform, and presented legislation based on it, which he was already violating and which, based on the historical record, including his communications with Churchill, he had no intention of pursuing. That he deliberately and knowingly deceived the American public and the Congress, over an extended period of time, about both his intentions and his actions as President concerning our potential entry into the war, is beyond doubt and clearly established in the historical record.

It was deception and it was deliberate, it directly related to the question of our entry into the was, and it was justified. QED.

It would also be interesting to review the record of Bush Administration statements preceding and relating to the Congressional authorization for military intervention in Iraq. At the time it was enacted the focus was not nearly so great on WMD as it became during the Security Council process which came much later.

I raised both the deception and the morality questions only because I had grown weary of the shrill (and hypocritical) chorus here about the assumed deception and the "immorality"of the war. The game of national strategy is too serious and too important to be based on such loose distinctions, vague concepts, and emotional reactions.

It is not yet clear that the Administration knowingly deceived anyone, 'tho that is possible. I believe there are compelling strategic arguments for the U.S. intervention in Iraq, which, at least in my mind, more than fully justify our actions. While it is certainly true that the promised benefits of the intervention will take time to play out and the outcomes will necessarily remain uncertain, the alternative scenario, which few here appear willing to discuss, was very dark indeed.

Political leaders must make their choices based on what history offers them. Contemplated actions must be weighed against their alternatives. The available choices don't always comfortably fit the after-the-fact morality that is being applied here.

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We probably need to review the relationships between lying, not telling the truth, and covert activities. And between the notions of morality imposed by religious interests, and those imposed by our secular law.

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george

Perhaps we ought to formulate the situation this way:

1) Deception by the Bush administration, if it happened, is justified by the facts of world in 2002-3.

2) We know what those facts are because the Bush administration has told us what they are.

Does that formulation work for you? I'm happy with it.

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george

When you have an hour or so, print out and look at this piece by Hoffman... http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16350

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Blatham, but ...but .... but .... but

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Blatham,

My judgements are based on the facts as I know them and interpreted as I am able based on thought and my experiences. No I don't propose that anyone accept as fact things merely because some political leader - of any stripe - says so.

You already know my evaluation of the matter at hand. I agree with Bush's actions and put more weight on them than on his words.

If it turns out that the analysis on which I make my judgements, you make yours, or the Administration, theirs is not borne out by the unfolding facts then one can cite error as may be appropriate. It isn't possible for any party to PROVE the validity of any approach based on the information now available. That is just a fact of life and history.

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george, Under your reasoning, it means that how you relate with your spouse and family should not be based on anything you say, but on your actions. I find that a difficult way to relate with anybody - family or friend - or even enemy. c.i.

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Washington Post, this morning:

Quote:

Bush Certainty On Iraq Arms Went Beyond Analysts' Views

....Cheney kicked off the administration's campaign to win congressional and U.N. support for military action in a speech on Aug. 26 to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Nashville. "Simply stated," Cheney said, "there's no doubt that [Iraqi President] Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction."
Before his Rose Garden statement in late September, Bush had used more measured language about Iraq's chemical weapons program, in line with the Defense Intelligence Agency conclusion.
At the United Nations on Sept. 12, when he urged the world body to join the United States in confronting Iraq, Bush said that previous U.N. inspections revealed "that Iraq likely maintains stockpiles of VX, mustard and other chemical agents."
But on Sept. 26, as the campaign to win congressional and U.N. Security Council approval for military action intensified, the president told congressional leaders Iraq "possesses" such weapons. On the same day, Rumsfeld told reporters that Iraq has "active development programs for those weapons, and has weaponized chemical and biological weapons."
On Oct. 1, the CIA released a "white paper" on Iraq's weapons programs derived from a broader, classified National Intelligence Estimate that had been sent to the White House and shared with members of Congress in briefings.
Among the "Key Judgments" in the first two pages of the National Intelligence Estimate that were meant to summarize the details that followed were statements in the white paper that "Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons," and "Baghdad has begun renewed production of chemical warfare agents, probably including mustard, sarin, cyclosarin and VX."
However, the more detailed backup material later in the document did not support those assessments. The intelligence paper contained more qualified language, stating, for example, that "gaps in Iraqi accounting and current production capabilities strongly suggest Iraq has the ability to produce chemical warfare agents within its chemical industry." It also said Iraq "has the ability to produce chemical warfare agents" -- a softer formulation than the summary section of the document, which said that Iraq "has begun" producing the agents.
On Oct. 7, Bush echoed without qualification the white paper's "key judgment" conclusion when he said that Iraq "possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons." He went on to say, "Saddam Hussein has chosen to build and keep these weapons despite international sanctions, U.N. demands, and isolation from the civilized world."
Asked about the president's comments on the Iraq intelligence yesterday, Fleischer said: "Intelligence comes in the form of a mosaic. The president's description of the complete picture resulted from an interagency process in which every statement was vetted and approved by each agency."
A senior administration official, who consulted with analysts familiar with the white paper, said the document's judgments "were a bit more categorical" than later statements "but the overall burden of the evidence pointed to that conclusion." He added that the president's statements were "based on the preponderance of the evidence" as he and policymakers saw it.
Throughout the run-up to war, according to senior intelligence officials, intelligence agencies had no direct evidence such as photographs or stolen Iraqi documents to support a firm conclusion about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. They said the case was circumstantial, largely because U.N. weapons inspectors had left Iraq in 1998, shutting off the last bit of direct knowledge available to the United States. Inspectors returned last November and remained in Iraq until March.
Some officials have said privately that, while they could influence the content of intelligence documents, they had no control over what administration policymakers said in interpreting the material.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26487-2003Jun6.html

Quote:

Some Iraq Analysts Felt Pressure From Cheney Visits...Vice President Cheney and his most senior aide made multiple trips to the CIA over the past year to question analysts studying Iraq's weapons programs and alleged links to al Qaeda, creating an environment in which some analysts felt they were being pressured to make their assessments fit with the Bush administration's policy objectives, according to senior intelligence officials.
With Cheney taking the lead in the administration last August in advocating military action against Iraq by claiming it had weapons of mass destruction, the visits by the vice president and his chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, "sent signals, intended or otherwise, that a certain output was desired from here," one senior agency official said yesterday...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15019-2003Jun4.html

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Blatham -- Maybe you're being ironic, but if not, I disagree profoundly. Ends justifying means only works in extremis.

Bush had the opportunity to say to us and to the world: We believe Saddam has extremely dangerous weapons which could be used against us and other countries. We can't prove it. However, in the current climate of terrorism, we can't afford to wait for all the dots to be connected. We believe the most responsible action will be to invade Iraq and make sure any WMD's are destroyed.

That not only would have gotten him considerably more support from the int'l community, it would have convinced most of us that something serious was happening and that he was willing to take a chance on serious action.

What has happened, however, is that he prevaricated, shifted, covered up. Why? Why, when he could have admitted uncertainty and done it straight? Could it be that he knew Iraq didn't have and/or didn't plan to use WMD's against us? Could it be that his reasons for going into Iraq were quite different and so at variance with the values of this country that he couldn't risk full discussion of his plans before he carried them out? We need to ask ourselves what he has accomplished by going into Iraq which would not have been condoned by his constituents and our international friends.

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can someone please explain to me how small countries that "might" have wmd can be justifiably attacked and the attackers can be superpowers with the most wmd in the world and get off free? I'm sorry I'm naive... but no one's ever explained the difference to be between Iraq WMD and US WMD (not to mention russia WMD or whatever).

Sorry just the quick question, enjoying reading, cheers!

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The US, UN & Iraq III

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