Comments on: Unchangeable minds

By: Conrad Barwa

Conrad Barwa — Wed, 04 Feb 2004 18:28:12 +0000

John S, Okay, there are two basic issues here. (i) did Iraq have WMD and (ii) was there a credible threat that they would use them to threaten the UK/USA. Now to prove (ii) there was a lot of smoke and not much else, links between Al Qaeda and the SH regime didn’t materialise so this goes out the window. Now we have (I) which is to do with simple possession of WMD – as I have mentioned before I think from any realistic POV only nuclear capability is the real threat as it can change the strategic equations between states quite rapidly and significantly. The point about the VX claim was this: it was said be Blair in a televised debate where he was seeking to convince the public that such a threat and weapons did indeed exist, it was meant to be the outcome of a balanced assessment at a time when we knew different people were saying different things – after all Ritter, Ekeus, the IISS and the CIA all felt that any credible stocks had either been destroyed or past their usable dates and you can check out Rangwala’s full statement on this issue made in April 2003 here: http://middleeastreference.org.uk/latw020404.html With different experts saying different things – surely some caution and more time would have been needed, rather than the evangelical faith Blair had that Iraq indeed did possess these WMD. Moreover as we know any attempts to prove (ii) didn’t go anywhere and there was no reason to think that Iraq had suddenly posed so much of a greater threat than it did a few months back. If SH was planning some sort of pre-emptive strike against the UK or Europe I could have understood the rush to war – as it was Senior intelligence officials – outraged at the abuse of their work – clearly told the BBC that the original mention of a 45-minutes response time referred to the length of time it might have taken the Iraqis to fuel and fire a Scud missile, or to load and fire a multiple rocket launcher. The original intelligence said nothing about whether Iraq possessed the chemical or biological weapons to use in these weapons. The government had turned a purely hypothetical threat into something else entirely. I am a bit puzzled about all this need to run over ground that has been covered in the run up to the war; are you really telling me that Blair genuinely took a completely balanced account of the case, that the govt didn’t try and influence the evidence available in any direction, that there was no desire whatsoever to find a case for war? Amazing.

By: john s

john s — Wed, 04 Feb 2004 15:32:14 +0000

But Conrad, it wasn’t Blair who said “information that conflicts with this account”, it was Hans Blix, in February 2003. David Kelly may have been sceptical about the 45 minute claim, but he seemed to think Saddam had a WMD programme and was a danger. Surely, you’ll admit he knew something about this issue too?

By: Conrad Barwa

Conrad Barwa — Wed, 04 Feb 2004 12:52:11 +0000

John S, The point is that Blair used an out of date intelligence report that he knew was out of date; Rangwala has categorically said that there was no UNMOVIC information to the contrary – suspicions yes, “information that conflicts with this account” no. Since Rangwala is an academic who has studied these things as being part of his field and since he was also the one that exposed the dossier which had plagiarised a Master’s student’s out of date thesis and dressed it up as current intell info I am thinking the score is currently Rangwala – 1, Blair govt – 0. Given this track record (and track record is what we are told, sooo important) I would be rather reluctant to believe Blair over Rangwala and then to accuse Rangwala of lying considering he has already caught the admin peddling dodgy information once before and then trying to deny it. I don’ think this an unreasonable position to take; in anycase it is just a mere part of the broader problem. Blair said quite categorically that invasion of Iraq was out of the question unless some links of being behind the WTC attacks could be proved; no such evidence appeared and the rationale shifted over to WMD as the pretext for war. Either Blair is somewhat unhinged, or he lied at one of these stages; I incline towards the latter.

By: john s

john s — Wed, 04 Feb 2004 09:00:34 +0000

Conrad, Blair lied about VX? Hans Blix was still worrying about Iraqi VX in February 2003. In his report to the security council then, he said “The nerve agent VX is one of the most toxic ever developed. Iraq has declared that it only produced VX on a pilot scale, just a few tonnes and that the quality was poor and the product unstable…UNMOVIC, however, has information that conflicts with this account.” Maybe Rangwala is the one who’s playing fast and loose with the truth?

By: BF

BF — Wed, 04 Feb 2004 03:31:26 +0000

Another face of experience: Transcript of Kay’s Opening Statements The following is the statement former U.S. Weapons Inspector David Kay made to the Senate committee before questioning: KAY: As you know and we discussed, I do not have a written statement. This hearing came about very quickly. I do have a few preliminary comments, but I suspect you’re more interested in asking questions, and I’ll be happy to respond to those questions to the best of my ability. I would like to open by saying that the talent, dedication and bravery of the staff of the [Iraq Survey Group] that was my privilege to direct is unparalleled and the country owes a great debt of gratitude to the men and women who have served over there and continue to serve doing that. A great deal has been accomplished by the team, and I do think … it important that it goes on and it is allowed to reach its full conclusion. In fact, I really believe it ought to be better resourced and totally focused on WMD; that that is important to do it. But I also believe that it is time to begin the fundamental analysis of how we got here, what led us here and what we need to do in order to ensure that we are equipped with the best possible intelligence as we face these issues in the future. Let me begin by saying, we were almost all wrong, and I certainly include myself here. Sen. [Edward] Kennedy knows very directly. Senator Kennedy and I talked on several occasions prior to the war that my view was that the best evidence that I had seen was that Iraq indeed had weapons of mass destruction. I would also point out that many governments that chose not to support this war — certainly, the French president, [Jacques] Chirac, as I recall in April of last year, referred to Iraq’s possession of WMD. The Germans certainly — the intelligence service believed that there were WMD. It turns out that we were all wrong, probably in my judgment, and that is most disturbing. We’re also in a period in which we’ve had intelligence surprises in the proliferation area that go the other way. The case of Iran, a nuclear program that the Iranians admit was 18 years on, that we underestimated. And, in fact, we didn’t discover it. It was discovered by a group of Iranian dissidents outside the country who pointed the international community at the location. The Libyan program recently discovered was far more extensive than was assessed prior to that. There’s a long record here of being wrong. There’s a good reason for it. There are probably multiple reasons. Certainly proliferation is a hard thing to track, particularly in countries that deny easy and free access and don’t have free and open societies. In my judgment, based on the work that has been done to this point of the Iraq Survey Group, and in fact, that I reported to you in October, Iraq was in clear violation of the terms of [U.N.] Resolution 1441. Resolution 1441 required that Iraq report all of its activities — one last chance to come clean about what it had. We have discovered hundreds of cases, based on both documents, physical evidence and the testimony of Iraqis, of activities that were prohibited under the initial U.N. Resolution 687 and that should have been reported under 1441, with Iraqi testimony that not only did they not tell the U.N. about this, they were instructed not to do it and they hid material. I think the aim — and certainly the aim of what I’ve tried to do since leaving — is not political and certainly not a witch hunt at individuals. It’s to try to direct our attention at what I believe is a fundamental fault analysis that we must now examine. And let me take one of the explanations most commonly given: Analysts were pressured to reach conclusions that would fit the political agenda of one or another administration. I deeply think that is a wrong explanation. As leader of the effort of the Iraqi Survey Group, I spent most of my days not out in the field leading inspections. It’s typically what you do at that level. I was trying to motivate, direct, find strategies. In the course of doing that, I had innumerable analysts who came to me in apology that the world that we were finding was not the world that they had thought existed and that they had estimated. Reality on the ground differed in advance. And never — not in a single case — was the explanation, “I was pressured to do this.” The explanation was very often, “The limited data we had led one to reasonably conclude this. I now see that there’s another explanation for it.” And each case was different, but the conversations were sufficiently in depth and our relationship was sufficiently frank that I’m convinced that, at least to the analysts I dealt with, I did not come across a single one that felt it had been, in the military term, “inappropriate command influence” that led them to take that position. It was not that. It was the honest difficulty based on the intelligence that had — the information that had been collected that led the analysts to that conclusion. And you know, almost in a perverse way, I wish it had been undue influence because we know how to correct that. We get rid of the people who, in fact, were exercising that. The fact that it wasn’t tells me that we’ve got a much more fundamental problem of understanding what went wrong, and we’ve got to figure out what was there. And that’s what I call fundamental fault analysis. And like I say, I think we’ve got other cases other than Iraq. I do not think the problem of global proliferation of weapons technology of mass destruction is going to go away, and that’s why I think it is an urgent issue. And let me really wrap up here with just a brief summary of what I think we are now facing in Iraq. I regret to say that I think at the end of the work of the [Iraq Survey Group] there’s still going to be an unresolvable ambiguity about what happened. A lot of that traces to the failure on April 9 to establish immediately physical security in Iraq — the unparalleled looting and destruction, a lot of which was directly intentional, designed by the security services to cover the tracks of the Iraq WMD program and their other programs as well, a lot of which was what we simply called Ali Baba looting. “It had been the regime’s. The regime is gone. I’m going to go take the gold toilet fixtures and everything else imaginable.” I’ve seen looting around the world and thought I knew the best looters in the world. The Iraqis excel at that. The result is — document destruction — we’re really not going to be able to prove beyond a truth the negatives and some of the positive conclusions that we’re going to come to. There will be always unresolved ambiguity here. But I do think the survey group — and I think Charlie Duelfer is a great leader. I have the utmost confidence in Charles. I think you will get as full an answer as you can possibly get. And let me just conclude by my own personal tribute, both to the president and to [CIA Director] George Tenet, for having the courage to select me to do this, and my successor, Charlie Duelfer, as well. Both of us are known for probably at times regrettable streak of independence. I came not from within the administration, and it was clear and clear in our discussions and no one asked otherwise that I would lead this the way I thought best and I would speak the truth as we found it. I have had absolutely no pressure prior, during the course of the work at the [Iraq Survey Group], or after I left to do anything otherwise. I think that shows a level of maturity and understanding that I think bodes well for getting to the bottom of this. But it is really up to you and your staff, on behalf of the American people, to take on that challenge. It’s not something that anyone from the outside can do. So I look forward to these hearings and other hearings at how you will get to the conclusions. I do believe we have to understand why reality turned out to be different than expectations and estimates. But you have more public service — certainly many of you — than I have ever had, and you recognize that this is not unusual. I told Sen. [John] Warner [chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee] earlier that I’ve been drawn back as a result of recent film of reminding me of something. At the time of the Cuban missile crisis, the combined estimate was unanimity in the intelligence service that there were no Soviet warheads in Cuba at the time of the missile crisis. Fortunately, President Kennedy and [then-Attorney General] Robert Kennedy disagreed with the estimate and chose a course of action less ambitious and aggressive than recommended by their advisers. But the most important thing about that story, which is not often told, is that as a result after the Cuban missile crisis, immediate steps were taken to correct our inability to collect on the movement of nuclear material out of the Soviet Union to other places. So that by the end of the Johnson administration, the intelligence community had a capability to do what it had not been able to do at the time of the Cuban missile crisis. I think you face a similar responsibility in ensuring that the community is able to do a better job in the future than it has done in the past.

By: BF

BF — Wed, 04 Feb 2004 02:44:41 +0000

“The fact that the contrary belief prevailed for so long is testament to the power of faith in the face of experience” Thank you cbk for providing a glimpse of the real face of experience.

By: cbk

cbk — Wed, 04 Feb 2004 01:02:18 +0000

From an Iraqi Blogger Monday, February 02, 2004 Five gallons of gasoline. Oh my god what a fool I was. Yes, I realized this just lately, although I had my doubts but I was blinded by some facts and now thanks to some good friends of the Iraqi people, I’ve opened my eyes to see the naked truth. For the 1st time I realize what a big lie I’ve been living in for the last 9 months and the worst thing is that it was me who made that lie and believed it so much that I accepted no other opinion. The whole world was telling me to wake up and get real, have some brains and try to find the truth. They offered me several evidences that leave no doubt that I was living a lie, but I was so stubborn and I apologize for it. For 9 months I’ve thought that things were OK, that America did the right thing, we got rid of S.H. and his killing machine, that I’m happy, free and dreaming of a better future. Thanks to all the true friends of the Iraqi people, I began to have some doubts and began asking myself real questions and day by day my doubts grew bigger and bigger then I tried to do what I was afraid of during these 9 months. I decided to re-evaluate everything I see and compare it with what it was before the war. So, one morning I walked down the streets as usual heading to the hospital were I work, but this time my eyes were open and I was very attentive to all that surrounds me: The 1st thing that struck me was that all the pictures of Saddam were gone, now of course I’ve noticed that before but I didn’t think about it seriously, I mean NOBODY asked me whether I liked it or not, besides who did this? Was it the Iraqi people? Impossible, Iraqis loved Saddam (the whole media can’t lie) was it the Americans? I think if they had spent their time removing his pictures they would’ve been in Nassireah right now. So I came to the conclusion that there must be a conspiracy behind this, and don’t ask me what conspiracy and who conspired and why, it’s a conspiracy and that’s it. -The second thing that annoyed me was that NO policeman or security guard or American soldier bothered to ask me where I was heading, where did I came from and didn’t even ask for an I.D. I checked my wallet and I found that I wasn’t carrying any, and in fact I haven’t carried an I.D. since the 9th of April, while prior to that I used to carry 2 or 3 I.D. cards (including the military service certificate) and still I would check my wallet every now and then to make sure that I haven’t forgot or lost any on the road. I mean seriously what is a man without an I.D.? -Another distressing incident came as I went to buy a newspaper, I found dozens of strange Iraqi newspapers and magazines and more foreign ones ( the total number of Iraqi newspapers till now is 132) instead of the 10 that were all owned by the government before the war, and I said ”what a mess! Who am I supposed to believe now? How can I tell which one of these is telling the truth?” and only for my further disappointment I read a title of the new Iraqi army celebrating the graduation of 700 volunteers! Now what? Aren’t we going to fight anymore (I mean a real war)? What a waste, we had only the chance to go through 3 major wars in the last 23 years and there are still many enemies that we haven’t taught a lesson yet. -Another depressing news was that there will be no more public executions, what am I talking about, there will be no executions at all, can you believe it? There are no more action or amusement! -Finally I got to work and there I didn’t find a large difference although I missed those sensational moments when a child dies simply due to the lack of cheap medications and his mother’s cries and the reporters from all over the world who were always around would rush in to get a good shot and make a smashing report about the effects of the sanctions. Things are now very boring, we just treat people and a lot of them even get well! -Then a friend of mine told me that it was payment day and when I got my salary, they gave me these strange banknotes with no pictures of any Iraqi president. I remember well, and I said it here before, that my salary was around 17$ a month before the war. This time they gave me 200 thousand Iraqi Dinars which if divided by the current exchange rate (which is now 1330 ID for each US$) will be about 150 $ and what was worse is that they confirmed a raise has been approved to make that 300$ starting from the next month with possible raises in the future. And I saw clearly what that meant, they are bribing us! yes, I’m not an idiot! they’re going to steal our oil, and they can say they’re giving the money back to us and that they even assigned billions of dollars to build Iraq and push many countries to cut down the Iraqi debts, but WE are still the ones who are going to lose, and don’t ask me how, because I’ll be damned if I knew the answer. -On the other hand before the war, Saddam gave us nearly nothing at even better times than these. Still he didn’t steal the oil, he kept the funds safe in his pocket. And what if he used some to enjoy himself and his family? It’s his right by birth, and what if he made some gifts to the good friends of the Iraqi people like George Gallaway, Bernarde Merime or Jackie… Oops, sorry, the last one is just a rumor. -And more and more, the long lines at the gas stations, the high prices for kerosiune are all gone and back to normal, and the only things that were left to remind of the (good old days) were the ruins and garbage here and there. But they were also(sadly) being, although slowely, removed and rebuilt . But then I heard an explosion and gave a sigh of relief and thanked my Muslim brothers “ at last, a sound from the past” What an ignorant I was to think that it was OK and again thank you CNN, BBC, AlJazeera, Mr. Dean, Mr. Cherac and our dear Arab and Muslim leaders for showing me the truth, and I’m not talking about the silly things I have mentioned. I’m talking about the most important fact: You made me realize that freedom doesn’t worth waiting for hours to get 5 gallons of gasoline, and 10 hours of power shortage a day (even if it was temporarily). in fact you showed me that freedom means NOTHING to me. Thank you for showing me that I was born to be a slave and that I enjoyed getting down on my knees in front of my master whoever he was (and there was no one better than Saddam to bow to). I loved kissing the ground he walks on, and I adored his way of insulting, raping, torturing and killing Iraqis everyday. A friend has asked me never to use the 4 letter word (and it’s not my style to do so), sorry Scott but I can’t help not saying For all those who tried to show me how I should feel: Even if I was wrong (and I’m sure I’M not)To hell with oil, to hell with power supply and F***YOU ALL. GWB MADE THE RIGHT DECISION AND AMERICA DID THE RIGHT THING AND WE ARE FREEEEEEEEEE! -By Ali. http://iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/archives/2004_02_01_iraqthemodel_archive.html#107573858721557072

By: Conrad Barwa

Conrad Barwa — Wed, 04 Feb 2004 00:12:45 +0000

what did they lie about Conrad? Leaving aside the domestic stuff – which lets face all politicians lie about from time to time. I would say that what annoyed me most about Blair and to a lesser extent Bush was the whole thing about linking the SH regime to Al Qaeda and the WTC attacks. I mean if any such links could be proved or established then war would really be the serious course of action; and while lot of arm-waving went on there was little if any really credible evidence. What really made me lose any shred of belief in Blair was when he said (I think it was just after the successful completion of the Afghan campaign) that there was no question of attacking Iraq unless such a link could be proven. This turned a few months later into the whol song and dance about WMD – which is even more ridicolous since this led to more deception. Glen Rangwala exposed one of Blair’s more blatant ones after his little televised debate with a cross-section of the public to convince them of a pro-war case; Blair referred to SH’s “far reaching plans to weaponise VX” which Rangwala traced back to an old Unmovic report which had stated that any such VX would have become useless by 1991 and what was left over was destroyed.

By: John S

John S — Tue, 03 Feb 2004 21:56:12 +0000

Thanks for your apology Malcolm. It was totally unnecessary but very nice. And I apologise in turn. Mine’s not for bad faith but for teasing you. I did understand your point about context, but I don’t see what that context is and I don’t see why that context (whatever it is) makes action against Saddam wrong today but perfectly ok against Hitler. What’s different? I take your point about the $87 billion cost of war and AIDs, but I probably wouldn’t if I were Iraqi.

By: malcolm

malcolm — Tue, 03 Feb 2004 18:33:52 +0000

You missed my point, John S. The comment about taking ones children to the park was not an analogy for the Iraq war. It was a somewhat tangential demonstration of the truism that context must play a role in any moral considerations. I would have thought that the preceding sentence would have made this clear, and that it was obvious that the following paragraph was meant to be an application of this principle. If not, I apologize. I should warn you, however, that your absurd comment about World War II as well as your failure to even address the less truistic part of my argument (ie, the paragraph which succeeds the one you quoted) suggests that your response was at least partly in bad faith.

By: BF

BF — Tue, 03 Feb 2004 18:00:02 +0000

“Well, yes, aside from unilateraly abandoning said agreement (after which NK said it was reactivating their nuke program) because the agreement didn’t play well with the Tom Clancy crowd here at home. Yep, that unilateralism.” gmt – the uranium enrichment program started during the Clinton years. You don’t need me because you have Fox news? Well we also have Galloway, so we don’t need you either… What’s with this page? You all think your reasoning will be better received if you insult me? You meet disagreement with first recourse to your lowest instincts. Not meant for you Conrad. I’ll get back to you. I don’t get paid by the blog word, but when time permits I’ll get back . I have to make a living in the meantime.

By: BF

BF — Tue, 03 Feb 2004 17:59:51 +0000

By: john s

john s — Tue, 03 Feb 2004 14:57:22 +0000

what did they lie about Conrad?

By: Conrad Barwa

Conrad Barwa — Tue, 03 Feb 2004 14:41:44 +0000

You gotta feel for the President and Prime Minister. I mean, to some folks, apparently, no matter what it wouldn’t have mattered; they’d still be a lyin’ pair of scoundrels. As politicians I expect them to lie on occasion (inevitable given the nature of their profession), as the kind of politicians they are I would expect them to lie rather a lot (inevitable by the kind of politics they have chosen to espouse). On an issue of national security and momentous as taking their respective countries to war, I would have hoped that they would make an exception to this pattern and actually try and tell the truth. This does not seem to be the case. The sole difference between me and more trusting souls, is that while both hoped for the best, one of us tended to expect the worst. While congenial optimists who would like to still believe that elected leaders should always be trusted on their say so and rarely lie are free to argue this on trust, it is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain this faith without denying reason.

By: john s

john s — Tue, 03 Feb 2004 09:15:17 +0000

Thanks Malcolm for: “One can not make meaningful judgements about a course of action without a sense of the wider context in which a decision was made. Spending quality time with ones children is certainly good in and of itself, but what if one has just seen a woman dragged screaming into an alleyway and, rather than so much as phone the relevant authorities, decides to take ones children to the park?” Great analogy, although I do have trouble working out who, in the context of the Iraq war, is the parent, the kids, the woman and the rapist. Actually, I think I know who the rapist is – it’s America isn’t it? Still, I’m going to use this analogy myself to argue with people why it is depressing that the allies fought Hitler in WWII and, even worse, that they actually won. Thanks to you too gmt for: “And just what the hell would have been wrong with leaving our former employee in power? The one for whom we (and the UK) supplied the weapons whose spetre is the cover for invasion? For whom we provided diplomatic cover when he used those weapons against civilians?” I know, I know. I couldn’t sleep worrying about this. But then I remembered that being against the war would mean I supported Schroeder, Putin and Chirac. And, I mean, Germany was fascist and invaded loads of countries and exterminated people. And France! Napoleon wanted to take over Europe and blow up the sphinx. And, oh my God, Russia! Stalin!! How many tens of millions dead? And they all supplied many more arms (plus a nuclear reactor) to the Iraqis than the US and the UK. Oh, and they supplied Iraq with diplomatic cover when he gassed thousands.