Kevin Brooks wrote:


People "believed" it because el Busho said it was so. It wasnt so.

Whjat we dont knwo yet is whether Busho was lying or delusional

Vkince, you should be the absolute *last* person to be hurling about
accusations that anyone is "delusional".

I'm not the leader of the most powerful country on earth . sending the nation into war.

The Economist

October 4, 2003 U.S. Edition

SECTION: LEADER

LENGTH: 1243 words

HEADLINE: Wielders of mass deception? - Wielders of mass deception?

BODY:
THE road to war with Iraq was paved with arguments, good and bad. Among the many good ones were
Saddam Hussein's serial invasion of his neighbours, his neglect and murder of his own people, and his
recidivist disregard for the umpteen UN resolutions passed in the hope of domesticating him. But
there were some less good arguments advanced by the governments that ousted him. George Bush and Tony
Blair, it now appears, exaggerated the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD). This
is not just a negligible footnote in the history of Iraq's conquest and reconstruction--so much
propaganda under the bridge. In the eyes of the world, especially the Arab world, the flimsiness of
some of the claims about Mr Hussein's arsenal has helped to make a legitimate conflict seem
otherwise. It also risks making the danger posed by WMD seem more rhetorical and less real than it
is, and may jeopardise future efforts to deal with that danger, especially any that involve acting
pre-emptively. Ultimately, weaknesses in the Anglo-American case risk damaging the limited trust that
Britons and Americans place in their leaders. They may also have more tangible political
consequences. Mr Bush's popularity has been hit by the costs and complications of the post-war
occupation, but thus far Mr Blair has faced more flak over his case for war. As the presidential
election approaches, and more light is shone into both Mr Bush's case and the way the White House
dealt with its critics, the balance of political risk may well change.

The good, the bad and the exaggerated

Mr Bush and Mr Blair, remember, were only supporting witnesses in the argument that Mr Hussein
coveted and probably retained WMD. The main evidence came from the UN weapons inspectors, aided and
abetted by Mr Hussein himself. Those with the inclination and stamina--of whom, before the war, there
were few--can immerse themselves in more than a decade's worth of reports that detail Iraq's WMD
history. Despite brazen efforts to obstruct them, in the 1990s the inspectors uncovered, among other
things, Iraq's biological-weapons programmes. The shenanigans continued when the inspectors returned
to the country in 2002. As well as acting guilty right until the end, Mr Hussein had used WMD in the
past. Very few people believed that he had given them up of his own accord. The Economist was not
among them.

But the inspectors' findings were too arcane to be turned into soundbites. And in the end, they
amounted to a set of alarming questions about what Mr Hussein might be hiding, rather than firm
statements. So Mr Blair and Mr Bush levelled some accusations of their own, based on what their spies
told them ()see page 24. America, for instance, made frightening allegations about the progress of a
Saddamite nuclear bomb, and Iraq's links to al-Qaeda. Both governments had other reasons for wanting
to change Iraq's regime, which, in the weapons' absence, they are now busily stressing; but the case
they made to the world was firmly anchored in the WMD threat.

Six months and a war later, the American-led post-war inspectors were expected to tell Congress this
week that Mr Hussein's missile programmes and procurement efforts did indeed breach UN resolutions,
and offer other proof of his duplicity. Yet no actual WMD have come to light, let alone the
terrifying arsenal the world was led to expect. Even many who opposed the war are shocked and awed by
this, especially by the apparent absence of the chemical weapons Mr Hussein was widely believed to
have retained. Like inquisitors condemning a witch, some argue that this failure to find very much
simply confirms Mr Hussein's cunning. That is not good enough. By adding their own,
intelligence-based allegations to those of the UN's inspectors, Messrs Bush and Blair shifted part of
the burden of proof from Mr Hussein to themselves. Their own worst enemies

Two questions are raised by the elusiveness of the WMD. The first concerns Saddam. Why, if he had so
little to hide, did he subject his country to all those years of sanctions and bombings, and finally
to the war that dislodged him? One explanation is that Mr Hussein intentionally created uncertainty
about his arsenal: adversaries might be deterred, while his guilt could never be categorically
proven. This strategy may have extended to the issue of fake orders to his commanders to unleash
chemical weapons, in the hope that they would be overheard and deter the invasion. Or this
self-proclaimed heir of Saladin and
Nebuchadnezzar may have been unwilling to face the shame of submitting to the UN, and did not give a
fig about what his machismo cost his people. Or, as can be the fate of dictators, Mr Hussein's
minions may have led him to believe that he had a bigger punch, and more to hide, than he actually
did. When war was on his doorstep, they may have been too cowed to tell him the truth.

The second question concerns the governments of Britain and America: why did they make some claims
that now look exaggerated? Did the spies get it wrong, or did the politicians lie about what the
spies told them? Unless more intelligence is declassified (and it should be), it is hard to make a
definitive judgment; but parliamentary and congressional probes, and a British public inquiry,
enable an interim one. Both were culpable. The spies erred and the politicians exaggerated.

Iraq was, in spook parlance, a "hard target". Reliable, on-the-ground intelligence was hard to come
by, as is inevitable in a country where minor disloyalty was punishable by death, or worse. But that
doesn't get the politicians off the hook. Intelligence, like those UN reports, tends to deal in
subjunctives: it often speaks of what might or could be going on rather than what definitely is.
Politicians, on the other hand, prefer indicatives or imperatives. What in some cases began as
nuanced reports became much more certain; and while both Mr Bush and Mr Blair often spoke, quite
reasonably, of future dangers and of possible threats, they sought as well to grab the attention
through more specific claims. It also seems possible that some dated intelligence was used to portray
a current menace. In the case of the al-Qaeda connection, Mr Bush's team wilfully over-interpreted
the little proof they had. This impression of cavalier behaviour, especially on the part of the
Americans, may yet be dispelled--either by a fuller disclosure of the intelligence, or by further
discoveries in Iraq. Indeed, it would be astonishing if no such discoveries were made. But judging by
the way some British and American officials have been playing down expectations--sliding from
talking about actual weapons to discussing weapons programmes and plans--they are not overly
optimistic. Even if some WMD are found, many of the specific Anglo-American claims seem unlikely to
be vindicated.

The response of some cynics is that governments are always economical with the actualite, especially
when selling a controversial policy--and the Iraq war, a war of choice, fought in spite of much of
the world's disapproval, was an especially hard sell. The reverse is true: the standards of accuracy
and sobriety should have been all the more scrupulous because of the controversy, and because so many
lives were at stake. The war, we still think, was justified. But in making the case for it, Mr Bush
and Mr Blair did not play straight with their people.
October 3, 2003




Vince