Did they actually get it wrong?
Published on February 4, 2004 By O G San In International
The memory's not what it used to be but here are some of the excuses that Blair/Bush have come up with to explain their inability to find WMD in Iraq:

> Saddam destroyed them just before the war (the fiend).
> He moved them to Syria (the cheat).
> Iraqi generals destroyed the WMD but were too scared to tell Saddam (the cowards).
> Iraqi POWs won't tell us where they are (the spoilsports).
> Iraq's a big country you know.

None of these spins has held any more water than a particularly leaky sieve so a new excuse is needed. The latest excuse from Washington and London is that the spies got it wrong. Inquiries have been ordered in both capitals to discover how their intelligence agencies got it so badly wrong about Iraq's WMD threat. At last, the perfect excuse - don't blame us, blame the spooks. Best of all, these inquiries will go on for months (until after the election in Bush's case). Brilliant! Loads of time to think of another excuse!

But did the spies actually get it wrong as Bush and Blair now claim? This is a complex question since there were any number of strands of thought within the various intelligence agencies before the war. Nevertheless one can speak of one general trend. In both the US and Britain politicians pushed their spies to turn theories into certainties. The decision to invade Iraq had already been taken but the politicians needed "intelligence" about WMD to justify their belligerence. Because pre-war Iraq was such a closed society, it is hardly surprising that the best that Western spies could come up with were educated guesses about Saddam's WMD capability.

But this is not what the western public saw. No, they saw certitude instead of conjecture, most famously in Blair's "dodgy dossier" and Bush's Niger claim. Documents look very different once all the "may's", "might's", "could's" and "possibly's" have been removed. If the British and American people had seen the hesitancy of the real intelligence they may well have not been scared into supporting the war.

This is the real issue, the calculated manipulation of intelligence to justify an unprovoked attack. Of course, I can't prove this but out there, someone can. Is there a 21st century Daniel Ellsberg ready to expose these liars for what they are?

Comments
on Feb 04, 2004
This is a sad abuse of tragedy to manipulate public opinion, and that is as far as history will get on it I think. I read a in-depth review of the O'neill book (not by him) in which he says it was a done deal with Perle, Rumsfeld, and Cheney feeding the select intelligence to a man he holds as essentially a pawn. They run this President and he does as told. No one has accused Jr. of being intelligent or discerning in his actions. A review of his quotables, you'll find in my blog archive, is a funny proof of this.
What they have done is as they have always done. They've created plausible deniability. Everyone knows the CIA is a dirty and scamming org, and they take the heat all the time. What's it to them to be called negligent, wrongful, criminal? As long as they don't call them late for supper or single out an agent. It is the nebulous 'them' who make faulty 'intel' that did it, and America has been betrayed again by connivers who used our emotional suffering to make money.
Our task now is to make them bring our troops home or nuke the place. It has nothing to do with us anymore, and they are sniping our troops one by one. Sadam is in custody, there are no WMD. The mission is accomplished and we need to bring our troops home to help their wives and husbands and kids. F-- the Iraqi wives, husbands and kids. Unless it's about oil and theft of infrastructure. We should at least let our best and brightest know why they are dying and being maimed if that is all it's about now.
on Feb 05, 2004
"Our task now is to make them bring our troops home or nuke the place"
"F-- the Iraqi wives, husbands and kids"

Have to say I'm very surprised to hear you saying these kind of things. Thought you were better than these kind of dehumanising remarks. Save your anger for the people whi deserve it.