The Poodle's in the dock

[Skunk]

A nice extra quote from the inquiry:

"The way in which the information was reported did not give us any real feel that the... primary source - knew very much about the subject he was reporting.
--Brian Jones (now ex-)Ministry of Defence official on Britain's 'War Dossier'.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/3077830.stm

[Timber Loftis]

Originally posted by Davros: Would you like to chose a response yourself perhaps and contribute something other than a few cheers. This is a topic that is no longer of consequence because ............?

Sure, I'll bite. I believe we should drop the whole subject of whether Bush, Blair and Howard "sexed up" intelligence dossiers to misrepresent the threat of Iraq and precipitate a war because....

OF THE ECONOMY, STUPID!!!

*"Stupid" not being aimed at anyone in particular.*
A very selfish comment, I assure you, but at the end of the day I demand some basic management of domestic affairs before I give [img]graemlins/twocents.gif[/img] about those overseas.

Nevertheless, on the issue of why this is no reason to call the hangin' posse in, I think it is a molehill-made-mountain and that there are better, more pertinent concerns in Iraq. Like how to get the country on its feet before warlord-led rebel groups solidify enough to make power grabs.

On the molehill-made-mountain:

See mine and Skunk's earlier tete-a-tete wherein we surmised that at the very least, Saddam fell victim to his own lies. Now, I think there was reasonable belief Saddam had WoMD. While we can argue until we're blue in the face over whether or not WoMD were fair reason to go to war, we should admit everyone thought he had them -- Blix too. Perhaps curious George and his poodle got too convinced too soon -- perhaps they viewed the facts with tunnel vision. These are typical human error, but in the end Bush/Blair reached the belief that the war was needed. I think both men were seeking to do well by their people. Blair especially, else wtf would he commit obvious political suicide.

Now, seeing the need for war, having fair belief of WoMD, and having a population that needs a reason for war and is willing to accept the WoMD reason, it was their course to use that reason to convince us. I'm not going to single these two politicians out for doing what politicians do: to wit trying to convince constituents that their actions are right. Politicians wanting to do *anything* of any substance spend time "checking the waters" with the voters and trying to convince them how what they want to do is the right choice. Once you begin the path of persuasion, embellishment almost certainly follows. We all do it.

Moreover, these men both get contradictory advice and facts from their own staffers, not to mention the dozens of people they meet with everyday. E.g., This wonk says Iraq can go to chemical war in 45 minutes, that warhawk says it's true, but that guy who went on a trip there with Blix says it's unlikely at best. Who to believe? What info to go with? You have 20 seconds to decide.

So, in the end, I won't fault them for having some small details wrong. Scrap the Nigeria thing and the 45 minute thing and I still think the general pre-war picture of "Does Iraq have WoMD?" looks basically the same. Now, I'm not saying it's convincing or not, right or wrong. I'm just saying quit making mountains out of molehills.

Tackling the point of your other post - what word would best describe to you the opposite of international? [/QB]

Searching...........

[ 09-03-2003, 10:47 AM: Message edited by: Timber Loftis ]

[Donut]

Timber, the Hutton Inquiry was set up to investigate the circumstances around the suicide of Dr David Kelly, the question of sexing up of dossiers is important but not central to the inquiry.

In their battle with the BBC, Tony Blair and Alistair Campbell had no reguard for anyone or anything. Dr Kelly's name was leaked to the press by the Blair Government and subsequently he killed himself. You might think this would stop the Poodle but even after Kelly's death Blair's advisors were denigrating him as a 'Walter Mitty' character.

That is the reason the Poodle gave evidence!

BTW - when you say the 'Nigeria affair' do you mean the 'Niger affair'? Or is that some other lie?

[Davros]

So basically if I am interpreting what you are saying correctly - it is OK to lie to the public and "sex up" the intelligence dossiers becuase (B) didn't they do great good.

The mountain out of a molehill thing is as ever a matter of perspective TL. It is a great line to use when wishing to dismiss an argument as insignificant, or to avoid looking at a bad situation. Should we expect basic honesty out of our leaders. There were many repubs prepared to make a mountain over Clinton being less than honest with the truth a year or two ago - least wise I seem to recall something along those lines. Hale - maybe you have a point though - that we should accept they are all politicians (ie crooks and swindlers) and that different rules apply to them and we should all just lower our expectations.

[Timber Loftis]

I don't think I said that, and I think you know I didn't. It is not a (B) answer because I don't think they did "do great." In fact, fixing the mess should be job #1 right now. (But see below at ***)

All I said was people embellish when in the middle of making compelling arguments. I said their beliefs were reasonably reached from the point-of-view at the time regarding WoMD. I said they necessarily were in the position of making the compelling argument, because constituents demand reasons. I said people embellish sometimes. I mentioned the vast amount of conflicting input they get regarding every "fact" some staffer hands them.

I asked we accord them somewhere near the same amount of levity we accord everyone (or should accord everyone), not more. Out of thousands and thousands of pages of evidence and dozens of speeches there are two basic untruths (and, yes, Niger, oops), ones that were not unreasonably stated. I do not think they were outright lies, and I don't think the level of mistake involved in making these false statements rises to or crosses the negligence threshold.

And, yes, I do expect basic honesty from our leaders. As I said, I do not think these were intended lies.

As for the comment that those who wish to diminish arguments call them molehills -- too true. This is not such an instance. This is an instance where they really are diminished already -- and are in fact molehills. That is why I pointed out that subtracting the two falsehoods would not change the overall outlook of Saddam and WoMDs that we had at the time.

*** Your (B) is an inapplicable answer, btw. It does not apply in this instance, as it assumes illegality (theft). Now, some ends can justify the means, but they should be legal means and ends. In a pure system, without the R686 et seq., ad nauseum history, toppling a cruel dictator would be an ends justified by the means of war. However, to do it legally, the UN would need to resolve to do it -- and I argue it perhaps could under the Charter and various subsequent treaties. In the US/Iraq instance there was a history, the last war was "ended" by a conditional cease fire. As I've gone into detail about before, and shan't again, I think there are arguments that the US acted legally -- and, more importantly, I think proving illegality is impossible. If the act was legal, your (B) is inapplicable.

[ 09-03-2003, 11:03 AM: Message edited by: Timber Loftis ]

[Skunk]

A very selfish comment, I assure you, but at the end of the day I demand some basic management of domestic affairs before I give about those overseas.

Yes but since the war is still costing the US taxpayer $4billion dollars a month (not to mention the additional security costs incurred both by public and private organisations) the issue of Iraq has a very definite adverse bearing on the US economy, don't you think?

See mine a Skunk's earlier tete-a-tete wherein we surmised that at the very least, Saddam fell victim to his own lies. Now, I think there was reasonable belief Saddam had WoMD. While we can argue until we're blue in the face over whether or not WoMD were fair reason to go to war, we should admit everyone thought he had them -- Blix too. Perhaps curious George and his poodle got too convinced too soon -- perhaps they viewed the facts with tunnel vision. These are typical human error, but in the end Bush/Blair reached the belief that the war was needed. I think both men were seeking to do well by their people. Blair especially, else wtf would he commit obvious political suicide.

OK - but a peaceful solution was already available via the Weapons Inspections process. And Blix stated quite clearly that the Iraqi's (for the first time ever) were co-operating fully and were not hindering his teams. There was no solid evidence that the threat of WMD possession or usage by the Hussein regime was either current or serious.
So the attitude of the world to the US/UK's unilateral action (in the face of Iraqi co-operation with the UN) was that Bush/Blair had a 'secret agenda' and that, far from believing that war was needed, they merely thought that it was desirable - an important distinction.

Moreover, these men both get contradictory advice and facts from their own staffers, not to mention the dozens of people they meet with everyday. E.g., This wonk says Iraq can go to chemical war in 45 minutes, that warhawk says it's true, but that guy who went on a trip there with Blix says it's unlikely at best. Who to believe? What info to go with? You have 20 seconds to decide.

As the hearings have now revealed - there was no contradictory information (at least as far as the UK was concerned). The experts concluded that there was no hard evidence that Saddam had WMD's of any kind; that he would need at least another 7 to 8 years to gain a nuclear weapon (if left completely alone and was allowed access to the neccessary materials) - they were even joking that the only way that Saddam's biological weapons could kill you would be if the shell landed on your head. Yet, at least in the case of Blair - this information (by his own experts) was over-ruled and worse still, he published a document that was almost entirely pure fabrication in order to convince the public to back him - and that's no molehill.

Because now, when Blair *needs* the public behind him - they are not there:
"You lied to us, made us a target of terrorists, got our citizens killed for no good reason. Why should we back you when you say that solution X is a way out of the Iraq problem"?

Unfortunately, what goes for Blair's own electorate also goes for the international community. Now, what the international community thinks is of no consequence to Blair if he wants to go 'unilateral'. However, now that their help is *needed*, it becomes an issue. Now they won't take him at his word any longer - they want *proof* of his good intentions with actions rather than accept words (which they would have done had he not lied).

So now when we get to the security council and Bush/Blair say:
"Hey guys, how about some troops and some cash to help the Iraqi people out?"
then, instead of just handing over what the Bush/Blair asked for without question, the demands start arrive with words to the effect of:
"Sure you can have them - but we don't trust you when you say that you are really doing this for the Iraqi people, we think that you have a secret agenda (self-enrichment or whatever) and are trying to trick us into helping you, rather than the Iraqi people. So we want to have the UN have a big oversight in all things Iraqi to make sure that our troops and cash are being used to the benefit of the Iraqi people. You see, you lied to us before, so we want to ensure that it doesn't happen again..."

Get's complicated when you lie, huh? You damage your country when you damage your country's reputation. No doubt about it.

[Timber Loftis]

Oh, forgot to add: I've been talking about the alleged lies about going to war. I have not been keeping up with Dr. Kelley's case, and can't speak to those facts. Sorry guys.

[Skunk]

No problem (although you really should follow it as it's rather amusing in a black sort of way). Here's another quote from the Hutton inquiry:


1 "Another example supporting our view that you and
2 I should have been more involved in this than the spin
3 merchants of this administration. No doubt you will
4 have to more to tell me as a result of your antics
5 today. Let's hope it turns into tomorrow's chip
6 wrappers ..."

--Dr Brian Jones, Head of the Defence Intelligence Analysis Staff (2002) on Britain's Iraq Dossier in a note to Dr Kelly

Isn't that amusing? The Head of the Intelligence Analysis section believes that both he and Dr Kelly (Britain's leading expert on Iraq's WMD's) were less involved in aspects of the document than Blair's PR team!

[Davros]

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: Your (B) is an inapplicable answer, btw. It does not apply in this instance, as it assumes illegality (theft).

Yes, it was intended as an example of a situation where great good comes from a basic wrongdoing - the Jean Valjean defence m'lud [img]smile.gif[/img] I did have it set up as an extra line with an "eg", but it read quite poorly, so I deleted both of them. Looks like it just helped to muddy the waters huh.

I look back on those days and the lack of international enthusiasm for war and the demands for better proof. Our leaders could not be straight with us and say "the case isn't great, but think of the good we could do" because we would not buy the line. It was the threats of 48 hours and nuclear capability and the like that shored up electoral support. The same claims of "sexing up" by government of the data supplied by the intelligence service and the Office of National Assessments are under investigation in both the UK and Australia.

[Skunk]

Looks like the Trade Unions are going to hurt Blair *big time* for poor performance and the Iraq fiasco - don't think that they're waiting for the Hutton enquiry to stick it to him either:

Unions block £40m deal for Labour
Union leaders have jeopardised Labour's election campaign by blocking a £40m party funding deal, ahead of a week of disputes at the TUC over large swaths of the government's domestic and international agenda.

A five-year agreement to finance the party sought by the Labour hierarchy has been scuppered despite 12 months of negotiations after the heads of some of the biggest affiliated unions refused to sign up.

With relations between ministers and unions at a low ebb, a number of senior union figures refused to give up the bargaining power of annual or even shorter deals.

Dave Prentis, general secretary of Unison, Britain's biggest union, said yesterday: "There will be no long-term deal this side of the election."

Unions are expected instead to agree later this month to a 25p rise in annual affiliation fees to £2.75 a member, with Unison also likely to approve a further 25p jump to £3 next year.

But the rises fall well short of the longer pact desired by the Labour party's general secretary, David Triesman, to give the party stability with a general election as little as 20 months away...

Dozens of motions will be passed at the TUC annual congress in Brighton this week with an unusual degree of unity criticising initiatives from university top-up fees and foundation hospitals to private finance initiatives and privatisation, as well as demanding tougher employment rights and protection for pensions.

On Wednesday, in a debate likely to be echoed three weeks later at the Labour conference in Bournemouth, the invasion of Iraq will be condemned and the withdrawal of troops demanded...>more...