Exactly. And when questioned about the veracity of his claims after the war, he just passes the buck and says the “analysts” at the CIA were wrong. Jason, does he ever mention specific reports when citing his intelligence sources? This book is just more of the politicization of intelligence. I didn’t read his book until after the invasion was a done deal, but I always considered him part of the problem.
We’re just rehasing old arguments, so this will be my last reply and you can have the last word if you want it.
Well, I guess it’s not the world’s intelligence organizations because there are probably intelligence organizations in countries like Bulgaria or Luxembourg. Obviously what I meant was that the agencies of the premiere world powers (which is the same as “Western intelligence agencies”) thought it. Although Jason only mentions the estimates from the US and Germany, both of them fit the 2-5 years that I outlined (US estimate: 5-10 years from 1999, which is 1-6 years from 2003, when the war started; German estimate: 3-6 years from 2001, which is 1-4 years from 2003). So if there’s any “wishful thinking” in this thread, it’s your unblinking assertion that “no intelligence agency” put forth the 2-5 year figure. In fact, I haven’t seen one agency that put forth a different figure.
(Extra bonus: I actually inserted the world “no” in that quote, which matches what you were saying but isn’t actually the word you used. So if you really feel like you’re on the ropes, just turn this whole thread into an argument about how I misquoted you.)
No. I am pointing out that your assertation that Iraq was 2 -5 years from getting a nuke is silly. I’m saying it amounts to a bunch of hand waving and non-arguments.
I don’t understand how “Pollack isn’t a psychologist” has anything to do with that. Are you saying a psychologist would be better able to predict how far along Iraq’s nuclear program was? I’m totally confused. You’ve used the “Hah! He’s not a psychologist!” argument before, but always in response to Pollack’s point that if Saddam got a nuke, he would do bad things. I don’t understand the relevance of the argument when applied to how far along Saddam’s nuke program is. Are you saying that only a psycologist can say whether Saddam wanted nukes? Because Saddam himself said that on numerous occasions.
The majority of his book was not based on hard facts but assumptions.
That’s true, but only because Saddam forced us to go on assumptions. I mean, what’s your alternative? That if we don’t know something with 100% certainty, we make no decisions? (Because, remember, we had lots of facts about Iraq–we just didn’t have the “end” facts, like how far the nuke program was. But the assumptions made by analysts were made based off of the facts they knew, which are documented in Pollack’s book unless they’re classified). Do you understand how ridiculous that policy would be? Do you have any conception of how often in human history we’ve had to make judgments based on incomplete information?
[quote][quote]Dick Clarke says that invading Iraq after 9/11 would have been like invading Mexico after Perl Harbor. He’s right. You just can’t justify it.
Whoa! Another topic shift, but I’m still along for the ride. I never said invading Iraq was justified because of 9/11 (and neither did Ken Pollack, if that’s the point you’re trying to make). I agree that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. And yet, I’m able to see that al Qaeda is not the only possible threat to us in this world.[/quote]
No. You’re assertation is that the US invasion of Iraq was justified because of what we new pre-invasion. I am saying that’s silly. When you remove all the hand waving and non-arguments, the information we had at the time clearly indicated a different course of action. 1) we new al Queda was a threat 2) we hadn’t captured al Queda leaders in Afghanistan 3) we knew that Iraq had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. 4) we couldn’t find any link between al Queda and Iraq. [/quote]
Are you even reading my posts? I understand that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and I never advocated invasion of Iraq in response to 9/11. I advocated (and Pollack advocated) invasion of Iraq in response to Iraq’s nuclear ambitions and flouting of the UN. You can sit there and go “But they had nothing to do with 9/11!!1!” until your head explodes. It’s totally irrelevant to this discussion. Remember: making an untruthful point connected to the discussion, plus a truthful point not connected to the discussion, doesn’t make a useful point.
If what you’re trying to say is that we should have concentrated all forces on al Qaeda until bin Laden was caught (I don’t see you saying this, but I’m trying my hardest to divine any sensible or relevant argument in this last part of your post), I don’t agree. We disrupted AQ enough that they haven’t mounted any further terrorist attacks on US soil. At the same time, we removed Saddam from Iraq. Would it have been better if we’d captured bin Laden as well? Hell yeah. But bin Laden mounting another terrorist attack was less important than Saddam getting a nuke, so if we had to concentrate most of our efforts on one threat, I think Saddam was the right one (based on what we knew then). Obviously invading Iraq does less (i.e., almost nothing) to combat terrorism, but like I said earlier, terrorism was not the only threat facing us, or the world.
Apropos of nothing, one section really popped out of the page when I was flipping through his Atlantic article.
There was this passage from Saddam giving a speach about the sanctions - something how if everyone gave up their swords he would feel righteous doing so also, but if everyone but him kept a rifle and he was allowed only to keep a sword, no deal.
Pollack’s line was something like “what would think of that if you were a CIA analyst?” The implication being that Saddam was obviously still working on WMD.
The obvious rejoinder is “that’s what you’d think if you were a lousy CIA anaylst.” Now we know that Saddam was just trying to hold up domestic political support and scare the west by saying stuff like that. One more failure to really think like your opponent…
I flatly dispute that there was any intelligence consensus anywhere that Saddam was making any progress towards getting a nuclear weapon.
He may have been 2-5 years away from obtaining one under ideal circumstances, but in 5 more years he would still be 2-5 years away.
Obviously what I meant was that the agencies of the premiere world powers (which is the same as “Western intelligence agencies”) thought it. Although Jason only mentions the estimates from the US and Germany, both of them fit the 2-5 years that I outlined
And these figures are mostly based on information from political dissidents, like I said originally. Pollack’s book doesn’t refute this. He parrots the intelligence community, who are obviously covering their asses. You still never had any hard evidence that a nuclear program existed in Iraq.
(Extra bonus: I actually inserted the world “no” in that quote, which matches what you were saying but isn’t actually the word you used. So if you really feel like you’re on the ropes, just turn this whole thread into an argument about how I misquoted you.)
I have no idea where this extra word is you’re talking about, but if you really want to annoy me, you’re going to have to insist you did nothing wrong while the rest of the board assures you that you did in fact do something wrong.
I don’t understand how “Pollack isn’t a psychologist” has anything to do with that.
Pollack’s argument is more of fiction than an actual argument in that he doesn’t have any hard evidence to go on. This is similar to your claim that Iraq was an imminent threat in that you don’t have any hard evidence.
[quote]The majority of his book was not based on hard facts but assumptions.
That’s true, but only because Saddam forced us to go on assumptions. I mean, what’s your alternative? That if we don’t know something with 100% certainty, we make no decisions? (Because, remember, we had lots of facts about Iraq–we just didn’t have the “end” facts, like how far the nuke program was. But the assumptions made by analysts were made based off of the facts they knew, which are documented in Pollack’s book unless they’re classified). Do you understand how ridiculous that policy would be? Do you have any conception of how often in human history we’ve had to make judgments based on incomplete information?[/quote]
I think clearly you are the one who has no idea how wrong American political analysts have been in the ME over the past 50 years. You have yet to explain to me why you imagine Pollack has so much credibility. Going by past history of the CIA in the region, his analyst experience seems more like a liability to me. Let’s not forget that the CIA was responsible for the overthrow of the only democratic government in the region, the installation of the shah and his failed regime.
Using hard evidence to determine when to go to war is not ridiculous, it’s responsible. What’s ridiculous is going to war on trumped up evidence and politicized intelligence and then learning after thousands of people are killed that we were wrong. No, strike that. That’s not ridiculous either. That’s just fucking sad.
Obviously invading Iraq does less (i.e., almost nothing) to combat terrorism
Exactly. This is why Clarke says that invading Iraq after 9/11 would have been like invading Mexico after Perl Harbor. Maybe you’re thinking it would have been wise to deal with some other threat in 41’, but I disagree.
Perl Harbor
I remember when General Larry Wall rallied the 87th “Fightin’ Regex” squadron to repel that first bombing strike. Ah, poor Captain Randall Schwarz – his hashes put up a good fight, but a precision attack on his execution order wound up corrupting his heap with an unqualified backreference. The horror! The horror!