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| Uncertainty and WMD - The Ulitimate Uncertainty of Intel |
| 2004-07-25 |
| By Michael A. Levi The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has pronounced judgment on prewar assessments of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, and despite the continued partisan bickering, one bipartisan point of agreement seems clear: Had the intelligence been done right, the decision on whether to go to war would have been clear. It's a convenient conclusion, absolving lawmakers of responsibility for any errors in judgment they might have made. It's also naive, shortsighted and dangerous. How closely can intel 'thread the needle'? It's naive because even immaculate intelligence would not have produced the sort of certainty on Iraq that would have made decisions of war and peace obvious; in fact, better intelligence would have made the waters muddier. Before the war, widespread opinion properly held that the absence of evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction should not be confused with evidence that they were absent. There is nothing to suggest that U.S. intelligence assessments, had they been more careful, would have found conclusive evidence of the weapons' absence. The closest to such an offering before the war was the host of individual Iraqi accounts asserting that Iraq had no such weapons. These have frequently been cited as the overlooked silver bullet -- had they not been discounted, some say, we could have concluded that Iraq was WMD-free. More at the Link |
| Posted by:Capt America |
| #1 A quote from Power Line: The Sept. 11 Commission says that the attacks were due, in part, to a "failure of imagination" on our part. My brother (the credit card magnate, not the prof) responds: "Would that be like a failure to imagine that Iraq could acquire nuclear weapons?" |
| Posted by: virginian 2004-07-25 8:35:00 PM |