[CLUE-Talk] Bush to order bipartisian review of Iraq allegations of WMD

[Randy Arabie]

Quoting Jeff Cann <j.cann at isuma.org>:

> <quote>
> In deciding to back an independent review of the intelligence regarding
> Iraq's 
> weapons of mass destruction, President Bush is implicitly conceding what he 
> cannot publicly say: that something appears to be seriously wrong with the 
> allegations he used to take the nation to war in Iraq.
> 
> Bush has lately found many of his rationales for the war in Iraq being 
> challenged. Just as Kay has undermined the WMD rationale, a report published
> 
> by the Army War College challenged the notion that the war in Iraq was part 
> of the overall war on terrorism, while the group Human Rights Watch has 
> disputed Bush's notion that the Iraq war was a humanitarian mission. Vice 
> President Cheney has implicitly acknowledged that the Iraq war has not 
> spurred peace in the Middle East, saying peace is not possible while 
> Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat remains in power.
> </quote>
> 
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3980-2004Feb1.html
> 
> Some of us never believed any of the Administration's allegations, so it is
> so 
> satisfying that as the truth comes out, we were right on.
> 
> Anyone still believe there were WMD in Iraq?
> 
> I'll save my official I TOLD YOU SO after the independent reports come out 
> next year.

Whithout answering your question, I'd like to share this:

   The Logic of Intelligence Hype and Blindness

   Bruce G. Blair, Ph.D, CDI President, bblair at cdi.org 
   Dec. 11, 2003 (updated Dec. 30, 2003) 

   http://www.cdi.org/blair/intelligence.cfm

Mr. Blair took two recent intelligence "failures" (9/11 and Iraq WMD) and 
applied a rule of logic known as Baye’s law to the pre-existing opinion of the 
intelligence community and a post-incident analysis of available intelligence 
and produced conclusions that were not only plausible but reasonable. 

Please read the entire piece.  Here's Mr. Blair's conclusion:

<quote>
This perspective on the intelligence process leads to an exonerating statement 
and a cautionary note.  The exonerating point is that people who clung to their 
belief that Iraq possessed mass-destruction weapons in spite of the inability 
of intelligence efforts and inspectors to find them during the run up to the 
2003 invasion, and even people who still believe today that mass-destruction 
weapons remain hidden in Iraq, have had a strong ally in logical reasoning for 
a lengthy period of time.  A case can be made that their view has been 
intellectually the most coherent and consistent view of the threat.  However, 
logical minds open to fresh intelligence reports should by now harbor serious 
doubt.  The facts on the ground are speaking loudly for themselves in 
challenging the presumption used to justify the war with Iraq.

The cautionary note is that Bayesian math points to a fairly slow learning 
curve that also challenges the wisdom of making preemption a cornerstone of 
U.S. security strategy.  The intelligence burden of this strategy is generally 
very heavy, too heavy for any leader to consistently shoulder.   In all 
likelihood, a prudent interpretation of intelligence would fail to clarify the 
actual threat, the appropriate targets, and other contours of a preemptive 
strike.  The strategy is not a feasible or sensible approach to U.S. national 
security. 
</quote>

-- 
Allons Rouler!

Randy
http://www.arabie.org/