Deinonychus antirrhopus

Excellant collection.

The argument that the Bush administration "cherry-picked" intel was already debunked by Kenneth Pollack's piece in the Atlantic.

Oh yeah, Kevin links to that too. Go figure.

...if the CIA and MI6 are "wildly" off the mark, what is with all this cherry picking nonsense?

It is that they arrived to the wildy off the mark results thanks to the cherry-picking from the Bush&co + sending them back for more cherries (+ leaking the names of dissenting agents or their wifes).

I think you need some more aluminum foil there GB.

The cherry-picking argument doesn't work very well, if only b/c the same folks who opposed going to war (I'm talking about nations, not the anti-war crowd) never used a "They don't have WMD" argument. Instead, what you heard were "They might use them," or "You can contain them" arguments. In short, no one, not the Administration, not the Axis of Weasels, not the anti-war crowd (which feared Israel responding to WMD use by nuking Iraq, among other things), not the neutrals (notice that India, Iran, Saudi, other European intel agencies didn't say anything about there being no WMD EITHER) ever indicated any belief, prior to the invasion, that there were no WMD.

As for this "scientists misled Saddam" biz, there's a coupla huge holes here:

1. What was eventually going to happen? It's one thing to say we can't make an H-bomb. That's hard. But no CW? That's actually quite easy (and Saddam had made it before, remember). BW? Harder, but doable (not easily weaponizable, but at least developing strains of disease can be done). Atomic weapons? Harder still. But at some point, Saddam would expect results. And all you'd need would be ONE PERSON to hint that they were draggin their feet, and then you get to play w/ hand grenades.

2. Why do this? Given the dangers of being found out, why not defect, or otherwise get out of the game? If not then, why not now, when Saddam is captured?

The folks arguing this sound remarkably like those who argue that Heisenberg deliberately screwed up the German A-bomb project, out of the belief that he couldn't imagine giving the bomb to Hitler. The reality seems to be that he just never got the theory right. It's possible that the Iraqi scientists never got the theory right (at least for nuclear weapons), but that still doesn't explain the CW issue.

Steve, you add a quote from Pollack to your posting above, but that quote is really without any real substance. And in fact, when you compare his own book "The Threatening Storm" to this comment, its laughable. Its Pollack trying to maintain a shred of Democrat credentials. Pollack really does a fine job of refuting himself in the rest of the article.

GB, you need to restudy the chronology.

Well, the Office of Special Plans looks really bad.

Steve:

Yup.

But I'd note that, the problem w/ OSP depends on where it inserted itself in the policy process.

If the feeling was that we KNOW there are WMD out there, now how do we get our message across, OSP becomes, as Pollack notes, like a defense attorney. If OSP influenced the actual intel vetting PROCESS (which is quite possible), then it went from picking the arguments to be presented on the 7PM news, to picking the info that the prosecution will let the defense side see, i.e., setting the actual agenda.

The former is bad politics (like picking WMD as the basis for making the case to go to war), but relatively understandable. The latter is unforgiveable, b/c it makes the Type I/II issue moot.

Good decision-making viz. intel is hard enough when everyone is doing the right thing. When folks start introducing politics into the equation, you might as well throw darts at the list of options---at least then you'd have the benefit of relative randomness.

It's time to dump Cheney, anyway. We're all tired of Halliburton, whether the charges are valid or not.

Bush/Rice 2008.

Dump Cheney anyway. We're all tired of Halliburton.

Bush/Rice 2004. (Rice/Jeb Bush, 2008?)

GB, you need to restudy the chronology.

I put the last thing in brakes, knowing it happened afterwards, but it is a demonstration how the administration pressed (and presses) the CIA to tell the story that Bush&Co wants to hear.

No, its not GB. The Wilson "report" was bogus.

I think its time for Bush to dump Cheney.

Bush is too chicken for such an action.

== === ==
The Wilson "report" was bogus.

What is bogus in it, precisely? Did Iraq purchased uran while I stayed with the aluminium foil hat?

What is bogus in it, precisely? Did Iraq purchased uran while I stayed with the aluminium foil hat?

To the best of my knowledge nobody actually claimed Saddam did purchase uranium.

GB, Wilson's "investigation" was itself a joke and could not itself eliminate the possibility of Iraq attempting to purchase yellowcake from Niger. Further, Wilson himself reported that officials in Niger told him that they had been approached by Iraqi officials with a trade deal that they (the Niger officials) interpreted as an offer to buy yellowcake.

What Wilson purported to report back to the CIA was that he didn't believe that Iraq was successful in purchasing yellowcake, not that they did not attempt it.

Wilson's own report refutes his subsequent claims about Iraq.

Robin,

I've read Kenneth Pollack's Atlantic article and he puts forth some pretty damning evidence of "cherry picking" in the Bush administration. Ie, he doesn't "debunk" these accusations though he does show that that was only part of the story.

The intelligence community's overestimation of Iraq's WMD capability is only part of the story of why we went to war last year. The other part involves how the Bush Administration handled the intelligence. Throughout the spring and fall of 2002 and well into 2003 I received numerous complaints from friends and colleagues in the intelligence community, and from people in the policy community, about precisely that. According to them, many Administration officials reacted strongly, negatively, and aggressively when presented with information or analysis that contradicted what they already believed about Iraq. Many of these officials believed that Saddam Hussein was the source of virtually all the problems in the Middle East and was an imminent danger to the United States because of his perceived possession of weapons of mass destruction and support of terrorism. Many also believed that CIA analysts tended to be left-leaning cultural relativists who consistently downplayed threats to the United States. They believed that the Agency, not the Administration, was biased, and that they were acting simply to correct that bias.

Intelligence officers who presented analyses that were at odds with the pre-existing views of senior Administration officials were subjected to barrages of questions and requests for additional information. They were asked to justify their work sentence by sentence: "Why did you rely on this source and not this other piece of information?" "How does this conclusion square with this other point?" "Please explain the history of Iraq's association with the organization you mention in this sentence." Reportedly, the worst fights were those over sources. The Administration gave greatest credence to accounts that presented the most lurid picture of Iraqi activities. In many cases intelligence analysts were distrustful of those sources, or knew unequivocally that they were wrong. But when they said so, they were not heeded; instead they were beset with further questions about their own sources.

On many occasions Administration officials' requests for additional information struck the analysts as being made merely to distract them from their primary mission. Some officials asked for extensive historical analyses?a hugely time-consuming undertaking, for which most intelligence analysts are not trained. Requests were constantly made for detailed analyses of newspaper articles that conformed to the views of Administration officials?pieces by conservative newspaper columnists such as Jim Hoagland, William Safire, and George F. Will. These columnists may be highly intelligent men, but they have no claim to superior insight into the workings of Iraq, or to any independent intelligence-collection capabilities.

Let's see. Pollack outlines stories of officials deciding which sources to accept and the basis of acceptance sounds suspiciously dependent on whether the source confirmed official dogma or not. Why isn't that "cherry picking"?

The examples you cite are not cherry picking of data but of analysis conclusions. A different animal.

Re Robin:
One defence for SOTU'03 was that "these are only 16 words", the second was: it is not a lie, because it started with "Brits told us...", now you claim that "Further, Wilson himself reported that officials in Niger told him that they had been approached by Iraqi officials with a trade deal..." (can you point to the citation, please, please), so it is truth. (So the truth in SOTU'03 was 16 words?) Strange why the administration did not tell this, but preffered to tell as that the Wilson's wife is a spy.

The examples you cite are not cherry picking of data but of analysis conclusions. A different animal.

I can't say myself, but the word coming out of the intelligence community seems to be that the leadership was accepting and rejecting sources on dubious grounds. That's not just selecting analysis conclusions, but also deciding which sources of data you chose to believe. Pollack says "Reportedly, the worst fights were those over sources."

Rather than go on about the nature of this failure, we should ask whether Bush has addressed it. It looks to me like he hasn't.

You know GB, your attempt to claim I'm just making something up is pathetic. And I'm amused by your inability to do a ten second google search on your own, and find CNN's report of Jack Straw's remarks which include the reference to Niger officials telling Wilson exactly what I claimed.

"But, as CNN have reported, Ambassador Wilson's report also noted that in 1999 an Iraqi delegation sought the expansion of trade links with Niger -- and that former Niger government officials believed that this was in connection with the procurement of yellowcake."

Karl and Dean have good points. If the Office of Special Plans was looking for good soundbites and such as opposed to which intelligence was to be believed then isn't much of a problem. I don't know exactly what the OSP did, but it is some cause for considerable concern and if it was involved in the intelligence vetting process then somebody should be fired.

Strange why the administration did not tell this, but preffered to tell as that the Wilson's wife is a spy.

Kind of depends on how that inforation was released doesn't it? If it was somebody or a couple of somebody's thinking they were going to be sneaky then your claims is specious. If it was something done with approval high up then it is despicable. Hopefully an investigation will shed some light on this.

I still believe that Plame's status was legitimate news.

Summary of the Hutton report which mostly exonerates the Blair government on exaggerating intel on Iraq.

To Robin:
Your link gives a Brit telling:

"We have now seen a detailed account of Ambassador Wilson's report. [...]But, as CNN have reported,..."

and you did not give the original CNN report, to see how reliable it is.

Doesn't this resemble the SOTU'03 not being a lie, because it started with: "The British government has learned that ..."?

this is CNN December 2003, few months after
Straw's interview:

What happened to report?
[...]
The officials said the report said Nigerian officials denied the suggestion Iraq had tried to buy the uranium, and that given the entities controlling the mines, it was illogical there could have been such a contract with Niger.
[...]

As you see there is no mentioning of the "1999 claim". Maybe Straw reads less liberal CNN than the one I look into.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/07/09/sprj.irq.bush.sotu/index.html