Iraq war links

[eub]

I've had this dreadful feeling, the last few years, that my country's government will always take the sleazy option, whether it's about pension plans, secret trials, or setting nets on dolphins. So nobody believes Bush when he says "Iraq is hiding WMD, just trust me", and I never expected the government to expend some of its intelligence data to make a respectable public case. But for once I think they took the high road. Powell's speech laid out a lot more than I ever expected, and he was tolerably explicit about what (like the al Qaeda link) was speculative. The NYT transcript (warning: many painful transcriptos like "elicit weapons") and one analysis -- can anyone suggest a more skeptical analysis?

I'm not prepared to make a moral case for the war, or even a realpolitikal case from the U.S. point of view. (The gov't had better be doing a damn sight more than it's letting on about 1) actual terrorist groups and 2) North Korea, which is what we should be seriously worried about.) But if I were the U.N., and I wanted the U.N. to have any value, I would be convinced to issue an ultimatum to Iraq.

On the other hand, links like this make me wonder what earthly good for me as a citizen to worry my head about these things, when I'm drowning in idiots. So you don't have to clicky-click through the Salon ad,

Of those surveyed, only 17 percent knew the correct answer: that none of the hijackers were Iraqi. Forty-four percent of Americans believe that most or some of the hijackers were Iraqi; another 6 percent believe that one of the hijackers was a citizen of that most notorious node in the axis of evil. That leaves 33 percent who did not know enough to offer an answer.

Comments

[shoebox-bird.livejournal.com]

You know, as soon as Powell got to that point in the speech I thought to myself "And here's the part where he pulls a rabbit out of his hat.". And sure enough, he did.

Well, almost.

Check out this article.

[eub.livejournal.com]

Thanks both.

I agree (everyone seems to) that the al Qaeda stuff is flimsy; I just thought his "I am required to say this, but you are not required to believe it" subtext was, under the circumstances, commendably clear. I'd rather they'd shut up about it, though.

[drakemonger.livejournal.com]

http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2003/02/05/bush/index.html

[eub.livejournal.com]

I see Conason as mostly arguing that the realpolitikal case to the U.S. for immediate war is weak. The one thing I disagree with is that throwing more inspectors at the problem would help. They're equipped to verify Iraq's active cooperation, but really can't be effective at pinpointing weapons in the face of non-cooperation and active deception. (The entire U.S. intelligence apparatus has had only fragmentary luck with that.) Conason says UNMOVIC successfully destroyed lots of CBW, but their success is known to have been incomplete, and probably could never have become complete; the current Iraqi programs also are likely to be better-designed against inspection.

Speaking from the U.N. point of view, Iraq is not cooperating with 1441. The U.S., I think, is afraid that a hard ultimatum would just elicit last-minute halfway concessions to try to muddy the waters indefinitely. But from the U.S. point of view, this is all a giant ball of blunder.