[ExI] Regarding Wickedness (was beowolf)

[spike]

> bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Harvey Newstrom
... 
> A case in point would be the misleading statements used to get us into the
> war in Iraq...

Whose?  Bush's?  Powell's?  Tenet's?

>  ...But as a side-effect, we have wasted a lot of resources looking
> for WMD that the intelligence community knew didn't really exist...

Who in the intelligence community knew this?  Harvey, does this comment take
into account the information found in (then CIA director George) Tenet's
book At the Center of the Storm?  The CIA director was convinced Saddam had
chem and bio weapons, and either had or was trying to get nukes.  He
comments that the decision to invade Iraq was a slam dunk.  (Tenet devotes a
chapter in Storm explaining the slam dunk comment.)

There were those in the intelligence community that suspected or believed
that Saddam didn't have nukes (such as Valerie Plame), but were not willing
to bet everything.  How could they?  If Tenet didn't know for sure, how
could anyone below him?  This would explain why Mr. Valerie Plame, Joe
Wilson, never wrote a report upon his return from his alleged trip to Niger.
He didn't know, and realized he couldn't know.  Not writing a report is
equivalent to finding nothing.  Wilson's after-the-fact 6 July 2003 New York
Times column was an attempt to say I-told-ya-so. Wilson told nothing.  Why
didn't Wilson write that column in July of 2002, before the 2003 state of
the union address?

> ... (even though they got the information right and it
> was misrepresented later)... Harvey Newstrom <www.harveynewstrom.com>


The case that Tenet makes in Storm and the later declassified documents:

Saddam was afraid of Iran, far more afraid than he was of the US or Europe,
(which explains his "dangerous neighborhood" comments) so he attempted to
make the US believe that he *might* have nukes, in the belief that the US
would convince Iran, who would then leave him alone.  This would explain why
Saddam kept deflecting the UN inspection team: to create the illusion that
he may be hiding something, and Saddam's pre-invasion MOAB comments.
Tenet's book and later materials refute my earlier notion that Saddam
himself thought he had nukes, perhaps convinced by his corrupt generals.  He
knew he didn't have them, but was trying to convince Iran that he did.

Saddam kept playing this gambit even as coalition troops amassed on his
border, for he was betting the coalition would not invade without Germany,
France and Russia.  He bet that those three guys wouldn't sign on, because
war materials from all three had found their way into Iraq while the UN
sanctions were still in place, apparently with the knowledge of but without
the consent of the governments of those three countries.

Tenet argues in Storm that it was a failure on both sides of that poker
match: we didn't realize that Saddam was bluffing, and Saddam didn't realize
that we were not.

spike