Well, sort of:
U.S. Hunt for Iraqi Banned Weapons Slows
BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. military units assigned to track down Iraqi weapons of mass destruction have run out of places to look and are getting time off or being assigned to other duties . . .
"It doesn't appear there are any more targets at this time," said Lt. Col. Keith Harrington, whose team has been cut by more than 30 percent. "We're hanging around with no missions in the foreseeable future."
Over the past week, his and several other teams have been taken off assignment completely. Rather than visit suspected weapons sites, they are brushing up on target practice and catching up on letters home.
The slowdown comes after checks of more than 230 sites — drawn from a master intelligence list compiled before the war — turned up none of the chemical or biological weapons the Bush administration said it went after Saddam Hussein to destroy.
Compare with:
"We've interviewed a fraction of the people who were involved. We've gone to a fraction of the sites. We've gone through a fraction of thousands and thousands and thousands of documents about this program," National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said Sunday.
When they find Amelia Earhart and Jimmy Hoffa, you'll know they're getting close . . .
What gets me is that with all this evidence, the American people still think that WMD will turn up. Are we as a people REALLY as stupid as the GOP thinks we are? I'm beginning to think so.
What gets me is that with all this evidence, the American people still think that WMD will turn up. Are we as a people REALLY as stupid as the GOP thinks we are? I'm beginning to think so.
There's a study by some psychologists which can help explain this. I can't remember the details, I remember leafing through it while my wife was at University many moons ago, but I'll reconstruct it as best I can. It's pretty distinctive and I think it's required reading for most anyone in economics, marketing, psych, sociology, etc; maybe someone will be able to name it.
Three groups of people are given a number of items, with which they are not familiar. They are charged money for the items; group one is charged less than market value, group two is charged more than market value, group three (the control) is charged market value.
They are then asked to rate the items in terms of quality, usefulness, aesthetics, etc. Group one (low price) rated the items as generally below average quality; group two (high price) rated them generally above average quality, group three (control) rated them generally average quality.
The outcome is no secret to anyone who's worked in sales: the more you pay for something, the more you want to believe you bought quality. If something came cheaply, its value is lower to you.
This War on Terror comes at a massive cost to America. This gives it immense value, and it is this more than anything which the Bush administration is using to keep the public in line. I know how much this hurts, but I wouldn't be doing it if it wasn't absolutely necessary, they say, like a doctor. And it makes sense on some level of a people's consciousness. The arguments being leveled against the Administration and the war in general are percieved as anti-American, in the sense that they assail this premise; that all this economic and diplomatic trouble, all the curtailed liberties, dead soldiers, etc, might be for nothing.
Nobody likes to admit they bought a lemon, and it usually takes a good deal more than evidence to convince anyone they did. It takes proof. I just hope it's small proof, like another WTC strike, and not a nuke over downtown LA during rush hour.
Cheers,
L
I'm still concerned that an administration that is so concerned with making the president look good under any condition, is going to make sure that something is found. At this point in time, who will verify that evidence was not planted?
Planted? - What, 20,000 liters of anthrax? They may be tempted, but they would also recognize the risks.
In any case, the most damning failure to date has been the apparent inability to find ANY Iraqi source, high-ranking official or bio-weapons lab janitor, who can point them to some evidence. Consider that almost all of the weapons discoveries of the early 1990s came from defectors, and consider how much easier (and lucrative) it would be to pass on similar information today. This, more than anything, makes me think there's just nothing there.
Interesting piece on the media (read: NY Times) complicity in this in an article by Russ Baker in The Nation.
Keep up the good work, Billmon.
the apparent inability to find ANY Iraqi source, high-ranking official or bio-weapons lab janitor, who can point them to some evidence
especially when they're offering big cash prizes!
Many Americans Unaware WMD Have Not Been Found
Four in Ten Overall
Majority of Those Who Favored the War and
Republicans Who Follow International Affairs Very Closely
http://pipa.org/whatsnew/html/new_6_04_03.html
A striking finding in the new PIPA/Knowledge Networks poll is that many Americans are unaware that weapons of mass destruction have not been found in Iraq. While 59% of those polled correctly said the US has not found Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, 41% said they believed that the US has found such weapons (34%) or were unsure (7%).
Steven Kull, director of PIPA, comments: "For some Americans, their desire to support the war may be leading them to screen out information that weapons of mass destruction have not been found. Given the intensive news coverage and high levels of public attention to the topic, this level of misinformation suggests that some Americans may be avoiding having an experience of cognitive dissonance."
"To some extent this misperception can be attributed to repeated headlines that there has been a promising lead in the effort to find evidence of such weapons' headlines that are not counterbalanced by prominent reporting that these leads have not been fruitful. But there is also reason to believe that this misperception may be unconsciously motivated, as the mistaken belief is substantially greater among those who favored the war."
Among those who approved of the decision to go to war and were not just supporting the president (53% of the sample), a majority of 52% said the US has found weapons of mass destruction (48%) or did not know (4%).
Among Republicans who said they follow international affairs very closely -- and thus may also be more exposed to headlines reporting promising leads -- an even larger percentage -- 55% --said weapons have been found, with just 45% saying they have not. ...
Many Americans Unaware WMD Have Not Been Found
I've already posted on this.
Paul Krugman has the best opinion piece on WMD that I've read so far. Who's Accountable?
Even more scarey is the NY Times article on the disarray of the Iraqi Oil Industry. Looting Leaves Iraq's Oil Industry in Ruins This could be a total disaster since it means more troops [Like Westmoreland's call for 750,000 troops in Viet Nam?]to guard the oil fields and no oil money coming in to repair Iraq. Clearly the White House didn't think their quick little war through to its conclusion.
In reply to Dave:
I don't think they need to find 'tons' of anything to prove their case. As you can see, many Americans don't even know that no WMDs have been found, so my concern is that if they find any 'lab' that contains a few vials in the refrigerator, the administration and the media will immediately declare a "We told you so" stance. I guess I have simply come to a point that I don't trust anything that this administration says or does and my gut feeling is that there is nothing too dirty that they wouldn't do to accomplish their goals. Maybe I'm getting paranoid.
By "fraction," I think Coni means 1/1.
A suggestion for Billmon's next project...
The inspections process, then and now. For example:
Colin Powell, 1/28/03:
"The issue is not how much more time the inspectors need to search in the dark - it is how much more time Iraq should be given to turn on the lights and to come clean."
George Bush 6/9/03:
"Iraq had a weapons program. Intelligence throughout the decade (of the 1990s) showed they had a weapons program. I am absolutely convinced with time we'll find out they did have a weapons program."