Cue the Rhinoceroses

Struck by the emptiness of everyday conversations and the idiocy of meaningless formalities, Theater of the Absurd playwright Eugene Ionesco made a name for himself satirizing society via its nonsense. In one of his most famous plays, Rhinoceros, he explores totalitarianism via the metaphor of a disease that turns people into huge ferocious beasts. It's only after the protagonist realizes he's the only non-rhinoceros person left that he decides to take action, so self-involved and full of denial had he been until then.

I was reminded of Ionesco when I read today's news accounts about the absurdly meaningless 618-page formality being offered by The Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction (pdf file)

A scathing report made public this morning concludes that American intelligence agencies were "dead wrong" in almost all of their prewar assessments about the state of unconventional weapons in Iraq, and that on issues of this importance "we simply cannot afford failures of this magnitude."

It adds, "The harm done to American credibility by our all too public intelligence failures in Iraq will take years to undo."

The report concludes that while many other nations believed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, "in the end, it was the United States that put its credibility on the line, making this one of the most public - and most damaging - intelligence failures in recent American history."

And, so, who cares?

The Rhinos have taken over. The WMD were only a pretext to the invasion that, if we believe the WH now, was always actually about spreading Democracy. Why beat up our intelligence agencies over something we never truly cared about anyway?

Maureen Dowd suggests one reason:

The Times reported yesterday that administration officials were relieved that the new report by a presidential commission had "found no evidence that political pressure from the White House or Pentagon contributed to the mistaken intelligence."

That's hilarious.

As necessity is the mother of invention, political pressure was the father of conveniently botched intelligence.

Dick Cheney and the neocons at the Pentagon started with the conclusion they wanted, then massaged and manipulated the intelligence to back up their wishful thinking.

What the report actually says doesn't totally clear the WH, mind you:

Finally, we closely examined the possibility that intelligence analysts were pressured by policymakers to change their judgments about Iraq’s nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons programs. The analysts who worked Iraqi weapons issues universally agreed that in no instance did political pressure cause them to skew or alter any of their analytical judgments. That said, it is hard to deny the conclusion that intelligence analysts worked in an environment that did not encourage skepticism about the conventional wisdom.

I mean, really...there you had Dick Cheney reportedly combing the halls in Langley during the summer of 2002, and none of the analysts there were even remotely unsure what his opinion was, but we're supposed to accept that no political pressure was put upon the CIA to deliver supporting material to the predetermined agenda? It's totally absurd.

Comments

[NeoDude]

They did it for the children and baby Jesus.

[Frank]

"we're supposed to accept that no political pressure was put upon the CIA to deliver supporting material to the predetermined agenda?"

No. We aren't expected to buy that. Obviously We aren't the intended audience. Most people aren't paying that much attention. In 60 years only "revisionist" historians will fail to accept the official story. The intended audience is everyone else.

[Wilfred]

It's totally absurd.

my feelings exactly after 4+ years of this idiocy.

[Nell Lancaster]

What a sleazy kabuki performance. Aside from the fact that this war was never really about WMD to begin with, Pat Roberts quietly canceled the Part II investigation that was to look into WH pressure and deceit in interpreting and publicizing the intel. So it's hard to imagine the WH was really worried about what this Part I report was going to say.

[dmbeaster]

So it's hard to imagine the WH was really worried about what this Part I report was going to say.

They obviously were not worried; but they want to pretend that there was allegedly some sort of investigation into WH missuse of intelligence that has allegedly cleared them. Hence the phony worry followed by phony relief.

Its just another lie, just like so much of the WMD stuff. Policy by deceit.

The new phony baloney is about how successful our policies are in Iraq or Afghanistan.

[Frank]

Hey speaking of official lies, here is a fun post at the cunning realist linked text

Its about a Pentagon plan the joint cheifs signed off on to fake terrorist attacks on the U.S. in the 60s.
(Operation Northwoods)

Any similarity to recent events is purely coincidental.

Of course.

Link to national archives stuff in the post.

[Slartibartfast]

Wait a minute, Edward: are you actually quoting Maureen Dowd with a straight [please, no silliness intended] face?

[votermom]

I think this is a move to give Kirchoff (did I mispell that?) more power, toward a creation of a true US KGB.
Yeah, just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean I'm wrong.

[lily]

What amazes me is the absence of outrage. If if one believes that the mistake was an honest one, it is still a monstrous, shameful mistake. I guess the "culture of life" can more easily accept the death-by-mistake of thousands of Iraqis and Americans than the end of one person's Purgatory on a feeding tube. I mean, the "Opps--but the end justifies the means" rationalization seems thoughtless and shallow to me and disrespectful of the sacrifices that have been made.

[dmbeaster]

Froomkin's article on this is great, but what is best are his links to ten articles from the period doucmenting WH political pressure to skew intelligence.

[Frank]

Lily- Thats why they can't accept that it was a mistake.

[Anderson]

Nietzsche, on why Bush et al. will never accept the evidence of their stupidty:

"I have done this," says memory. "I can't possibly have done this," says pride. Eventually ... memory yields.

(Assuming that it *was* stupidity and not a deliberate regime-change plan from the outset, with WMD as the bait---which is actually what I believe happened. No Nietzsche quote for that one, though.)

[texaspete]

Everyone should take a look at the link Frank posted above and see the post titled "A Short Relevant Book Review." Here's the link again:

http://cunningrealist.blogspot.com/

Amazing stuff.

[Edward]

texaspete,

I'm reading that document now. It's so Hitchcockian I'm having trouble believing it. I mean WTF???

[Edward]

Gotta second texaspete and Frank here folks. Northwoods is some eye-popping reading if you've never thought your government was capable of really insidious actions.

One of the actions being considered to start a war with Cuba was to sink a boat load of Cubans coming to Florida and blame it on Cuba. The chilling part is the clarification that this effort could be "real or simulated"

Real? Sink a real ship of Cubans trying to escape to help start a war? We do that kind of sh*t???

[NeoDude]

We do that kind of sh*t???

Bin Laden is still free.

[Opus]

If, upon hearing that the intelligence was wrong, you know that President Bush should be appearing before the nation, expressing horror that he was deceived into starting this war when he did...well, I'm with you. I also know that pigs will fly and have in-flight movies and an open bar before that happens.

If, upon hearing that the intelligence was wrong, you say, "well, they talked about spreading democracy and other concerns as well as the danger SH posed to the U.S.," then I say what I've lost my voice saying all along -- (1) we didn't have a national discussion about the former, which we would have had if the danger was not been an issue; and (2) without the "we're in danger!" rhetoric, we could have taken more time to plan for a possible insurgency, hear various viewpoints on the reconstruction, trained our troops for cultural considerations, and thought about how we would manage troop levels. Your response?

[Larv]

Yeah, I read that Northwoods stuff at the Cunning Realist last night. It's pretty jaw-dropping. For anyone who hasn't read it yet, you really have to follow his link to the original documents to get the full impact of just how insane it all is. Seriously Dr. Strangelove-style crazy stuff.

[vida]

Why should the administration accept that the invasion was a mistake, based on incorrect intelligence, when a majority of American do not even accept that the intelligence was wrong? The American people's wilful ignorance is why Bush is still in office. Yet another report will not change this. The national pyschological ramifications of accepting an error with the consequences of such magnitude is beyond our capabilities. Rationalization will prevail. Human nature and all that.

[hilzoy]

(1) Having been out of town, I didn't catch the Cunning Realist's link until I saw it mentioned here today. I third, or fourth, or whatever, the recommendation.

(2) "the danger SH posed to the U.S." -- when I read this I thought: Sebastian? A danger? -- and had to reread it before my bewilderment was dispelled.

[sidereal]

"The Rhinos have taken over."

Is this an extended pun on RINOs? Clever, sir!

[John Thullen]

If this report finding NO WMDs but casting no blame on the Bush Administration for political pressure on the WMD issue is the final whitewash AND if polls continue to show that a very large percentage of Americans remain convinced that Iraq has WMDS .... then...

...we have entered some further frontier in the world Luntz and company are creating for us through mere clever utterance. We're under a spell of some kind. They've won.

Also, I must ask: Why is the headline, "Conservatives Believe and Defend Every Word of Government Report" not the beginning of manic cackling throughout the universe?

[Charles Bird]

Hundreds of intelligence analysts in an independent investigation spend a whole year examining what happened on the WMD issue and you casually dismiss it as an "absurdly meaningless 618-page formality"? Forget the rhinoceros analogy, Edward, and put on a clown suit. This is you placing more emphasis on your feelings and perceptions and prejudices while ignoring the facts of the matter. The facts are that no intelligence personnel came forward and confessed to being pressured to come to certain conclusions on WMDs. What you're doing is tantamount to waving your arms and saying "I don't care what the truth is, I still refuse to believe it." Whatever. From today's New York Times:

Mr. Robb said that the commission had kept an open hot line for complaints, and "ran to ground" every report or rumor that came its way about potential political interference with intelligence-gathering and analysis, including reports that some C.I.A. analysts felt pressured by Mr. Cheney's repeated personal visits to the agency. But he said it had found "absolutely no instance" of anyone reporting pressure to change a position.

The WMD report confirms the earlier bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee investigation, helpfully summarized here, that intelligence personnel were not pressured to arrive at certain conclusions. Dan Darling:

According to the findings in the report on p. 358, not only did no cooking the books occur but it was not once even attempted! The questioning of analysts on the Iraqi connection to al-Qaeda was, as the ombudsman investigation revealed, quite reasonable under the circumstances. In other words, nobody changed their analysis to conform to administration policy and nobody in the administration ever even sought for them to do so. Feith's office was likewise completely innocent on this count, according to p. 361-375, and apparently the intelligence folks who were present at the meeting in August 2002 in which they suggested additions to the draft of Iraqi Support for Terrorism all stated to the Committee that Feith's people all contributed to discussion, which is rather far cry from Josh Marshall's claim that what they said "didn't pass the laugh test" during his effort to shoot down the Feith memo when it got published in the Weekly Standard.

I don't know about you, but I'd rather place my emphasis and reliance on studies like these than the dowdifications of Dowd and the spurious "reporting" of Greg Palast. But I guess that's just me.

The real issue, Edward, is that the administration took already flawed intelligence and tried to make more of it than what was there. It didn't help that the CIA director looked the president in the eye and said the intelligence was a "slam dunk". In the Atlantic Monthly over a year ago, Ken Pollack wrote about what really happened:

Both sides appear to be at least partly right. The intelligence community did overestimate the scope and progress of Iraq's WMD programs, although not to the extent that many people believe. The administration stretched those estimates to make a case not only for going to war but for doing so at once, rather than taking the time to build regional and international support for military action.

Pollack placed no small amount of blame on Cheney and the Office of Special Plans, which is the reason why I wrote last year that Cheney should not be vice president.

Finally, this:
The WMD were only a pretext to the invasion that, if we believe the WH now, was always actually about spreading Democracy.

Edward, your perceptions again do not square with the facts, and you've written nothing that reconciles these two separate universes. The fact is that liberating and democratizing Iraq was one of the original reasons for removing Saddam. One 52 of this media study on the stated rationales:

A fairly popular rationale was the drive to liberate the Iraqi people, a reason that was first mentioned by Donald Rumsfeld and later mentioned by Perle, Lott, McCain, and the Congressional Record. This line of reasoning wanted to free the people of Iraq from its dictator and bring them the democracy and liberty of America.

What an unreasoning and irresponsible post.

[Edward]

Charles,

It's about the evidence.

As has been discussed widely on blogs you read constantly, all indication are that the US was going to invade Iraq regardless of what evidence of WMD could be drudged up. That pre-determined decision drove the search for justification, drove Cheney's decision to prowl through the halls and gather what he could, drove the willful exaggeration of any nugget they could get their hands on.

The evidence did not drive the march to war. It was used to justify a march already decided on. To pretend otherwise (as all the sour faces in DC now suggest), knowing what we have now, is, as noted, totally absurd.

A "scathing" report of intelligence failures, therefore, is a totally meaningless formality in this context.

My post is neither unreasoning nor irresponsible.

It's a solid social critique of the insanely ludicrous play we're all watching.

[Phil]

One should particularly note page 178 of the PDF Charles links to, to see exactly when in the game George W. Bush tossed out "liberating Iraq" as a justification for the war. As opposed to, say, "WMD."

[ral]

Investigations/commissions that have gone nowhere, a recurring pattern.

• Abu Ghraib
• Jerry Boykin
• Oil for Food
• thefts in the Iraq reconstruction
• Memogate (I mean the Senate computer fiasco, not Dan Rather)
• torture (other than Abu Ghraib)
• Plame

Coming soon, to no notice whatsoever, Giuliana Sgrena.

"I worry that no matter how cynical I am, I can't keep up." --Lily Tomlin

[Bernard Yomtov]

Charles,

From your quotes (my bolding):

nobody changed their analysis to conform to administration policy and nobody in the administration ever even sought for them to do so.

Mr. Robb said that the commission had kept an open hot line for complaints, and "ran to ground" every report or rumor that came its way about potential political interference with intelligence-gathering and analysis, including reports that some C.I.A. analysts felt pressured by Mr. Cheney's repeated personal visits to the agency. But he said it had found "absolutely no instance" of anyone reporting pressure to change a position.

This, especially the paragraph about Robb, is very carefully phrased. If your original analysis is done under pressure - "Gee, why is Cheney staring at me?" - you won't need to change it to conform to WH desires, and if you do you might not be too eager to report pressure to do so.

[ral]

The Gene Wilder / Zero Mostel performance of Rhinoceros is great.

[Charles Bird]

As has been discussed widely on blogs you read constantly, all indication are that the US was going to invade Iraq regardless of what evidence of WMD could be drudged up.

To believe this you have to disregard the WMD report, the SIC report and the 9/11 Commission Report, all of which concluded that most intelligence personnel and practically all administration officials believed that Saddam had large stockpiles of chemical/biological weapons and had resumed his nuclear program. The decision to remove Saddam "regardless of what evidence of WMD could be drudged up" is not sound reasoning, Edward. Rather, it boils down to you playing hypotheticals and wallowing in speculation, or in other words you're still basing your theories on feelings, perceptions and prejudices. As the media analysis that I linked to showed, the reasons for removing Saddam were spelled out months prior to the military action; Res 1441 was violated as confirmed by both Kay and Duelfer, and flawed intelligence on WMDs was believed. That said, Cheney and the OSP performed a major disservice in the run-up to the war. The hastily and sloppily put together NIE didn't help either.

But you're right about one thing, Edward, it is about the evidence, which is why it's not a little baffling that you would close your mind to 619 pages of it. You can mindread all you want about pretenses and predeterminations (personally I wouldn't presume to do so), but there was existing intelligence and existing assumptions which led to these conclusions, flawed though the intelligence turned out to be. Don't forget that there were Republicans and Democrats on both House and Senate intelligence committees who saw much of the same data and who came to the same conclusions. But if it were really about the evidence for you, it seems reasonable that you would choose to read actual evidence available and eschew the likes of Maureen Dowd and the attempts at divining the intentions of Cheney & Co.

Because of the timing, the 9/11 Commission report will probably end up being more influential than the WMD report. However, the results confirm that there were major flaws in how intelligence was gathered and communicated, it lays out reasonable proposals to fix the problem, and it will solidify the current reform path we are on. To describe the work done by this commission as a "totally meaningless formality" is abjectly absurd.

[ral]

Charles, how do you square George Tenet's Medal of Freedom with this analysis of intelligence failure?

Did he get a A for effort? I thought we believed in higher standards than social promotion.

[Anarch]

The decision to remove Saddam "regardless of what evidence of WMD could be drudged up" is not sound reasoning, Edward.

First, that sentence doesn't say what you want it to say, Charles.

Second, it's not an unsound conclusion given the various quotes from SAO in the September 2001 - January 2002 period. [Rumsfeld's "Let's find a way to pin this on Saddam" (paraphrased) is an example par excellence of that.] It may be incorrect, yes, but merely asserting its falsehood is not the counterargument you seem to think it is.

Third, this:

As the media analysis that I linked to showed, the reasons for removing Saddam were spelled out months prior to the military action...

contains a fatal, implicit flaw which is that it presumes that the "reasons for removing Saddam" were, in fact, precisely the reasons explicated in public. The fact of the matter is that we don't know why Bush et al. wanted to remove Saddam, in large part (I suspect) because a) there was no coherent rationale and b) they spent a goodly portion of their time muddying the waters. I mean, really: how many different rationales did we hear? How often did they change? More pointedly, how often did they change depending upon the audience or the polls? Had there been a single reason, a true casus belli, it would have been employed as the, well, single reason/casus belli. [I don't recall FDR, for example, having to concoct a multiplicity of reasons for attacking Japan.] As it was, the unavoidable conclusion is that there was no specific rationale held by the Bush Administration -- which is not to dismiss the possibility of specific reasons possessed by individuals within the Administration -- for the war in Iraq.

Now you can claim that "the reasons for removing Saddam were spelled out" all you want, but that's not correct. Your reasons for removing Saddam were spelled it, I'm reasonably sure, because almost every possible reason for his removal was exhumed and carted out on national TV.* That's what I've called the "Rorschach test" aspect of the campaign for war: what you saw in the campaign depended on the preconceptions that you, as an individual, brought to the table. Whether those reasons were the reasons, however, begs the question of whether there really were "reasons" in any well-defined sense (let alone whether they were being honest about such matters). As I've said numerous times, the preponderance of the evidence suggests that there weren't, that the Bush Administration was riven by factionalism, that their public consistency (i.e. consistency from one month to the next) was poor, that their message was (deliberately?) ambiguous in its rationale... that, in other words, the question of the "reasons" for the war in Iraq is far, far more complicated than a pat "well, they were explained in the run-up to the war".

Let me be clear: I've certainly got an axe to grind insofar as I believe certain things to be true about the Bush Administrations actions and beliefs prior to the invasion, but that's where it ends. Fundamentally, I'm interested in the truth; the whole "liberal/conservative" schtick bores the hell out of me. If you're going to disagree with the above paragraphs, as I suspect you might, please do me the courtesy of addressing the substance of my criticism and not glibly dismissing my politics.

* Another strike against the theory that we know the reasons for the Bush Administration's actions: would they really have needed to sell, I dunno, farcical theories about balsa-wood drones and aluminum tubes if they'd had anything real to go on?

[liberal japonicus]

the 9/11 Commission Report, ... which concluded that most intelligence personnel and practically all administration officials believed that Saddam had large stockpiles of chemical/biological weapons and had resumed his nuclear program.

I thought that the 9/11 report,/a> didn't take a position on this.

[felixrayman]

flawed intelligence on WMDs was believed

You can mindread all you want about pretenses and predeterminations (personally I wouldn't presume to do so)

Your statements are inconsistent. I reject your arguments on that basis. If you can make an argument that is at least internally consistent, get back to me, I'd like to hear it. Until then, your argument just sounds like a bunch of partisan garbage that grabs onto and then discards assumptions as is convenient.

[lily]

I've always believed that the reason we invaded Iraq is simply that the Bush Admin. thought it would be easy. They wanted a quick easy victory to use for domestic political purposes.
Of course I can't prove this. Since the ever-changing rationalization-of-the moment sales pitches of the Admin. leaves us in the dark as to the true motivation, I can conclude what I like. My interpetation explains the lack of planning for the post-invasion period and is consistant with Bush's record as a soldier, businessman, and politican.

[Edward]

Charles,

You're still missing my point.

The intelligence may well have been flawed, the suggestions to improve it may well be needed, the report may well be a good bit of analysis long overdue, but the US was invading Iraq, hell or highwater.

I don't mind a report like this. And despite your implications, I have read much of it. I just think it's absurd to pretend, "Oh, golly, well, we aren't to blame, those of us in the White House. It's these scathingly incompetent folks in intelligence who let us down. Why we would have done things differently if they had only given us better intell (we would have covered our asses much better at least).

Bush got his war, but he's done nothing in my mind to justify it that passes the laugh test. He simply wanted it.

[Charles Bird]

Charles, how do you square George Tenet's Medal of Freedom with this analysis of intelligence failure?

Which do you think Tenet would have preferred, his job and his career or a piece of metal? The man had to resign from his job because of the intelligence failures he was ultimately responsible for. Personally I wouldn't have given him the face-saving gesture of a MoF, but that's politics and he did serve his country.

I thought that the 9/11 report,/a> didn't take a position on this.

You're right, LJ. The 9/11 Commission did address intelligence failures, but not the ones pertaining to Iraqi WMDs.

Your statements are inconsistent. I reject your arguments on that basis.

Nonsense, felix. It was expressly stated in the SIC and WMD reports that administration personnel believed the intelligence. You're basically saying "I don't believe what these reports are telling me," which is your opinion, but at least recognize that divining intentions that are otherwise is still mindreading.

[Anarch]

It was expressly stated in the SIC and WMD reports that administration personnel believed the intelligence.

Which of course begs the question as to whether they should have believed the intelligence. And whether their expectations might, in any way, have colored both the belief and the process whereby those results were produced.