How are we to determine if a bioweapons program is hostile? Other than employing the ever-ready clairovoyance that has so enhanced the intelligence analysis of this Administration?
Any remotely sane nation would have a bio-weapons program, if for no other reason than self-defense! Even if you had no intent to use such knowledge in a hostile way, you would be stupid not to investigate and research bio-weapon’s potential with an eye to yourself as victim. A nation like Iraq, who has enemies like Iran and friends like Syria…
On what delicate point shall we ascertain that this bio-weapons work is clearly offensive? Because we can be pretty certain that there must be some bio-weapons research in Iraq, we can be fairly certain there is some in Belgium. The mere existence of bio-weapons research means nothing.
Indeed, I would be more suspicious if there were no evidence whatsoever of such research. That would clearly signal the possibility that clandestine programs have been successfully hidden.
That said, I have no faith that if the Kaye posse finds a pile of papers on VX and sarin downloaded from the net at somebody’s house, that it won’t be trumpeted from the rooftops as proof positive, the Holy Grail, the Smoking Gun.
I know this is serious and all, but I still have this image of the little kid digging through the pile of horse manure because there has just got to be a pony in here someplace. Scylla, I don’t doubt your good faith, but all I see in the link is conclusionary language. I want to see the foundation facts. I want to see something from which a reasonable person would deduce WMDs. Showing me stuff which is consistent with WMDs is just too inductive for my taste. Give me something that meets the old circumstantial evidence rule that in order to be persuasive it has got to be inconsistent with any other rational explanation.
I don’t have that. What we have seen is consistent with an alternate rational explanation. The concealed research could be for some alternate purpose. I cannot prove that it’s not.
The weapons hypothesis seems to fit best because of the “gun on the plane” analogy I’ve described earlier.
As I mentioned earlier, Kay’s testimony is conclusionary because that’s what he was doing. He was presenting the conclusions of his report to Congress.
The report itself is classified. Presumably it is this long detailed thing backing up Kay’s conclusions. I would like to see it firsthand myself. Until and unless we do, I am simply assuming that Kay can back up what he says.
Unless we make that assumption, we don’t have anything to talk about with respect to the report.
I mentioned some of this in the codicile portion of my lengthy 2nd post in this thread.
That may be so however, the conclusions are not "confidently draw[n] comprehensive conclusions to the actual
objectives, scope, and dimensions of Iraq’s WMD activities
at the time of Operation Iraqi Freedom. "
Which may explain why spell check ™ rebelled when it hit the word.
Syclla, I know the report is classified. That’s sort of the point. All we have to go on is Mr. Kaye’s public statements of the conclusions he derives from information we are not allowed to see. A year ago when some of our friends on these boards were rebutting arguments that there was just no reliable information showing that Saddam was doing, had done or was about to do some awful thing that was a clear and present danger to the vital national interests of the United States by saying that the government had just heaps of incriminating information that would convince the most brain dead of the Anti-American pinkos of the absolute necessity to invade Iraq right now. The government had all that stuff neatly indexed and cross referenced, said our friend, but it was of course secret. We would just have to trust the poster that it was there, just piles and piles of it. Now Mr. Kaye and the Administration’s cheerleaders tell us that the information is there and plenty of it. But its a secret.
I didn’t believe it then and I don’t believe it now. No honest critical analysis accept a critical fact on faith. If there is stuff that substantiates the claims that Saddam had bad weapons, that Saddam was in bed with BenLaden, that Saddam was doing or about to do some bad thing then let the powers that be break out the information. Don’t try to sell me a pig in a sack. I want to see the pig. I want to check the horse’s teeth myself. I don’t expect that the President, Mr. Rumsfeld, Dr. Rice, the Vice-President or Mr. Kaye, jointly of severally, know how the read a horse’s teeth. I sure would not trust them to do it if they were trying to sell the horse.
I understand your point, but the main parameter for discussion in this debate is the Kay report. If you are not willing to accept the report as the ground for the debate then perhaps you should seek another thread.
And I understand your point, but that’s silly. Sorta like a debate about Christianity, only you’re not allowed to participate if you won’t accept the Bible as the inerrant word of God.
For what it’s worth, Billmon over at the Whiskey Bar has posted a similar review of Kay’s report. Being a bit more to the left than friend Scylla, of course, his analysis is not quite as forgiving. He makes a number of important points, two of which I would like to highlight. First, regarding the general conclusions Kay presents:
I think Bill has an important point here. We’re talking about an organization that consists of over 1200 specialists, all focussed on unearthing the truth regarding Iraq’s “WMDs,” who have been working for over three months. In that time, they have not yet been able to confirm even a modicum of the assertions the Bush administration put forth as incontrovertible fact prior to the war. They are either still “working on” claims asserted as fact by this administration prior to the war, or have concluded that those claims were incorrect.
Regarding the section on “Delivery Systems,” Billmon notes:
Both in this instance and in regard to Kay’s assessment of Iraq’s chemical weapons programs we find that the report actually reveals how effective the sanctions + inspections regime had been. These findings clearly contradict the administration’s rhetoric about the ineffectuality of the UN inspections.
Billmon’s conclusions are also worth posting, I think:
Ok, then. Help me out. I see no way around the base assumption that Kay’s testimony is credible.
I see that as having to be a given.
If it’s not, we’re into the realm of pure speculation.
If someone says it looks to me like Kay is overexagerating the situation, all anybody else has to say is it looks to likes he’s being very conservative and he has more than he’s saying.
The way I figure it is that we’ve had several dozen wild-ass speculation threads. I thought it might be nice to have one with parameters.
Don’t you see, Scylla, that Mr. Kaye has given us no basis on which to test his credibility. You would have us, I guess, accept at face value, a statement to this effect: “I am an expert. I have found some stuff I don’t want to talk about. Based on my examination as an expert of the stuff I don’t want to talk about I conclude that Iraq might have had WMDs.”
Maybe my problem is that I work in a system where an expert better be able to demonstrate his expertise, the factual basis for his opinion and that opinion has general acceptance among experts in the field. He also needs to demonstrate that the opinion is based on an impartial analysis of the stated information with nothing left out and that he is not simply a prostitute for the guy who hired him. Mr. Kaye’s report to Congress is missing a couple essential pieces of foundation necessary to accepting his conclusions. Most notably the facts on which the conclusion is based. When a guy goes down the path of giving conclusions that are helpful to the cause of the guy who hired hi, no matter what his credentials might be, he leaves himself open to the suspicion that he is just a hired whore.
Mr. Kaye can give conclusions until he is blue in the face, but until he shows the factual basis for those conclusions and survives an adversarial examination his credibility and reliability are going to be subject to question. As long as there are legitimate questions about the factual basis for the opinion the opinion is not going to be accepted. If the President wants Mr. Kaye’s conclusions to be accepted the first thing that has got to be done is for the factual report to be released.
It is worth noting that the Senators and Representatives on the Intelligence Committee are not vouching for Mr. Kaye’s conclusions or doing so in a pretty half-hearted way. Presumably Congress has access to the classified report and the raw data.
Do you suggest I shouldn’t have bothered with the thread, then? My given of the testimony being credible isn’t a universal, just for purposes of this thread.
And, Kaye is an expert, and he has backed up his statement. We just don’t get to see it, yet.
I see no reason, given the very vague and general nature of what he’s said, to think that he’s not being…uh…accurate. But that’s the crux of the biscuit. The denotation of what he says isn’t really all that much. Now, the connotations of what he says is pretty signifigant. But, when you get right down to what he actually is saying, he’s not saying much that definitive. The most definitive stuff is about the missiles “plans and advanced designs” and the attempts to acquire missile technology from NK. Everything else has so many qualifiers and lopholes, you can’t tell if he’s talking about. The “research and work” could be internet downloads.
If he wasn’t going top be accurate then he could’ve come out with some stronger stuff. Probably not stronger sounding, but stronger.
Of course you should have started the thread. This is something that needs to be aired out.
However, if we don’t get to see it, how are we to know that Mr. Kaye has backed up his statements. Just repeating the same conclusiatory language again, and again, and again is not backing up a statement. Until we see and evaluate the facts we cannot know whether Mr. Kaye’s conclusions are to be given any weight or not.
Until Mr. Kaye comes up with something and backs it with first hand verifiable observations my conclusion has to be that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction and had no meaningful connection with BenLaden. I may well wish that Mr. Kaye had come up with something that would let me say that the invasion was indeed a necessary step to protect the nation’s vital interests. That hasn’t happened yet and with each passing day it seems less likely to happen.
Have I doubts as to Mr. Kaye’s impartiality? None, actually. He rendered that moot on day one, while grinning gleefully and hinting at “surprises” in the offering. You remember that, don’t you?
Mr. Kaye’s unfortunate situation is having nothing of substance to show for his efforts. His entirely predictable response is to give us a load of speculation, carefully structured around the Principle of Deniability.
Case in point: the vial of botulism. Mr. Kaye is careful to make sure we are aware of this discovery, and careful to be sure it is included as part of a discussion on bioweapons. As has been revealed, the botulinum in question is not of the strain that is useful for weaponization research. It is possible, I suppose, that this fact was overlooked in his eagerness to be concise and not overload us with information.
But why was it even mentioned at all, if not to offer “evidence” of a bioweapons program? Thus, Mr. Kaye shows his eagerness to present a strong case for the Bushivik position, regardless of the actual relevance of the information.
It is possible, I suppose, that Mr. Kaye has indeed “backed up his statement”, only has not made such irrefutable proof public. It is possible, I suppose, that the secret report is simply chock-a-block with such damning facts, facts that would have all of us nay-sayers gibbering in stunned disarray.
But the Admin has determined not to make these facts known, for reasons that surpasseth all understanding. And that none of this leaked from an Admin as porous as a sponge. Possible, I suppose.