Why not use third party verfication for WoMD hunt?

[AZCowboy]

serenitynow first wrote:
His leaving out key points of Iraqi dishonesty from his reports that were made public, only to bury them in footnotes later makes him, to my mind, far from impartial. Having a third person look at something only adds credibility if they agree.

And was then challenged with:

AZCowboy wrote:
I challenge you to cite a single falsehood or blatant omission from Hans Blix’ UN reports.

And responds with:

serenitynow later wrote:
They certainly took him to task for not stating in his speech to the UN that the inspectors had found drones that were a violation of UN guidelines and bombs specifically made for the purpose of using chemical weapons. If you read the report, the failure to include them in his speech was rather glaring, at least to the administration.

Now, you seem to be backing off the statement that Blix left “out key points of Iraqi dishonesty from his reports.” I agree that Blix did not mention the drones in his speech. However, the drones turned out not to be what the administration claimed. Can you make the case that the drones represented “key points of Iraqi dishonesty”? And if you try, can you claim it was more damaging to the credibility of Hans Blix then the Niger uranium intelligence the US passed to the UN inspectors was to the administration? Who, do you claim, has more credibility on these issues?

More on this point:

serenitynow previously wrote:
Do you trust Hans Blix? I don’t. He has made his anti-US bias clear, as is his right, but we control Iraq now, and we have the right to have the job done with integrity and professionalism – two qualities that I believe are absent with the honorable Mr. Blix.

And I challenged with this:

AZCowboy wrote:
Find me a single administration statement questioning his integrity or professionalism.

And you responded:

serenitynow later wrote:
The administration has been very politic in its handling of Mr. Blix, and have not called him unprofessional. They just use words like “unfortunate” and the like.

Pardon me if I conclude that you have failed to support your original assertion. I’d even be intereseted in the “unfortunate” quote, specifically when it was made, since I had stated:

AZCowboy wrote:
I note the only criticism came about after Hans Blix failed to confirm US suspicions, suspicions that the US has still failed to confirm itself.

As an example of why I ask, please review this comment:

Ari Fleischer, 1/6/03, whitehouse.gov
The inspectors are doing their very, very best. And the President is appreciative of those efforts.

At least in early January, there didn’t seem to be even a hint of a question regarding the inspectors’ “integrity or professionalism”. While the administration later did, I assert that it was part of the campaign to slander and discredit the UN inspection team, when it was evident they weren’t rubber-stamping the US’ position. I further assert that the administration’s swing on this very issue is an indicator of a lack of bias. That is, a good measure of a lack of bias is criticism from both sides. In this particular case, it is support when the third party appears helpful to your cause, and criticism when they don’t. Something that didn’t appear to describe Rolf Ekeus.

serenitynow wrote:
I believe you have your facts wrong. The US and UK actually supported Rolf Ekeus. Blix was a compromise candidate, because France and Russia refused to support the American and UK choice. The election was in 2000, not 1998.

You are right, the fact that I got wrong was that Blix wasn’t appointed til 2000, not 1998, as I stated (from memory, my mistake, irrelevent as it may be). I agree that Blix was a compromise candidate, but I never claimed that he was the US’ preference. I said, “the US supported Hans Blix’ appointment to UNMOVIC.” For support, I offer:

Swede picked to revive Iraqi arms inspections
Blix’s appointment was confirmed by Richard Holbrooke, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, who announced the council members had unanimously agreed on Blix to lead the inspection agency.

Holbrooke, the current Security Council president, said the members “found consensus on only one, Hans Blix of Sweden, another distinguished international civil servant.”

“We think he is an excellent choice. We are very moved by his willingness to undertake such a difficult task at this stage in his long and illustrious career,” Holbrooke said.

Let’s review another exchange:

serenitynow previously wrote:
Someone was tipping the regime off, though, and we know that for a fact.

AZCowboy wrote:
You seem to have your conspiracy theories mixed up. What is widely accepted is that the previous UN inspection team spied for the US, not tipped off Saddam.

serenitynow later wrote:
No, I don’t. The inspectors themselves noted that this was apparently common knowledge on the ground in Iraq during the early 90s. I have heard several former inspectors on TV refer to this, some of whom were not American.

I would be very interested in your “fact” from the first statement. I am aware that Iraqi intelligence gathered information on the inspectors covertly, but I am unaware of any “fact” established that members of the UN inspection team were “tipping off” the Iraqi regime. Please educate me. This has some import, since we can now conclude that Iraqi intelligence operatives are no longer functioning. And I note that you did not refute what I claimed was widely accepted (and further supported by Randy’s post, so far, unchallenged).

Now that leads us to the heart of your argument, the “slippery slope” issue.

serenitynow wrote:
I did not say it would lead to involvement, I said that the administration fears that it would lead to an attempt to gain more involvement and create a political pit that they don’t care to wallow in. Whether it is valid is a matter of perspective, but you know that the more the UN is involved, the more they will want to be involved. There is too much money at stake for it to be otherwise.

First, let me acknowledge that I have no doubt that the UN, France and Russia in particular, is interested in getting involved in the reconstruction of Iraq, and further agree that the motivations come down to money. Of course, that sword cuts both ways, opening the administration up to charges of greed, favoritism, and economic imperialism. However, like I said, that is for another thread.

For the issue related to the OP, I claim that having third party inspectors (and I believe the UN inspectors are the best choice) is in the interests of the US, regardless of what France and Russia seek. You claim:

serenitynow wrote:
Politically, this is a no-win situation.

with lot’s of additional support unquoted. Addressing the first argument you use to support this contention, essentially arguing that those that already believe will continue to, and those that don’t, won’t. A point I already acceded. But then you note that, “Bush cares about the undecided”. On that point, I had previously posted:

AZCowboy wrote:
I find it hard to believe that anyone could refute the idea that more people will believe it if it is verified by a third party. I do accept his premise that some won’t believe it under any circumstance, as I also accept that many will suggest that it just doesn’t matter if WoMD are ever found.

So, do you now refute that more of the undecided, both domestically and internationally, would be persuaded by third party inspections than US military inspections?

On preview:

serenitynow wrote:
I don’t fault him for being who he is, and if he was anti-war, I would not expect for him to have acted differently.

I think it is fair to say that the UN is anti-war, at the root of its very purpose.

[serenitynow]

AZCowboy , you post brings up a number of issues, and I don’t have time to fully answer them, particularly with cites, so I will follow up on this as time permits.

A few points:

Now, you seem to be backing off the statement that Blix left "out key points of Iraqi dishonesty from his reports.

My quote, which I grant you was not exactly worthy of Shakespeare, was “His leaving out key points of Iraqi dishonesty from his reports that were made public, only to bury them in footnotes later makes him, to my mind, far from impartial.” I used the word “reports” in a sense that caused confusion, and that is my fault, but if you read the quote, I think you will see that I did not say that his written reports were riddled with falsehoods or blatant omissions. “Reports that were made public” was a poor phrasing for his presentations to the UN that were on camera. You will note that I specifically pointed to the fact that some of those issues were “footnoted” (a term I was use connotatively, not denotatively since I believe they were actually added by a revision) in the actual written report. With regard to actual omissions, I seem to remember Powell, et al. making a stink about the failure of one of his last reports (if not the last) to reference the standards set down by the UN, since it was indisputable that Iraq was not complying with those standards.

The point that I was making, and I think is hard to argue, is that Blix had an agenda. While you correctly point out that the UN is about preventing war, I submit that was not Blix’ job. His job was to inspect for WMDs in accordance with UN resolutions so thet the UN could decide what they wanted to do. It was not to spin the results to achieve an outcome. I am not placing blame on him. I am looking at the realistic results with regard to the question you posed in the OP.

With regard to the drone issue, the point is that he specifically failed to mention publicly what was, at the time, significant. He also failed to mention in that same presentation the cluster bombs that were specifically modified to deliver chemical weapons payloads. Those were not discredited or later found to be something else, I don’t think, since they had only one possible purpose. Even so, it is apparent to me that Blix was intent on forestalling war, and he set about doing so by trying to discredit the US (whether wrongly or rightly) and by soft peddling Iraqi intransigence.

At least in early January, there didn’t seem to be even a hint of a question regarding the inspectors’ “integrity or professionalism”. While the administration later did, I assert that it was part of the campaign to slander and discredit the UN inspection team, when it was evident they weren’t rubber-stamping the US’ position. I further assert that the administration’s swing on this very issue is an indicator of a lack of bias. That is, a good measure of a lack of bias is criticism from both sides. In this particular case, it is support when the third party appears helpful to your cause, and criticism when they don’t. Something that didn’t appear to describe Rolf Ekeus.

So you ask me for a quote from the administration, which I have not tried to look up yet, partly because I consider the point irrelevant, but then you admit that the administration did make disparaging remarks despite asking me for proof. Part of the reason I consider it irrelevant is that it is not the main reason the US is keeping UNMOVIC out, and even if they did say something disparaging about Blix, it would just be called sour grapes or the like, as you have demonstrated in the above quote. Finally, the absence of such a statement would be irrelevant because a lack of negative comments in the political arena does not equal support.

For what it is worth, and I will try to look up the press conference later, but Fleischer used the word “unfortunate” in the last week or so when responding to a quote from Mr. Blix. I don’t remember the exact quote, but it either stated the US was not credible or that the search would be illegitimate without UNMOVIC or something along those lines.

By the way, as I am sure you know, criticism from both sides does not automatically equal a lack of bias. It could indicate a lack of quality in one’s work just as easily. (I am talking in the abstract here, and am not specifically stating this is the case with regard to Mr. Blix.)

I understand that you feel I have not supported my statements with regard to Mr. Blix, and that is ok. If you take Fliescher’s quote to be an endorsement of the great job that UNMOVIC was doing, then we simply read politicalspeak differently. Notice they said the inspectors were doing their best, not that the inspectors were doing a fantastic job and we couldn’t have done it better ourselves. Also, it would not have benefitted them to attack UNMOVIC at the time. The US was not at odds with UNMOVIC, they were at odds with the lack of Iraqi compliance, and ultimately with Blix’ acceptance of that as something that would have to be worked around.

I find it hard to believe that anyone could refute the idea that more people will believe it if it is verified by a third party.

I agree with you on this point, although I don’t think it is an absolute. The problem, from a political perspective, is what happens if the third party disagrees. What if the third party is wrong? You cannot win in that situation. For those without any political predelictions, most will believe when the US and UK say they have found WMDs. The downside substantially outweighs the upside, I think.

Domestically, it is intuitive to assume that third party verification would cause more people to believe the US, but one has to wonder whether those who would not believe without third party verification would trust the current administration enough to vote for them under any circumstances. In that respect, I am not certain that what is intuitive is political reality.

As for the international community, third party verification doesn’t matter. The divisions have been so deep that the finding of WMDs, which virtually every country (including France) believe Iraq has, will mean nothing. The question was how to disarm, not whether Iraq should be disarmed. I don’t think any opinions will change on the front, no matter what is found and who believes or does not believe.

I would be very interested in your “fact” from the first statement. I am aware that Iraqi intelligence gathered information on the inspectors covertly, but I am unaware of any “fact” established that members of the UN inspection team were “tipping off” the Iraqi regime. Please educate me.

First, I never said that a member of UNMOVIC was tipping off the Iraqis, I said that it was a possibility. IIRC there have been some Iraqi scientists who indicated that they were tipped off, but whether that is because of a mole of sloppy procedures by UNMOVIC or whatever, I don’t know. I have seen at least two members of UNSCOM on CNN, NBC, etc. in the past few weeks that have alluded to the common knowledge during the 90s that the French were giving information to the Iraqis. I will try to find something in print for you when I have the time. Of course, no matter what is found, there is always an argument that UNSCOM was filled American cronies and are not reliable, so in the end it comes down to who and what you want to believe.

By the way, the correction regarding Blix in 1998 was not meant to be relevant or significant, but since I was there, I figured it made sense to put in five words of correction. No offense nor “gotcha” was intended.

[AZCowboy]

serenitynow, I appreciate that my post was voluminous, and raised many points. And, therefore, it may take time for you to fully respond. The same could be said for yours, too. I appreciate the time you already took in your response above.

First, let me comment on the “Blix reports” issue. You are right, I read your comments as if “reports” equaled “written reports”. I am unaware of any claims of omissions of relevent data in any of Hans Blix’ written reports. I am aware of Powell’s criticism of Blix’ failure to mention the drones in his verbal presentation. I am assuming you are referencing this issue when you say, “since it was indisputable that Iraq was not complying with those standards”. Which, in fact, was disputed by Blix (not the standards, but that the drones met those standards). Powell tried to make a big deal about it (and it was all over the news), but the end result was less interesting, and didn’t make much news. Powell, and you, claim it was significant at the time. Blix did not. And it was not.

Now, I agree that Blix’ job wasn’t to prevent war. But I can hardly see how you could build the case that he lacked integrity, professionalism, or displayed bias. If anything, Blix was too diplomatic in everything he said. But in the end, you can’t blame Blix (as you acknowledge). Use of force was not his decision. I only note that he served at the pleasure of the UNSC, and I never heard any calls that he should be removed or replaced. No one else made the claims you are now making.

If you can find a cite on the cluster bombs, I would be interested, as I am unfamiliar with that episode (and as I hope you will note, I am otherwise quite versed on these issues). I’ll defer further comment.

Now, no need to find the cite for Fleischer’s “unfortunate” comment. If it was anytime after mid-January, I will stipulate it here. But you perhaps fail to see why the timing is important. If the only criticism of Blix came after he failed to deliver the goods (something the US still has not done), then the criticism may just be “sour grapes”. If the US expressed concerns about Blix prior to mid-January, that would support your case that he was biased from the beginning. If he was biased by facts, well, then, we have problem with the term “bias”. I will quickly agree that he was not biased in favor of the US. However, I think he went to extreme lengths to isolate himself from accusations of bias in either direction.

serenitynow wrote:
Finally, the absence of such a statement would be irrelevant because a lack of negative comments in the political arena does not equal support.

Granted. And I can find plenty more expressed comments of support from the administration, prior to mid-January. Bottom line, the US sponsored 1441 knowing that Hans Blix would lead the UNMOVIC team. They implicitly accepted him and any baggage he carried (and explicitly stated what a good choice he was in 2000). They only turned on him when it suited their political purpose.

Now, on to the core issue. When I said, “I find it hard to believe that anyone could refute the idea that more people will believe it if it is verified by a third party,” your following paragraph started with, “I agree with you on this point, although I don’t think it is an absolute.” And ended with, “The downside substantially outweighs the upside, I think.” In between, you become concerned if the third party disagrees. But most interesting, you point to the issue of whether they correctly disagree, or incorrectly disagree. Now, we have an explosion of possiblities. Consider:

If Iraq does have WoMD, and:
-US Military Only Inspects
>>Finds WoMD
>>Doesn’t find WoMD
-Third Party Inspects
>>Finds WoMD
>>Doesn’t find WoMD
If Iraq does not have WoMD, and:
-US Military Only Inspects
>>Finds WoMD
>>Doesn’t find WoMD
-Third Party Inspects
>>Finds WoMD
>>Doesn’t find WoMD

From your context, and for the purposes of this thread, I hope we can exclude all the lower half of the list (let’s both assume that Iraq has WoMD). The case you are worried about is if the third party inspectors fail to find them. Is this any more damaging, politically, then if the US military fails to find them? Are you suggesting that the UN inspectors would be less likely to find them? I’m not following your point.

Further, my point is, if Bush is worried about the undecideds, we have already agreed that more people will be inclined to believe the third party inspectors. So where was that downside, again?

In the paragraph discussing domestic implications, you suggest those undecideds that would be swayed by third party inspectors probably wouldn’t vote for Bush anyway. So? Isn’t credibility with the American public a valuable asset, in and of its own?

In the following paragraph on international perceptions, I strongly disagree. I think a “smoking gun” would go along way toward repairing rifts we have created.

serenitynow wrote:
The question was how to disarm, not whether Iraq should be disarmed.

Nope. Everyone agreed that Iraq should be disarmed, if they had WoMD. Hence, the unanimous UNSC resolution 1441. The question now is whether Iraq had any WoMD. A remaining question will be if the whatever might be found justified invasion.

And I put forward, that if the “stockpiles” and “tons” of WoMD that Powell described to the UN were found, many in the international community will feel that the US did indeed do them a great service. Short of that, I’m not so sure, but the administration will only have themselves to blame. They set the expectations.

serenitynow wrote:
First, I never said that a member of UNMOVIC was tipping off the Iraqis, I said that it was a possibility.

Really, I’d swear I saw this:

serenitynow wrote:
Someone was tipping the regime off, though, and we know that for a fact.

In the context of the paragraph, “someone” sure seemed to reference the weapons inspectors, since it was supporting the reason we wouldn’t want “them” back in there. Of course, who you thought they might tip off wasn’t clear either.

But this issue leads to:

serenitynow wrote:
Of course, no matter what is found, there is always an argument that UNSCOM was filled American cronies and are not reliable, so in the end it comes down to who and what you want to believe.
[sub][Emphasis added][/sub]

And that is the crux of the matter. Which side will be more credible at evaluating the claims made by the US administration - the US military or the UN weapons inspectors. Hmmm. I don’t even think it is a tough call.