----- Original Message ----- From: "John D. Giorgis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, July 30, 2003 7:01 AM Subject: Re: Seth Finkelstein on 16 words
> At 12:18 AM 7/30/2003 -0500 Dan Minette wrote: > >> Actually, Bush *did* do that, and Britain said that they completely stand > >> by their intelligence with the highest degree of confidence. > > > >Which British? The worker bees, or top management. > > So, your position is that if you had been running the Bush Administration > in this situation, you would have gone over Tony Blair's head and directly > to the underlings? > > Uh, its a nice thought, but it strikes me as impractical. No, that's not what I said. I said, that the reasonable thing was to have consultations between the intelligence experts. I know that, before Afganistan, the US presented its evidence to NATO members intelligence communities. Even without revealing sources, it would make sense for the US and GB security folks to cross check each other's work. As administration officials and supporters are now saying, intelligence is a murkey business. The words "have learned" deny the murkeyness. They should only be used when reasonable knowledgeable people concur on the certainty of the statement. Given the fact that people in the British intelligence have indicated that Blair overstated their case and the fact that people in the US intelligence have indicated that Bush did; the most logical conclusion is that Bush and Blair, together, got more certainity out of the intelligence than was there in the first place. > >But, it definately appears that their assessment of the WMD was wrong. It > >is hard to imagine hundreds of tons of deliverables, 45 minutes away from > >delivery that were quickly hidden or taken into Syria without us being able > >to trace them. > > Which is information that was not available to Bush at the time. But, the information that was available to Bush was much more sketchy than he let the American people know. > >My suggestion for the proper action for Bush > >seems clear to me. > > Is that suggestiong to admit any information for which there is uncertainty? No, to acknowedge that because you know something is true in your heart, it doesn't mean that you have conclusive evidence. Indeed, we can see Bush origionally using words that properly reflect the uncertainty of the intelligence and then switching language as he felt the need to make a stronger case. The leaders of democracies are in a position where they have access to information that cannot be made available to everyone. They have a tremendous responsibility, when they summarize the information, to do it as well as they can. Overruling their own folks to make unwarrented statements of certainty is not living up to that responsibility. Bush misrepresented the intelligence he had and it came to bite him when the reality appeard to be at the lower end of the range of possibilities. In short, if he used words like "the British have received information that leads us to believe that Hussein be trying to obtain uranium in Africa." then it would have been OK. But, that doesn't have the punch that the White House felt it needed. So, he overruled people in order to get the wording he needed. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
