When Bad Analogies Go Rancid

You do know that Saddam actually used weapons of mass destruction, right?

>>I think the point was that, if it weren’t for the fact that we know for a certainty that the anthrax was used, and so on, we might be reading about the “alleged anthrax threat” and the “anthrax lies” and so on.

This is sophism of the most laughable kind. We all know that the person who denies the truth of the moon landings is not on the same logical footing as the person who denies the existence of the Bermuda Triangle.

“You do know that Saddam actually used weapons of mass destruction, right?”

False. The bombings by the Iranians (1980) and the Israelis (1981) prevented Iraq from developing of weapons of mass destruction at Osirak.

Chemical weapons are not weapons of mass destruction.

“You do know that Saddam actually used weapons of mass destruction, right?”

This is a straw man. Yes, he used chemical weapons: in 1988. *No one* denies that Iraq had chemical weapons in 1988 or in 1991. That’s not what’s at issue. What’s at issue is:

1. Did Iraq have significant chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons, in a deliverable or exportable form, in 2001 when Bush decided to take us to war?

2. Did Iraq have significant connections to Al-Qaeda?

3. Whether or not Iraq had such weapons or connections, did the best evidence available support a good-faith belief that Iraq had such weapons or connections?

4. Finally, when making the case for war, did the Bush administration present the evidence in hand and its beliefs about Iraq’s weapons and Al-Qaeda connections honestly or deceptively?

The analogy to the anthrax case is just as specious as the argument that Saddam must never have existed because we haven’t caught him yet. There is significant public evidence of the recent existence of Saddam and of the anthrax attacks. There is not significant public evidence that Saddam had chemical weapons this year, last year, or in 2001. Ten years, under sanctions, most of that time under inspections, with occasional bombing of suspect facilities, is a long time. We don’t know what happened to Iraq’s weapons and weapon programs in that time. Suggesting otherwise for the sake of a cheap debating point is disingenuous and sophomoric.

I think Kieran’s point is pretty obvious: we have direct evidence that there were anthax attacks — the anthrax itself. What’s the evidence that Saddam had WMD? We had the word of the Bush administration, which now pretty obviously looks like it was based on dodgy intelligence.

I’m as surprised as anyone that Saddam doesn’t seem to have any WMD. He clearly had it fifteen years ago, and it’s not like he got nicer in those fifteen years. But Bush told us that if we knew what he knew, we would realize that Iraq needed to be invaded, and quickly. I for one believed him. Now it turns out he didn’t know much of anything at all.

What I find most peculiar is how invested so many of the pro-war people are in the idea that Saddam must have WMD. Bush didn’t just lie to the anti-war side about it: he lied to Glenn Reynolds just as much as he lied to Norm Chomsky. And what I mainly care about is this: he lied to me. Never again.

Richard: I think Bush knew that the intelligence was bull, but he was betting that Saddam really did have WMDs, so it wouldn’t matter that we didn’t have any evidence of it. Not a bad bet, but one he sure looks like he’s going to lose.

And whether or not they find WMDs later, it’s too late. The lie has been revealed. From now until the end of time, whenever I hear Bush open his mouth, I’m going to be wondering: does he believe what he’s saying, or am I just party to another bet?

richard writes:

Would the war have taken place if Hans Blix could stand up and say “I am confident Iraq has disarmed”?

Obviously, we can only speculate about that. But I think that given that Wolfowitz, et al, had been pushing for a full-scale war against Iraq for 10 years, that Bush said ‘Fuck Saddam, we’re taking him out’ in March 2002, and that during the run-up to war any suggestion that anything short of war or exile for Hussein would be sufficient was dismissed as appeasement, I think it’s clear what would have happened. Bush would have smeared Blix like he smeared France and every other nation, person, and organization that didn’t fall in line with his desired policy, and gone to war anyway.

But that’s not the point. The point is that Bush chose to present murky evidence as concrete proof. He may have been certain of that proof in his own mind, but that doesn’t mean the proof itself was certain. He deceived the country, whether or not he also deceived himself.

A simple question: on the day when Blix gave his final report, the day the war started, what was his opinion on Iraqi cooperation with the inspectors?

I ask this because I was under the impression that he said that Iraq was complying to a satisfactory degree, and I’m pretty sure that he maintained that position after the war.

Indeed, this makes sense: the only way that one could show that Iraq was not complying was if they had the weapons and were not revealing it, which was Bush’s position… given that the United States cannot find the weapons either, however, that position is untenable.

(Unless, of course, that rumor about the weapons having been hid by the Americans for an “October surprise” next year is actually true.)

Absence of evidence may not be evidence of absence. But absence of presence is sure presence of absence.

Isn’t it time Americans knew the truth about the Pretzel Incident?

I just want to know why Bush started on Cipro on Sep. 12th, nearly a month before the anthrax mail attacks. (Easy one while we’re at it: why was Cipro pushed when penicillin was shown to be equally if not more effective?)

Absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence, but at some point, absence of evidence–coupled with an obvious disinterest by the claimants in finding evidence–is tantamount to an admission of absence.

Walt Pohl – I find it interesting that you argue that Bush “knew that the intelligence was bull” (I take it you mean ‘some of’) as it implies that you think him quite the intelligence expert. Did Tony Blair also “know” that [some of] the intelligence he cited was “bull”?

jhp – and if you were President of the USA, and certain in your own mind that Saddam was lying, had WMD, and was likely to give it to al Qaida, how would you present the murky evidence?

sven – and what if the administration *really did believe* that al Qaida had linkages with Iraq? EG, Former Navy secretary John Lehman: “There is no doubt in my mind that [Iraq] trained [Al Qaeda] in how to prepare and deliver anthrax and to use terror weapons,” including teaching operatives hijacking techniques at a camp in Salman Pak, Iraq. ( http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/191/nation/Sept_11_panel_discusses_possibility_of_Iraq_link+.shtml )

If the administration *really did believe* that al Qaida had linkages with Iraq, then they are not engaging in “further deceoption”.

Interesting article recently about the Iraqi intelligence officer, Abid Al-Karim Muhamed Aswod, who was assigned to the Iraq embassy in Pakistan, and “responsible for the coordination of activities with the Osama bin Laden group” ( Babylon Daily Political Newspaper, Nov. 14, 2002; see http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/002/889jldct.asp )

Demosthenes – find the quotes and links please. “I was under the impression that he said …” is insufficient.

Hesiod et al – Bush has no record of hiding any “drinking on the job” whilst in office, nor has anyone seriously claimed that he has been “drinking on the job”, whereas Saddam’s record of hiding WMD programs from UN inspectors is well known.

raj – there is no “obvious disinterest by the claimants in finding evidence”

JRoth – Germany actually used missiles against Britain and Britain actually bombed Germany – see Dresden

To use the term “WMD” is to embrace a chimera. The chimera, as I’m sure everyone recalls, was an imaginary beast cobbled together from three real ones – a lion’s head on a goat’s body with a serpent’s tail.

The lion is the only part with teeth, just as only nuclear weapons cause mass destruction. They are city&nbspkillers –  the only city killers.

A chemical weapon is a tool of mass murder.  So is a truck full of fertilizer, (Oklahoma City, 1995) a dufflebag full of guns, (Austin, 1966) or a plane full of jet fuel.

And while a biological weapon may be, someday, the tool of our mass extinction, we are decades and megabucks shy of that point. Only a very wealthy and paranoid superpower willing to burn vast sums for its wartoys could even begin to create such a thing.

Here in the 200x’s, biological weapons are serial killers, as we saw with anthrax. (We have, according to the FBI 20-30 serial killers active in this country at any given time) Stopping either kind of killer requires early recognition that the victims are linked, a coordinated multiregional and multispeciality response, and a whole lot of shoeleather spent in old-fashioned detective work.

This is also the prescription to save us from the next SARS, AIDS or Spanish Influenza. Putting these tools in place is, therefore, a far better use of our resources than bloodily bombing our way into a long and costly occupation of a nation that was not demonstrably closer to building nuclear weapons than, say, Lichtenstein.

All that blood was shed, and a great deal of treasure spent, in pursuit of a chimera.

ryan b – see Carl Sagan’s baloney detection kit ( “Appeal to ignorance”, http://www.xenu.net/archive/baloney_detection.html ) or if you prefer the original: “The Demon-Haunted World”, Ballantine Books, New York, 1996, p.213. You might enjoy Douglas G Altman and J Martin Bland, “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”, British Medical Journal, 1995 http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/311/7003/485.

Saddam had lots of practice at hiding things, however regardless of whether anything is now found a case can be made for serious failures of intelligence ( see for example http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5693-2003Jul30.html ).

contract3d – I found some light bedtime reading for you:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0684873869/qid=1060175159/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-3147459-8144965?v=glance&s=books

elizabeth – you don’t appear to listen to what Bush says very closely: “The safety of the American people depends on ending this direct and growing threat. Acting against the danger will also contribute greatly to the long-term safety and stability of our world. The current Iraqi regime has shown the power of tyranny to spread discord and violence in the Middle East. A liberated Iraq can show the power of freedom to transform that vital region, by bringing hope and progress into the lives of millions. America’s interests in security, and America’s belief in liberty, both lead in the same direction: to a free and peaceful Iraq”.
Bush, speech at AEI Annual Dinner, February 28, 2003 ( http://www.aei.org/news/newsID.16197/news_detail.asp )

Richard,

If members of the Administration really did believe in an Iraq-al Qaeda connection, then we should be questioning their judgement and competence as well as their veracity.

Assuming that actually was Glenn who posted the snarky little comment in reply to this post, I think it’s quite silly that anybody posted in response thinking they’d start a dialogue or something. One line of off-topic snark is all Instapunditis good for… or hadn’t you noticed?

Richard,
Why do you keep going on about Saddam’s ability to hide things from the world? What has he been able to hide, and what evidence do you have that he has been hiding anything (besides some redneck Texans word on it)? The whole point is that there is no evidence, and assuming about this stuff can be dangerous, if you were in a position of power, people could die because of it.
I’m sorry to say, but you are a sucker who wil sop up anything they tell you and repeat it as gospel because you are too afraid to live in a world where your leaders don’t know what’s right. Isn’t there some Ann Coulter blog you’d rather be posting at?

Richard, thanks for the links. The BMJ paper, which I’d read before, addresses a situation that is markedly different from that in Iraq.

To wit: A&B’s point is that in many studies “nonsignificant” statistical findings – results which might be considered clinically significant – stem from a lack of a large sample. In this case, the data are unchanging and the information is fixed and limited.

In Iraq, by contrast, more and more evidence accrues every day to suggest a lack of WMD; the quantity of information is large and growning. Take it to the extreme – if we turned over every rock in Iraq, and there were no WMDs under any of them, we would have proven that there are no WMDs. Period.

Moreover: unlike the case in A&B’s argument, there is no evidence of ANY significance (clinical or otherwise) that WMDs are floating around.

Most clinical stat analyses set up a straw-man “null” hypothesis and then attempt to knock it down. A&B are simply pointing out that if you don’t try very hard, not knocking it down doesn’t transform the straw man into a burnished truth.

But the hypothesis “there are no WMDs in Iraq” doesn’t fit that straw-man mold. It has weathered the repeated, concerted and desperate attempts of the coalition to knock it down, and it stands firmly. It is being validated in the same way that scientific truth is always validated – by standing up to experiment.

Richard, you’ve drunk the coolaid, so there is really no point in discussing any of this with you.

Query:

Where would the residue, etc. from destroyed weapons end up? Where is the evidence that LARGE stockpiles of WMD were destroyed RIGHT before the invasion? Is that Occam’s Razor, of which your ilk is so fond, at work?

Second, if they were transported, what does this say about the ability of the US military and intelligence services to intercept said transit? It would have to have been well-planned and executed w/o US knowledge or detection at a time when US forces were actually inside Northern Iraq building airstrips and HUNTING FOR WMD.

There are no circumstances, however, under which you’ll EVER be convinced that you backed the wrong policy.

Richard seems to be believe that if Bush believed he was doing the right thing then the ends (ousting Saddam) justify the means (presenting skewed evidence to the public). I don’t know if that is acceptable in a democratic nation. While we do have an executive, it is one that has the duty of carring out our desires. And we will soon have the chance to evaluate his decision making skills.

I remember how Bush ran for President that he would not know everything himself, but have intelligent thoughful advisors (this was to make people feel comfortable with the conventional wisdom that he is stupid). His leadership skills do not seem to be functioning very well. While we cannot know anything for certian, it looks more probable that we would be better off without Bush as President.

Richard, I admire your willingness to have a dialogue. I just wish bush was so democratic.

As a related point: Was Bush justified in demonizing nations that thought (correctly) the evidence of WMD and the rational for war was weak. Lets not forget Bush did nothing to promote an open dialogue, but let terms like “objectively pro-Saddam” and “traitor” be used by his supporters on those that (very reasonably) disagreed with him.

This debate is missing a key point or two. Its not like there was just “evidence” of a nuclear program in Iraq just lying around that couldn’t be ignored by the administration. Cheney et al were ACTIVELY PRESSURING CIA analysts to come up with damning info on Iraq. These guys were scared for their jobs, trying like hell to find this stuff, and all that anyone could come up with were the Niger forgeries and Blair’s plageurized “dossier”. Its ridiculous to base the debate on the fact that Iraq was a major danger to the US, when it is clear that the administration had decided long ago they were going to attack, and were merely trying to fill in the gaps to justify their plan. By the way, stories of the false Niger docs, and of CIA analysts being pressured directly by OVP have been available since early Marcha at least…where was the press then? They were also being pressured to be Bush friendly…as is now being reported here and there, people coverig the war are starting to say, I mean even a reporter from the NYPost is claiming that his stories are being docotered to be less damning. I don’t have the link here, but its out there, you can find it if you really wanna see…

Richard, you wrote: “The reason [absence of evidence etc] still stands is because we are nowhere near having exhausted all possibilities, and that is true even if some of those possibilities are now far removed from claims made by the Bush administration before the war.”

To which I would reply – again, you are conflating “proof” with “evidence.” Of course we haven’t exhausted each and every possible hiding location for WMDs – nor have we shown that Saddam didn’t give them to Al Qaeda right before the war (great job Dubya!) – but as days go by, and as more and more hiding spots are cleared, the EVIDENCE points more strongly toward the hypothesis that there are no WMDs.

In A&B’s construction, evidence could not accrue – it was a fixed quantity because no more data could be gathered. But over time on the ground in Iraq, evidence DOES accrue. Right now, all the evidence we have suggests a lack of WMDs. We haven’t PROVEN it, but the evidence gets stronger every day.

You insist that “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” Well I’ll tell you – it sure as hell isn’t evidence of PRESENCE. A&B’s statement was made in a very strict and limited context; you’re taking it out of that context in making your argument.