Year 2003 issue 4
Doug Carmichael
Some questions about Iraq
The US needs to be fair and competent. These are core American
values – or should be – fitting our own culture, which is
better at fact than at feeling. It’s simply quality control,
and we are not looking very good. We want people to buy
our products, then we should take care about our logic.
Mere technical competence has its place, and the argument
about why Iraq is a threat, how to assess it, and cope with
it, seems like one of them. I have been disappointed at
the school kid quality of the American approach to Iraq,
but Blix too seems less methodical than we should expect.
The 173 page report is, as I write still not publicly available,
so it is hard to make a clear assessment. (see for example
http://www.un.org/Depts/unmovic/recent%20items.html ). Disarmament
of Saddam implies that he is armed (with weapons of mass
destruction.) So far as I read the evidence, even on this
point it is weak and vague. So are we asking for a disarming
when there is possibly no capacity to give up? Powell is
now claiming yet more nuclear evidence. This is a shifting
scene, and there will be many more surprises. But as of
now I have the following
Questions
1. So why is it taking the German’s to propose a list of
issues, and the establishment of a hierarchy of task? Why
has not Blix been as technically methodical? The same for
the US. (The Canadians too deserve credit for a workable
approach that seems to appeal to much of the world, but
that the US can’t accept.)
2. How can the US do a pinpoint war on a country where weapons,
with inspectors on the ground, cannot be found?
3. Blix says that the rockets now being destroyed were listed
in the Iraq declaration in December. The Iraqi’s argue that,
loaded, these missiles are within UN specified rage. This
seems to me to be one of those grey areas of honest difference.
Iraq did not intend to deceive, but to push the edge. The
US is trying to make a case out of something so on the border
that it seems like a quibble. Yet such missiles could be
significant against American troops. So the US government
wants Iraq to give up its major (non WMD) before the US
attacks him.
4. Powell now claims new evidence that these are being rebuilt.
Why does Blix not immediately deal with this issue?
5. The inspectors are given the authority by 1441 to destroy
weapons. Why are they letting the Iraqi’s destroy the missiles,
and why not do it much faster?
6. On bio-chem: Blix says that Iraq has handed over lists
f several hundred people who were involved in the destruction
of those. This looks pretty straight forward, and that Iraq
may be right. If so, why is Blix not pressing much faster
on the interviews, and making a fuss, if they are not getting
full cooperation?
7. The US has insisted on the clear potential of the aluminum
tubes for nuclear fuel production. It seems to me Blix out-experted
the US. By getting very good detailed accounts of the procurement,
specifications and use of those tubes. This is embarrassing.
For Powel to continue to assert nuclear capacity on the
basis these tubes feel like just stubborn childishness.
If he can’t do better than that, it seems to me the Bush
team is not looking for facts but for arguments.
8. The same with the nuclear materials. The Niger connection
now agreed to be false, where is the American evidence,
yet Powell insists.
9. What about the drone(s)? Why isn’t Blix on this like
a sparrow hawk? The failure of these feedback loops breeds
anomie, a sense of helplessness at doing the appropriate?
10. Why do we get no reports from Blix on the U2 and Mirage
surveillance flights?
11. And why is Baghdad not more helpful? The argument is
that Saddam has to appear strong in the eyes of Iraqis or
they will take him down. Plausible.
12. Why does the press push so hard on Saddam and so weakly
on the logic of the situation? I mean the lack of Iraq -
Al Queda connections, the differences between Iraq and Islamic
fundamentalism, and all these other questions asked here?
Another example, the well documented pressure on Mexico
to vote with the US.
13. How can a coalition based on buying votes and bullying
UN members survive an historical analysis? It is very much
against the rising tide of decency in the world.
14. Why does Bush present no budget and budgetary analysis
of the war? Part of the answer is that politicians and market
analysts agree hat the market will bounce back, either because
of the war, or because the war is over. But this seems to
me very unlikely. The US is in a long term negative position
because of world over-production and increased competition
from lower wage countries. The loss of value to the Euro
may lead to a large shift towards the Euro as the international
currency of choice. This would put dollar values and foreign
storing of money in the US, in markets and Treasuries, at
risk.
15. Halliburton is the contractor of choice to rebuild the
Turkish sites now, and to redo the oilfields after an attack.
Why does the press not follow up these leads?
16. Why is the press so weak on exploring the human casualties
that would result from the initial bombing? Who, when, how?
17. Why does Bush - Rove look like Wilson - Colonel House
(another Protestant - Texas axis). What does it tell us
about the culture of the United States?
The whole sense of confusion that arises from not being
methodical could be avoided, it seems, if method were applied.
Here are some links to show how people are trying.
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/middleeast/view/34322/1/.html
Saudi Arabia asks Iraq to propose a faster timetable than
Blix’s.
Bush focuses on Blix to avoid ElBaradei and the nuclear
issue http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/068/oped/How_Bush_fudges_the_N_arms_issue+.shtml
Analysis of Blix weakness http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/commentary/story/0,4386,175969,00.html
London Times on report details and confusion sown by Blix.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-603370,00.html
Detailed report on today’s inspections. (Why not the drone?)
Iraq says needn’t go faster. http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/03/09/sprj.irq.missiles/
London Times this afternoon on the drone. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-605538,00.html
Just as in y2k, where wisdom was that no one knew for sure,
with enough evidence to be so sure, yet most people easily
took sides. In Iraq it is important to not get hooked into
any perspective without openness to alternatives. For example,
if the war happens, there is a chance the general world
feeling would be relief, and move rapidly towards solving
lots of previously intractable problems, and the US would
revert to a more civilized approach to just about everything.
I don’t believe it, but that doesn’t mean I am right. Just
be aware… Unrealistic righteous indignation is not a good
way to be reasonable.
Douglass Carmichael
email doug@bigmindmedia.com
home page www.dougcarmichael.com
blog www.dougcarmichael.com/roughcut.html
360-221-6127
Whidbey Island, Washington
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