Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Day I Realized I Would Never Find Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–29 of 29 posts

Re: The Day I Realized I Would Never Find Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq

#21

Post by toyg »

LatteLazy wrote: post #6

I don't understand why he went in the first place. It was clear to everyone it was BS. It should have been triply clear to someone in the DoE whose job includes knowing these things!? Based on this, the guy is either an idiot (unlikely) or just wilfully ignorant. Once he was in Iraq, and after he returned, he knew. That's be his own admission. So he spent his time running around and interrogating old men until they c…

You have a career, a family, a nice house, and you want to keep all that. You want that promotion, that niche holiday, and you know how fragile all this lifestyle is - if you sound “confrontational”, “rocking the boat”, you’ll get freezed out. Your boss tells you his boss wants you to go and find something, anything, maybe with a bit of spiel about duty to the country and all that. Your whole community is so proud: contributing to the war effort! Proving Americans are just!

Would you really say no, even when you have a hunch that it’s all just song & dance...?

Re: The Day I Realized I Would Never Find Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq

#22

Post by thisrod »

acqq wrote: post #13
LatteLazy wrote: post #6

I don't understand why he went in the first place. It was clear to everyone it was BS. It should have been triply clear to someone in the DoE whose job includes knowing these things!? Based on this, the guy is either an idiot (unlikely) or just wilfully ignorant. Once he was in Iraq, and after he returned, he knew. That's be his own admission. So he spent his time running around and interrogating old men until they c…

It seems you aren't aware of what was happening at the time: 2003 Colin Powell's speech in the UN Security Council: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Counci... A presentation with all the "proofs" which, only after the war started, were proven to be fakes. Only in 2005, he admits: https://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/09/politics/powell-calls-his... "Powell Calls His U.N. Speech a Lasting Blot on His Re…

> There were also the protests, in vain

Not entirely. Before the war started, there mass protests, and ubiquitous claims that its ruling class promoters were pathological liars. People could even discuss those claims around serving soldiers without getting punched.

As Noam Chomsky pointed out at the time, none of that had happened before. The peace movement couldn't stop a war in 2003, but it made a lot of progress towards a future where it can.

Re: The Day I Realized I Would Never Find Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq

#23

Post by MockObject »

toyg wrote: post #19
MockObject wrote: post #14

Between the absence of WMDs (I'd never believed they were there) and the disinterest in stabilizing the country after the invasion, it became clear that the goal was to destroy a nation that had the recent history and continued potential to be a threat to our interests and allies in the region.

... ironically ending up bolstering an already-active adversary in the region, Iran, by removing its “natural predator”. Foreign-policy circles are full of people who think they are the smartest guys in the room, when they are anything but. Dr.Strangelove is alive and well.

That's correct! On the other hand, I remember Scott Ritter predicting that 2003 would bring an invasion of Iran as well, so the extended remix of the plan was supposed to handle Tehran, too.

Re: The Day I Realized I Would Never Find Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq

#24

Post by yesenadam »

kyuudou wrote: post #5

Audience Member : Negrodamus, why is President Bush convinced there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? Negrodamus : Because he has the receipt. - from Paul Moody's "Negrodamus" skit on Chappelle's Show More seriously, Western countries sold Saddam plenty of chemical weapons which were used to kill lots of Iranians during the particularly brutal Iraq-Iran war during the 1980s. The whole situation is complete mad…

>Western countries sold Saddam plenty of chemical weapons

Yes, and the US sold Saddam a wide range of biological weapons too. A lot of details near the bottom of this page:

https://fas.org/irp/congress/2002_cr/s092002.html

Re: The Day I Realized I Would Never Find Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq

#25

Post by ta999999171 »

pier25 wrote: post #18
acqq wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you really want to learn more than from a single podcast, read slowly about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_C... and check what were the functions before, then and after of the people who wrote the documents or were involved and also what they wrote. Especially a document: "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century," September 2000. With the famous…

We will probably never know what really happened in 9/11 but boy did Bush et al profit from the situation.

Anyone shaking their head in disbelief only need look at Cheney corp involvement/ownership.

Re: The Day I Realized I Would Never Find Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq

#26

Post by ta999999171 »

toyg wrote: post #21
LatteLazy wrote: post #6

I don't understand why he went in the first place. It was clear to everyone it was BS. It should have been triply clear to someone in the DoE whose job includes knowing these things!? Based on this, the guy is either an idiot (unlikely) or just wilfully ignorant. Once he was in Iraq, and after he returned, he knew. That's be his own admission. So he spent his time running around and interrogating old men until they c…

You have a career, a family, a nice house, and you want to keep all that. You want that promotion, that niche holiday, and you know how fragile all this lifestyle is - if you sound “confrontational”, “rocking the boat”, you’ll get freezed out. Your boss tells you his boss wants you to go and find something, anything, maybe with a bit of spiel about duty to the country and all that. Your whole community is so proud: c…

Yes, because I would never take a job that could ever put me in that position.

Being "successful" to me is far less important than being happy/not being a piece of shit to the rest of the world.

Altruistic? Or just not a selfish scumbag? You decide.

Re: The Day I Realized I Would Never Find Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq

#27

Post by LatteLazy »

toyg wrote: post #21
LatteLazy wrote: post #6

I don't understand why he went in the first place. It was clear to everyone it was BS. It should have been triply clear to someone in the DoE whose job includes knowing these things!? Based on this, the guy is either an idiot (unlikely) or just wilfully ignorant. Once he was in Iraq, and after he returned, he knew. That's be his own admission. So he spent his time running around and interrogating old men until they c…

You have a career, a family, a nice house, and you want to keep all that. You want that promotion, that niche holiday, and you know how fragile all this lifestyle is - if you sound “confrontational”, “rocking the boat”, you’ll get freezed out. Your boss tells you his boss wants you to go and find something, anything, maybe with a bit of spiel about duty to the country and all that. Your whole community is so proud: c…

I don't know if I'd say yes or no. But if I said yes, I'd know the whole thing was BS (just like he did) and go knowing that. Unlike him, I wouldn't interrogate any old men until they cried (especially if I could avoid doing so by just not bribing people!?). And I would not come back and decades later, long after anyone stopped giving a shit, write a long article where I pretended going made me the good guy and I was duped. I'd slink off and be ashamed while I bought my new jetski or whatever.

Re: The Day I Realized I Would Never Find Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq

#28

Post by Gibbon1 »

MockObject wrote: post #23
toyg wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... ironically ending up bolstering an already-active adversary in the region, Iran, by removing its “natural predator”. Foreign-policy circles are full of people who think they are the smartest guys in the room, when they are anything but. Dr.Strangelove is alive and well.

That's correct! On the other hand, I remember Scott Ritter predicting that 2003 would bring an invasion of Iran as well, so the extended remix of the plan was supposed to handle Tehran, too.

After the invasion of Iraq US Army was barely able to keep their supply lines open and that was without the Iranians being overtly hostile. It's no wonder they weren't able to even consider invading Iran.

Re: The Day I Realized I Would Never Find Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq

#29

Post by boublepop »

stevenwoo wrote: post #12
boublepop wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It was clear to everyone it was BS. That’s what a lot of republicans have been saying about climate change for decades. Sensible people don’t act based on “everyone knows” especially not when tasked with actually digging out facts.

This is unwarranted whataboutism. Conservatives around the world say this about climate change but that the vast majority of scientists can show the receipts - there is very little evidence against accelerating man made climate change. Contrast with the Iraq war justifications, even after they were shown to be false, the guys in favor of war kept on saying it was OK to go to war because "good intentions" matter more…

It’s not whataboutism, it was literally the point.

If you where a republican investigator in charge of figuring out if climate change was a problem and decided to not actually do any fact checking because “everyone knows it’s bullshit” you would be an idiot.

In the same sence, someone tasked with looking for WMD in Iraq would be an idiot to simply go “well everyone knows there aren’t any” and not checking the facts.

Point is that no matter your political leanings, there is no such thing as “everyone knows” when doing investigations you look for facts and evidence.

And sometimes that’s hard because there isn’t any (Iraq) and other times that’s easy because there are tons (climate change). But no matter the case and your political affiliation if you skip the facts and rely on public sentiment you’re being foolish.

Post reply on HN