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chrissy
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| Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 4:41 am
Post subject: Partly OT: Seriously flawed? |
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The British government now says that its "reporting lines" in relation
to the "45 minute" claims were "seriously flawed".
I suppose this is just pure spin, but what's wrong with simply
"wrong"?
That something is "seriously flawed" suggests that it retains some
minimal value, but the 45 minute claim was utterly baseless and led to
an exactly opposite conclusion about the action required from that it
implied by the actual facts on the ground.
Even now, it seems the government can't call a spade a spade.
Cheers
Chrissy
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Peter Moylan
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| Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 10:17 am
Post subject: Re: Partly OT: Seriously flawed? |
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chrissy hayshed:
| Quote: | The British government now says that its "reporting lines" in relation
to the "45 minute" claims were "seriously flawed".
I suppose this is just pure spin, but what's wrong with simply
"wrong"?
|
You were never a politician, were you?
At least they don't talk about "terminological inexactitude".
--
Peter Moylan peter at ee dot newcastle dot edu dot au
http://eepjm.newcastle.edu.au (OS/2 and eCS information and software) |
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Peter Duncanson
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| Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 6:16 pm
Post subject: Re: Partly OT: Seriously flawed? |
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On 12 Oct 2004 15:41:22 -0700, chrissy_brady1@yahoo.com (chrissy) wrote:
| Quote: | The British government now says that its "reporting lines" in relation
to the "45 minute" claims were "seriously flawed".
I suppose this is just pure spin, but what's wrong with simply
"wrong"?
That something is "seriously flawed" suggests that it retains some
minimal value, but the 45 minute claim was utterly baseless and led to
an exactly opposite conclusion about the action required from that it
implied by the actual facts on the ground.
Even now, it seems the government can't call a spade a spade.
What I recall is that the "45 minute" information was correct but became |
distorted when passed up the reporting lines.
Artillery or mortar shells for chemical warfare require to be filled
immediately before use. The necessary chemical process is performed using
the "precursor" chemicals to produce the filling for the shells. The
original intelligence report from Iraq said that this would take up to 45
minutes.
From the point of view of a Iraqi commander this represents a 45 minute
*delay* compared with the immediate availability of purely explosive shells.
These shells were described as "battlefield weapons".
This information reached Blair, who has no military training, experience or
awareness, who misunderstood battlefield weapons to include medium/long
range rockets/missiles which could reach targets well outside Iraq.
Somehow the 45 minute delay in the availability of a CW shell after being
called for by an Iraqi commander, become distorted into "*we" can be subject
to a chemical attack with only 45 minutes warning".
There was a mixture of misunderstanding, spin, and a failure to correct
press reports.
The reference to seriously flawed reporting lines appears to be correct, but
it is only part of what went wrong.
--
Peter Duncanson
UK (posting from a.e.u)
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Daniel James
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 6:35 pm
Post subject: Re: Partly OT: Seriously flawed? |
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In article news:<f8f1b420.0410121441.1bf8295b@posting.google.com>,
Chrissy wrote:
| Quote: | The British government now says that its "reporting lines" in relation
to the "45 minute" claims were "seriously flawed".
I suppose this is just pure spin, but what's wrong with simply
"wrong"?
|
What's wrong with "a thin tissue of lies intended more to distract
attention from the real issues than to be taken seriously"?
During the Hutton enquiry Alasdair Campbell, who was the cabinet press
officer at the time of the 45-minute thing, revealed that he had first
heard the claim after it had been made, while he was travelling (to
Saudi? I don't recall) with Tony Blair. He said that his first thought
was "they won't believe that".
... and why would "they" believe such a thing. We're talking about Iraq
here, a country whose military capability had been tested in 1991 and
found lacking, and which had been under embargo ever since. We're
talking about a country whose best long-range weapons were the SCUD
missile (which could just stagger as far as Israel if you modified it to
carry extra fuel and removed the warhead) and some prototype "super
guns" which could only be made with imported components denied to Iraq
by the embargo.
There's some interesting stuff here:
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/iraq/other/supergun.htm - though how much
of it is true I cannot say.
Iraq was known to interested in building nulear weapons, but thanks to
an Israeli air-raid that destroyed Iraq's only nuclear reactor before it
could be completed it wasn't in a position to do so. (An air raid,
incidentally, that apparently took place with the blessing of several
neighbouring countries not normally friendly to Israel, who could have
intercepted the aircraft had they wished to do so.)
Iraq is known to have had chemical weapons (imported from the west for
use against the Iranians, but also used against the Iraqi Kurds) and to
have been conducting research into bacteriological weapons. The UN
weapons inspectors found some left-over parts of tactical delivery
systems for chemical weapons, but apparently not much else.
In fact, if Iraq had even a more-than-usually-effective mousetrap at the
time of the invasion then I, for one, would be surprised.
The thing that amazes me about the 45-minute thing is not that the
government lied -- it is that anyone at all ever believed it, and that
it was not dismissed at once as being one of those meaningless noises
that politicians are always making. What amazes me most is that the
wishy-washy half-apologies we are currently almost hearing from the
likes of Tony Blair seem to suggest that they still want us to believe
that they did believe it at the time. Do they think we are even more
stupid than we think they are?
I, personally, do not believe that the invasion of Iraq was a bad thing
- I think that Saddam Hussein was a thoroughly bad lot, and removing him
from power was Good Deed(tm). I do think the whole effort was badly
handled, especially by politicians, and that those who made the decision
to invade did so (at least in part) for the wrong reasons. Getting
access to Iraqi oil, being seen to do something in the wake of 9/11, and
boosting the profits of arms manufacturers should not have been factors
in the decision.
I think that the removal of Saddam would have been better done in 1991
(before he had the chance to murder all the Iraqis who rose up against
him then) and I think it would have been better still if the CIA hadn't
put the Ba'ath party up to assassinating the King of Iraq in 1969, and
so brought the whole of Saddam's unpleasantly brutal regime to power.
American imperial ambition in the middle east seems to be the ultimate
root of it all.
| Quote: | That something is "seriously flawed" suggests that it retains some
minimal value, but the 45 minute claim was utterly baseless and led to
an exactly opposite conclusion about the action required from that it
implied by the actual facts on the ground.
|
I think the "seriously flawed" statement comes from the fact that there
had been a claim by some Iraqi officer that *battlefield* (i.e. short
range) chemical weapons could have been deployed within 45 minutes
(though how much truth there was even in that I don't know) and that
this claim had been misconstrued as a remark about strategic chemical
weapons. This misconstruction seems to be the "serious flaw" that is
repeatedly referred to.
| Quote: | Even now, it seems the government can't call a spade a spade.
|
... they haven't a clue what one is - they just keep digging themselves
deeper and deeper.
Cheers,
Daniel. |
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Peter Duncanson
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 8:32 pm
Post subject: Re: Partly OT: Seriously flawed? |
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On Wed, 13 Oct 2004 13:16:17 +0100, Peter Duncanson
<mail@peterduncanson.net> wrote:
| Quote: | What I recall is that the "45 minute" information was correct but became
distorted when passed up the reporting lines.
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By "correct" I mean technically credible. The original intelligence was
later withdrawn.
--
Peter Duncanson
UK (posting from a.e.u) |
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Steve Hayes
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 9:24 pm
Post subject: Re: Partly OT: Seriously flawed? |
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On 12 Oct 2004 15:41:22 -0700, chrissy_brady1@yahoo.com (chrissy) wrote:
| Quote: | The British government now says that its "reporting lines" in relation
to the "45 minute" claims were "seriously flawed".
I suppose this is just pure spin, but what's wrong with simply
"wrong"?
That something is "seriously flawed" suggests that it retains some
minimal value, but the 45 minute claim was utterly baseless and led to
an exactly opposite conclusion about the action required from that it
implied by the actual facts on the ground.
|
We're not talking about a minor flaw here. Not even a moderate one.
This is a *serious* flaw.
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk |
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John Seeliger
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 10:01 pm
Post subject: Re: Partly OT: Seriously flawed? |
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"Steve Hayes" <hayesmstw@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:416cdd75.108952484@news.saix.net...
| Quote: | On 12 Oct 2004 15:41:22 -0700, chrissy_brady1@yahoo.com (chrissy) wrote:
The British government now says that its "reporting lines" in relation
to the "45 minute" claims were "seriously flawed".
I suppose this is just pure spin, but what's wrong with simply
"wrong"?
That something is "seriously flawed" suggests that it retains some
minimal value, but the 45 minute claim was utterly baseless and led to
an exactly opposite conclusion about the action required from that it
implied by the actual facts on the ground.
We're not talking about a minor flaw here. Not even a moderate one.
This is a *serious* flaw.
|
Exactly. "Seriously flawed" sounds harsher to me than "wrong". It sounds
<serious tone of voice>serious</serious tone of voice>. |
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