Hillary Cilinton knew that Iraq had no WMD?
October 19, 2016 10:02 AM Subscribe
Can you give me incontrovertible proof that Hillary Clinton had access to information illustrating that Iraq's WMD program was non-existant? Long story, but I need information that Hillary disregarded the warnings of Hans Blix and Mohammad ElBaradei, and other inspectors, and chose to support war rather than extend the UN inspections regime.
The whole thing is pretty well researched and written about on Wikipedia: Iraq and weapons of mass destruction, as well as several articles linked there.
You'd probably be better off arguing the obvious: Hillary was not alone. I was already living in France when all this was going on, and distinctly remember Freedom Fries due, in part, to a good majority of Americans giving the finger to France being against the war in Iraq.
That a bunch of these same people (generally conservative, though not all conservatives, naturally) are now saying Hillary made Iraq possible is quite frankly laughable at best, hypocritical at most realistic, and we won't go into worse adjectives.
Numbers:
Congress: 297 Yea, 133 Nay, 3 no votes
215 (96.4%) of 223 Republican Representatives voted for the resolution.
82 (39.2%) of 209 Democratic Representatives voted for the resolution
Senate: 77 Yea, 23 Nay
Only 1 Republican voted Nay
58% of Democratic senators (29 of 50) voted for the resolution.
posted by fraula at 10:37 AM on October 19, 2016 [11 favorites]
You'd probably be better off arguing the obvious: Hillary was not alone. I was already living in France when all this was going on, and distinctly remember Freedom Fries due, in part, to a good majority of Americans giving the finger to France being against the war in Iraq.
That a bunch of these same people (generally conservative, though not all conservatives, naturally) are now saying Hillary made Iraq possible is quite frankly laughable at best, hypocritical at most realistic, and we won't go into worse adjectives.
Numbers:
Congress: 297 Yea, 133 Nay, 3 no votes
215 (96.4%) of 223 Republican Representatives voted for the resolution.
82 (39.2%) of 209 Democratic Representatives voted for the resolution
Senate: 77 Yea, 23 Nay
Only 1 Republican voted Nay
58% of Democratic senators (29 of 50) voted for the resolution.
posted by fraula at 10:37 AM on October 19, 2016 [11 favorites]
What would even prove that?
She's spoken repeatedly, including immediately after the vote, about her misgivings at the time and later about the sense of having been misled by advisors and the Bush admin. She's been accused of not reading a classified analysis that other senators quoted as the basis of their no votes. Obviously she did disregard the inspectors' warnings to some extent because she voted yes, but what - aside from some sort of leaked communication or surveillance recording of her saying so* - could even prove she "knew" there were no WMDs but voted for the war anyway?
Is there anyone who's claiming they knew incontrovertibly at the time that there were none? Is that a thing anybody could have known? I think even the most hardline peaceniks were like, "I can't even keep up with who all is probably pushing an agenda here, what might we have missed?"
*And if that existed, you'd have heard about it already.
posted by Lyn Never at 11:03 AM on October 19, 2016 [10 favorites]
She's spoken repeatedly, including immediately after the vote, about her misgivings at the time and later about the sense of having been misled by advisors and the Bush admin. She's been accused of not reading a classified analysis that other senators quoted as the basis of their no votes. Obviously she did disregard the inspectors' warnings to some extent because she voted yes, but what - aside from some sort of leaked communication or surveillance recording of her saying so* - could even prove she "knew" there were no WMDs but voted for the war anyway?
Is there anyone who's claiming they knew incontrovertibly at the time that there were none? Is that a thing anybody could have known? I think even the most hardline peaceniks were like, "I can't even keep up with who all is probably pushing an agenda here, what might we have missed?"
*And if that existed, you'd have heard about it already.
posted by Lyn Never at 11:03 AM on October 19, 2016 [10 favorites]
What does "illustrating" mean?
posted by justcorbly at 11:04 AM on October 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by justcorbly at 11:04 AM on October 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
It will be very difficult for you to find such information. The Iraq Resolution, H.J. Res. 114, was passed by Congress on October 16, 2002. UN Security Council Resolution 1441 reauthorizing weapons inspections was passed on November 8, 2002, and inspectors did not re-enter Iraq until November 27th, 2002. If she got information from Hans Blix prior to voting on the resolution in the Senate, she was either getting information that was four years out of date (the last weapons inspectors before Resolution 1441 left in December 1998), or she is somehow capable of time travel. I'm not sure if the latter would make people more or less likely to vote for Clinton...
posted by kevinbelt at 11:41 AM on October 19, 2016 [6 favorites]
posted by kevinbelt at 11:41 AM on October 19, 2016 [6 favorites]
No such proof exists. Nearly everyone believed that Iraq had WMDs, because that was the best inference to make from the available intelligence. Check out Jervis', "Why intelligence fails" for a nice explanation for why this happened.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 12:00 PM on October 19, 2016
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 12:00 PM on October 19, 2016
Response by poster: If you read The Greatest Story Ever Sold by Frank Rich, or Bush by Jean Edward Smith, or anything by Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker and Michael Manning at the NY Review of Books, or Knight Ridder's reportage, or the Chilcot report, or Colin Powell's misgivings as reported by Lawrence Wilkerson, it's pretty clear that the accusation against Iraq was dubious at best. Nevertheless, it's been several years since I've read most of those things, so the question remains: what information -- that was provided at that time-- indicated an absence of a WMD.
posted by Triumphant Muzak at 1:05 PM on October 19, 2016
posted by Triumphant Muzak at 1:05 PM on October 19, 2016
Response by poster: it wasn't necessarily the best inference from available intelligence. Colin Powell was highly sceptical prior to his address to the UN. But that isn't the question I'm asking.
posted by Triumphant Muzak at 1:07 PM on October 19, 2016
posted by Triumphant Muzak at 1:07 PM on October 19, 2016
The question you asked was "[c]an you give me incontrovertible proof that Hillary Clinton ... disregarded the warnings of Hans Blix and Mohammad ElBaradei, and other inspectors, and chose to support war rather than extend the UN inspections regime[?]" And the answer to that is no. It would have been impossible for anyone to have even vague, indefinite information from Blix or ElBaradei at the time Congress voted on the Iraq resolution, because Blix and ElBaradei did not enter Iraq to begin inspections until well over a month after the Iraq resolution, and therefore they could not have provided any information to anyone at the time of the vote.
If you want to change your question to ask if there was vague and indefinite evidence that Iraq's WMD program was not what the Bush administration was claiming, well, there's all sorts of stuff. Look in any newspaper or magazine from the fall of 2002. Look up Scott Ritter. A lot of people thought the administration's claims were BS, but that was a guess based on incomplete information. Without inspections, all we had to go on at the time was Saddam Hussein's word, and plenty of reasonable, otherwise dovish people were not willing to accept that. The Congressional resolution passed with overwhelming support (3/4 of the Senate, 2/3 of the House), and the UN resolution was unanimous. So it was hardly a minority opinion. Pretty much everyone at the time, even people who opposed the war, granted that Iraq probably had a WMD program.
Also note that the Congressional resolution included other justifications for the use of force beyond WMDs. The WMDs were the big part, but there were many others, listed in the Wikipedia article I linked above.
I'm sorry, but if you want something to say "Hillary Clinton was briefed on October 15th that Iraq had no WMDs", you're just not going to find it. It doesn't exist. It logically can't exist.
posted by kevinbelt at 1:29 PM on October 19, 2016 [9 favorites]
If you want to change your question to ask if there was vague and indefinite evidence that Iraq's WMD program was not what the Bush administration was claiming, well, there's all sorts of stuff. Look in any newspaper or magazine from the fall of 2002. Look up Scott Ritter. A lot of people thought the administration's claims were BS, but that was a guess based on incomplete information. Without inspections, all we had to go on at the time was Saddam Hussein's word, and plenty of reasonable, otherwise dovish people were not willing to accept that. The Congressional resolution passed with overwhelming support (3/4 of the Senate, 2/3 of the House), and the UN resolution was unanimous. So it was hardly a minority opinion. Pretty much everyone at the time, even people who opposed the war, granted that Iraq probably had a WMD program.
Also note that the Congressional resolution included other justifications for the use of force beyond WMDs. The WMDs were the big part, but there were many others, listed in the Wikipedia article I linked above.
I'm sorry, but if you want something to say "Hillary Clinton was briefed on October 15th that Iraq had no WMDs", you're just not going to find it. It doesn't exist. It logically can't exist.
posted by kevinbelt at 1:29 PM on October 19, 2016 [9 favorites]
I think there may be a misconception about how intelligence works. Intelligence is information, but extremely noisy information. If someone shows that Hillary Clinton received a memo that said ,"Saddam doesn't have WMD's", it wouldn't prove anything. W/r/t intelligence and wmds in Iraq, there were probably a tens of thousands of items of intelligence. The majority indicated he did have them. Many indicated he did not. Intelligence memos and reports are inherently suspect. And did critics like Ritter and Hersch know that Iraq didn't have WMD's? Of course not. But they did believe it, based on prior information and available evidence. Others came to the opposite conclusion.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 2:15 PM on October 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 2:15 PM on October 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
It's hard to prove someone didn't know something. Can't we more reasonably say that there was a serious lack of evidence that there were WMDs, and that fact was known at the highest levels, and that those in policy positions who stated there were WMDs were likely acting in bad faith to justify an oil war?
posted by latkes at 2:19 PM on October 19, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by latkes at 2:19 PM on October 19, 2016 [2 favorites]
There was a lack of evidence for either side. That was the problem. It was not unreasonable to conclude that Iraq had WMDs in 2002. They definitely did have chemical and biological weapons programs in the past, and they had been denying access to UN weapons inspectors for years. If you have been in possession of something in the past, and you refuse to allow anyone to corroborate that you do not still have it, one could reasonably conclude that you still have it. Likewise, it was quite reasonable to conclude that the "evidence" for WMDs was flimsy beyond the deduction I just made. But to jump from that to "there were no WMDs" isn't justified, either.
That, to my mind, is the real problem with the debate over the Iraq war. No one on either side actually knew anything. We just shouted inconclusive statements at one another. In retrospect, the correct course of action would have been to wait until we could get more information (e.g., when inspections resumed at the end of the year). But hindsight is 20/20.
posted by kevinbelt at 2:45 PM on October 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
That, to my mind, is the real problem with the debate over the Iraq war. No one on either side actually knew anything. We just shouted inconclusive statements at one another. In retrospect, the correct course of action would have been to wait until we could get more information (e.g., when inspections resumed at the end of the year). But hindsight is 20/20.
posted by kevinbelt at 2:45 PM on October 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
what information -- that was provided at that time-- indicated an absence of a WMD.
Mostly just intelligence that suggested they might have some but not all necessary components/facilities and probably not any of the necessary expertise (because we know where those people are most of the time). That's what it boils down to: intelligence analysis suggested they weren't quite over the line that would constitute evidence that Iraq had not, as directed, dismantled its nuclear program.
Nobody thought they were cheerfully following all the rules, with no malice. It's just that the key things we weren't sure about - what exactly did they have and what capacity for manufacturing did they have - was unfortunately the thing we actually needed to know in order to say definitively whether they were adhering to their mandate or not. We still don't know, though we can guess now what they definitely didn't have.
The waters there were highly muddied - or yellowed, as it were - by some sketchy "intelligence" provided by some parties involved the process, and there's the whole issue of can you trust the CIA to provide accurate analysis of information that might be awfully damning to the Agency itself? These are questions that Clinton et al had to weigh as part of the vote decision. Everyone was deeply and rightfully uneasy, even the No voters, because everyone knew our intelligence was pretty shoddy and badly biased.
posted by Lyn Never at 2:56 PM on October 19, 2016
Mostly just intelligence that suggested they might have some but not all necessary components/facilities and probably not any of the necessary expertise (because we know where those people are most of the time). That's what it boils down to: intelligence analysis suggested they weren't quite over the line that would constitute evidence that Iraq had not, as directed, dismantled its nuclear program.
Nobody thought they were cheerfully following all the rules, with no malice. It's just that the key things we weren't sure about - what exactly did they have and what capacity for manufacturing did they have - was unfortunately the thing we actually needed to know in order to say definitively whether they were adhering to their mandate or not. We still don't know, though we can guess now what they definitely didn't have.
The waters there were highly muddied - or yellowed, as it were - by some sketchy "intelligence" provided by some parties involved the process, and there's the whole issue of can you trust the CIA to provide accurate analysis of information that might be awfully damning to the Agency itself? These are questions that Clinton et al had to weigh as part of the vote decision. Everyone was deeply and rightfully uneasy, even the No voters, because everyone knew our intelligence was pretty shoddy and badly biased.
posted by Lyn Never at 2:56 PM on October 19, 2016
In retrospect, the correct course of action would have been to wait until we could get more information (e.g., when inspections resumed at the end of the year). But hindsight is 20/20.
Not just in retrospect, and not just in hindsight.
It was perfectly clear at the time, from the sheer volume of spin and lies from the Bush administration and its tame media outlets (for example, the endless references to Blix's team having been "kicked out" by the Iraqis when no such thing had happened) that the administration had already decided to go to war and was doing everything it possibly could to avoid having its excuse for doing so undermined.
If Clinton could not understand that at least as clearly as I remember doing myself, she's not half as bright as I think she is.
posted by flabdablet at 8:07 AM on October 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
Not just in retrospect, and not just in hindsight.
It was perfectly clear at the time, from the sheer volume of spin and lies from the Bush administration and its tame media outlets (for example, the endless references to Blix's team having been "kicked out" by the Iraqis when no such thing had happened) that the administration had already decided to go to war and was doing everything it possibly could to avoid having its excuse for doing so undermined.
If Clinton could not understand that at least as clearly as I remember doing myself, she's not half as bright as I think she is.
posted by flabdablet at 8:07 AM on October 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
Just from reading the replies here, it becomes really clear to me that the public information in the US was very different from that in Europe. I remember being very surprised that any Democrats voted for the resolution, because from where I was, it seemed very obvious that the Bush administration was skewing the information for political purposes. And I was in a coalition country. (Our PM very carefully worded our equivalent resolution to not mention WMDs, and the opposition voted against participation in the war unanimously ).
We discussed wether the curious certainty expressed by the US and UK governments came from those countries being secret providers of such weapons during the Irak/Iran war and after - it wasn't an impossible thought, think about the Iran-Contra scandal.
Wether Clinton knew much more than any well-informed US-citizen at the time is a big question. She wasn't on the Armed Forces Committee then. As FLOTUS, she probably had access to a lot of chatter, but there is no doubt that the Bush administration was doing everything in their power to spread misinformation, even within the cabinet (as we know today from Powell). Maybe Clinton and other Dems couldn't imagine that the Bush administration would openly lie about something as important as a country harboring WMD and waging a war of aggression against that country.
It isn't surprising at all that the US politicians and press were completely un-curious about the debate in Europe. They just ate them freedom fries all the way. Sigh.
posted by mumimor at 2:16 PM on October 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
We discussed wether the curious certainty expressed by the US and UK governments came from those countries being secret providers of such weapons during the Irak/Iran war and after - it wasn't an impossible thought, think about the Iran-Contra scandal.
Wether Clinton knew much more than any well-informed US-citizen at the time is a big question. She wasn't on the Armed Forces Committee then. As FLOTUS, she probably had access to a lot of chatter, but there is no doubt that the Bush administration was doing everything in their power to spread misinformation, even within the cabinet (as we know today from Powell). Maybe Clinton and other Dems couldn't imagine that the Bush administration would openly lie about something as important as a country harboring WMD and waging a war of aggression against that country.
It isn't surprising at all that the US politicians and press were completely un-curious about the debate in Europe. They just ate them freedom fries all the way. Sigh.
posted by mumimor at 2:16 PM on October 20, 2016 [1 favorite]
No. You can't prove a negative.
NO ONE even today 'knows' that there were no WMDs in Iraq. The only thing we KNOW is that no evidence of them was ever produced.
We're pretty sure there are no unicorns. But no one can prove it.
posted by LonnieK at 5:52 AM on October 21, 2016 [1 favorite]
NO ONE even today 'knows' that there were no WMDs in Iraq. The only thing we KNOW is that no evidence of them was ever produced.
We're pretty sure there are no unicorns. But no one can prove it.
posted by LonnieK at 5:52 AM on October 21, 2016 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
So given the WMD programme was supposedly disbanded, there is some ambiguity about whether that programme had been fully destroyed before the second Gulf War, and as there was ambiguity, you'd have to prove that Clinton only listened to the people that said they were all gone, rather than the people that said they weren't, no?
posted by Brockles at 10:31 AM on October 19, 2016 [2 favorites]