Steven Hadley's Argument Re: Iraq

In today's WaPo, Steven Hadley lays out the bare bones of what I consider the administration's strongest arguments against the claim that it acted irresponsibly and deceptively in building its public case for invading Iraq. We do only get the bare bones here, so keep that in mind. The case goes roughly like this, quoting the Post:

The administration's judgment on the threat posed by Iraq, he said, "represented the collective view of the intelligence community" and was "shared by Republicans and Democrats alike."

"Some of the critics today," Hadley added, "believed themselves in 2002 that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, they stated that belief, and they voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq because they believed Saddam Hussein posed a dangerous threat to the American people. For those critics to ignore their own past statements exposes the hollowness of their current attacks."

These are important points, some of which Tom has been making in comments. To summarize:

1. The administration's judgment on the threat posed by Iraq represented the consensus of the Intelligence community

2. Republicans and Democrats shared this view

3. Many of those now critical of the administration's pre-war actions themselves believed in 2002 that Saddam had "WMD"s, and they said as much

4. These current critics authorized the invasion because they believed that Saddam posed a dangerous threat to the American people.

5. "For those critics to ignore their own past statements exposes the hollowness of their current attacks."

Let me make it clear that I agree with the spirit of Senator Kennedy's response, quoted in the story (though I'm not the biggest fan of Senator Kennedy). So, as you probably know, I begin from a position of skepticism with regard to the points above, but they are strong enough to warrant consideration. Taking them individually:

1'.
(a) I'm not sure about/convinced of this. At one time I was fairly well-versed in the public version of the intelligence community's consensus--which, of course, may not have represented the actual consensus. If I'm remembering correctly, however, there was disagreement about the actual threat posed by Iraq. Wasn't it the case that a significant element of said community thought that Saddam was only a direct threat to the U.S. if we invaded? At least it is reasonably clear that the administration filtered opinions from the intelligence community in a prejudicial way. Consider, just as one example, the infamous "sixteen words." The President claimed that we had "learned" from the Brits that Saddam was trying to get uranium--but the consensus of our own intelligence community was that this was false and the Brits were wrong. So we hadn't learned it from them at all; the most charitable thing you could say here is that we had heard it from them. It certainly didn't represent the consensus of our intelligence community (which is what we are being asked to believe); in fact it did not even represent the consensus of the intelligence community if it is broadly--and sneakily--taken to include the Brits. Even if we include them, it just means there there was no consensus, but, rather dissensus.

[Forgot: There's an ambiguity here about which judgments we're talking about, the overall judgment about the dangerousness of Iraq, the overall judgment about whether he had "WMD"s, or the particular judgments the administration discussed. It's the latter that are important here, and Hadley just seems wrong about this. The claims about UAVs and the aluminum tubes did not, in fact, represent the consensus of the intelligence community.]

Most of the above, however, hinges on matters of public record. I'm going to tentatively conclude that this claim is likely to be false, but am way open to correction on the point.

(b) More importantly: Hadley's point is mostly irrelevant. I think the administration is either confused about the point at issue or bullshitting us again. The question at issue is whether the administration deceived us/used evidence in an epistemically and/or morally irresponsible manner. Even if their assertions were, in fact, in accordance with the consensus of the IC, this doesn't mean that they didn't lie about the evidence. In fact, that is the very charge at issue: that they exaggerated the evidence for widely-held conclusions and exaggerated the costliness of inaction.

2'.
Some Republicans and Democrats shared this view and some did not. I am under the impression that most sort of shared the view, so I'm tempted to give Hadley this point. Again, empirical question, and the answer can be found. However note that many Republicans and Democrats shared the view in part because they were convinced by the administration's exaggerated evidence and vehemence. I'm pretty much immune to argument by insistence, but even I began to think I must be missing something after being brow-beaten by the administration in the months leading up the invasion. I kept thinking gee, these guys are so sure about it...they must know something they're not saying, or I must be thinking about this wrong. Consequently, I tentatively judge that this point carries little weight.

3'.
True. I thought he had them, too. But irrelevant. Again: the question is whether the administration lied, deceived, and/or used evidence in an epistemically and/or morally irresponsible manner. Again: I believed that Saddam had chemical weapons, but I opposed the war b/c it came to seem clear to me that the administration was lying. You can lie even though your conclusion is true--it's one of the commonest things in the world. Making up or exaggerating evidence is deception even if your conclusion is true, even if you believe it to be so and even if the target of your deception believes it to be so.

4'.
Not clearly true. Many of the current critics authorized the war, but it isn't clear why. Personally, I think it was a combination of things. Again, in part this was a result of the administration distorting the evidence, so it doesn't really count. Furthermore, many of those who authorized the war did so because they knew that the political costs of not doing so and being wrong would be disasterous. In short, they were weenies. You can attack another country and be wrong and the American electorate will forgive you. But if you don't attack and you're wrong, you are history. Dems who voted to authorize the use of force did so in part because of legitimate evidence, in part because of administrative deception, in part because they were forced to do so to maintain credibility with the already-deceived electorate, and in part because they are weenies. So Hadley is mostly wrong here.

5'.
False. If the critics of the war had looked objectively at the same evidence that the administration looked at and made the same judgment that the administration did, then this would be fairly good evidence that their attacks are unwarranted. But given what we've already noted above, we can see that this isn't so. The administration distorted the evidence, whipped up fear in the populace, and basically created an environment in which opponents of invasion were forced to choose between (a) reluctantly voting for an invasion they weren't sure about and (b) losing all political credibility, thus dramatically increasing the power of an administration and a party that they had good reason to distrust. Given those conditions, current war critics are, I believe, permitted to judge now, in a cool hour, that their previous judgments were wrong, and wrong in part because of administrative deception.

I hope that the above arguments aren't too one-sided, but that's the way I see it, in brief. There's more to be said here, but we've all got other things to do.