Dan,
Did you watch the last minute and a half of that youtube clip?

Unbelievable hogwash. We're simpletons for believing anything so simplistic as anything other than Burke's theory? What arrogance. How about this hypothesis--Hussein's actions prior to the war strengthened the belief that he had WMDs--playing games with the inspectors, etc. A lot of evidence found during the invasion points to WMDs having been present at one time and then moved. Of course, no one wants to believe they have been moved into the hands of people even more evil and unstable than Hussein, but that possibility exists. It amazes me how people like Mr. Burke can develop such grand theories based on so little fact. My old history profs would have flunked me for that kind of sloppy behavior.

Suppose there never were any WMDs. So what? Does that make what we did somehow wrong? I don't think so. If your neighbor's house is on fire do you try to help rescue his pets and children or look at the situation and decide that it doesn't matter if they suffer and die because the fire is no threat to your personal security?

Aaron: sigh, yes, I've seen the last few minutes of it, and certainly do not condone it in any way whatsoever.

However, I could not find another video clip that contained the relevant exchange.

If you find one, let me know and I'll replace it immediately.

Dan,

This debate might gain from the insights of some classic pieces on bureaucratic politics in foreign policy - particularly the criticisms of the bureaucratic politics paradigm by Robert Art ("Bureaucratic Politics and American Foreign Policy: A Critique?" Policy Sciences (December 1973); and Stephen Krasner, "Are Bureaucracies Important? (or Allison in Wonderland)" Foreign Policy (Summer 1971).

Punchline: Presidents can get what they want in terms of policy formulation and implementation, particularly on issues they care about.

Best,

William Ruger

I don't think any of this was mismanagement, mistakes, or organizational weirdness. Bush knew that he had the political capital to invade Iraq so long as his intel folks could dig something up for him to make the case for it. Shady? Corrupt? Unethical? Probably. Necessary? Yes.

The list of American intelligence failures go back far beyond Mr. Bush's tenure, and include both Democratic and Republican administrations of the C.I.A.

The behavior of bureaucracies is well studied; but as bad as they are, we have to have them. The decisive factor is the difference between 'managing' and 'leading'; and unfortunately, a Harvard MBA is structured to acquire the skills of a manager, not a leader. A manager might well seek out alternative points of view; a leader will demand that the worst views get first study. The manager manages numbers; the leader leads people...as in, going first!

As a specific example, the Abu Ghraib incident was managed: Have faith in the system and turn it over to the military justice system (bureaucracy) for routine adjudication. A leader, however, would have handled the incident entirely differently, and in such a way that no one in the world had any doubt about American values and wearing the uniform.

The leadership nationally observed in '01 was a shell by '05, and Mr. Bush's polls exactly track the role switch from leadership to managing immediately after his re-election.

May I extend my comment:

The bureaucracy--any bureaucracy--responds to leadership far differently than how it responds to managing. The perhaps begrudging respect accorded to consistent leadership is at a much higher level than the familiar contempt for a manager: There are no partisan policy 'leaks' by people being led; 'leaks' occur only when people realize they are being managed.

There are no partisan policy 'leaks' by people being led

Some people refuse to be led. "Presidents come and presidents go, but civil service is forever."

I guess it's not unique to US foreign policy bureaucracy. The British Foreign Office (no doubt under the influence of that notorious 'Second Generation' cabal that Pilger referenced and even Robert Harris suggests) the Quai dor Say, the Russian Foreign Ministry (even under a Arabist like Primakov), even the Egyptians all believed that Iraq has a WMD program.After 1998, Russia under the direction of Primakov, and theIraqophile
French diplomats rewrote the UNPROFOR rules to prevent aggressive inspections like those
conducted by Butler,Kay, & Ritter. The oil for food programs 'loopholes' to the likes of Pasqua,
Wyatt, & Ritter, all smoothed any opposition in
many circles to any aggressive inspections. Before
someone brings up 'Curveball' he only mentioned one particular facility in Iraq. Certain events surrounding 9/11 and the anthrax scare in the fall of '2002; had a strong orientation. In the
end, one has to ask did Saddam really get rid of
all his stockpiles? That hasn;t been proven to any
degree of finality

Shorter Dan Drezner: Sure I fed my guests the spoiled hamburger that contained botulism, but I couldn't find any hamburger without it.

So what to make of this?

:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1189182.stm

"Iraq could produce nuclear weapons within three years, according to a German intelligence assessment.
The report also says the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) has evidence that Baghdad is working to develop its short-range rockets.

Germany believes Saddam Hussein is restoring Iraq's weapons capabilities

The BND also believes Iraq still possesses the capacity to resume the production of biological weapons at short notice.

Details of the information contained in the report was published in various German newspapers following a briefing to journalists by BND officials."
(...)

"Sunday, 25 February, 2001, 12:40 GMT"

As the other commentators have suggested, how was Cheney able to arch his eyebrow and intimidate or influence or urge (or whatever is being suggested) other intelligence agencies into reporting that Iraq had WMD?

This wasn't the US intel alone that believed Saddam was hiding his weapons.

And it wasn't just other governments believing it. It was also independent institutions that believed he continued to hide his WMD programs.

Furthermore, why didn't these tactics work with the latest NIE on Iranian nuclear activity?

The intelligence community failed. It wasn't the first; it won't be the last.

Looking elsewhere to some secret action by the neocons only prevents us from fixing the problem (as best as we can when dealing with a bureaucratic leviathan called the US intel community).

Actually, the reality is not that hard to understand. Cheney/Addington in particular are masters of intimidating the bureaucracy without leaving fingerprints.

A confirming example is the Department of Justice, where they made unaccountability an art form through politicization. To the point that even the principals (Gonzalez, Goodling, et all) don't really know what they were doing or how decisions got made.

It's not that hard to see the modus operandi - intimidation, misinformation, and ambiguity all leading to the results expected without any audit trail. All of these tactics make the bureaucracy more malleable, the individuals less confident, and the veiled threats more effective.

The CIA as an institution, however, was clearly populated with people more skilled at recognizing the tricks (they invented many of them for use in OTHER countries to maintain deniability) and more motivated to fight back (non-acceptance of the fall guy role for the war and the punishment via Plame). The Department of Justice, like the Court system, has just accepted their castrated role until, with the prosecutor firing, Rove stepped into Plame territory which required an institutional response.

The point is ridiculous, since US and foreign intelligence asserted that Hussein had WMD programs and probably had WMDs before Bush was ever in office. There are various accurate lists of quotes from many Clinton Administration officials to that effect pre-2000.

Combine that with Hussein intentionally wanting ambiguity about possession of them (in order for deterrence among other things), to the point where his own people, including high-ranking officers in his army, believing that they existed, and it's hardly unsurprising.

"The CIA as an institution, however, was clearly populated with people more skilled at recognizing the tricks (they invented many of them for use in OTHER countries to maintain deniability) and more motivated to fight back ("

I'm not sure if you're tongue is in your cheek or not (I sure hope so).

You do know that the CIA also believed that Saddam had WMDs? I guess they succumbed to Cheney's manipulative glances?

And I'd really like to know how this neocon cabal of nefarious eyebrow raisers was able to get Gore and Clinton and Kennedy and Albright and Cohen et cetera et cetera to state in the 1990s that Saddam had WMDS.

Quite a feat.

The Dick Cheney Mind Ray Device?

Right.

Funny how it apparently didn't work back in 1987-90 when Cheney was SecDef and the CIA completely missed Saddam's nuclear program.

One of the fascinating discoveries of the internet for me is how men with fancy titles and impressive sounding pedigrees can say the most patently ridiculous and absurd stuff you've ever heard.