Thin Grey Line of Neo-Conservatives
The Vanity fair interview raised enough eyebrows that fellow traveler William Kristol felt the necessity to reach in and give the ball an additional spin. Writing in his own magazine, the Weekly Standard, he presented not so much a defense of what was said but tried to play up minor differences in the phrasing that appears in Vanity Fair and the DOD's transcript to muddy the clarity of the waters (Kristol, Weekly Standard, 09Jun03). Kristol's efforts aside, the differences between the two do not affect the meaning of the statement. Tanenhaus - being interviewed concerning his interview - (Lappin, Times London. 2; 21 20Jun03) indicated that he believes that Wolfowitz intended to say exactly what he said. Kristol, of course, is the man not only responsible for initiating the Project for the New American Century, to which Wolfowitz and others signed on, but he also is man who stated on Nightline that in his opinion the last twenty years of bipartisan foreign policy had achieved only failure and it was time for it to end. This is not a man who will ever admit that any part of the neoconservative agenda is wrong or mistaken in any way.
The next week a column appeared in Newsweek Zakaria, Exaggerating the threats marking the not only increased scrutiny but increased focus on the leaders of the circle of ardent neoconservatives. Fareed Zakaria points out that Paul Wolfowitz has a history of association with over estimating since his membership with the "b-team" that second guessed the CIA's assessment of the Soviet Union in the late 1970's. A similarly alarmist and misleading report on the Chinese was done in the 1990's. A link back to a potential Straussian feel to the Neo-conservatives outlook, is a belief that no apparent fact offered, discovered or not discovered should trump a pre-assignment of evil to a regime presumed hostile.
When Secretary of State Powell briefed the UN on what results of American and British intelligence they were wiling to share, it was fairly clear that this data did not support the statements being made about it. Even less so now that objects on the ground do not corrollate with the labels assigned to photographs of them in poster-board political briefings. The four years I spent as a photo interpretor for the Navy didn't make me an expert, but I am aware the state of the art has progressed beyond that level. There were points before the war where some questioned why the professional intelligence community acquiesced to such stretching of the data and did not find a way to release more if they had it to dress its thinness. The Intelligence assessments being trumpeted were not primarily coming from the professional intelligence community, but from ad hoc groups assembled from within the political levels of the Defense department. Such programmatic assessments and the pressure their advocates put on the community placed great stress on human collected intelligence over data centric means as photography or signal intelligence. These have to analyzed and measured before being interpreted. Human intelligence will come straight through the door, or over the transom with a wink, and have a ready narrative with it. The primary problem with information of this nature; is that the world of intrigue and spies, and the personality types attracted to it are very prone to being played. Played like a game of three card monte by more professional, more purposeful organizations. If they are not being played, they are playing: in the salons of Washington and Pentagon caves to an eager neo-conned audience.
The Washington Post ran an analysis piece about a month ago (Schrage, No weapons no matter, Wash. Post 11May03; B2) which outline the probable manner in which Iraq was playing the weapons of mass destruction gambit. The key is to make it superficially likely you have a large capacity, place all your bluster and swagger in that direction. Make conformation of this capacity murky and byzantine, and set all your official mea culpas in the direction of abiding by international agreements. Behind this maintain a small, probably quite small, and extremely well hidden capacity in chemical and biological weapons. Keep a nuclear program, if desired, distributed and poised on the brink between academic and production. The military and political advantage lies in the appearance of holding such weapons, less in holding them, at least for Iraq. The seed of actuality is simply to maintain the front. Schrage's take on the situation is that we successfully called Hussiens bluff with this war, finding weapons is moot. The point he tells us is that Iraq can no longer have, have not, or pretend to have WMD's. This is standing on a slippery slope in teflon tretorns. This is to champion the inadequacy of your ability to engage in or even comprehend diplomacy, To declare a principle of resorting to force of arms, to violence and violation of sovereignty in the face of any ambiguity and hostility. To reduce all international law and agreement to the singularity of might. Some among the neo-conservative contingent would have us believe that is is the state of nature we find ourselves in, but there was more common sense and common law between nations than they are willing to see.
Stanley Hoffman writing in the New York review of books (America goes backwards, NY Rev Bks, 50: 10 12jun03) provides a good review of what is lost and what problems have been created. The Neo-conservatives have been slow to realize that with the mantle of unilateralism they have assumed, they have taken hold of a bilateral reality where resentment and cold measure of delivered power return for what this administration imposes on those who resist, and expects of those that would not be against us. But of course as we learn in the following issue of Newsweek Paul Wolfowitz isn't really a neo-conservative (Hirsh, Neocons on the line, 23Jun03) at all. He's the pragmatic son of a mathematician, and a great believer in evolutionary change .
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