Bernard has no more access nor credibility than guys we KNOW were lying - like Rumsfeld. You're attempting to argue from authority when the authority is linked to discredited information and discredited people. Not smart.

Uhhhmmm, not quite.

See, the actual fallacy isn't an argument from authority, but argument from an anonymous authority. Bernard is not anonymous. His argument is supported by various documents and other people who are considered experts.

I don't have to become an arms inspector, travel to Iraq and do lots of heavy lifting to read what Bernard has written and say, "Hmmm, that makes sense." Then read an anonymous poster who offers nothing other than his own ramblings about how certain he was.

For example, I know little of physics. However, if a guy with an impressive CV, lots of publication on a specfic fied in physics were to tell me something about said field...I'd be inclined to go with what he says vs. some guy on the internt expounding some theory nobody has ever heard of.

Oh and I don't see Bernard as being linked to any discredited authority. His by no means a Bush supporter.

"... [W]hen Sen. [Carl] Levin [D-Mich.] asked for it (an NIE) and the answer was from George Tenet, "Well, we don't have one," I thought, how odd, because the assumption was in something like this you would always have one; it would be updated every year, every two years, when you thought there were significant changes. It hadn't been produced because, in fact, they didn't have any information."

and,
"Essentially, the extension without evidence. Remember, the criticism of the intelligence community coming out of 9/11 is they didn't connect the dots. More dangerous than not connecting dots is connecting dots when you haven't collected dots. And in fact, what had happened from '98 right up to the time of the war in 2003 is no dots had been collected. But yet that didn't stop them from connecting them. They were connecting dots we had collected from 1991 through 1998. ..."

and,
"My firsthand knowledge is we found no evidence during inspections we carried out of a connection between Al Qaeda and Saddam in the … [sense] of actual collaboration and interaction and a common strategy. I don't think there is any evidence of that because I don't think it existed. ..."

and,
"The system broke down. It's this: We all knew he had weapons, so don't let the data get in your way, and the limitations. ... Much of the argument is, we all knew we were going to war; therefore it didn't matter. I think that is misunderstanding the situation. I think while that's true, we did all understand that the policy was for military action, and short of a miracle, that was going to take place. But what was partly driving that is this shared belief that he had weapons of mass destruction, sort of independent of the data. …"

There is more, much more, read the whole thing, and if you have the time (app 4 hrs ttl), watch the show. It is on line and worth it.

" The Administration was inept from stem to stern. Massive deficits, massive growth in domestic spending, losing both Houses of Congress and the Presidency, Katrina, U.S. Attorneys, torture, "mission accomplished," two recessions, financial meltdown...."

In Latin: Posterus credibilitius, downus toiletus..

Bernard Finel, to say the least a fan of neither the Bush Administration nor the Iraq War, throws cold water on the Bush Lied, People Died meme that refuses to die:

Bernard Finel said:

It is clear that Bush, et al, lied repeatedly in the run-up to the war.

For anyone with a modicum of interest in the events taking place in Iraq during the ten years preceding the Bush war on Iraq it was chrystal clear that Bush and many others were blatantly and repeatedly lying to the American people regarding Iraq having WMD programs and stockpiles that poised an immediate and existential threat to the US.

I am not the only one who knew he was lying. Millions of people worldwide took to the streets to protest going to war based upon lies.

When the war started the meme 'Bush lied, people died' spread. It will not die because it is true.

This may be because the comments are (mostly) indefensible. Did they constitute a lie? Or did Rumsfeld have enough irresponsible certainty taht he was willing to go on record and subsequently be made to look foolish and/or deceptive?

I suspect the latter. Two of the chief legitimate critcisms of the man's tenure as SecDef were his willingness to speak loosely and his arrogance in pushing firmly held positions. This comment showcases both deficits.

Rumsfeld was not off the reservation when he made those comments. Neither was Colin Powell when he took a pack of lies to the UN. (A very charitable case could be made that Powell was lied to by others; I don't absolve him of responsibility for it, though).

Look, you can parse the 18 words if you want to say that all Bush was claiming was that at some point the Brits had passed along information, but the yellowcake claim had been debunked within the administration for a while by then. I guess, you can claim Bush wasn't lying, but just so ignorant that he told falsehoods because he didn't know better... and anyway, it isn't just Bush. There are plenty of unambiguously untrue statements from Cheney and Rummy and Wolfie and Dougie and the rest of the clown posse.

The only plausible defense of the Administration is actually the classical elitist perspective. They knew the evidence was ambiguous and made a reasoned judgment. But they realized that making an ambiguous case for war might result in Saddam remaining power which they felt would have placed the country at risk. So they deliberately sought to mislead the public because it was for our own good.

Personally, I like democracy. So I think they should have made the case honestly, warts and all, and I think that in the end they would have gotten the authorization to use force anyway, but would have gone to war with a deeper consensus and less divisiveness... but look, that's the story of the Administration, isn't it? A bunker mentality from day one -- with us or against us. So why should selling the Iraq war have been any different from how they lied to sell the prescription drug benefit, or lied to try to sell social security reform, or lied to try to claim that amnesty didn't mean amnesty. In a weird way, they systematically undermined all of their policy preferences by overselling them with dubious claims -- which is ashame, because social security reform needs to be address, etc.

Near the top of these comments, both Anjin-San and M1EK provided a quote by Rumsfeld that was clearly a lie. I've read the later comments, and no one has responded in Rumsfeld's defense.

This may be because the comments are (mostly) indefensible. Did they constitute a lie? Or did Rumsfeld have enough irresponsible certainty taht he was willing to go on record and subsequently be made to look foolish and/or deceptive?

I suspect the latter. Two of the chief legitimate critcisms of the man's tenure as SecDef were his willingness to speak loosely and his arrogance in pushing firmly held positions. This comment showcases both deficits.

That said: while an Administration is responsible for the statements of its cabinet members, and the overall case presented by the Administration was flawed, a comprehensive, unemotional evaluation does not result in a verdict of lying about WMD, in my opinion.

Being wrong? Selection bias in overselling intelligence that said Iraq had WMD (and was collectively, casually viewed as accurate by the majority of the world's intelligence agencies)? Yes. Fabricating the concept to sell a war? No.

(1) It is clear that Bush, et al, lied repeatedly in the run-up to the war.

It seems to me that to establish credibility with detractors to salvage your argument, you are willing to sell a bit of your original argument down the river. Specifically, this revolves around a definition of "lie" that dilutes the term.

Irresponsibly cherrypicking intelligence due to selection bias while disregarding outliers, focusing on WMD and incompetently communicating the real casus belli for Iraq does not constitute a "lie":

an assertion of something known or believed by the speaker to be untrue with intent to deceive

I am sensitive to and in agreement with your plea to look at the factors that led to an invasion comprehensively and unemotionally, but I feel that you are ironically giving too much away in granting such emotional characterizations of Bush's actions and rhetoric.

Let me repeat that: Not only the U.S. but all Intelligence Agencies were providing Intel to Hans Blix’s team, and no weapons or programs were identified, yet Bush took us to war.

The idea was that Hussein was asked to fully comply, and he did not during the point when inspections were in progress.

As examples, inspectors found missiles with prohibited ranges that were undeclared, inspectors were harrassed with state-staged protests, and the disclosures on WMD were incomplete. So Bush took us to war based on the violation of 1441 after the decade of other violated resolutions, in addition to the perceived threat of WMD, is the argument.

Inspections may have been incomplete, but Iraq was not in "active compliance" with 1441, which was a fairly clear violation of its terms. Hence the casus belli. Debatable, but again: not irrational, by any means.

Remember, we'd be bombing Iraq on a nearly daily basis since the early 1990s. This was not a normal situation.

So, to clarify:

(1) It is clear that Bush, et al, lied repeatedly in the run-up to the war.

(2) That said, it was also possible at the time to make a plausible case for war that did not rely on any of the Bush lies or nonsense about AQ ties, yellowcake, or uranium tubes.

(3) The problem with the current narrative is that by denying point (2), it turns what was a geniunely complicated policy issue into a simpleminded conspiracy story, and it further insults the many people -- in Congress, the analytic community, and elsewhere -- who were both appalled by Bush's tactics in selling the war and yet grudgingly convincing that regime change was the best option.

My argument is a plea to grow up and try to understand the underlying policy issue and challenges with intelligence assessments rather than the comfortable and smug quest for yet another cudgel with which to bash Bush.

(Frankly, we don't need one. Bush will go down in history as an epic failure regardless of whether we want to condemn the original decision to go to war. The Administration was inept from stem to stern. Massive deficits, massive growth in domestic spending, losing both Houses of Congress and the Presidency, Katrina, U.S. Attorneys, torture, "mission accomplished," two recessions, financial meltdown.... Over time, I suspect that Iraq -- which loomed so large for so long -- will be remembered as just yet another piece of the entire stupid, misguided, incompetent mess.)

I worked closely with David Kay on a book project in those week and months, and I worked for Bob Gallucci at the time. These two gentlemen, inspectors both, with access to all the intel -- thought Saddam had a chem/bio program and probably some stockpiles.

But since Saddam was busy playing a shell game, who knew? Even the inspectors who siged off on 'nuke free' didn't ahve access to all areas. I note you bypass that point. Why?

What am I to take from this?

Is it Dr. Joyner's (and the other Bush defenders') position that the Bush Administration as a whole did not lie, even as individual members did? And is that a coherent position?

4) When the inspectors returns, they found no evidence of a WMD program.

Then point five weakens the clarity and force of point four by adding ambiguity:

5) Saddam was either unable or unwilling to provide a full accounting of what had happened to the program.

Skip the unwilling canard, and you have the picture of the deterioration of the Command structure in Iraq that is accepted today…

You cannot escape the fact the Bush took us to war at a point in time that inspections were in progress, and there was not a hint of WMD’s being present. You cannot escape the incongruity our Intelligence Agency claiming that such weapons existed, at a point that the UN Team could not find them. Let me repeat that: Not only the U.S. but all Intelligence Agencies were providing Intel to Hans Blix’s team, and no weapons or programs were identified, yet Bush took us to war.

Suskind’s account of Paul O’Neill’s brief tenure as Secretary of Treasure clearly points to forces within the Administration wishing to invade Iraq long before 9/11 occurred, other dribs and drabs are out there… You are ignoring the neocon visions, and the heavy whiff of oil is not penetrating your nostrils.

I, for one, wish to be educated. Rather than blathering how foreign Intelligence Agencies agreed with the CIA assessment (hint: read Hans Blix book), quote for me an article, in a reputable German, French, Spanish, or Italian news source, that substantiates that claim. Sorry, Japanese is above my capabilities.

Beyond the relative unsustainability of policing 60% of another country's airspace ad infinitum, with all the impacts that entails (commercial air traffic, logistical and political realities for the enforcing countries, etc - France quit out of the effort early, I believe) ... there is the simple fact that containment of Saddam was also working to solidify his hold on the part of the country he held, while harming Iraq and its people (rising infant mortality, stifled economy, etc).

When you walk around Baghdad, the place is crumbling, and you might be inclined to think that it's a result of the 2003 invasion. But it's really years of neglect that became exponentially worse as resources were cut off or selectively funneled into the regime's pocket after the Gulf War.

Beyond any financial concerns, the paradigm was morally problematic ... and so was the alternative of lifting sanctions and airspace restrictions without compliance to the terms of the ceasefire agreement that ended the first war. The invasion in 2003 has caused a lot of misery and trauma, but there is light at the end of the tunnel.

As with many foreign policy scenarios, there weren't really any "good" options.