Rosegate: David Rose caught misrepresenting another scientist

You can add the George Kaser to the list that includes Pielke Jr, Latif and Lal. It’s like he can’t help himself.

Rose claimed that he was told by Kaser that he wrote to Lal:

I’m not the only person in disagreement with Dr Lal. Georg Kaser, the Austrian glaciologist, insists (indeed, he told me last week) he wrote to Lal, warning him not to include the 2035 glacier melting date in AR4. Lal says he got no such letter.

But Kaser says that he didn’t write to Lal:

Dr. Kaser, who has been a report author and has also studied the retreating snows around Mount Kilimanjaro, said Monday in a telephone interview that he had sent the information to a “technical support unit” at the climate change panel rather to the lead authors directly. Dr. Kaser said he chose not to go “straightforward, to the lead authors” because “it is always a delicate matter” when criticizing other colleagues’ findings.

And Kaser’s message was not passed on to Lal:

>[Dr. van Ypersele] added that he had examined records of e-mail messages and found that the authors had never received the pertinent message from Dr. Kaser. Furthermore, Dr. Kaser’s “most pointed criticism” of the findings on glacial melting came after the contents of the report had been completed, Dr. van Ypersele said.

Via Dez in [comments](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/rosegate_scandal_still_growing.php#comment-2237390) I find [another example of David Rose style quoting](http://neuroskeptic.blogspot.com/2010/01/british-medias-blonde-moment.html).

Comments

#1 A. Lurker
February 5, 2010

Yes, sceptics who don’t ignore evidence.
#2 jakerman
February 5, 2010

>*sceptics who don’t ignore evidence.*

Is Dave Andrews abuseing the term ‘skeptic’? Dave just because you lable people skeptical, doesn’t mean they deserve the title. You need to consider their practice. Most people who call themselves skeptical on the issue of global warming are demonstrably not.
#3 Vince Whirlwind
February 5, 2010

Dave Andrews,

You and Rose believed Kay.

Kay was wrong.

You and Rose are clearly *not* sceptics, but rather gullible fools.

And to judge by your uncritical acceptance of the very inexpert and unconvincing Watts/McIntyre version of current events, you and Rose both *remain* gullible fools.
#4 Chris O'Neill
February 6, 2010

Dave (I call myself a sceptic) Andrews:

Well have you read all through the UN inspectors reports?

Here is some of Blix’s 7th March 2003 report:

“The Iraqi side has tried on occasion to attach conditions, as it did regarding helicopters and U-2 planes. Iraq has not, however, so far persisted in these or other conditions for the exercise of any of our inspection rights. If it did, we would report it.

It is obvious that, while the numerous initiatives, which are now taken by the Iraqi side with a view to resolving some long-standing open disarmament issues, can be seen as “active”, or even “proactive”, these initiatives 3-4 months into the new resolution cannot be said to constitute “immediate” cooperation. Nor do they necessarily cover all areas of relevance. They are nevertheless welcome and UNMOVIC is responding to them in the hope of solving presently unresolved disarmament issues.”

The resolution 1441 article then says:

‘At this point, the US Administration asserted that Iraq remained in material breach of the UN Resolutions, and that, under 1441, this meant the Security Council had to convene immediately “in order to consider the situation and the need for full compliance with all of the relevant Council resolutions in order to secure international peace and security”.’

So the US’s only excuse was that Iraq’s compliance had not been “immediate” in coming up with documentation and information even though it would have taken UNMOVIC at least several more months to complete its search and inspections, and not that Iraq wasn’t allowing inspectors to inspect what they wanted to. What a pathetic excuse for starting a war that led to chaos and the death of hundreds of thousands of people.
#5 Bernard J.
February 6, 2010

[Dave Andrews claims](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/rosegate_david_rose_caught_mis.php#comment-2253130).

Whilst Saddam was not an immediate threat to the West ( and note here in the UK the 45 minute warning went unremarked by the press and media for several months) there was indeed considerable reason to believe that he was maintaining the capability to build WMD and he had a track record of using them. This was the conclusion of most Western intelligence agencies.

It seems that your idea of “considerable reason to believe” does not extend beyond the level of reading page one tabloid headlines.

Every “considerable reason” was well and truly rebuffed by numerous commentators (both those professionally expert in WMD matters and those in the serious investigative media). You seem to be stumbling over this very plain fact.

The ambiguous claim that the “Western ‘intelligence’ agencies” appeared to support the WMD case is meaningless in itself, especially when it is well documented that there was both considerable doubt amongst many in said agencies, and that there was much documented pressure on same said agencies to produce a particular conclusion.

Your reference to the ‘opinion’ of “Western ‘intelligence’ agencies” is a meaningless aftertaste of the bitter bolus of bullshit that was forced down the public’s throat at the time. Only a swivelling sideshow-alley clownhead would have swallowed that line without gagging.

Are you saying that the latter should not be relied upon by their respective governments?

When it is patently apparent to any who care to actually look, that such agencies are being overtly or coverlty coerced in one manner or another by their “respective governments”, then the simple answer is “no, they should not be relied upon”.

There, that wasn’t so hard, was it?

After all, the simple fact is that either multiple ‘intelligence’ agencies around the world all FUBARed so hard that they shat their gall bladders out, or that they were/are all just plain incompetent, or they were (are?) vulnerable to the pressures of the back-room vested interests of their political leaders*.

And this, in light of the fact that there were many, and repeated, truly informed opinions attempting to draw attention to the truth. Consider [Chris O'Neill's comment](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/rosegate_david_rose_caught_mis.php#comment-2254001) above: there are many other similar instances where Ockham’s razor would have indicated that Iraq was simply engaged in bluff and in brinkmanship – anyone who might have thought otherwise has obviously never read Sun Tzu, or even come to graps with parsimonious analysis of a situation.

Seriously, could a dysfunctional tin-pot dictatorship really have fooled so many agencies around the world? And if they had done so, why where there so many people, competent to comment, attempting to draw attention to the reality of the matter, and why did they all ‘just happen’ to be ignored?

The aimple answer is because the Coalition of the Willing didn’t want proof, they just wanted a reason, however tenuous it might have been.

If you disagree, how about we all, on this thread, compose an open letter to Andrew Wilkie and ask him whether the balance of intelligence really supported the WMD case?

_{[*It is interesting that the same suite of alternatives is applied to the thousands of independent scientists and scientific organisations around the world, according to those who deny the fact of human-induced global warming. Can you see the sparks spraying from the parsimony that clangs on the pavement after having been thrown from the window?]}
#6 Chris O'Neill
February 6, 2010

From the mobile weapons laboratory article:

“Powell and I were both suspicious because there were no pictures of the mobile labs,” Wilkerson, Powell’s chief of staff said.

We all know, of course, that Powell presented these pictures to the UN, which were faked by the CIA or the White House based on purported descriptions given to them by fabricators and liars. If only Powell had remembered his suspicion:

there were no pictures of the mobile labs;

he would not be regretting that it will always be a part of his record.

The fake anthrax vial (see his biography) was a good prop at his UN presentation too.

The whole story in the article on the (fake) mobile weapons laboratory is just appalling.
#7 Dave Andrews
February 6, 2010

Chris O’Neill,

Over his whole UN career, and as head of the IAEA, Blix was a ‘fence-sitter’, you could read anything you wanted into his reports. Thus the UK government was able to take the March 2003 report as evidence for their case just as easily as you take an opposite view
#8 Lee
February 6, 2010

Dave Andrews: Fence sitter on what? His reproot was clear. Read through the formal style, and what is says is: we’re being able to inspect as, when, and where we wish now, and we’re not finding a god damn thing.

2 years ago I had lunch with one of Blix’s inspectors – I knew him in an entirely different context, and he died of a heart attack last year. He was clear that the inspectors on the ground knew, by the time the US kicked them out of Iraq so we could attack, that Saddam didn’t have a damn thing, and that they were being kicked out of Iraq so their findings wouldn’t get in the way of Dubya’s excuse to invade.
#9 Chris O'Neill
February 7, 2010

Dave (neo-con sychophant) Andrews:

Over his whole UN career, and as head of the IAEA, Blix was a ‘fence-sitter’,

Right, so you can’t address the argument, you have to wheel out the ad-hom. Gee, I wonder why you can’t address the argument?

you could read anything you wanted into his reports.

Which is exactly what the neo-cons did all the time or, more precisely, ignore whatever facts they wanted to ignore including the facts in Blix’s report.

Thus the UK government was able to take the March 2003 report

More like February 2003, actually.

as evidence for their case just as easily as you take an opposite view

Right, so supporters of the invasion of Iraq gave a great deal of criticism to Blix (and here) yet somehow while giving him a great deal of criticism they said he was supporting their invasion argument. They were so credible. This is the point. The neo-cons didn’t care about the facts. You say they said Blix’s report provided justification for an invasion when it actually provided no such thing. All it provided was a pathetic excuse for causing chaos and the death of hundreds of thousands of people.

I must say that for someone who professes support for banning nuclear weapons, you take a negligent view of reckless actions that led to chaos and many, many deaths. Your viewpoint is hypocritical.
#10 Chris O'Neill
February 7, 2010

When my actual previous comment gets published, it will contain a link to this article that points out the neo-con lie that “every intelligence service knew there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq”.

The neo-cons didn’t care about the facts. All they wanted was a pathetic excuse to start a war.
#11 Dave Andrews
February 7, 2010

Chris O’Neill

If you read Blix’s book ‘Disarming Iraq’ it is full of the weasel words of a ‘fence sitter’

I’d go so far to say he told whatever his audience was what he thought they wanted to hear. This was why they were able to take anything they wanted from his reports.

He does, however acknowledge that Blair believed the intelligence reports and was convinced by them especially as they were also supported by French and German intelligence.

He also admits that as late as Feb 20th 2003 he personally tended to think that Iraq still concealed WMD, and that when he made a crucial speech at the UN on
7th March he gave a mixed picture about whether Iraq had disarmed

He also agrees that Iraq’s (read Saddam’s) behaviour encouraged the belief that it had WMD.

The neo cons in the US may well have had an agenda but that was not the agenda in the UK or elsewhere and as Blix shows his UNMOVIC reports did nothing to clarify the situation about WMD.
#12 Chris O'Neill
February 7, 2010

Dave (the neo-con apologist) Andrews:

If you read Blix’s book ‘Disarming Iraq’ it is full of the weasel words of a ‘fence sitter’

I’d go so far to say he told whatever his audience was what he thought they wanted to hear.

Obviously you’re only capable of coming up with ad-homs.

This was why they were able to take anything they wanted from his reports.

Yes the neo-cons took what they wanted allright and completely ignored what they wanted to ignore, exactly as they did in asserting “every intelligence service knew there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq”. In the case of Blix’s report, they took the ‘cannot be said to constitute “immediate” cooperation’ statement as all they needed to justify starting a war. Yes, they took what they wanted alright, a pathetic excuse for their own appalling purposes

He does, however acknowledge that Blair believed the intelligence reports and was convinced by them especially as they were also supported by French and German intelligence.

Garbage, the French “did not have ‘undisputed proof’ that Iraq still held weapons of mass destruction“.

He also admits that as late as Feb 20th 2003 he personally tended to think that Iraq still concealed WMD,

Garbage, his point was that Iraq hadn’t supplied documentation to show what had happened to some WMDs from the past, not that it still existed as some functional weapon.

and that when he made a crucial speech at the UN on 7th March he gave a mixed picture about whether Iraq had disarmed

Garbage. His point was not about whether Iraq still had functional WMDs (which were still being searched for), it was about Iraq telling everyone what happened to the old WMDs.

He also agrees that Iraq’s (read Saddam’s) behaviour encouraged the belief that it had WMD.

That’s not the only explanation for slow co-operation and hardly amounts to proof that their old WMDs still existed and were functional.

The neo cons in the US may well have had an agenda but that was not the agenda in the UK or elsewhere

Hahahaha. Pull the other one.

and as Blix shows his UNMOVIC reports did nothing to clarify the situation about WMD.

Absolute bull. The situation was in the process of being clarified because they were searching Iraq. The inspectors had only been there since the end of November and had found no functional WMDs apart from, I think, long range missiles that exceeded their allowed range by 22%. Inspections could have been speeded up if the US and UK had wanted but as we all know, they didn’t really care if there were or were not WMDs.
#13 Bernard J.
February 8, 2010

Dave Andrews.

Your fixation with Hans Blix is merely a distraction from the greater picture, and that is that there were many appropriately qualified/experienced/directed involved people all telling the world that Iraq was not capable of deploying WoMD.

You are nitpicking over Blix’s words just as the Bush/Howard/Blair triumvirate did at the time, with the same poor case. It was a specious argument then, it is the more so now, and I cannot believe that you would attempt to rewrite history as you seem so bent on doing.

Denialism is an entrenched character in you, isn’t it?
#14 Chris O'Neill
February 8, 2010

I noticed something interesting in the article on Operation Desert Fox:

Deputy Chief of Defence Intelligence in the UK, John Morrison, informed the BBC that,

‘before the operation had ended, DIS came under pressure to validate a prepared statement to be delivered by then Prime Minister Tony Blair, declaring military activity an unqualified success. Large-scale damage assessment takes time, responded Morrison, therefore his department declined to sign up to a premature statement. “After Desert Fox, I actually sent a note round to all the analysts involved congratulating them on standing firm in the face of, in some cases, individual pressure to say things that they knew weren’t true”. Later on, after careful assessment and consideration, Defence Intelligence Staff determined that the bombing had not been all that effective.’

‘Within days of speaking out on the program, Morrison was informed by former New Labour cabinet minister Ann Taylor that he was to lose his job as Chief Investigator to the Intelligence and Security Committee.’

I’d say UK Defence Intelligence staff knew what was needed to keep their jobs after that.
#15 Dave Andrews
February 8, 2010

Bernard J,

Blix was not a diversion from the main picture, he and his team in Iraq were the only show in town at that time.

Just who are all these other more qualified people you keep banging on about?
#16 Vince Whirlwind
February 8, 2010

Blix’s report contained nothing that showed that Iraq had any WMDs.

Despite this absence of any evidence or even suspicion, some politicians claimed Iraq definitely had WMDs capable of being deployed against us “in 45 minutes”. They based this on “intelligence” which we now know didn’t exist.

Anybody who swallowed that was a gullible fool, just like David Rose and Dave Andrews.

It is now undeniable that Tony Blair and his despicable hack-journalist mate Alastair Campbell were lying, just as the sceptical amongst us could see quite clearly at the time.

If David Rose and Dave Andrews were willing, there is much they could learn by examining the errors of their past and by listening to we genuine sceptics who are quite clearly their intellectual superiors.
#17 Dave Andrews
February 10, 2010

Vince Whirlwind,

Blix’s report contained nothing that showed Iraq did not have any WMDs.

As he says himself in his book

“Personally, I tended to think that Iraq still concealed weapons of mass destruction ” p194

Of course he then backtracks somewhat from having a personal view – can’t get off the fence at all can we!
#18 Dave Andrews
February 10, 2010

Vince Whirlwind,

BTW, my background was in anti nuclear weapons activism and I did not “swallow” the 45 minute claim as evidence that Saddam could attack the UK.

That claim, which went unremarked in the UK media for several months after it was published in the dossier, related to intelligence about the readiness of Iraq’s army to deploy chemical weapons (which are classed as WMDs, even though they are not in the same class as nuclear weapons) on the battlefield.

You were perhaps the ‘gullible’ one in believing that the claim represented an immediate threat to the UK.
#19 Patagon
February 11, 2010

Kaser:
*Dr. Kaser said he chose not to go “straightforward, to the lead authors” because “it is always a delicate matter” when criticizing other colleagues’ findings.*

That is the opposite of scientific integrity: accept wrong reports out or courtesy… or may be political gain?
#20 Ian Forrester
February 11, 2010

More lies from Dave (I can’t tell the truth) Andrews:

Whilst Saddam was not an immediate threat to the West ( and note here in the UK the 45 minute warning went unremarked by the press and media for several months).

Dave have you ever told the truth in your lifetime, even once? Do you even know what telling the truth means?

Here is a quote about the 45 minutes to launch:

24 September 2003

The dossier is published with a foreword from Tony Blair, which says: “The document discloses that his military planning allows for some of the WMD to be ready within 45 minutes of an order to use them.”

The prime minister tells MPs the intelligence concludes that Saddam Hussein “has existing and active military plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons, which could be activated within 45 minutes, including against his own Shia population”.

London’s Evening Standard carries the headline: “45 minutes from attack”.

24 September 2002 to 29 May 2003

During this period between the dossier’s publication and Andrew Gilligan’s reports, the Commons library has told Labour MP Peter Bradley, the 45-minute claim was mentioned only once in passing in the Commons and twice in more than 38,000 written questions.

25 September 2002

The Sun newspaper, Britain’s biggest selling daily, has the headline: “Brits 45 mins from doom” about the threat to troops in Cyprus.

The Star newspaper has the headline “Mad Saddam ready to attack: 45 minutes from a chemical war”.

Other newspapers include the claim in their coverage of the dossier.

Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon was abroad and says he never saw the newspapers and only became aware of the reports later.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/3466005.stm

It seems as if the newspapers were all over this. It was the politicians who were quiet on it. Hoon says that he was not aware since he hadn’t read the newspapers. Doesn’t he read what his boss and cohorts wrote?

If ever there was a dysfunctional government and parliament this was it, lies, lies and more lies. Why don’t you become a politician Dave, you would be right at home in their dishonest world?
#21 Chris O'Neill
February 11, 2010

Dave (the neo-con apologist) Andrews:

As he says himself in his book
“Personally, I tended to think that Iraq still concealed weapons of mass destruction “

Being the neo-con apologist that he is, Dave Andrews cuts off the rest of the quote:

“but I needed evidence”,

and of course it was proven that there was no evidence because there were no WMDs. The neo-cons who claimed they had proof and were certain of WMDs were telling blatant, utter lies.
#22 luminous beauty
February 11, 2010

>Why don’t you become a politician Dave, you would be right at home in their dishonest world?

What makes you think Ducky isn’t a politician, Ian?
#23 Dave Andrews
February 11, 2010

Chris O’Neill,

I said Blix immediately backtracked and that is what he did throughout his career. He was supposedly an expert in what he was doing but he always refused resolutely to come off the fence. That way no matter what transpired he could not be tarnished with ‘being wrong’.

luminous beauty,

“politician” – you are truly joking!
#24 Dave Andrews
February 11, 2010

Ian Forrester,

You mention two newspapers, The Sun and The Star who commented early on. No serious media bothered with it till months afterwards.
#25 Dave Andrews
February 11, 2010

Ian FGorrester,

Perhaps I have done a slight to The Sun and The Star, since they both seem to have realised the threat was not actually directly to the UK. When the serious media picked things up a few months later this was somehow largely forgotten
#26 Lee
February 11, 2010

Andrews – are you freaking kidding?

Blix said he thought Saddam probably had something, but he needed evidence – and that is backtracking? Blix declined to stake his reputation on a belief until he had sufficient evidence to back it up and that somehow, in your opinion, discredits him? That explains a lot about you, dude.

Blix had a team on the ground getting the evidence. We – the US and our camp followers – kicked his team out, primarily because we didn’t want evidence, we wanted to invade.

So we have Blix on one side, saying, “I’ll tell you what I have the evidence to be able to know,” and on the other side, the US et al saying, ‘evidence be damned, we know what the answer is.’ And you’re defending the side that expresses beliefs without evidence.

How iluminating.

BTW, your dreaming, Andrews, if you think after your latest bleat over on the open thread that I’ll ever again call you by your first name.
#27 Vince Whirlwind
February 11, 2010

Indeed, another very revealing post from Dave Andrews – Blix saying that he needed evidence before he would believe something is “sitting on the fence”.

No, Dave, it means he is a rational, logical, and sceptical person.

Unlike you.

Blix said he hadn’t found any WMDs, was making progress in getting access to everything he needed, and wanted to keep looking.

The same fuckers who are now selling global warming denialism forced the weapons inspectors out of Iraq, issued false and misleading claims about Iraq’s weapons, and started a war on the strength of those lies in which shitloads of people died.

And David Andrews/David Rose *still* haven’t learnt their lesson about who they should trust and who they should believe.
#28 Ian Forrester
February 11, 2010

Dave (I can’t tell the truth) Andrews shows that he only looks at the picture on the front page of newspapers to get his information. Many other papers (I only checked the Scotsman, Guardian and Torygraph) all had mention of the 45 minutes rubbish that Bliar promoted in their September 25th 2002 editions.

Dave (I can’t tell the truth) Andrews you should try opening the newspaper and actually reading the words inside, you know, these funny little symbols which intelligent people use to communicate with. You might even learn something if you did.

Such ignorance from some one is completely baffling, who does your key-boarding since you seem too unintelligent to be able to use modern technology?
#29 Vince Whirlwind
February 11, 2010

In fact, credibility is a key issue here.

Here’s Rupert Murdoch, agitating for a war in Iraq:
“”Once it [Iraq] is behind us, the whole world will benefit from cheaper oil which will be a bigger stimulus than anything else.” ”

Get that? “Cheaper oil”.

He went further:
“”The greatest thing to come out of this for the world economy…would be $20 a barrel for oil. That’s bigger than any tax cut in any country.” ”

Well, we know how *that* prediction turned out.

And what does Murdoch now pay his press lackeys to emit?
Deranged Denialist gems such as:
” “I don’t believe climate change is real,” [Fox News’ Sean Hannity said. “I think this is global-warming hysteria and alarmism.”"
#30 Chris O'Neill
February 12, 2010

Dave (the apologist for himself and the neo-cons) Andrews:

I said Blix immediately backtracked

Oh that is as entirely objective as simply quoting the whole of what Blix said. Sure. What other jokes do you know?

He was supposedly an expert in what he was doing but he always refused resolutely to come off the fence.

So he refused to lie about evidence. What a damning indictment of him. Oh the shame. Just because you’re an “expert” in looking for evidence doesn’t give you the right to lie about finding evidence. We know the neo-cons thought differently and Dave Andrews agrees with them.
#31 Dave Andrews
February 13, 2010

Ian Forrester,

Your insults are boring and render the rest of what you say unworthy of comment.

Vince W,

Remember I had been well aware of Blix for many years before the 2003 Iraq war, when he was head of the IAEA. You read his reports and they always mean anything and nothing. Anti nuclear activists I know had little time for him.

Chris O’Neill,

Well you read his Feb report to the UN and the transcript of his March speech and you will see unequivocally that he was saying ‘yes Saddam has or possibly does’nt and no Saddam doesn’t or possibly has.

It’s quite possible that there would never be a situation in which Blix had enough evidence for anything.
#32 Ian Forrester
February 13, 2010

Dave (I can’t tell the truth) Andrews said:

Your insults are boring and render the rest of what you say unworthy of comment.

Not nearly as boring as your constant lying. You and the truth are not well acquainted.
#33 Dave Andrews
February 14, 2010

Ian Forrester,

Its obvious you would be a lot happier if Saddam were still alive today controlling Iraq, with the prospect of his sons Qusay and Uday taking over the dictatorship and continuing the sadistic regime’s murderous rule over the Iraqi people for generations to come.

All to satisfy your ‘liberal’ conscience.
#34 Ian Forrester
February 14, 2010

I wish that the 100,000′s of thousands of innocent Iraqis had not been killed by the the illegal attack lead by B&B.

You are pathetic, you cannot put two sentences together without turning them into three or more lies.

What gives you the right, you complete scumbag, to have the audacity to try and infer what my feelings on any subject are? Like everything else you post here and else where you are so completely wrong. Do you do that on purpose? Do you look for the “Ooooh he’s such a simpleton don’t upset him or he may me offended if you call him on his stupidity” to protect you from people calling you for what you are, a dishonest slimeball?
#35 Dave Andrews
February 15, 2010

Ian Forrester,

There was pathetic planning for the aftermath of the invasion, particularly by the US, and this undoubtedly led to civilian casualties.

At the same time the vast majority of those innocents killed were done so by fellow Iraqis or Al-Qaeda in Iraq, not by the coalition. You cannot excuse the actions of the former just because you disagree with those of the latter.
#36 Ian Forrester
February 15, 2010

Dave Andrews that is a pathetic excuse.

If your country is invaded illegally then it doesn’t matter which side killed you, you are still dead.

If they hadn’t invaded then those 100,000′s would probably still be alive.

Can’t you get any facts through your skull and into your brain? Why do you continue to support anyone who is driven towards elimination of mankind as we know it? Your support for an illegal war and your support of AGW deniers shows how much of a slimeball you are.

Did you miss out on the meaning of ethical behaviour when you were at school?
#37 Chris O'Neill
February 15, 2010

Dave (the serial argument switcher when he knows he lost) Andrews:

Well you read his Feb report to the UN and the transcript of his March speech and you will see unequivocally that he was saying ‘yes Saddam has or possibly does’nt and no Saddam doesn’t or possibly has.

So that’s a quote, is it? Where is it? You continually dodge the fact that he said “but I needed evidence”. i.e. there was no evidence, there was no proof, assertions that there were, were plain, unadulterated lies. Nothing you have said contradicts that.

Switching the point again, yet more neo-con hypothetical apologia:

It’s quite possible that there would never be a situation in which Blix had enough evidence for anything.

Pity our governments weren’t saying these things instead of sticking to their lies. At least then there could have been an honest debate about whether that was justification for starting a chaotic war that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people or whether it was simply justification for more expedient searching for WMDs. I wonder what those hundreds of thousand of dead people would have chosen?
#38 Chris O'Neill
February 15, 2010

Dave the neo-con apologist Andrews:

At the same time the vast majority of those innocents killed were done so by fellow Iraqis or Al-Qaeda in Iraq, not by the coalition. You cannot excuse the actions of the former just because you disagree with those of the latter.

And neither can you excuse the actions of the latter because of the actions of the former.
#39 Dave Andrews
February 16, 2010

Ian Forrester,

“If they hadn’t invaded then those 100,000′s would probably still be alive.”

That’s not the case at all. Saddam and his sons would still have been in charge and who knows how many ordinary Iraqis would have suffered because of that?

You also ignore that opinion polls showed the the Iraqis were in favour of the invasion and removal of Saddam and that the 5-6 million Iraqi Kurds have always been totally supportive of the invasion.
#40 Dave Andrews
February 16, 2010

Chris O’Neill,

Does it never cross your mind to wonder why Blix said he personally tended to think Iraq had WMD? Could’nt have been anything to do with the situation he was dealing with by any chance?
#41 Dave Andrews
February 16, 2010

Chris O’Neill

“And neither can you excuse the actions of the latter because of the actions of the former.”

I acknowledged that the Coalition made mistakes and that undoubtedly led to civilian casualties. Will you similarly acknowledge that the majority of civilian deaths resulted from actions by Iraqis themselves and the influx of, mainly, outsiders on ‘jihad’ against the Americans?
#42 Chris O'Neill
February 18, 2010

Dave Andrews :

Does it never cross your mind to wonder why Blix said he personally tended to think Iraq had WMD?

You just don’t get it, do you? Juries are not asked what they think without evidence. You have no defence for a lie.
#43 Chris O'Neill
February 18, 2010

Dave Andrews:

“If they hadn’t invaded then those 100,000′s would probably still be alive.”

That’s not the case at all.

Rubbish. There were hundreds of thousands of excess deaths.
#44 Chris O'Neill
February 18, 2010

Dave Andrews:

I acknowledged that the Coalition made mistakes and that undoubtedly led to civilian casualties.

And the reason the invasion was so recklessly ill-planned was because if they had waited much longer, their lie about WMDs would have become too obvious.
#45 Jeff Harvey
February 18, 2010

*I acknowledged that the Coalition made mistakes and that undoubtedly led to civilian casualties. Will you similarly acknowledge that the majority of civilian deaths resulted from actions by Iraqis themselves and the influx of, mainly, outsiders on ‘jihad’ against the Americans?*

Pure an utter drivel. It seems that, in consistently pursuing an expansionist agenda, the US and its proxies have been reperatedly guilty of ‘making mistakes’ over the past 60 years. At what point do ‘exceptions to the rule’ become the rule itself? Basically, its a myth that the lives of foreign civilians have ever mattered to nations pursuing political, economic and military (= geostrategic) agendas. The myth is propounded by the mainstream media who forever bleat on about the “nobility” and “benevolence” of western foreign policy agendas when in truth it has been (and is) anything but. At the same time, transgressions by offical enemies are condemned without exception.

According to international law, which is routinely ignored by the US and UK (but which must be steadfastly upheld by offically designated enemies), any occupying force is responsible for securuity in the lands that they invade and occupy. By extension, the illegal invasion of Iraq has led to many hundreds or thousands of deaths and up to 4 million internally displaced refugees (in other words, it is a humanitarian disaster). The occupiers are supposed to provide security, given that it was the invasion that precipiated the humanitarian catastrophe in the first place, irrespective of who caused it afterwards. That the war party could not predict this beforehand is no excuse. They invaded Iraq on the basis of lies and were then unable (or unwilling) to stop an internal war that has claimed the lives of so many people.

Note also how those like Dave Andrews who apparently support the war party seem to hush up when it comes to western support for torturers and mass murderers like Suharto who came to power with full UK/US/Australian support, was given the green light by the west to annex East Timor, and was supplied with arms by the UK during Blair’s time as prime minister in full knowedge that these arms were being used to slaughter East Timorese. Utter hypocrisy.

Hans Blix was only reluctantly allowed by Bush and Blair into Iraq, because they knew damned well that Iraq was disarmed and defenseless; they never would have attacked it in the first place if the country could have defended itself. They knew that nothing was there, hence their decision to speed up the invasion before Blix could report that the country was clean.

The fact that there are still those out there defending the indefensible is beyond me; a war clearly fought for control of a vitally strategic land and its oil; a strategy that goes back to the planning documents of the US State Department in 1950 (“The greatest material prize in history and a source of stupendous strategic power”) to Kennan’s remark in 1971 (“Any country controlling the region has veto power over the global economy”) to, more recently, Brezinski’s overview in “The Grand Chessboard” (1997) and the Project for a New American Century (2000). Pepe Escobar’s two outstanding books: ‘Globalistan’ (2006) and ‘Obama does Globalistan’ lay out the truth in quite exqusite detail. The highly infuential Council on Foreign Relations also spelled it out with their “Grand Area Strategy”. The motives for invading Iraq and Afghanistan should be obvious. Thanks to an appalling mainstream media, they aren’t.
#46 Dave Andrews
February 18, 2010

Jeff Harvey,

Excuse me, but what have Suharto and East Timor to do with discussion about the war in Iraq? And how is Afghanistan vital to controlling oil in the Middle East?

You also totally neglect that there had been a humanitarian crisis in Iraq for 30 years of Saddam’s regime before the war. That the Kurds in the North and the Marsh Arabs in the South, for example, had been systematically persecuted and abused for decades.

Why is it do you think that the Iraqi army, even the Republican Guard, more or less melted away in the face of the invasion? Because they had no stomach or loyalty to fight for a murderous tyrant and why should they?

Why did Saddam instigate a war against Iran that cost at least 100,000 Iraqi lives and many more Iranian lives and effectively bankrupted his country?

Why did Saddam then invade Kuwait inflicting even more suffering in the Region and eventually on his own people?

So don’t pretend that there wasn’t an ongoing and long-term humanitarian crisis in Iraq before 2003.
#47 Antiquated Tory
February 21, 2010

Excuse me, but why have you all allowed Dave Andrews to derail this comments thread onto the subject of the Iraq War, when this is a climate science blog? Might I add that you’ve moved into an area where he is on rather more solid ground and you are on much less solid ground than when you were all discussing climate science?
Sorry to come in from lurking to just say this, but really, folks.
#48 Vince Whirlwind
February 21, 2010

Hey Dave, interesting that you bring up Kuwait – can you tell me off the top of your head whether the Kuwaiti people have yet been permitted to vote in free and fair elections since the USA “liberated” them almost 20 years ago?

Also very interested in your “…opinion polls showed the the Iraqis were in favour of the invasion and removal of Saddam…” statement.

Would those have been opinion polls commissioned by the Iraqi government?
Or perhaps it was the same people who gave you the fictional WMDs, fictional “Niger Yellowcake”, fictional “sick babies ripped from incubators” or fictional “Saddam-Al Qaeda link”?

Have you learned nothing, still?
#49 Vince Whirlwind
February 21, 2010

Oh, and Antiquated Tory, I’m not sure in which parallel universe it is that one can gullibly and foolishly swallow the WMD lies and still be “on solid ground”, but I’m pretty sure we here are not in it.
#50 Dave Andrews
February 23, 2010

Vince Whirlwind,

Are you trying to deny Saddam invaded Kuwait?
#51 Asteroid Miner
February 24, 2010

See:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=2808
#52 DAxelrod
June 15, 2011

bunch oof frickin’ idiots…….climate change BS as usual w/ all you nuts. CIAO!