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…) I find [another example of David Rose style quoting](http://neuroskeptic.blogspot.com/2010/01/british-medias-blonde-moment.h…).
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50 internet bucks on Rose saying "BUT KASER DISAGREES WITH LAL! HA! I WIN! I WIN!"
Any takers?
So: David Rose, a British journalist working for the Mail group of newspapers, has been exposed as a dissembler and a serial distorter of his source's information.
You realise there is a well-established forcing for this phenomenon, don't you? It's called a large treble scotch. No mishtake, shurely!
In an unguarded, casual moment, the person being interviewed makes a remarkable comment. The recorder is not running because the reporter is only looking for a couple of quotes to give weight to the story.
The reporter follows the same routine, but once in a while someone becomes embarrassed and claim they have been misquoted. I believe David Rose and voted accordingly.
Wow el gordo, with an imagination and politics like yours I can't understand why you are unemployed as a journo. You should fit right in with the Murdoch oligarchy.
I assume you'd also vote for Rose over Latif & with Rose over Kaser? Cos Rose has already declared that he's ["never misquoted anyone"](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/rosegate_scandal_grows.php#comm…). That's just before he was sprung for having misquoted [someone else](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/rosegate_scandal_still_growing…).
And on the subject of how discerning a judge you are, you still haven't answered my [last question](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/open_thread_38.php#comment-2218…). You got really cocky about Lu and made a bunch of over-confident snipes about Lu's superiority to the rest of climate scientist, just before you chucked Lu under the bus.
So who was the source that you believed about Lu? (like you now believe Rose). And why are you shy to reveal where you get this kind of info from? Why would you be loyal to sources that keep embarrassing you by feeding you disinformation?
Well here we go again. The notes of my short conversation with Kaser say he told me he wrote to the coordinating lead authors in September 2006. Graham Cogley told me the same thing. I put it to Lal, and he said he hadn't received the letter.
So, maybe Kaser misspoke: after all, he was speaking in a foreign language. Either way, he tried to draw the attention of the IPCC to the error, but was ignored. Meanwhile, you will have seen this:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7009081.ece
I can't help imagining David Rose being pulled over for speeding.
PC: Do you have any idea of how fast you were going, sir?
DR: I was under the limit; it's here in my notes.
David Rose,
over a time span as short as 2 month, you have been caught misrepresenting 4 scientists, one among them a sceptic.
the idea that all 4 of them "misspoke" is simply stupid.
it is much more likely, that you are just getting stuff wrong all the time. i am sorry, but as a journalist you lost the tiny bit of credibility you had left..
I haven't been "caught". I've been accused in an extremely hostile internet forum. It's a very different thing. And this really is my last post.
As gullible as they come:
And when you're looking for quotation out of context, you don't want anyone to know the context.
This really is my last post. Before my next one.
This is a scandal I will be writing to my MP about this. There are billions of dollars and the lives of millions at stake on this issue and these so-called "journalists", are just running around distorting and misrepresenting the words of scientists.
Perhaps if these "journalists" had stuck to hard sciences instead of "media studies" (or whatever rubbish they teach in schools these days) they wouldn't be so prone to their subjectivism and "imagining" reality as they believe it.
[Rose](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/rosegate_david_rose_caught_mis…).
You just stagger from bad to worse to worst to worstest, to worstester.
So, Kaser spoke to you in a foreign language, but it was he who "misspoke"?
In which "foreign language" did he speak to you, and just how proficient are you in that language, and exactly how do you discount the very real alternative that you either consciously or subconsciously 'mis-heard' what was spoken to you, in a language foreign to you?
I suggest that you quit whilst you are only a train wreck.
let me repost:
David Rose: (January 28, 2010 )
Listen up. I've been a journalist for almost 30 years. I've never misquoted anyone, and until I wrote about Dr Lal, no one had ever claimed I had.
Roger Pielke: (12 December 2009)
there is a misquote of my comments that I think needs to be corrected.
sorry David, but this is GETTING CAUGHT, not "being accused".
you certainly struggle with facts, don t you?
David Rose @ 6,without passing judgement, maybe Kaser wasn't so much 'ignored' as 'overlooked' which would be regrettable, but not very sexy. To speculate as to why is ...speculation. It's all about choosing ones words carefully,isn't it?
So Dr Pachauri,busy in the lead up to Copenhagen,didn't jump on being reminded about a paragraph in AR4 WG2. I could not care less for further speculation or insinuation of motive. Many people realised long ago that there is a huge volume of science to assimilate,and to keep updated,covering climate,within the full IPCC works and without. Maybe trying to put Pachauri's head on a stick is more important for you?
"In which "foreign language" did he speak to you, and just how proficient are you in that language...?"
To be fair to Rose, I assume he meant that Kaser spoke to him in English, which for Kaser would be a foreign language.
Not that this excuses anything.
The Economist apparently got the Kaser story down accurately; why is it so hard for everybody else? (Though they don't go into the detail of how Kaser submitted his comments).
[Economist on glaciers and Kaser](http://www.economist.com/sciencetechnology/displayStory.cfm?story_id=15…)
Hilarious. Especially the bit where Rose returns - *definitely* the last time *this* time - to bleat about how unfairly he's being treated for being caught.
Comedy gold.
Internet, please meet an enthusiastic new user, David Rose.
Bernard J #12 - its spelt Worcester, actually.
[Steve Reuland](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/rosegate_david_rose_caught_mis…).
Good point about Kaser speaking English as a second ("foreign") language - although I have to say that all of my Austrian friends speak it so fluently that there is never any problem with matters of translation.
However, as you also point out, this does nothing to exonerate Rose. In fact it simply makes it worse in my personal opinion - not applying careful consideration, clarification, and corroboration to the words of a non-native English speaker is careless non-professionalism indeed, even if the conversation appears to flow without difficulty. Even the words of an Oxbridge speaker should be carefully reviewed, where the interviewer is untrained in the science of the matters raised in the conversation.
It is especially pernicious to accuse said non-native English speaker of mis-speaking. Kaser might have known exactly what he was saying, and it might well have been completely understandable to someone technically proficient in the scientific area being discussed. In this case it is Rose whose ignorance leads him to mis-understand, and the fact that he did nothing to clarify the matter is simply a reflection of his lack of serious journalistic professionalism.
[The comic strip](http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1623) that Tim Lambert linked to in the "[Rosegate scandal still growing](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/rosegate_scandal_still_growing…)" thread illustrates exactly why care and diligent professionalism should be exercised by any interviewer.
Ultimately though, it all requires the interviewer to demonstrate integrity and objectivity to start with...
8 David Rose,
In case you come back, yes this is a hostile forum. It is hostile to anyone who lies about or misrepresents science and scientists. Perhaps you could learn a thing or 2...
Personally, I'm hostile to anyone who lies about anything ... :)
"So, maybe Kaser misspoke: after all, he was speaking in a foreign language."
The language of Science...
If we were all a bit less hostile, we'd be able to see that Rose is a preternaturally decent and honest man who's always right regardless of any appearances to the country.
I mean, Rose is a journalist. They don't let just anyone do important work like that.
I can't see listing a political science degree holder (Lomborg, Pielke Jr.) as a scientist. Nor a person with only a bachelor's degree in math (McIntyre).
Especially as the net knowledge Pielke, Jr., Lomborg or McIntyre, let alone McKitrick display about climate science is very low.
Pielke, Sr., is a scientist, however confused he might be by ideology or whatever. But Jr. is not. I just think there are bad consequences to adding the ad-hoc non-scientist to the category. Look how Judith Curry defends (endlessly) McIntyre as if he were a scientist.
We went through a lot of this with creation science.
> I've been accused in an extremely hostile internet forum.
Not this one. I'm still asking who the appropriate editor was for the PielkeJr correction, did you ever get that addressed? Sounds like you were already captured by the McIntyre worldview, and that whoever assigned you this story knew it.
They may have set you up.
Tim,
Again tilting at windmills. Kaser wrote to the IPCC secretariat. One would assume that if they were doing their job properly they would have passed the emails on to Lal.
They didn't - for whatever reason?
Still you can still say that Kaser was writing to Lal, so nothing wrong there with Rose's analysis
Marion Delgado,
You're going backwards! The logic of what you are saying is that only scientists in a particular field can comment on what other scientists in that field say.
This is rubbish. For example, much of what climate scientists do involves complex statistics, They are not, generally, trained statisticians as well as climate scientists. They should therefore actively seek the help of statisticians in their work. But it is manifest that they do not.
SteveM is a statistician with long experience in using statistical methods. He has every right to comment upon the use of statistics by climate scientists.
This is an 'extremely hostile internet forum' and will remain so even after global warming has disappeared off the political landscape.
Stop badgering me about Lu, I was taking the piss.
David Rose,
Much easier to fabricate a scandal and misrepresent the facts, than to do some real investigative journalism. The Economist got the story right, they clearly seem to require higher standards of their journalists, so you have no excuse.
Yes, the image of Dr. Pachauri's head on a stick might be sexy to you and others, but you are missing the real story. The irony that you repeatedly choose to misrepresent the science, scientists and IPCC, while demanding perfection and making completely unrealistic expectations of the same people/groups, sadly seems to be lost on you.
How about you apply your "investigative skills" to get at the real story here. The assault on science and scientists by right-wing lobby groups. There is enough material and evidence there that even my toddler could join the dots-- Yet, the media stay silent on how the science and scientists are being harassed, intimidated, misrepresented and worse by these groups. I suppose "doing in" the IPCC is much sexier for some, or is that just what your war lords wish of you?
How about you investigate your friends, McIntyre and McKitrick, Watts, Morano, Spencer, Lindzen, Monckton, Plimer, Pat Michaels and others (it is a very long list). How about you place them under the same scrutiny and hold them to the same unrealistic standard as the IPCC, and then parade their heads on sticks? You are not biased, are you? The fact that the aforementioned individuals (M&M et al.) are the people actually repeatedly screwing up, deceiving and distorting and using alarmist language seems to be lost on you.
A suggestion, when you start claiming that "they all got it wrong, it is/was not me", then you sound just like your mentor McIntyre.
Re: Dave Andrews | January 30, 2010 3:43 PM: "For example, much of what climate scientists do involves complex statistics, They are not, generally, trained statisticians as well as climate scientists..."
Actually, climate scientists generally are also trained statisticians. Helmut Landsberg led to statistical analysis being used in climatology, which led to its evolution into a physical science.
Steve McIntyre is not a trained statistical analyst to my knowledge (I'd like to see his actual qualifications in statistical anlaysis cited please), he's a mathematician which is not the same thing.
'Mathematical statistics' are concerned with the theoretical basis of the subject, but 'statistical analysis' is the science of making effective use of numerical data.
In other words, a mathematician is not automatically qualified to perform statistical analysis, but a climatologist is.
Someone spouted "SteveM is a statistician with long experience in using statistical methods."
Err, actually McI he is a mathematician, of sorts anyways-- McI certainly not in the same league as Dr. Gavin Schmidt and others.
McI loves to pontificate, and to avoid publishing at all costs. That is not how the science moves forward. McI is an obstructionist and loves to harass and embark on character assassinations, libel and witch hunts. And what McI does he certainly does not do in 'good faith' as he frequently likes to lie about in public. Amazing that he has avoided being audited, but then it is difficult to do so when he does not publish. His blog, however, has been discredited several times.
He does have a UofT email account and one can, with many good and valid reasons, demand to see his emails. McKitrick also has a university account. Anyone interested in trying to determine their role, if any, in ClimateGate? Or how they scheme and manipulate and corroborate behind the scenes to flood CRU with FOIA claims, for example? How funds might be exchanged perhaps....
So much to find out.....
McIntyre has only a bachelor's in math - which is nothing. He also has experience in mining. It's not that he doesn't have relevant credentials, it's that he doesn't have credentials. Furthermore, he's inept too often in too many areas for it not to grate on people who even have a better lay knowledge of the relevant science in areas which he writes about. As well as the facts - when McIntyre was claiming Hansen was claiming 1998 was the hottest year in the contiguous US, I had info from Hansen that 1936 was, by a tiny margin, and I'd gotten a newsletter from an environmental organiztion saying 1998 was the 2nd hottest year in the contiguous US after 1936.
In many ways, people like Tim Lambert, e.g., don't have relevant credentials for some things Pielke, Jr. or McIntyre or Lomborg get into, but the difference is, they, like most of us, fall back on the body of scientific knowledge, which, frankly, uneducated (in the relevant science) people like Pielke, Jr. and McIntyre are simply not qualified to challenge or refute, and which they cannot fall back on because they reject it for poitical or ideological reasons.
Notice, too, that in the case lately where Dr. Lambert (Computer Science) was dealing in his area of expertise he knew what language the CRU code was written in, among other thing, and Eric S. Raymond, even though it's his area of expertise as well, did not. When the climate denialist amateurs butt heads with people who know what they're talking about - vs. "Tamino" in time series, or "Eli Rabbett" in spectral analysis, or Keith Briffa in dendrochronology or Jeff Severinghaus on CO2 absorption and glaciation - they're invariably wrong.
Worse, really, they don't know enough to pick the right people with expertise - they pin too much on a handful of people, some of whom are too speculative - like Lindzen - and others of whom are both out of their area of expertise and no longer participating, really, in the scientific endeavor, like Ian Plimer.
A lot of this doesn't necessarily apply to Pielke, Jr. - he has a reasonable lay analyst's comprehension of the science relevant to what he writes about. His studies in math and political science gave him a reasonable working knowledge of statistics - which Lomborg has also - and statistical analysis is a key component of climate science, no doubt about it. Still, there really is no reasonable basis for including Pielke Jr. as a scientist - I would say engineering and computer science are both closer to being sciences than political science is, many times closer, and I wouldn't necessarily call someone with a PhD in engineering or computer science a scientist per se.
There are scientists like Ian Plimer (who's not actually been a working *scientist* most of his career, he's been an applied technician with a science doctorate) that get virtually everything wrong much moreso than Roger Pielke, Jr.
But the whole situation where Dr. Curry was defending McIntyre as if he were a scientiific colleague instead of a lay analyst with an extreme viewpoint entirely out of the scientific mainstream reminded me how tired I am of Pielke's obfuscation and weaseling about science. If he were his father, we'd have to say, okay, you're a scientist, you're not *that* wrong, and it's tricky to point out every time all the point-shaving you do to minimize the science and promote delay, but we'll have to do it. Given that he's not, we can turn and ask people why they take the word of someone who studied math and political science over people who actually study the specific topics he wants to work and alter.
If it's simply a free-for-all, I studied physics and math at both the graduate and undergraduate level (also taking a couple grad courses in engineering). I think I'd make an ideal crank. My default position will be no glaciers in 10 years, sea levels up 100 feet, everything in "The Day after Tomorrow" is true, and indeed, too conservative. Etc. So where's my Dr. Curry? Where're the people saying I'm being shut out of the debate? If anyone disagrees with me, who will tell them they're not being collegial?
It's completely absurd. The worst part is, simple repetition has made it seem normal and natural. It's as if having a toxic waste dump in the backyard is terrible the first few years. But if you've had one for 50 years, it's kind of venerable and lovable and normal so what's the problem?
The fact that they've done parodies of peer-reviewed journals, and even smuggled bad papers into real ones that are too catholic in their acceptance policy, is not enough to say we have to take, at least, people at the level of McIntyre, Pielke Jr., Lomborg, seriously as scientists.
Sorry to be so long-winded. I really could have just said - someone sometime will point to these posts and say, "see, they acknowledge that Pielke, Jr. is a scientist," with the implication being a scientist relevant to climate. And said, I want to distinguish the people who look it up from the people who make it up.
David Rose reminds me very much of the reporter in Season 5 of The Wire - "It's right here in my notes!"
"McI he is a mathematician, of sorts anyways"
Mathematician my ass.
WHAT ARE HIS THEOREM'S?
Mathematicians prove theorems.
Good mathematicians prove good theorems.
Great mathematicians prove great theorems.
McI = poser.
Elspi, I agree, that is why I added "of sorts" and was sure to state that he is not in the same league or of the same calibre as some other good mathematicians.
"David Rose reminds me very much of the reporter in Season 5 of The Wire - "It's right here in my notes!""
Funnily enough, The Wire was written by actual, real life journalists and crime authors. The most prolific, and driving creative force, was David Simon, who actually worked at the Baltimore Sun covering the crime beat between 1982 and 1985. I wonder where his inspiration came from?
Typo correction to the above about David Simon: he worked on the Baltiore Sun's crime beat between 1982 and 1995. 13 years, not 3.
Typo correction fail! :)
(just teasing, I have days like this, too!)
Doh! Should've become a journalist.
Marion Delgado says:
> In many ways, people like Tim Lambert, e.g., don't have relevant credentials for some things Pielke, Jr. or McIntyre or Lomborg get into, but the difference is, they, like most of us, fall back on the body of scientific knowledge, which, frankly, uneducated (in the relevant science) people like Pielke, Jr. and McIntyre are simply not qualified to challenge or refute, and which they cannot fall back on because they reject it for poitical or ideological reasons.
I don't think this is a good argument because the situation that you are describing matches, more or less, my position regarding economics. The "body of scientific knowledge" in economics (or at least a large part of it) is really nothing but ideological nonsense. I don't think that one needs to be a professional economist to figure this out. In fact, being a professional economist (i.e., someone who went through the selection and indoctrination process) is a hindrance at being able to assess the value of economic theory.
Sortition -the components of anthropogenic climate change science are all hard sciences. Economics is not firmly a science, for many reasons, including the lack of an agreed-upon body of knowledge. That someone doing economics in one milieu gets different results than in another is another reason. Another is that it'd be hard for an economist to prove you wrong, because there aren't universally agreed-upon standards for including or excluding hypotheses. Contrariwise, if you disagreed with the mathematics of a particular economics equation, and you didn't know calculus, your lack of expertise would be objectively relevant.
The torrent of bullshit pouring from the UK press needs a quick factcheck. David Rose,are you available? Go blow that whistle.
Monckton is being presented as a (professional) mathematician by way of weasel wording:
[My boldface on text in the quote.]
I wonder if David Rose ever worked at the Baltimore Sun during his 30 years as a "journalist" :p
mailonline gives a nice idea, about how David Rose will handle things, when he is proven wrong about his climate claims in the future:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1247424/I-feel-shame-regret-h…
he will abuse his errors, to accuse others.
for the moment, i have seen enough of the character of David Rose.
Daily Mail 2050, article by retired journalist David Rose:
headline: "why isn t Al Gore ashamed, that his predictions did not go far enough?"
Cut this guy some slack. He definitely doesn't fall in the Delingpole/Booker-category. He just got burned with the Iraq-scam and now thinks other hyped up international stuff, such as AGW, must be a scam as well.
With a little less aggression in the comments here (though many most certainly aren't) he might become more objective again and not let himself be used as a vehicle for spreading misinformation on AGW.
Neven @48,
I had the same thoughts.
Though, if Rose thought that after being stung on WMD, he'd be more sceptical of powerful interests this time round, he's gone and got it completely wrong again.
With AGW, those with the powerful interests aren't scientists, but those who continue to profit handsomely from the status quo.
As the Iraq war demonstrated, if all this AGW and alternative energy stuff was being driven by self-interested Govts, the carbon economy would already be well on the way to joining Saddam Hussein as past history and we'd all be driving electric cars despite our fierce opposition.
I know I lost my objectivity after reading a blog comment.
50 - This really is my lastcomment says: "I know I lost my objectivity after reading a blog comment."
If 'This really is my last comment' is who I think it is, why don't you try this: Create a list of questions, quotes from the UEA emails, assertions by those you seem to look to most, etc, etc, and post them, one by one, and then maybe you can get a wider view and, I'm sure, a lot of helpful links and sources that would help explain and remove the veil of mystery, misdirection, grandstanding and smokescreens of pseudo-science, crankery, astroturfing and shilling, especially those coming from "economic thinktanks" and psuedo-climatologists who never spent the years and years of hard work studying the subject itself?
An eloquent example of why many here aren't too fond of the usual AGW "sceptics" is here:
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/rosegate_david_rose_caught_mis…
Re: mapleleaf #30 & Nick # 43
On another forum, when I suggested to a Poptech, (who is well known AGW denier in some other scienceblogs), that he should read âThe Republican War on Scienceâ by Chris Mooney, he replied that there was no way he was going to read something by a left-wing author. This sums it all up for me that many right-wing journalists just canât, or wonât see past their political beliefs.
(BTW, I have no idea if Chris Mooney is left wing â certainly unlikely in UK / European terms).
I stopped reading the UK âMailâ many years ago after the death of Princess Diana and following which I swear they DAILY had pointless articles about her,(and things like what she had for breakfast on a certain day,for at least a whole YEAR or more after.
Thatâs their standard and I see it hasnât improved by David Roseâs contributions.
Even now the UK Daily & Sunday Telegraph claims today that Global warming is one of the most serious problems facing humanity today - yet is very ambivalent in itsâ approach.
There is a definite bias in the letter section for those against AGW , (5-0 today, 1-0 yesterday and similarly for weeks & months past). Although they have extremely sensible Geoffrey Lean they also have the ludicrous Christopher Booker â
Tim, in your admirable and relentless way, can you start a destruction of Booker please?
Message for David Rose:
I've watched people like David Perlman make the effort involved in chasing down and correcting errors in the text and headlines of their science stories. It's a challenge but it's a measure of the importance of getting what's attributed to you correct.
I'd be interested in seeing you post in some of the places using your story.
Example: http://debunkhouse.wordpress.com/2010/01/26/glaciergate-a-prima-facie-c…
which begins:
January 26, 2010 by David Middleton
From the Mail Onlineâ¦
>Glacier scientist: I knew data hadnât been verified
>By David Rose
>Last updated at 12:54 AM on 24th January 2010
>The scientist behind the bogus claim in a Nobel Prize-winning UN report that Himalayan glaciers will have melted by 2035 last night admitted it was included purely to put political pressure on world leadersâ¦...
Just a heads up on the latest emails meme, this time from Christopher Booker of the Teletubbygraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/7113552…
However, here's a piece by a BBC journalist who not only contradicts what Booker has to say, but who also specialises in the UK's Freedom Of Information Act:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/opensecrets/2010/01/climate_data_why_ministe…
I'm sure we'll get to see who got it right, but I know which one my money's on and it ain't the former.
The Telegraph could be called comical if it wasn't for the sheer venom and spite of its regular commenters on climate change.
J Bowers:
ROTFL!
This blog post (and el gordo's comment in #3) reinforce the necessity that scientists refuse interviews with David Rose unless the scientists have their own audio record of the interview.
Or maybe Rose should be assigned a different beat where his own inclinations are less likely to interfere in his writing.
You have to put backslashes before the underscores, to insist you literally want an underscore, or the overly helpful blog software interprets them and makes words into italic instead.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/opensecrets/2010/01/climate\_data\_why\_ministers\_ref.html?s_sync=1
@ Hank Roberts; Aha! Thanks!
Marion Delgado,
> the components of anthropogenic climate change science are all hard sciences. Economics is not firmly a science, for many reasons, including the lack of an agreed-upon body of knowledge. [...]
I agree that the case could be that a certain field of inquiry and the associated predictions would require some sort of expertise to understand and dismiss while other fields would not merit such distinction. The analysis of what differentiates those categories and whether a certain specific field, say, climate science, belongs in one category or another must be part of the argument.
Simply asserting that someone is not an expert in a field and therefore cannot comment intelligently upon it is facile.
Posted by: Sortition | "Simply asserting that someone is not an expert in a field and therefore cannot comment intelligently upon it is facile."
A climate scientist knows statistical analysis of data, but a statistical analyst doesn't know climate science. A statistical analyst who criticises a climate scientist on the broader subject is on very shaky ground, but a climate scientist who criticises a statistical analyst could very well be right.
When someone with a degree in maths, which does not automatically include meaningful knowledge of statistical analysis of data at all, alludes to authoritatively criticise a climate scientist's statistical analysis of data, I bang my head on the desk. Not because they examine the data, but because of the grandstanding and circus that surrounds it, and the memes and fallacies it generates.
"If scientific reasoning were limited to the logical processes of arithmetic, we should not get very far in our understanding of the physical world. One might as well attempt to grasp the game of poker entirely by the use of the mathematics of probability. " - Vannevar Bush
I'm no climate scientist or expert, just a Joe Public (with a very sore head) who "gets the gist" of that quote.
Marion Delgado
". My default position will be no glaciers in 10 years, sea levels up 100 feet, everything in "The Day after Tomorrow" is true, and indeed, too conservative. Etc."
WHAT??????
Dave Andrews,
Can you actually read and understand simple prose? The two sentences before your quote say:
"If it's simply a free-for-all, I studied physics and math at both the graduate and undergraduate level (also taking a couple grad courses in engineering). I think I'd make an ideal crank."
On the ball again, I see.
Thanks, Hank, that helped. :-)
Dave A yes that's right - you'll never understand even the simplest things but you'll always talk talk talk as though you do.
David Rose, meet your fans, one in a series:
"Mr. Lal is a lying weasel and a wog!! How much credence do you think he gives to unsubstantiated sources which tend to indicate that global warming is abating or reversing!...."
Yes, that's what he said. No doubt this guy gives the highest possible credence to unsubstantiated sources which tend to indicate that what he believes is true. No doubt.
From: Sciencenews
Indian climatologist disputes charges over Himalayan projection Politics was not the impetus for the mistake, he maintains. By Janet Raloff
Web edition : Wednesday, January 27th, 2010
Source:
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/55682#comment_55876
Hank @65. Wow! And I thought Dumb Duff was bad....
Yes, Rose likes to play innocent, but I am sure that he knows a priori how people with agendas will spin his "work". Didn't Dick Cheney use a similar tactic? SteveM uses a similar approach and when wild accusations are made (based on ideas sown on his blog by him), he throws his arms up and says "it wasn't me; I didn't say it". Nice try. But McI assures us (with big puppy eyes) that "everything I have done has been done in good faith". Uh, huh.
David Rose, did your mum never emphasize to you the importance of making friends with good and honest people? Well, you have failed, now try again, and please buy an electronic recording device. Then clear your head of everything M&M lied to you about, go and speak to some real climate scientists for a backgrounder and then have another try....
Personally, I don't hold out much hope for anybody who fell for Alastair Campbell's Dodgy Dossiers 1 & 2.
They were cram-packed full of the same sort of transparent bullshit we now see the Denialidiots indulging in, and Rose has fallen for both politically-motivated scams.
Slightly OT, but Andrew Weaver is now disputing the claim that he called for anyone's resignation:
http://bigcitylib.blogspot.com/2010/02/national-post-one-editorial-two…
@ bigcitylib: Thanks for the heads up.
I wish there was a database somewhere of this rpess nonsense. It's getting ridiculous, and is as worrying as the misrepresentations of the science itself.
As they say, "One finger pointed at someone else leaves three more pointed back at yourself."
> backslashes ... underscores
By the way, I ignore the " Please make urls into proper links like this: [Description](http://example.com)." line above the Comments box -- here's my reason.
People may now or later read this in print form or as text.
That "proper links" suggestion hides the link for anyone reading a printout or text file later -- they get no clue there was a link or where it was pointing to, to check out.
Hank,
It's easier to just bracket the url with chevrons, < >:
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 goes down easy with you all? And it is Rose who gets the bum's rush?
[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.
Perhaps, but less believeable than Rose? Anyone see a problem with Lal's group?
>*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.*
Human systems are faliable, some more than others. The IPCC appears to be self correcting and hoepfully will be more rapidly so in the future. Thus science progresses.
Rose appears to be immune from self correction. As are denialist sources such and Monckton, Plimer, and their cheer leaders.
Agreed. And I don't think just because a mistake is made these scientists are frauds. I just don't understand the drift of Tim's post as Rose's story and Kaser/Lal's are essentially consistent AND there was a problem with how the objections were handled. Rose may or may not deserve your scorn on other points but on this one, he seems to be getting a deal that is not only raw, the comments are malignant.
Vince Whirwind,
So back in 2002 were you standing out against the considered view of all Western intelligence agencies that Saddam was still trying to develop WMD?
Or perhaps you've just got a bad case of 'galloping hindsight'!
58 Hank,
Or just use the instruction above the comment box!
Please make urls into proper links like this: [Description] (http://example.com) without the space!
70 Hank,
OK, you have a point. :)
D:
That view was not unanimous among people in the business.
#75, Western intelligence agencies believed no such thing.
The intelligence they were *told* to rely on when sending their report to the minister was (from memory) threefold:
- utter nonsense coming from a very dodgy Iraqi defector in the US about WMD weapons sites.
- forged "Niger yellowcake" docs provided to the Italians by the Israelis
- some crap from some crappy source about Saddam being involved with Al Qaeda, when it was a matter of public record that when they came to him with their begging-bowl he sent them away with a flea in their ear and was known to gladly execute islamic fundamentalists found operating on his turf.
The intelligence they chose to *ignore* was that coming from those such as David Kelly who actually knew about Iraq's WMD status.
Anybody with even an ounce of commonsense could see that the government's reliance on Alastair Campbell's transparently dishonest and non-factual Dossiers could only mean that there was no real evidence for WMDs in Iraq.
And yes, I most certainly stated this very simple analysis at the time.
I believe you'll find people such as Andrew Wilkie told the truth back then, too.
Nobody who lived through 2003 and was interested in the looming war could have missed this article:
"Discussions between the Prime Minister's head of strategic communications, Alastair Campbell, his foreign policy adviser, Sir David Manning, senior officials in MI5 and MI6 and the new head of homeland security, Sir David Omand, resulted in a decision to repeat a wheeze from last autumn: publishing a dossier of 'intelligence-based evidence'".
That paragraph should have rung alarm bells on several levels.
David Rose missed the alarm bells.
[D asks](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/rosegate_david_rose_caught_mis…):
Dunno about Vince, but in the context of Saddam having (or seriously trying to re-establish) WMD capacity I was "standing out", and loudly too. In fact, it was the first cause ever that actually enticed me to join protest marches in the streets in two cities.
It was patently obvious to anyone who kept abreast of the political milieu, of the trajectories of relative military capacity, of the consistency of pronouncements and of action by various parties involved, and not least of the opinions of real experts such as Scott Ritter, Andrew Wilkie and many others, that Saddam didn't have anything to threaten another country with, beyond fear itself.
Saddam was just a big schoolyard bully talking tough, but it suited the Coalition of the 'Willing' to lie about Iraq's capabilities. And lie they did: if they truly didn't know that there was no real WMD threat, then they were incompetent beyond words - aside from having mangled the facts of the matter beyond recognition...
And it might be harsh of me to say it, but any Joe or Jane Public who didn't have the capcity to sift through the available information and arrive at the truth was either insufficiently capable of exercising the requisite analytical skills, or ideologically entrenched to accept the WMD line, or both.
I could also present a few even less charitable alternatives, but I will desist - for now...
Bernard J has pretty much described my position in 2002. As I recall there were a rather large number of us "standing out against the considered view of all Western intelligence agencies that Saddam was still trying to develop WMD" if in fact that was the considered view of all Western intelligence.
Bernard J,
"Saddam was just a big schoolyard bully talking tough"
Go to Iraq, stand in the middle of Baghdad and repeat that statement and see what reaction you get.
You have no credibility, a typical 'Western leftie' who is wise after the fact and understands nothing outside of your scientific ivory tower.
Unlike Dave Andrews, who understands nothing, regardless of whether its inside or outside the scientific ivory tower ...
'D' knows that all the smart people are no smarter than 'D', and knows better than the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
The link to the Senate report itself from which that quote is taken is (PDF)
'D' and Andrews won't be able to find or read it, naturally.
I was reasonably certain in 2002 that SAddam had diddly-squat, and our government was lying to us.
I became ABSOLUTELY certain after the farcical interplay where we (the US) announced that we knew where Saddam was hiding weapons, UNSCOM said, well then tell us so we can go look, the US resisted and delayed telling them and when we finally did, UNSCOM looked and there wasn't anything there.
Shortly after that, we kicked UNSCOM out of Iraq and invaded.
It was all a pile of obvious crap from the start.
[Dave Andrews](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/rosegate_david_rose_caught_mis…).
Do you seriously believe that your strawman is worthy?!
In the context of geopolitics, Saddam was exactly what I said - a schoolyard bully. After Bush Snr had kicked seven colours of snot out of him, Saddam was still emasculated and posed no serious threat to another country - certainly not for years to come.
I never said that he was not a tyrant. He was, and he should not have been supported in power by the US for the decades that he was.
And I don't know many Middle Eastern folk, but those that I do to a person believe that given the huge loss of life, and of cultural heritage, the invasion was by far the greater of two evils, and that there were far better options for removing Saddam from power.
It has nothing to do with being wise after the fact: as I said, I was out there protesting and contacting politicians for a year before the invasion. I believe that the world should have addressed the Saddam issue, just as it should have done something years ago about Zimbabwe, Burma, and many other human rights basket cases, but I don't think that holus-bolus invasion of countries is the answer.
You might claim that I have no understanding "outside of" my ivory tower, but I was damned-well bang on the money about what would happen in Iraq following an invasion. It seems that I, and millions of others just like me, undestood more clearly than the leaders of the Coalition of the 'Willing', and than the sheep who so happily and uncritically bleated the Coalition's message about non-existent weapons of mass destruction.
In fact I understood it the day I watched the towers burning. I said to my housemate as we watched them fall that Bush would blame Iraq and find a reason to invade, and that Iraq would have had nothing to do with it.
Before the invasion I also said that Bush and Howard would invoke the cause of 'democracy', and sure enough there was much post hoc blustering about exactly that, once they realised that they would find nothing that they could pretend was a WMD.
And I'm happy to make some wise predictions before the fact about AGW... By 2100 the the mean global temperature anomaly will increase beyond 2C, and it will have major impacts on ecosystem integrity and function, and it will bring societal upheaval, conflict, and death to hundreds of millions of people.
If you disagree with me, you are more than welcome to apply your Bush/Howard Iraq-invasion logic to [these questions](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/firedoglake_book_salon_on_jame…
), and explain why your "wisdom" is greater than mine, or from which tower it is that you have a view that is more clear than that of science's "ivory" one.
[D](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/rosegate_david_rose_caught_mis…) and [Dishonest Dave Andrews](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/rosegate_david_rose_caught_mis…) are as at odds as [Plimer and Monckton](http://www.skepticalscience.com/Lessons-from-Monckton-Plimer-debate.html).
Lee,
I totally agree, the UNSCOM shenanigans set the scene for me by displaying with 100% clarity that the USA were driving a dishonest agenda with regard to WMDs. From trying to discredit individual inspectors to kicking UNSCOM out and lying that it was Saddam who had done it.
Bernard,
It is amazing to see the same WMD-idiots pushing a new brand of idiocy.
Just goes to show how hard it is to teach old dogs new tricks.
Colin Powell was told by the White House to present papers to the UN that "proved" the existence of mobile bioweapons labs. He was told to go to the CIA to get sourcing for the assertions in the papers. The CIA failed to tell him the most important source was a known liar and fabricator.
The White House and CIA didn't bother checking sources. Once they had the assertions they wanted, they didn't care whether they were true or false.
Vince Whirlwind,
I am not a US citizen so I don't know exactly how the arguments were played out there. I had been, however, an anti nuclear weapons activist for over 20 years and had considerable understanding of the WMD issue. You may not like it but it was the considered view of most Western Intelligence agencies that Saddam was maintaining the capability to develop WMD.
His track record was also one of deceit and obstruction in relation to UN inspections and resolutions.
Like me you, of course, were never in the situation where you had to make any real decisions about matters such as these. The luxury of hindsight can make you forget the then current realities.
Bernard J,
he should not have been supported in power by the US for the decades that he was."
Are you aware that the two major suppliers of arms to Saddam were France and Russia and that they were still owed billions of dollars for those supplies, whilst simultaneously blocking new UN resolutions and seeking an end to sanctions?
Perhaps there's a connection, don't ya think?
Chris O'Neill,
Nice link. Did you notice that David Kays comments about the WMD assertions "falling apart" came after investigations over the summer of 2003 several months after the invasion?
(BTW Kays, an IAEA/WMD expert, believed that WMDs would be found before he went to Iraq)
Dave Andrews:
"...it was the considered view of most Western Intelligence agencies that Saddam was maintaining the capability to develop WMD."
...as opposed to the US/UK government's assertions that he was armed and ready, including the climactic bit of WMD-idiot-nonsense: "45 minutes from doom!"
In other words the intelligence agencies knew damn well he had none but idiots like you and Rose chose to believe the crap being fed to you by war-mongering liars in the US/UK governments.
Your line is the line the WMD-idiots had to revert to when their idiocy was plain for all to see, post-invasion: "Oh, he was *going* to have WMDs again, some day". That makes you a pretty dopey, dodgy, dishonest wanker.
And hindsight has nothing to do with it - I'm saying nothing I, and all other sceptical thinkers, weren't already saying 7 years ago, prior to the invasion taking place, based on the ample information which was in the public domain.
Contrary to Tony Blair's lies, no "secret" intelligence has ever come to light to contradict the publicly-available info we relied on at the time.
We sceptics were right. The WMD-idiots were liars and fools.
EXCELLENT!, Dave Andrews provides us with a concrete example of the kind of selective-sourcing of information that Denialist dogmatists indulge in to support a non-factual analysis they've already fabricated:
"(BTW Kays, an IAEA/WMD expert, believed that WMDs would be found before he went to Iraq)"
Kays was *not* a current expert on Iraq weapons inspections, a role he ceased performing *11 years* prior to the invasion.
The people who *were* involved in Iraq inspections in 2003 *said the opposite*.
http://www.un.org/apps/news/storyAr.asp?NewsID=6383&Cr=iraq&Cr1=inspect
Just as with climate denialism, the active experts' data is *rejected*, while irrelevant opinions from non-experts are quoted.
Dave Andrews asks:
Yes, I am aware of the French and US involvements.
This does nothing to distract from the US involvement however, no matter that you might wish otherwise. The thrust of the discussion is that [the US had decades of 'friendly' association with Iraq](http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/) - the whole time that Saddam was beating up on his own citizenry, I might add - and that it only changed when a bigger bully-boy, in one George Shrub, decided that he wanted what Saddam had, and that he wanted it come hell or high water.
As to the sanctions, they resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of Iraqis. I remember hearing, years before Bush Jnr indulged in his romping escapade, political analysts stating that the quickest way to defuse the dictatorial nature of Saddam's government would be to remove the sanctions and allow business to modernise the country, as was happening in other Middle East regimes.
I personally doubt that it would have been a panacea - Iran and China are two examples that commerce does not instanctly bring happy-happy-joy-joy, Western-style government (even as it opens the counties to Western-style consumerism) - but I am sure that it would have produced an Iraq that would have been in much better shape than the country is now, and with hundreds of thousands less deaths. And with a little subtlety I am sure that Saddam might have been defused as other dictators have been over the last several decades.
From an economic perspective France and Russia did nothing that the US would not have done, and politically their stance was much more defencible that the US's, and as I said above, it's all beside the bloody point anyway. It was the US that promoted the lie about WMD, with lapdogs Howard and Blair brown-nosing in a photo-finish.
What, so now it's France's and Russia's faults that the bleating Western war-mongering populace thought that Iraq was a button-push away from strewing WMD over the Middle East?!
Get off ya horse.
Vince has already kicked your arse about this, but I'll repeat the point.
If you believe that you had some 'expertise' in nuclear weaponry, and you still managed to come up with a point of view that not only contradicted the best independent experts and the opinions of most thinking folk, but that was definitively proved wrong by the the passage of time - the same passage of time that trivially proved the original sceptics (in the true sense of the word) correct - then you are repeating the same fallacy of thinking today with the matter of anthropogenic global warming.
The biggest difference is that where your blinkered 'thinking' about WMD was a part of a movement that resulted in the unnecessary deaths of millions in the first decade of the 21st century, your blinkered 'thinking' about AGW is a part of a movement that is now pretty much guaranteed to result in the deaths of tens- (and eventually probably hundreds-) of millions of people in the latter half of the 21st century and beyond.
And where in the past Rumsfeld was telling us that we didn't know what we didn't know, it's now the likes of the two Pielkes, of Watts, and of their ideological brethren (many who pop their noses up, mole-like, here) who are claimimg that we don't know the 'right' things, and who are driving whole countries from the appropriate path of action.
You must be so proud to be a part of that.
Just to be clear, when I said:
I am referring to France's and Russia's stance on lifting sanctions, and not to their selling of arms.
Anyone who advocates (whether selfishly or otherwise) for lifting sanctions that kill thousands of innocent people is doing the right thing in my book, just as anyone (including the aforementioned "ones") who sells arms without extremely good (moral) cause is doing a repugnant thing.
Bernard J,
Well have you read all through the UN inspectors reports? 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.
Are you saying that the latter should not be relied upon by their respective governments?
Vince W,
Kay says he was kept up to date by Ekeus and that there was a great deal of uniformity in Western intelligence agencies view of Iraq's WMD capabilities.
http://pubs.acs.org/cen/coverstory/8231/8231kay.html
Bernard J,
I see you sometimes acnowledge that sceptics can be right. LOL
Yes, sceptics who don't ignore evidence.
>*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.
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.
Dave (I call myself a sceptic) Andrews:
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 âactiveâ, or even âproactiveâ, these initiatives 3-4 months into the new resolution cannot be said to constitute âimmediateâ 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.
[Dave Andrews claims](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/rosegate_david_rose_caught_mis…).
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.
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…) 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?]
From the mobile weapons laboratory article:
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:
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.
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
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.
Dave (neo-con sychophant) Andrews:
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
Dave (the neo-con apologist) Andrews:
Obviously you're only capable of coming up with ad-homs.
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 âimmediateâ 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
Garbage, the French "did not have âundisputed proofâ that Iraq still held weapons of mass destruction".
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.
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.
That's not the only explanation for slow co-operation and hardly amounts to proof that their old WMDs still existed and were functional.
Hahahaha. Pull the other one.
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.
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?
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.
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?
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.
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!
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.
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?
More lies from Dave (I can't tell the truth) Andrews:
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:
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?
Dave (the neo-con apologist) Andrews:
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.
>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?
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!
Ian Forrester,
You mention two newspapers, The Sun and The Star who commented early on. No serious media bothered with it till months afterwards.
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
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.
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.
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?
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.""
Dave (the apologist for himself and the neo-cons) Andrews:
Oh that is as entirely objective as simply quoting the whole of what Blix said. Sure. What other jokes do you know?
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.
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.
Dave (I can't tell the truth) Andrews said:
Not nearly as boring as your constant lying. You and the truth are not well acquainted.
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.
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?
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.
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?
Dave (the serial argument switcher when he knows he lost) Andrews:
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:
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?
Dave the neo-con apologist Andrews:
And neither can you excuse the actions of the latter because of the actions of the former.
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.
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?
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?
Dave Andrews :
You just don't get it, do you? Juries are not asked what they think without evidence. You have no defence for a lie.
Dave Andrews:
Rubbish. There were hundreds of thousands of excess deaths.
Dave Andrews:
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.
*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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
Vince Whirlwind,
Are you trying to deny Saddam invaded Kuwait?
See:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=2808
bunch oof frickin' idiots.......climate change BS as usual w/ all you nuts. CIAO!