The question “Did Iraq have chemical weapons?” is a stupid question because it is not quantified. The inspectors gave a small upper bound on the number of weapons and they were right.
Yes, the CIA reached its conclusions from its communications interceptions. But just because they had reasons for those conclusions doesn’t mean that they were good reasons. It should instead have trusted the inspectors, who actually knew something about weapons, unlike the CIA. Chemistry trumps spies.
There is a lot of equivocation between weapons and factories. People summarize the question as “Did Iraq have WMD?” but what Powell said to the UN was that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons factories. This was completely wrong. If the CIA can’t remember what it said, it can’t learn from its mistakes. But if its job is to fabricate causus belli, heck of job.
The question “Did Iraq have chemical weapons?” is a stupid question because it is not quantified. The inspectors gave a small upper bound on the number of weapons and they were right.
Yes, the CIA reached its conclusions from its communications interceptions. But just because they had reasons for those conclusions doesn’t mean that they were good reasons. It should instead have trusted the inspectors, who actually knew something about weapons, unlike the CIA. Chemistry trumps spies.
There is a lot of equivocation between weapons and factories. People summarize the question as “Did Iraq have WMD?” but what Powell said to the UN was that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons factories. This was completely wrong. If the CIA can’t remember what it said, it can’t learn from its mistakes. But if its job is to fabricate causus belli, heck of job.