{"id":814,"date":"2008-02-14T15:09:00","date_gmt":"2008-02-14T21:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/?p=814"},"modified":"2008-06-12T20:51:01","modified_gmt":"2008-06-12T19:51:01","slug":"arguing-against-nick-davies-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/2008\/02\/arguing-against-nick-davies-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Arguing against Nick Davies 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

A<\/span>t the RSA<\/span><\/a> today to argue<\/a> with Nick Davies<\/span> in person about (follow the link to buy a copy) Flat Earth News<\/a><\/span>. One of Nick\u2019s claims – not central to his book, but articulated in his stump speech – is that the British media gullibly accepted the Blair government\u2019s case for war in Iraq<\/span>, based on WMD – in particular the 45 minute claim in the infamous<\/a> dossier<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The evidence is a little different. If you go back to media coverage on September 25, 2002 you will find some withering commentaries on the dossier.<\/p>\n

Take for example the Daily Mail<\/span>, the biggest middle market paper in Britain.<\/p>\n

A Jane Corbin<\/span> op-ed says of the dossier claims: <\/p>\n

\u2026as someone who has spent months in the grim industrial gulags of Russia, chasing down rumours of uranium for sale, I know that there are many conmen among the mafia and rogue scientists. I wonder how much Saddam has paid for material that proved worthless or was intercepted.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the same paper, Corelli Barnett<\/span> is more dismissive: <\/p>\n

Tony Blair\u2019s dossier is larded with the customary weasel words that Saddam \u2018may have\u2019 or \u2018almost certainly\u2019 does or \u2018will have\u2019 this or that capability.<\/p>\n

The words glide over the cold truth that, in the absence of UN inspectors on the ground, much of the dossier remains merely hopeful conjecture. This especially applies to the guesses as to how long it would take Iraq to develop an operational nuclear weapon.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Mail<\/span>\u2019s own op-ed runs under the heading \u2018The Dossier That Answers Nothing.\u2019<\/p>\n

The FT<\/span> leader: <\/p>\n

the 50-page document offers no compelling evidence that immediate military action is needed. Nor does it present a strong argument against a policy of enhanced containment.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/span>, the UK\u2019s best-selling quality paper, headlines its analysis: \u2018Still no answer to the question: why now?\u2019<\/p>\n

Whatever the vocabulary, there is little in the dossier to suggest that Iraq poses a new and imminent military threat.<\/p>\n

It does not argue that Saddam is preparing to attack either his neighbours or the West, or that he is about to obtain a nuclear bomb.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Its leader – \u2018An Inconsistent Statement\u2019 – concludes: <\/p>\n

Downing Street is attempting to act as transatlantic broker. Three years ago, Mr Blair was drawing America into involvement. Today, he is being drawn by it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In The Times<\/span>, Simon Jenkins<\/span> writes: <\/p>\n

The dossier\u2019s attempt to present Saddam as an incipient nuclear power is worse than half-hearted. He has no factory to treat enriched uranium even if he found it \u201csomewhere in Africa.\u201d Had he such a factory, it could be bombed.<\/p>\n

His biological weapons are hard to deliver, least of all with his ageing Scuds. They were not used even in the Gulf War. Saddam has had these weapons for 20 years. So have many highly unstable Central Asian states.<\/p>\n

Nor does the dossier explain why these weapons could not be eliminated \u201csurgically,\u201d as their predecessors were by the Israelis in 1981 and allegedly by American missiles ever since.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the same paper, here is Bronwen Maddox<\/span>: <\/p>\n

The 55 pages entitled Iraq\u2019s Weapons of Mass Destruction do not, in fact, say that he has a more terrifying arsenal than in the 1991 Gulf War or the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War.<\/p>\n

In a headline-grabbing claim, the dossier says he could deploy some chemical and biological weapons at 45 minutes notice, but this is not entirely new, if rarely presented so bluntly.<\/p>\n

Nor does the dossier present itself as a case for ousting Saddam. Blair says the report sets out the case for trying to get UN inspectors back in, and only if they are frustrated, for military action.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Even the war-crazed Star<\/span> (MAD SADDAM SET TO ATTACK; 45 MINUTES FROM A CHEMICAL WAR) informs its readers:<\/p>\n

Tony Blair\u2019s dossier of death does not appear to justify attacking Iraq, said military experts.<\/p>\n

Major Charles Heyman, editor of Jane\u2019s World Armies<\/span>, said it had no \u201ckiller fact\u201d showing Saddam had to be taken out.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Show me the isolated enthusiasm of the Express<\/span><\/span> that day, and I\u2019ll raise you the skepticism of the Mirror<\/span>, the Guardian<\/span> and the Independent<\/span>.<\/p>\n

Whatever else happened, newspaper readers were given a healthy dose of realism in the interpretation of the dossier. Of course, MPs don\u2019t always read newspapers…<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the RSA today to argue with Nick Davies in person about (follow the link to buy a copy) Flat Earth News. One of Nick\u2019s claims – not central to his book, but articulated in his stump speech – is that the British media gullibly accepted the Blair government\u2019s case for war in Iraq, based […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journalism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}