OK, Kevin. We seem to have reached an impasse on just about every front (the
only thing we can perhaps agree on is to differ), but I'll just round off
the following:

You:

> >> Is your theory that Bush and Blair lied
> >> about WMDs to justify an invasion that they knew would show that no
> >> such WMDs existed?

Me:

> > Not at all. Anyone with a reasonable IQ rating would see that that
> > does not necessarily follow,

You:

> Sure it does. Curious that you think otherwise.

Me:

> > but the KQ rating evidently does not
> > allow of the same range of possible interpretations.

You:

> Let's hear some of yours.

OK.First of all, though, let me stress it is not a *theory*. Nor is it
necessarily what I believe happened. It is just a possible interpretation of
the facts, one of three, as I said (the other two being, 1. that they were
mistaken, and the intelligence machinery is at fault and, 2. that they were
right, and the forces of evil, by so far successfully concealing the
evidence that would *prove* them right, are a lot more powerful and
resourceful than we hitherto thought). This, as I see it, is one way in
which the lying scenario could come about:

Bush, Blair and Saddam Hussein are gamblers, moral relativists, people who
believe that any means - bluff, double bluff, card up the sleeve, whatever -
are legitimate as long as they lead to the desired end. Bush and Blair are -
let's say - 99% certain that Saddam holds the cards they accuse him of
holding (i.e., that he has weapons of mass destruction). However, they can't
lay their hands on absolute, incontrovertible *proof* that it is so. So they
take a risk. They gamble on being right, and present information which they
know does not prove their case, but nevertheless present it *as if* it were
incontrovertible.

Saddam is equally a gambler. Being starved of resources after a disastrous
war and years of sanctions he is in no position to constitute any credible
threat to world security, and he knows it. However, he does do his best both
to develop a programme and to convince the outside world that it is a
large-scale programme. In this second strategy, in particular, he is highly
successful - more, perhaps, than he bargained for. As you say, he convinces,
not only the US and the UK, but the entire UNSC. He is 99% sure that the US
will not want to weaken the UN and that under pressure from France, Germany
and Russia, the US will back down and he can negotiate on his own terms,
with the world treating him with kid gloves because it is still convinced
that he has a powerful strike capability and poses a serious threat. He
continues to bluff, playing each card one at a time, now denying there are
any WMDs, now producing evidence that a certain number have been destroyed,
now actually destroying a few missiles that only slightly exceed the
range-limit. He's down to his last card when he's called out. It's all been
a bluff - he has nothing left except a few die-hards in the military and a
core of political henchmen. He puts up a show of resistance and then gets
the hell out.

Bush and Blair, if they did lie, did not necessarily do so, as you put it,

> >> to justify an invasion that they knew would show that no
> >> such WMDs existed

It's not impossible; they may have known that and calculated that it didn't
matter, that they'd still be able to live it down afterwards. But KQ
brainpower misses the more likely possibility, which is that they were so
sure that the fabricated (or, to be more precise, overstated) evidence would
prove what they strongly suspected that they got it wrong, misread Saddam,
and fell into the trap of thinking he actually possessed things he was only
bluffing about. The bluff backfired on him, but it backfired on Bush and
Blair too.

As I say, just a possibility...

I think that just about wraps it up...Oh, the shrugging business:

Me:

> > Oh, OK. Well, *don't* expect what you like, then (shrug).

You:

> Why do people put (shrug) after statements? To give it a nice wishy-washy
> feeling? If you are not sure of your statement, you have little reason to
> think that I will find it convincing.

No, it isn't to give a nice wishy-washy feeling, nor is it because I'm not
sure of my statement. It's a
"suit-yourself-I-can't-see-why-you're-bothering-to-make-a-fuss-about-such-a-
little-detail" shrug. Don't they have those in Sepponia?


--
John
http://rarebooksinjapan.com