Iraq Survey Found NO Nuclear Threat
The Washington Post is reporting this morning that David Kay's Iraq Survey Group found--contrary to what Kay said in public or told the US Congress-- that "it is now clear [Saddam] had no active program to build a weapon, produce its key material;s or obtain the technology he needed for either."
Read that great piece. And read my commentary on it in the next post beneath this one.
Off-topic (w/ apologies.) Wondering at your reaction to this interesting piece in the latest NY Observer by Tish Durkin.
Alex, I couldn't get into it.
This is the first story:
http://www2.observer.com/observer/pages/frontpage4.asp
crux:
"...after spending four of the past six months talking to Iraqis, I do feel that it is relatively safe to make the following five points:
One, most Iraqis do not want America to leave now or very soon. Two, while it is true that a huge proportion of Iraqis have at least some very negative opinions about the war and life here since, it is also true that a huge proportion of those opinions boil down to anger at the Americans for not being enough of a presence here, not anger at the Americans for being too much of a presence. Three, there is very little to support the notion that Iraqis would be, or feel, notably better off under United Nations occupation than under a United States–led occupation. Four, although the Bush administration should be hung out to dry for whatever it has lied about, it is widely accepted here that various of their pet assertions happen to coincide with the truth. Iraqis do not need Mr. Bush to tell them that most of the troublemakers here are not resistance fighters, but highly paid, often imported thugs; Iraqis have been saying that from the start. Fifth, a steady stream of terrible events has generated a steady stream of legitimately negative news stories about Iraq, the sum effect of which seems to have been to leave the rest of the world with the impression that Iraq now appears in the dictionary next to "unqualified disaster"; that hardly anything is improving here, and that hardly anyone is or feels any better off than he or she did before the war. This impression is false.
First point first. As Mr. Al-Shikhly said in the stairwell, an immediate American withdrawal is the last thing on earth that most Iraqis want. The desire for Americans to remain here for a clearly finite but considerable length of time (say, one to two years) is the view expressed in every public-opinion poll; by almost every Iraqi leader of any consequence, including some of those least comfortable with the whole idea of Western influence, let alone occupation; and the vast majority of Iraqis whom one meets.
To be sure, it sometimes feels as if this majority is shrinking fast. And even if it’s not, the calls for America to stay rarely come out of any great adulation, but rather out of a very widespread conviction that if the U.S. leaves now, or very soon, the effect will be to plunge this place into a catastrophe that will make the last six months look like a weekend in the Hamptons."
The first article is from April, the second is Ms. Durkin's most recent piece. I find it notable just how sharply her perception of Iraqi public opinion has shifted in the space of six months, certainly not in the direction one might suppose.
Alex, thanks for the URLs. It worked this time.
I enjoyed reading the pieces. You can see Durkin agonizing how to put together a very complex story in both of them. Good for her, having been there for four of the past six months. (I'm hoping to get there early next year, when I can arrange it.)
One big problem, for her and her readers, is evidently that she doesn't know Arabic and has to rely on translators. (Her cultural illiteracy is so deep that she even thinks ghee is some form of "vegetable oil"... ) This has many consequences. It considerably limits her ability to get around and get and/or interpret most dimensions of the story. And it almost immediately labels her, in the eyes of many Iraqis, as the sort of gringa drop-by whose very presence in their country is made possible only by the presence of the occupation forces. So how much are Iraqis--with their own wealth of traumatic memories of what happens to those who displease the "power" at hand-- going to risk possible punishment by the occupiers by voicing critical sentiments to their protegee? It's actually pretty notable that under these circumstances, Iraqis say as much to her that is critical of the US as they do.
I'm not saying that none of her perceptions or reporting is accurate. Just that there is an almost inevitable skew factor there that thoughtful readers need to be aware of.
Personally I think it's wiser to rely on either the deeply informed (if still mediated) interpretation of Iraqi developments put out by someone like Juan Cole who really understands the country and its culture very deeply, or the unmediated views of Iraqi bloggers and other writers, themselves.
I'd be happy to answer anybody's questions on these topics.
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