Financial Times Editorial Comment: Flirting with the facts
Financial Times Editorial Comment: Flirting with the facts
Published: March 12 2007 02:00 | Last updated: March 12 2007 02:00
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Don't cry for Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Although the former vice-presidential chief of staff was overwhelmed last week by the toxic residue of the Bush administration's record on weapons of mass destruction, the real collateral damage is elsewhere.
There was further proof this month that the White House's habit of fitting intelligence around pre-ordained policy has made the world more dangerous this time, not because of Iraq but because of North Korea.
Scepticism about inflated intelligence claims never came easy to the Bush administration. Mr Libby earned his conviction in a federal court by lying about his efforts to discredit a critic of one of the administration's most outlandish claims on Iraq's never-to-be-unearthed WMD.
And by leaping to conclusions and walking away from a flawed deal with nothing better to hand, the administration may have made it easier for Pyongyang to get the bomb.
In the autumn of 2002, the year President George W. Bush included North Korea in the "axis of evil", the US accused the country of breaking a 1994 deal to rein in its nuclear ambitions.
The Clinton-era deal had focused on preventing the country from developing a plutonium based bomb, but in 2002 the US claimed to have intelligence of a large-scale North Korean programme to build a nuclear device from enriched uranium instead. Because of those claims, Mr Busheffectively suspended the agreement.
Last October Pyongyang exploded a bomb - based on plutonium from facilities the 1994 deal had held in check. It now has a small arsenal of such devices and has made no promise to give them up, despite agreeing this year to a package to restrain further plutonium production.
So it is all the more devastating that Joseph DeTrani, the US's chief intelligence officer for North Korea, told a Senate committee this month he had only "midconfidence" that a production-scale uranium enrichment programme existed.
The term "midconfidence", a masterpiece of the euphemism-mongerer's art, means information is open to interpretation, the relevant agency also has alternative views or that full corroboration does not exist.
Of course, the Clinton administration's deal was far from perfect. But the principal danger with North Korea was from its plutonium plants.
Today, Mr Bush's administration is no longer trusted on WMD claims. At a time of international debate about Iran's nuclear ambitions, that is unacceptable: the US must depoliticise intelligence and resist the temptation to highlight one or two titbits at the expense of the big picture.
Washington cannot afford to blunder about in a world of a make believe, half truths or even midconfidence. The world cannot afford many morenuclear-armed North Koreas.
Published: March 12 2007 02:00 | Last updated: March 12 2007 02:00
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Don't cry for Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Although the former vice-presidential chief of staff was overwhelmed last week by the toxic residue of the Bush administration's record on weapons of mass destruction, the real collateral damage is elsewhere.
There was further proof this month that the White House's habit of fitting intelligence around pre-ordained policy has made the world more dangerous this time, not because of Iraq but because of North Korea.
Scepticism about inflated intelligence claims never came easy to the Bush administration. Mr Libby earned his conviction in a federal court by lying about his efforts to discredit a critic of one of the administration's most outlandish claims on Iraq's never-to-be-unearthed WMD.
And by leaping to conclusions and walking away from a flawed deal with nothing better to hand, the administration may have made it easier for Pyongyang to get the bomb.
In the autumn of 2002, the year President George W. Bush included North Korea in the "axis of evil", the US accused the country of breaking a 1994 deal to rein in its nuclear ambitions.
The Clinton-era deal had focused on preventing the country from developing a plutonium based bomb, but in 2002 the US claimed to have intelligence of a large-scale North Korean programme to build a nuclear device from enriched uranium instead. Because of those claims, Mr Busheffectively suspended the agreement.
Last October Pyongyang exploded a bomb - based on plutonium from facilities the 1994 deal had held in check. It now has a small arsenal of such devices and has made no promise to give them up, despite agreeing this year to a package to restrain further plutonium production.
So it is all the more devastating that Joseph DeTrani, the US's chief intelligence officer for North Korea, told a Senate committee this month he had only "midconfidence" that a production-scale uranium enrichment programme existed.
The term "midconfidence", a masterpiece of the euphemism-mongerer's art, means information is open to interpretation, the relevant agency also has alternative views or that full corroboration does not exist.
Of course, the Clinton administration's deal was far from perfect. But the principal danger with North Korea was from its plutonium plants.
Today, Mr Bush's administration is no longer trusted on WMD claims. At a time of international debate about Iran's nuclear ambitions, that is unacceptable: the US must depoliticise intelligence and resist the temptation to highlight one or two titbits at the expense of the big picture.
Washington cannot afford to blunder about in a world of a make believe, half truths or even midconfidence. The world cannot afford many morenuclear-armed North Koreas.
posted by Carlos T Mock at 10:04 AM
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