h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

ve been getting slowly angry about this all week, and I'd been expecting a conversation to pop up on here during that time, but as it hasn't I will have to make it happen.

I've been a political watcher for several years, but it's mostly a dispassionate observation. Occasionally something comes along that rouses some emotion, but it's fairly rare.

The Butler enquiry into the intelligence that led us to war has managed to stir feeling, however. The enquiry will examine the information that the intelligence community gave to the government, and whether that information reflected the fact as they are now known. In that regard it seems to bare a similarity to the enquiry that Bush has announced over the pond (as a side point, I was amused that it was said that the American enquiry would follow the model of the Warren commission into JFK's assassination. I expect to hear of a "Magic WMD Theory" in due course).

This means that the American enquiry, and the British version, are both looking at the wrong question. There are several point I want to raise to explain this:

1) The intelligence community rarely produces hard factual evidence. Most intelligence is, more or less, a 'best guess'. They are able to tell the government of the day what they think is happening, what they believe to be the case, and therefore plaster 'health warnings' all over their material. They never claim to be absolute correct in their statements, because the very nature of intelligence means that hard concrete information is hard to come by, and so the practitioners are always aware that their 'best guess' could well be wrong.

2) The report of the enquiry generally uses the line, "The intelligence that led us to war". I haven't actually heard any in the government use that exact line, so this may be more of a media related point, but that line is complete nonsense. Intelligence (in the sense of MI5, CIA, and such like) does not lead us anywhere. Leaders lead, not intelligence. The question of whether our leaders have any intelligence (in the more everyday sense) is not something I want to go into at this time.

3) The September dossier was presented by the government as hard fact. None of the usual intelligence 'health warnings' were present. They had all been striped out. I will not say by whom, for I do not know. And to make accusation about individuals was Gillingan's folly, so I'm not going down that road. I'll just say that several senior politicians noted the absence of the 'health warnings', if they want to ponder the manner of their non-appearance, then they are quite at liberty to do so.

4) So, as intelligence is, ultimately, merely pieces of information, it cannot be held responsible for the outbreak of war. Information is just, well, information. You perfectly free to ignore it if you choose to do so (as one person [I forget who] once said, "Why should somebody look at another wave on the sea?").

So we find ourselves questioning the emphasis that was placed upon the intelligence. You gave it the enlarged emphasis? It wouldn't have been the intelligence community, what with the presence of their 'health warnings' and whatnot. So it must have been the people that the community gave their information to, which would be... oh let me think... ah, yes that's it, the government! And why did the government give this information such importance? Because Dubya wanted a war with I-rack, that why! A former US treasurer minister (I think it was) revealed recently that Bush was spoiling of a fight with Saddam since the early days of his administration. This was before 11 September 2001, which means the tragedy of that day was not a cause of the war with Iraq, merely a pretext for it. Something to hide their true, and ever present, intentions behind.

The Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy has said that his party will not have anything to do with the Butler enquiry because it does not address the real questions. Namely, was the government correct in it's presentation of the intelligence in the September dossier, and, were the political decisions that were made about the intelligence justified?

As I say, intelligence is just information. Information changes nothing. It's what you do with the information you have which makes a difference. The decisions you make about it. That is what this enquiry should be looking at, these are the question we need answered. But as the government is able to set the terms of reference of any enquiry, it's clearly counter-productive to create an enquiry that might be able criticise them. Only an idiot would that. So maybe the government does possess some intelligence after all.

Last week, in the inevitable thread about the Hutton enquiry, one researcher (can't remember who - sorry!) bemoaned the fact that just because that enquiry did not produce the result we wanted we were up in arms about it. So, in order to pre-empt such a claim about the Butler enquiry, I will say this before it even starts: The Butler enquiry is a waste of time and will produce no meaningful results, because it is, by the nature of it's terms of reference, looking at entirely the wrong question in the first place.

This is probably the longest, and most definitely the most serious post that I have yet made on h2g2. But I don't expect it to make any real difference to anything. It is just information, after all.


Geggs

I agree with most of what you say. I think there probably is a need for inquiry into intelligence if what David Kay says is honest, that the intelligence services really did think there were WMD in Iraq (I don't know if his statement is honest or not). That's a pretty big mistake. However, this inquiry will not be the one we should be interested in, as you say.

And now the Tories have withdrawn their support from the enquiry.

Michael Howard says that the terms of reference for the enquiry (which were to narrow for the Liberals to start with) are being interpreted to narrowly by Lord Butler.

Which means that the enquiry now lacks the necessary cross party support for it to be of any relevance whatsoever.

Maybe I did make a difference, then. Clearly the Tories read this website.


Geggs

I think the Butler enquiry is now set to recommend Tony Blair for Saithood to the Pope. The only proviso of course is that Tony has to die before the Pope is going to have to die before His Holiness John Paul George Ringo.

Place you bets here.

Heart attack at number 10 or the old Guys in St. Peter's to kicj the bucket.

Whose first to go?

Don't mind me. Just revisiting past rants.


Geggs

Not long now til they publish it.

Hey look:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3890961.stm

Intelligence is not all hard facts! Who'da thunk?!

Error, mistake, not lying to Parliament.

Where's the white paint. I'm off to Downing Street.

>>Intelligence is not all hard facts! Who'da thunk?!

Err... I think I did, in fact I think it was my first numbered point back in the first post. It's surprising how these enquiries can tell you what you already know, but not what you actually need to know.


Geggs

I know you did Geggs, that is why it typed it.

Waiting for more of the details now *drums fingers*

I suspected you did, but I just thought I'd clarify.

The news does seem to be slipping out very slowly.


Geggs

I'm watch the point-by-point update at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3893105.stm

Calling the September dossier a 'collective failure' doesn't really help much. Can we call for everyone involved to be sacked?


Geggs

From the above page:

>>The Tory leader said Mr Blair chose to leave out caveats, qualifications and cautions that the intelligence agencies had made about information on the nature of the threat from Iraq.

Wow. Micheal Howard has said something that I almost agree with. I am deeply shocked.


Geggs

does anyone remember feeling angry about something???

Geggs, that's a very good summary of the issues, as I see them... I've heard a lot about the Butler report on the radio yesterday, including a conversation on the BBC WS yesterday, which seemed to consist of a whole heap of excuse making by the US and UK governmental representatives.
You are so right and "intelligence" and leaders.