(no subject)
Feb. 5th, 2004 10:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
liadnanI am vindicated, and will now proceed to be smug.
For almost two years I have regularly, and at doubtless wearisome length, argued both here and on the Culture (or, frankly, fulminated) that the term Weapons of Mass Destruction, still more "WMD", is vacuous, and generally an Abomination in the Eyes of the LORD. This is not, in and of itself, a point about the war, or even about the Gilligan affair, it is a point about the English language. The way I put it the other week was:
"Incidentally, I also continue to think that the term WMD is one of surpassing vacuosity, if that is a word, because the distinction between nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons; between battlefield and strategic weapons; between payload and delivery mechanism is significant and is elided by the term."
I would add, incidentally, that it also sounds like some short-lived 50s/early 60s dance-band "Geoff Hoon and his Weapons of Mass Destruction" but that a James Bond scriptwriter would probably discard the term as over-dramatic.
Martin has made the same point, but many, including some who came down against the war, have said they didn't see why it mattered.
Well, I was right. Tony Blair now tells us that he did not realise, when signing off on the September 2002 dossier, that the famous "45 minute claim" was concerned with battlefield weapons, not ballistic weapons. Geoff Hoon originally said he did know (Cook says he knew too, incidentally), but on Today this morning became extremely unclear on when exactly he understood. More significantly, when asked by John Humphries "can a mortar shell be a WMD?", he answered, flatly, "yes", to which Humphries pointed out that the expressed view of senior members of the British armed forces is that this is not what the term means.
Hoon pointed out, rightly, that the nasty things Saddam Hussein lobbed at his own people were lobbed as mortar shells, but that was not the point that was taken: the Sun's headline story soon after the publication of that dossier was concerned with application of the 45 minute claim to the long-distance threat. Cyprus bases were the major concern.
This leads to a small digression: on Today Hoon told Humphries that he did not keep up with what the tabloids were saying and was unaware of the Sun headline until months afterwards. (Note for colonials and furriners: the Sun is Murdoch's flagship tabloid in the UK, and remains the biggest selling newspaper. If it is no longer the leading example of the repulsive British gutter press, that is only because other papers have undercut it. Sadly, there is probably some truth in the view that the Sun's editorial line is an important popular opinion-former.) This must have tripped a memory for Humphries, or one of the editors, because half an hour later, just before going off the air they were able to point to a line in Hoon's evidence to Hutton that flatly contradicted what he had just claimed about his knowledge of tabloid headlines. Why does it matter? Because if he knew that the claim was being misunderstood he should have clarified.
Blair says he didn't know the 45 minute claim was only about battlefield weapons. As someone on yet another mailing list has already pointed out this morning, since it took such a prominent place in the dossier that makes him either stupid, sloppy, or a liar. But in any event, had we not all been over-using the fatuous WMD term, there might have been some concentration on what, exactly, we were talking about.
Oh, and one final point on Hoon: Humphries sniped at one point that he seemed ill-informed. Unless I misheard, the response was that he was "neither well-informed nor ill-informed."
Geoff: you are Her Majesty's Secretary of State for Defence, you complete fucking turnip. It is a crucial part of your job to be informed about the detailed analysis of any given alleged threat, particularly those on which the government is founding a specific and highly contentious military policy. Either you have the level of information appropriate to your office, in which case you are "well-informed", or you do not. Guess what we call it in the latter circumstance?
Melvyn Bragg was so fascinated by the interview that when up immediately afterwards to trail In Our Time, which was on immediately after Today, (on the Persian Wars: caught the start, interesting even to someone who has studied the period in a reasonable amount of detail, as Bragg's morning shows so often are) that instead of reading the trail script he read his introduction and was introducing his first speaker before he realised that he was half an hour early in doing so.
(Edited to add:
The crucial line in the dossier ran as follows:
"Saddam's willingness to use chemical and biological weapons:
Intelligence indicates that as part of Iraq's military planning,
Saddam is willing to use chemical and biological weapons,
including against his own Shia population. Intelligence indicates
that the Iraqi military are able to deploy chemical or biological
weapons within forty five minutes of an order to do so."
The BBC gives the following list of further quotes from Blair:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3054991.stm
I acknowledge that the term "WMD" does not appear in the dossier line, and that it is in close juxtaposition to the point about "his own population" but that makes it even stranger that Blair says he "didn't realise" what the claim meant... did he not ask?)
For almost two years I have regularly, and at doubtless wearisome length, argued both here and on the Culture (or, frankly, fulminated) that the term Weapons of Mass Destruction, still more "WMD", is vacuous, and generally an Abomination in the Eyes of the LORD. This is not, in and of itself, a point about the war, or even about the Gilligan affair, it is a point about the English language. The way I put it the other week was:
"Incidentally, I also continue to think that the term WMD is one of surpassing vacuosity, if that is a word, because the distinction between nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons; between battlefield and strategic weapons; between payload and delivery mechanism is significant and is elided by the term."
I would add, incidentally, that it also sounds like some short-lived 50s/early 60s dance-band "Geoff Hoon and his Weapons of Mass Destruction" but that a James Bond scriptwriter would probably discard the term as over-dramatic.
Martin has made the same point, but many, including some who came down against the war, have said they didn't see why it mattered.
Well, I was right. Tony Blair now tells us that he did not realise, when signing off on the September 2002 dossier, that the famous "45 minute claim" was concerned with battlefield weapons, not ballistic weapons. Geoff Hoon originally said he did know (Cook says he knew too, incidentally), but on Today this morning became extremely unclear on when exactly he understood. More significantly, when asked by John Humphries "can a mortar shell be a WMD?", he answered, flatly, "yes", to which Humphries pointed out that the expressed view of senior members of the British armed forces is that this is not what the term means.
Hoon pointed out, rightly, that the nasty things Saddam Hussein lobbed at his own people were lobbed as mortar shells, but that was not the point that was taken: the Sun's headline story soon after the publication of that dossier was concerned with application of the 45 minute claim to the long-distance threat. Cyprus bases were the major concern.
This leads to a small digression: on Today Hoon told Humphries that he did not keep up with what the tabloids were saying and was unaware of the Sun headline until months afterwards. (Note for colonials and furriners: the Sun is Murdoch's flagship tabloid in the UK, and remains the biggest selling newspaper. If it is no longer the leading example of the repulsive British gutter press, that is only because other papers have undercut it. Sadly, there is probably some truth in the view that the Sun's editorial line is an important popular opinion-former.) This must have tripped a memory for Humphries, or one of the editors, because half an hour later, just before going off the air they were able to point to a line in Hoon's evidence to Hutton that flatly contradicted what he had just claimed about his knowledge of tabloid headlines. Why does it matter? Because if he knew that the claim was being misunderstood he should have clarified.
Blair says he didn't know the 45 minute claim was only about battlefield weapons. As someone on yet another mailing list has already pointed out this morning, since it took such a prominent place in the dossier that makes him either stupid, sloppy, or a liar. But in any event, had we not all been over-using the fatuous WMD term, there might have been some concentration on what, exactly, we were talking about.
Oh, and one final point on Hoon: Humphries sniped at one point that he seemed ill-informed. Unless I misheard, the response was that he was "neither well-informed nor ill-informed."
Geoff: you are Her Majesty's Secretary of State for Defence, you complete fucking turnip. It is a crucial part of your job to be informed about the detailed analysis of any given alleged threat, particularly those on which the government is founding a specific and highly contentious military policy. Either you have the level of information appropriate to your office, in which case you are "well-informed", or you do not. Guess what we call it in the latter circumstance?
Melvyn Bragg was so fascinated by the interview that when up immediately afterwards to trail In Our Time, which was on immediately after Today, (on the Persian Wars: caught the start, interesting even to someone who has studied the period in a reasonable amount of detail, as Bragg's morning shows so often are) that instead of reading the trail script he read his introduction and was introducing his first speaker before he realised that he was half an hour early in doing so.
(Edited to add:
The crucial line in the dossier ran as follows:
"Saddam's willingness to use chemical and biological weapons:
Intelligence indicates that as part of Iraq's military planning,
Saddam is willing to use chemical and biological weapons,
including against his own Shia population. Intelligence indicates
that the Iraqi military are able to deploy chemical or biological
weapons within forty five minutes of an order to do so."
The BBC gives the following list of further quotes from Blair:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3054991.stm
I acknowledge that the term "WMD" does not appear in the dossier line, and that it is in close juxtaposition to the point about "his own population" but that makes it even stranger that Blair says he "didn't realise" what the claim meant... did he not ask?)
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no subject
Date: 2004-02-05 04:13 am (UTC)The turnip bit was a good touch, methinks. :)
no subject
Date: 2004-02-05 04:51 am (UTC)Oh, that's priceless. What a gibbon.
One of the problems with working from home/getting up when you want is frequently missing the 8-9 radio 4 slot. Ah, hold up, I've remembered, you can listen to the days program at any time later on, IIRC. Result.
Re:
Date: 2004-02-05 05:11 am (UTC)Eh?
no subject
Date: 2004-02-05 05:04 am (UTC)Now, am I colonial or a furriner?
Re:
Date: 2004-02-05 06:11 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-05 06:50 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-05 07:36 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-05 07:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-05 11:20 am (UTC)It's not an abuse of language - it's a fundamental precept of US security doctrine.
Date: 2004-02-05 11:28 am (UTC)Re: It's not an abuse of language - it's a fundamental precept of US security doctrine.
Date: 2004-02-05 12:30 pm (UTC)Re: It's not an abuse of language - it's a fundamental precept of US security doctrine.
Date: 2004-02-06 03:49 am (UTC)"Cyprus bases were the major concern."
Date: 2004-02-11 08:30 am (UTC)...whereas for a couple of weeks in Sept 2001 they were on high alert, and it wasn't easy to take the usual shortcuts through the two main garrisons.
Re: "Cyprus bases were the major concern."
Date: 2004-02-11 09:21 am (UTC)Re: "Cyprus bases were the major concern."
Date: 2004-02-11 10:02 am (UTC)But the apparent lack of concern from the military was particularly telling. :o)