Bunker Mulligan "Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry." ~Mark Twain

Saddam’s family have hired Jacques Verges to defend the poor old man. Surprise, surprise, surprise! I never would have dreamt they’d want someone French.

He is known for representing such luminaries as Klaus Barbie and Carlos the Jackal. He is also counsel for Tariq Aziz. I guess you could call him the Mark Garregos of Europe. He’s already playing the role:

Verges decried U.S. treatment of Saddam since his capture and said he feared the former dictator could be killed before he had a chance to stand trial.

As with many issues debated in the blogosphere, the Richard Clarke CYA fiasco takes many tortuous turns. What I think is the final post on the topic was cited by Donald Sensing as he links to Armed Liberal who, in turn, links to Stephen Green. All this takes us through the August 2000 classified briefing by Mr Clarke to the House Government Reform Committee’s National Security Subcommittee. Personally, I think this ends his credibility forever except in the minds of those who want to blame Bush no matter what.

I finished reading The Eagle’s Shadow last night. I picked this book out at the store because I thought it might be a sincere examination of America’s relationship with the world. The fact that one-line reviews on the cover were from Salon and New York Times didn’t deter me. I was really disappointed. Mark Hertsgaard spent a lot of travel time collecting quotes, but little else in terms of research for the book. And the quotes come from people in his social circle, regardless of country.

On occasion he mentions the things that foreigners love about the US, but….And so it goes. And many times he falls back on the “it’s all our fault” stance. We just don’t spend enough money helping everyone else in the world. We didn’t build enough child care centers in Afghanistan. We didn’t help the Arabs drive the Jews into the Sea. It all got very old. I’m sure the Barbra Streisands of the world love this book. I didn’t, and it wasn’t from any preconception.

As an antidote, today I read Why the Muslims Misjudged Us by Victor Hanson.

For all the frothing, it seems that millions of our purported enemies wish to visit, study, or (better yet) live in the United States–and this is true not just of Westernized professors or globe-trotting tycoons but of hijackers, terrorists, the children of the Taliban, the offspring of Iranian mullahs, and the spoiled teenage brats of our Gulf critics.

I intend to do a bit more research on the topic, but have to throw in just a bit right now. For all the talk of how much we owe to the Arabs in regards to science and math, it seems those who translated European texts into Arabic, and did any research during Europe’s Dark Ages, were Christian and Jewish Arabs. Not Muslim. It seems to make sense. Islam does not allow critical thought. I throw this in off the top of my head, but I remember reading about these topics in A History of the Arab Peoples. More on that later.

Two different takes, one with a focus on the Middle East, and the other on the world as a whole (although most of Hertsgaard’s examples come from the ME). Hanson’s logic is deductive, and Hartsgaard’s is inductive. I’ll side with Victor.

It’s always dangerous to made broad accusations when there is a non-partisan participant around to set things straight. Again, Mansoor Ijaz:

Mr. Clarke’s premise that Bush national security officials neither understood nor cared to know anything about al Qaeda is simply untrue. I know because on multiple occasions from June until late August 2001, I personally briefed Stephen J. Hadley, deputy national security adviser to President Bush, and members of his South Asia, Near East and East Africa staff at the National Security Council on precisely what had gone wrong during the Clinton years to unearth the extent of the dangers posed by al Qaeda. Some of the briefings were in the presence of former members of the Clinton administration’s national security team to ensure complete transparency.

Far from being disinterested, the Bush White House was eager to avoid making the same mistakes of the previous administration and wanted creative new inputs for how to combat al Qaeda’s growing threat.

Hmmm….I wonder what White House Clarke was in at the time.

The 9/11 commission issues I brought up led me to contemplate all the hoo-hah about the failure of our intelligence services to accurately account for WMD in Iraq. The issues are the same, and may lead to greater failures–and deaths.

Intelligence is not an exact science. Analysts can seldom say anything with absolute certainty. And to demand that they do so is insane. Yet, if at any time there was an opportunity to say with complete certainty that gathered intelligence was correct, it was in the evaluation that Saddam Hussein had WMD. The conclusion was inescapable. Everyone in the world knew, for a fact, that he had them and used them. Every piece of information coming out of Iraq to the various intelligence services said he was working on delivery systems and nuclear weapons. And, in spite of what you’ll hear on television newscasts, Iraqi agents were in Africa trying to obtain nuclear material. And Saddam had some interest in that aspirin factory in Sudan as well.

So, do we gut the entire intelligence system because they drew the wrong conclusion from information everyone deemed fact? Was the conclusion really wrong, or was it justified based on the information available?

The headhunting called for by many is unjustified. Not only that, it is absolutely counter-productive. Intelligence is a nebulous world. Every piece of information is suspect because it is obtained through people with many conflicting interests, the primary one being to protect their own lives. If you punish someone who said, emphatically, that Saddam had WMD, how will you ever get an analyst to draw a solid conclusion ever again? And wishy-washy analysis gets people killed.

UPDATE: Kenneth M. Pollack writes an article for Atlantic Monthly describing the causes of bad intel in the case of WMD in Iraq. He served in the Clinton White House, and considered invading Iraq essential…eventually. I think he makes much of this clearer, although he does get bogged down in “rush to war” and other such statements.

Doesn’t it strike anyone else as prevaricating that we would have to oust Saddam “eventually”? What would be the benefit of waiting?

Build alliances? That was never going to happen because Russia and France were making too much money to ever join in (as he admits).

Build up our military to make the task easier? The Administration was on a manpower trimming expedition. The Federal Government manpower numbers declined during the Clinton Administration. Every department except one added personnel: Defense.

If war with Saddam was inevitable, in his estimation, why would any action be a rush to war? How many innocents needed to die before it would be okay? Or did they not matter?

In my mind, this article only makes me wonder why we waited so long.

Randy Barnett over at the Volokh Conspiracy discusses the Richard Clarke allegations, and focuses on the White House response. Mr Ijaz takes it a bit further with seven questions he feels need to be answered by Clarke.

Mansoor Ijaz is the man I respect most in understanding terror as it relates to Pakistan and Afghanistan. In particular, his contacts there give him great information on Al Qaeda.

Ijaz has a brilliant resume, the least of which is his ability to move within Muslim circles. He negotiated the transfer of Osama bin Laden from Sudan to the Clinton Administration, so he knows of which he speaks. Neither is he partisan. In fact, he is a contributor to causes, and often donates to both political parties depending on his perspective on an issue.

He also provides analysis on FoxNews, and other networks on occasion. He was on just the other day discussing the fighting on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. The interviewer made comment that Al Qaeda claims they will attack the US if their #2 man is taken. He was asked for his response: “Blah, blah, blah. If they can attack, they will, regardless of circumstance.”

I really like his style.

Over at Sarah’s Place there’s a pretty good discussion going. Joshua, a disciple of Chomsky and Said, is adamant that the Israelis must end their occupation.

Go join the fun!