How to Look Good in a War: Justifying and Challenging State Violence
184
How to Look Good in a War: Justifying and Challenging State Violence
184eBook
Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
Related collections and offers
Overview
Brian Rappert details the 'upside-down' world of war in which revelation conceals, knowledge fosters uncertainty, and transparency obscures. He looks at government spin during recent wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya where officials manoeuvre between circulating and withholding information.
Through looking at recent controversies such as the use of weapons of mass destruction, cluster munitions and international law, Rappert considers how ignorance about the operation of war is produced and how individuals and groups can intervene to make a difference.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781849647748 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Pluto Press |
| Publication date: | 09/06/2012 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 184 |
| File size: | 4 MB |
About the Author
Brian Rappert is Professor of Science, Technology and Public Affairs in the Department of Sociology and Philosophy at the University of Exeter.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Show and Tell: Distortion, Concealment, and WMD
The Introduction proposed that understanding how violence is depicted and defended requires the reconsideration of many common ways of thinking. For instance, concealment–disclosure and transparency–secrecy are not simply opposites. Instead they can coexist, fade into each other, and stem from each other. As a consequence, strives for greater openness can obscure as they divulge.
This chapter takes these initial points further. It does so in relation to one of the most contentious aspects of the 2003 Iraq invasion: claims made about 'weapons of mass destruction' (WMD). In the words of the former British Prime Minster Tony Blair, assessments of Iraqi WMD were part of the justification for why the threat from Saddam Hussein's regime was 'serious and current' and why he had 'to be stopped'. The failure after the invasion to find such weapons led to numerous recriminations against those governments that pressed for intervention.
This chapter charts how the restriction and the release of information associated with government portrayals of intelligence weaved together into a blindfold. The aim is not to voice yet another opinion about whether intelligence had really been 'spun', but to map the logic that defined and delimited political debate about spinning.
This is done by meditating on the question: 'What is before us?'. So much of the controversy about the representation of intelligence centered on what was in clear sight: the language of government statements. Yet, in many respects, the political disputes that played out neglected language. By considering how attention was and was not given to wording, it will be possible to consider the basis for the legitimacy.
Within the overall argument of this book, a purpose of this chapter is to illustrate the mental dexterity needed to delve into the practices of statecraft. It will set the basis for proactive interventions in later chapters.
LEGITIMACY AND PUBLICITY
A history of the role of intelligence in the Iraq invasion cannot be told without reference to hiding. The military campaign that began on March 20, 2003 had its origins in the intrigue of past Iraqi attempts to deny, disguise, and deceive – particularly in relation to its nuclear, chemical, and biological programs. Both before and after the 1991 Gulf War, governments and international observers underestimated or otherwise badly misjudged such capabilities. In the build up to the 2003 invasion, the specter was raised of an Iraq in possession of what were deemed 'weapons of mass destruction'. That the inspectors sent into Iraq in 2002 under a UN Security Council Resolution failed to find such weapons simply hardened the pre-war views of some that meticulous concealment was afoot.
A history of the role of intelligence in the invasion also cannot be told without reference to revelation. Leading politicians in the nations that would compose the multinational military force repeatedly sought to out Iraqi attempts to obtain WMD. In the autumn of 2002, for instance, the British government and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) published unclassified documents setting out what they knew about Iraq's WMD. Perhaps the most viewed instance of intelligence-made-public was the UN Security Council address by US Secretary of State Colin Powell on February 5, 2003. Powell put on global display communication intercepts, satellite images, and detainee statements that normally would have stayed tightly controlled.
Further, a history of the Iraq invasion cannot be told without reference to the contorted relation between revelation and hiding. As Gusterson noted, while Powell appeared to put novel information on the table for all, his presentation was full of rhetorical sleights that suggested things were not necessarily as they might appear. Satellite imaginary of alleged chemical munitions bunkers, for instance, were said to be 'sometimes hard for the average person to interpret, hard for me. The painstaking work of photo analysis takes experts with years and years of experience, poring for hours and hours over light tables'. Thus, although the photos were presented for all to see, their meaning had been deciphered by trained (American) specialists.
Attention to the 'not-as-it-would-seem' relation between the sender–message–receiver was evident elsewhere. For some, what was shown was not what was vital. So, the relatively poor quality of the evidence presented at the UN was taken as heightening the expectation of what the US really knew. This was so since it was assumed that the US would withhold its best material so as not to divulge its true surveillance capabilities.
With the failure to find WMD, the smooth confidences that characterized pre-invasion claims by politicians in the US, the UK, Australia, the Netherlands and elsewhere gradually gave way to stuttering defenses. One by one the major planks of the Iraqi WMD threat came under scrutiny through public reviews and media investigations. Plain facts – about mobile laboratories for biological weapons or Iraq's attempts to acquire high-strength aluminum tubes for its nuclear program – were declared as wanting. With this, the public face of pre-war government unanimity gave way to a picture of discord and infighting – as in the relation between the US Vice President's Office, the CIA, and the State Department. The suppression of contradictory evidence, planted news stories, and false human intelligence obtained under torture were cited to ask whether those who evoked the WMD threat – such as Colin Powell – were deceived by others, whether they deceived others, or whether they deceived themselves (again).
Predictably with the finger pointing that ensued, the relation between what intelligence agencies concluded and what political leaders stated became a locus for attention. Questions were asked regarding whether intelligence was being fixed around policy and whether public presentations acted to mask uncertainties.
This chapter focuses on these concerns about the accuracy of intelligence claims. It does so for the UK. Here, perhaps more than in any other country, concerns about the threats and legality of WMD were central to the government's case for war.
INTELLIGENCE HISTORIES
A history of the role of British intelligence in the Iraq invasion should not be told without acknowledging the disagreement evident about what should be included within any such history.
For instance, the previous section noted the production in September 2002 of a document entitled Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction – The Assessment of the British Government (commonly known as the 'September Dossier'). The Prime Minister stated this dossier was 'based, in large part, on the work of the Joint Intelligence Committee [JIC]'. The JIC sits at the hub of the intelligence agencies. It is mainly composed of the heads of intelligence services. Until the September Dossier, it had never produced a public document or had its assessments explicitly drawn on as part of a call to action.
And yet, while the September Dossier was the official public face of intelligence, its importance has been contrastingly presented as part of alternative accounts of whether culpability needed to be leveled. Some commentators and the Butler Inquiry (see below), downplayed the role of the dossier in persuading the public and, by implication, diminished the gravity of any wording discrepancy. Others made the opposite argument to support alternative conclusions.
One of those was the former British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reporter Andrew Gilligan. During a 6.07am Today Programme news report on May 29, 2003, he claimed that a senior official involved in the drafting of the September Dossier had told him that the Prime Minister's Office 'ordered a week before publication, ordered it to be sexed up, to be made more exciting and ordered more facts to be er, to be discovered'. With regard to the claim in the September Dossier that intelligence supported the judgment that some Iraqi WMD would be deployable within 45 minutes of an order to use them, at the 6:07am broadcast Gilligan said that 'the government probably erm, knew that that forty five minute figure was wrong, even before it decided to put it in'. Whether or not it mattered that he did not use (or correct) this wording in subsequent BBC broadcasts that day was one of the many issues that would later divide commentators.
During 2003, both the House of Commons Intelligence and Security Committee and its Foreign Affairs Committee considered pre-war intelligence claims, though with curtailed information-gathering powers. While raising some points of criticism, (notably about the '45 minutes claim'), neither concluded anything close to the government having 'sexed up' or politicized intelligence. Had it not been for a tragic event, these reports would have likely stood as official political history.
Prior to testifying before the House of Commons Committees in early July 2003, Dr. David Kelly was identified by the Ministry of Defence as the senior official referred to by Andrew Gilligan. On July 18 he was found dead. The Prime Minister initiated an inquiry chaired by Lord Hutton to investigate this death. As part of concluding that David Kelly had committed suicide, the Hutton Inquiry also dismissed allegations that the government had knowingly embellished intelligence. The lack of scrutiny given to how the September Dossier was sourced, drafted, and presented was part of why many branded the Hutton Inquiry's report a 'whitewash' favoring the government – although others again downplayed concerns, including those regarding the influence by the Prime Minister's Office on the Dossier's drafting.
Noting the importance attached to wording nuances is also a way to signal the dimensions of dispute. Whether or not intelligence had been distorted turned on what Dr. David Kelly called 'word-smithing' – the details of what gets said and how it is expressed. The subtle use of language could disguise uncertainties and bolster fragile hunches. So as part of the Hutton Inquiry it was asked: Was it acceptable to include the language 'As a result of the intelligence we judge' with regard to the 45-minute statement? Or would an appropriate wording have been 'intelligence indicates'?
In such disputes, it is difficult to imagine that any simple and universal metric could have sufficed to establish faithfulness and correctness. Then, as now, arguments about what is important and why, regarding what gets said, are perhaps better thought of as leading to assessments of similarity; this rather than a similarity deriving from some underlining essence of what makes some words sufficiently like others. Any text is always open to multiple readings and reinterpretations depending on what is seen as germane for understanding it.
Complicating the situation further, central allegations of the distortion dispute – such as 'sexed up' or 'WMD' – were themselves clearly open to interpretation. Professor Diane Coole argued that the Hutton Report was able to be labeled a whitewash because it treated 'sexing up' in black and white terms: 'Had the government knowingly lied?' versus 'Had it made the strongest claims permitted?'. This treatment had the effect of eliminating 'by fiat a grey area where words, meanings and representations remain ambiguous and open to a variety of interpretations, such that the distinctions between representation, presentation and misrepresentation defy definitive judgements of truth versus falsity.'
After a parallel statement in the US, on February 3, 2004 the British Prime Minister announced a wide-ranging inquiry into intelligence on weapons of mass destruction, including 'any discrepancies between the intelligence gathered, evaluated and used by the Government' in relation to pre-war Iraqi WMD. The appointed five-member committee was chaired by Lord Butler. Unlike the previously mentioned investigations in the UK, each of which worked under major limitations in terms of their access to information powers, the inquiry team read intelligence reports and other confidential materials.
What become known as the 'Butler Inquiry' would assume a high visibility in UK politics. In an effort to establish facts and learn lessons, its work was located at the center of political dispute about the rights and wrongs of the Iraq war. As suggested by the previous argument in this chapter, its attempts to determine whether politicized distortion had taken place were about spin, open to charges as having been delivered as spin, and able to be spun by others.
On the last point, the question of just what the Butler Inquiry had actually concluded would figure prominently in coverage of its publication. Certain collective government failures were identified, but it did not single out politicians, their advisors, or members of the intelligence community for personal reprimand. No evidence was presented for 'deliberate distortion' or 'culpable negligence' of the assessment of intelligence. Ministers and advisors were not judged to have politically interfered with the production of the September Dossier. As in the US, when blame was identified it was largely directed at intelligence agencies. The report identified certain areas of criticism for the JIC, such as the lack of qualifications about the basis for intelligence or the 45-minute claim.
Yet, as opposed to the Hutton Inquiry, the Butler Inquiry was not widely labeled as a whitewash. So how did the inquiry make the case for the overall legitimacy of government portrayals of intelligence? How did detractors of the war try to counter this evaluation? And how, as part of advancing these cases, did commentators make a case for the legitimacy of their own interpretations about distortion?
The answer is, in many different ways. And it was the advancing of these alternatives that carved the bounds of political debate: limits that were clearly visibly, but also rendered unseen.
'SEXED UP' INTELLIGENCE?
By way of sketching the twists and turns of what was said, this section considers the following, in relation to the arguments forwarded regarding whether intelligence had been sexed up and how this evaluation was justified:
• The Butler Report published on July 14, 2004;
• References to it in major British national newspapers and the UK parliament in the six months that followed its publication;
• Testimony by Lord Butler to the House of Commons Select Committee on Public Administration on October 21, 2004. As part of an investigation into the effectiveness of public inquiries, this committee of members of parliament (MPs) was able to question witnesses at length.
Obviously Not Spun
To turn to the Butler Report itself, of note here is that the said faithfulness of the wording in the September Dossier was demonstrated – not by a detailed analysis of the meaning and significance of words – but rather by restating (some of) the very language disputed.
So the chapters in the report dealing with Iraqi intelligence included a section titled 'The Accuracy of the Dossier'. Its five pages consisted of four tables addressing Iraqi regime intent, chemical and biological agents, delivery systems, and nuclear weapons, with brief pre- and post-table commentaries. The tables set quotes from JIC assessments and the September Dossier side-by-side.
Extract 1.1 reproduces the table dealing with Iraqi delivery systems. The conclusion offered in paragraph 339 was that the JIC judgments were 'reflected fairly' in the September Dossier. By representing certain wording, 'The Accuracy of the Dossier' section treats establishing distortion as straightforward. Besides the short commentary after the table, resemblance is taken as obvious and established. No special expertise or access to information is required to make sense of the columns. What is called 'accuracy' here is taken to be a matter of the likeness of words which can be found by direct examination of the words themselves.
Obviously Spun
Given that the column comparisons were the central means in the Butler Report for demonstrating the faithfulness of the September Dossier, a peculiar feature of the newspaper and parliamentary commentary was the almost complete absence of attention to the tables. Only three brief references were made to the column comparison method in the British newspapers examined and two in parliament.
Perhaps even more peculiar, each asserted evaluations to the effect that the tables clearly demonstrated how the dossier was at odds with the JIC assessments. For instance, the former government intelligence analyst Crispin Black argued that Lord Butler:
would not dream of using the demotic 'sexed up', but the way the evidence is presented allows us to draw our own conclusions. By publishing excerpts of the original joint intelligence committee papers and placing them alongside the dodgy dossier, he and his colleagues demonstrate the great gulf in words and tone and intended meaning between the real JIC assessments and the September Dossier.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "How to Look Good in a War"
by .
Copyright © 2012 Brian Rappert.
Excerpted by permission of Pluto Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Grasping ShadowsPart I: Partial Revelations
1. Show and Tell: Distortion, Accuracy, and WMD
2. Estimating Ignorance
3. Disabling Discourses: International Law, Legitimacy, and the Politics of Balance
Part II: Dialogues
4. Open Conversations and Public Secrets?: The Banning of Cluster Munitions
5 . Binding Options
6. Framing and Framed: The Category of Explosive Violence
Conclusion. Pulling Back
Notes
Index