Bush, Saddam, Intelligence & Aunt Millie

The discussion of President Bush's pushback on intelligence led to an interesting analogy:

Let's say I call my mom, and I ask her how Aunt Millie is doing. "Oh," Mom says, "I talked to Millie last week and she's in great spirits!"

There's nothing wrong with that, unless it turns out that my mother had spoken to Aunt Millie's daughter this morning and learned that Millie took a header down the stairs. Giving me last week's information, while technically not a lie, does not paint an accurate picture of my mother's knowledge of Millie's condition.

One should make the argument that the response is in fact a lie. Implicit in the question is not a record of key events at various points in the life of Millie, but the crucial question of how she's doing now.

Let's try another analogy: Saddam Hussein has been waging biochemical warfare against his own people and has attempted to conquer neighboring countries as well as harboring and funding transnational terrorists, and has been discovered through various intelligence agencies to be working toward other WMDs, including several documented atomic projects.

The UN determines that this ongoing behavior represents a danger to all other nations, and attempts to levy sanctions and inspections with the intent of dismantling such weapons development and possession by Iraq.

Iraq determines that it will comply in allowing inspectors into the nation. During the inspections, numerous extensive diversionary tactics are witnessed by inspectors, who attempt to counteract them in their own approach to conducting unhindered inspections. Inspectors realize that they are failing, and these failures lead to further UN resolutions against Iraq.

In 1998, after a particularly unsatisfactory round of inspection attempts, noted by a reader here, President Clinton recalls the inspectors and targets several facilities for bombing. Some claim that this ended Hussein's weapons programs; interestingly, rather than saying, "Come look at what you've done and see that we have nothing for you to fear," Hussein refused further inspections.

After the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the world community gave renewed importance to the question of Iraq's activities. The UN insisted on inspections and a statement of its programs from Iraq's government.

The 2002 collective report of intelligence (NIE) states, under the category of "High Confidence Judgements":

Iraq is continuing, and in some areas expanding its chemical, biological, nuclear, and missile programs contrary to UN resolutions.

It further claims that

Saddam, if sufficiently desperate, might decide that only an organization such as al-Qa'ida - with worldwide reach and extensive terrorist infrastructure, and already engaged in a life-or-death struggle against the United States - would perpetrate the type of terrorist attack that he would hope to conduct.

The inspections were fraught with the kind of controlled access and duplicitous behavior the inspectors had come to recognize; Hans Blix discussed findings in an interview:

Well, we had received their report, declaration, about 10,000 pages from Iraq, and we had hoped that it would clarify a lot of issues that remained open since 1998. It did give information about peaceful programs concerning biology and chemistry, but it did not really shed any new evidence on the chemical weapons and biological weapons program. And this is a disappointment.

[snip]

They say there was nothing left, and they still continue to say that. So it's not surprising that there is no new... nothing new on that score. However, what we need is evidence. The U.S. and the U.K. say that they have evidence that the Iraqis retain weapons of this kind. We do not have such evidence here, but at the same time, we do not have the evidence from Iraq that they have finished it. And hence, our conclusion is that one cannot have the confidence that the weapons are gone [emphasis mine].

Blix summarized his March 2003 report to the UN:

I should note that the working document contains much information and discussion about the issues which existed at the end of 1998 – including information which has come to light after 1998. It contains much less information and discussion about the period after 1998, primarily because of paucity of information. Nevertheless, intelligence agencies have expressed the view that proscribed programmes have continued or restarted in this period. It is further contended that proscribed programmes and items are located in underground facilities, as I mentioned, and that proscribed items are being moved around Iraq.

Blix recommended further inspections, which he anticipated taking months and agreed should not be extended into years, was in the very small minority, and was by no means arguing that there were no WMD.

Shortly thereafter, the coalition invaded Iraq.

Given the intelligence and the expectations of the key players involved in intelligence gathering, how does the analogy stand? Is Aunt Millie alright? Did the coalition of nations have reason at that time to invade Iraq?