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Journalism of Courage
Four major reasons for the US launching a war against Iraq under its new doctrine of strategic pre-emption are increasingly under question within the United States. Three months after the war no evidence of weapons of mass destruction has surfaced. On the other hand, it transpires that the intelligence documents asserting that Iraq tried to obtain uranium for nuclear bombs from Niger, cited by President Bush, are now found to be forged. Secondly, after three months of military occupation of Iraq, no evidence of Saddam Husein8217;s linkage with Al Qaeda has been found. The third reason 8212; regime change 8212; relied heavily on the importance and authenticity of these two. The fourth, that the conquering forces would be greeted with flags and flowers when what they are actually facing are snipers8217; bullets.
Intelligence failures are an integral part of public policy. But its judgements, of necessity, are subjective, often ignoring truth in preference to preconceived notions stemming from past experience or in anticipation of the biases of policy makers. Inevitably, we have had our own failures. The worst, perhaps, was the one concerning the war in 1962. More recently, Kargil was an unqualified intelligence failure, and the jury about the events in Hilkaka and Surankote is still out. What we need to look at closely is the nature of failures so that future ones can be prevented.
