WMD spin shows what leaders will do to take people to war

July 15 2003

Like lawyers, Bush, Blair and Howard have highlighted material that suits their case, writes Scott Burchill.
Like the Gulf of Tonkin lie in 1964 and the baby incubator fabrication in 1990, the weapons of mass destruction fiasco is a reminder of the lengths Western governments will go to in order to incite their populations to war.
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How can this be explained? Is it sufficient for Howard, Bush and Blair to argue that they were merely passing on in good faith what the intelligence agencies had told them?
The confusion arises when political discourse designed to persuade rather than inform, is treated as if it were independent objective analyses based on historical truth. This is not the way to handle government propaganda.
The English historian A. J. P. Taylor argued that the principal difference between the methodologies of the lawyer and the historian was that "the lawyer aims to make a case; the historian wishes to understand a situation". According to Taylor, the evidence amassed by the lawyer is "loaded" in ways that will maximise the chances of conviction or acquittal: "anyone who relies on (this kind of evidence) finds it almost impossible to escape from the load with which they are charged."
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As Washington, London and Canberra are pressured to defend their claims about Iraq's WMD, it is worth recalling Taylor's warning about "loaded" documents. Bush, Blair and Howard assembled arguments to support a case for war after they had decided to attack Iraq. They did not arrive at a conclusion after a judicious evaluation of the evidence. Like barristers, they selected and highlighted material favourable to their argument and ignored anything that undermined it.
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http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/07/14/1058034937157.html