Thursday, October 16, 2003
DID SADDAM PERHAPS NOT KNOW HE DIDN’T HAVE ANY WMD? This is actually a point I had never considered:
Re recent analyses of what WMD's Saddam had, should we assume that it's a comment on a bureaucratic state? They had all manner of administrative effort related to creating WMDs, consuming much time and money of the regime, but the actual production was not proportionate. Could it be that, like other command regimes that have no real understanding of what their grand initiatives are like at the sharp end, Saddam simply did not know that he didn't have that much to hide?
It is an often recurring appeareance in history that despots have the habit of killing those people who bring bad news and rewarding those that bring good news. In the end of course the only advisors left are those who only supply good news, nevermind if this fails to match the reality on the ground. We shall see. One day. Perhaps. If we’re lucky. Or maybe there were no weapons programmes, just an above-average number of fertilizer research laboratories. . . .
Re recent analyses of what WMD's Saddam had, should we assume that it's a comment on a bureaucratic state? They had all manner of administrative effort related to creating WMDs, consuming much time and money of the regime, but the actual production was not proportionate. Could it be that, like other command regimes that have no real understanding of what their grand initiatives are like at the sharp end, Saddam simply did not know that he didn't have that much to hide?
It is an often recurring appeareance in history that despots have the habit of killing those people who bring bad news and rewarding those that bring good news. In the end of course the only advisors left are those who only supply good news, nevermind if this fails to match the reality on the ground. We shall see. One day. Perhaps. If we’re lucky. Or maybe there were no weapons programmes, just an above-average number of fertilizer research laboratories. . . .
