Gyroscope

A newsletter for those unmoved by spin.
No. 2, July 28, 2003

Subscribe

Change Address

Unsubscribe

Comment

Are there weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? I really don't know. Did Bush oversell the case for war? Well, of course he did, but 16 words in the State of the Union speech were not the major crime.

Lately, the press has switched from giving Bush a free ride to pounding him over the State of the Union speech, but that is to obsess over one tree while the forest burns.

First of all, the real issue never was does Iraq have weapons or doesn't it? When the issue is formed this way, finding one scientist and a test tube then counts as proof the answer was 'yes.' But such activities, while sinister, provide little threat to the US. The question really was: "Does Iraq have weapons they can deploy on the battlefield?" They may be trying to design weapons, they brag about what weapons they might have, they blow smoke about what those weapons will do to us, but none of that is evidence that they have workable, 'weaponized' systems that can be delivered on the battlefield.

Secondly, there is the concept of time. Iraq did use chemical weapons fifteen years ago, that does not mean they have workable systems for deploying them now, after the Gulf war, after seven years of weapons inspections and a decade of total embargo of their industrial sector and a aborted second round of weapons inspections in 2002-03. Iraq's capability for WMD was severely degraded over the years.

What Iraq probably had was labs without certain essential pieces of equipment, components of weapons systems without the toxins, old batches of toxins slowly turning inert, theoretical papers on how to build WMD that required infrastructure they didn't have, and the like.

With this context, we can return to the state of the Union speech and understand why nitpicks about what Iraq did do, thought about doing, wanted to do or tried to do in Niger is a side issue. Very few people in the world, outside of the White House and Fox News, thought Iraq had functioning weapons systems that could deliver quantities of chemical or biological weapons to the battlefield and almost no one at all believed they had nuclear weapons. Iraq probably were trying to make progress on creating all three, but so far there is little evidence they had gotten very far.

However, making the claim that Iraq had these weapons in quantity or were about to give them to terrorist groups inflamed Americans and was an effective propaganda tool to prevent there being any sort of sober debate to assess Iraq's real threat to the US and if it was worth several hundred American lives to dispose of Saddam.

The Bush Administration made claims about WMD a thousand times and more in the run up to the war and the press gave them a free ride. Picking on them about one of the claims out of context is not effective journalism.

Earnings and housing data hint at upturn, the headline says, "record US new housing sales and hints of a recovery in capital spending ... boosted hopes that better than expected corporate profits signaled a second half upturn in the economy." Financial Times, July 26, p.1

California's bond rating has been lowered by three notches, putting it slightly above junk bond status. This will raise the cost of debt service that the state government has to pay. Wall Street Journal, July 25, p. C11.

Aggressive cutting of interest rates by the Fed over the past two years may have just "allowed fundamentally unprofitable business to survive for longer than they should have done," prolonging the downturn, says Philip Coggan, reporting views of "Austrian school" economists. Financial Times, July 26, p.13

The recession officially ended in late 2001 but so far there the rebound has done little to create jobs. New York Times, July 18, p.C1

The total of state budget deficits for 2004 is estimated at between $60 and $85 billion, the largest in 50 years, by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (website). In response to the deficits, the CBPP estimates one million people will loose state provided health insurance coverage.

US Federal government budget deficit for this year is estimated to be $455 billion, largest in dollar terms ever. Economist, July 19, p. 21

Boeing lays off 5,000 workers. Headline in Seattle media, mid July.

Microsoft to hire 5,000 workers. Headline in Seattle media, 2nd half of July.

American's believe the economy is in "its best shape in more than a year, but appear more worried about its immediate future," a survey reported. Financial Times, July 19, p. 3.

Economic imbalances in the US include "low personal saving, record levels of household and corporate debt, enormous current-account and budget deficits." Andrew Smithers, London-based economist. Economist Magazine, July 19, p.58.

Corporate after-tax profits grew 3.8% in Q1 over 2002 Q4, by one measure, reported the US. Bureau of Economic Analysis. (Website)