Proving A Negative

The New York Times Review of Books (not the Gray Lady Herself, it must be noted) published an account by New Yorker staff writer Mark Danner entitled, "A Secret Way To War". He examines the Downing Street memo, published there for the first time in the American press, and looks at exactly how the events outlined in the memo actually played out. If you haven't read it yet, please do. It's an amazing piece of journalism.

While I was reading the account of Dick Cheney's dismissal of the work of the UN weapons inspectors, even as the other members of the UN Security Council, Britain included, were urging that the inspectors be given more time, I was struck by the fact that the world's hopes for peace hung on a logical impossibility: proving a negative.

It was not possible for the UN weapons inspectors to prove that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. It was not possible for Iraq to prove it had no weapons of mass destruction. It is not possible to prove this even today or at any foreseeable time in the future. It simply cannot be done. Indeed, even as it was becoming apparent that there were no weapons of mass destruction, and there was ample evidence that the programs for such weapons were discontinued a decade before, the Bush Administration insisted that it knew where the weapons were! Even after the invasion, as the search continued to prove fruitless, the Bush Administration insisted that they were moved to Syria! They may as well have claimed the weapons were moved to my backyard, since I have no way to prove I never had them! Bush was right to have looked under the couch!

As it turns out, the British encouraged the UN course of action in order to justify military action, hoping that either Saddam would not allow inspections or that, even better, the threat of such a violation of Iraqi sovereignty would be met with a forceful response. No such luck. However, as soon as the rest of the world bought into the idea that the weapons inspectors could prove that there were no weapons, Iraq's goose was cooked, and the administration knew it.

The neoconservatives have a long history of making their enemies prove the negative. As the excellent BBC series "The Power of Nightmares" points out, they first leveled ridiculous accusations against the Soviet Union for controlling terrorist groups all over the world. The CIA dismissed their evidence as propaganda that the CIA itself had made up. Next were the endless investigations of Clinton's Whitewater deal and White House sexual escapades (like JFK was any worse!), which turned out to be mere bread-and-circuses for the masses. Then came 9/11, run by a cell with a monetary connection to Usama bin Laden, but mostly conducted independently of his guidance. 9/11 gave the neocons and their stooges all the power they needed to invade Iraq, since no one in power was questioning whether Saddam was correct in his insistence that he did not have WMD programs.