Yesterday and earlier today the Iraqi Information Ministry claimed they had crushed US forces at the air port and that their were no US forces in Bahgdad. Even claims of Hollywood productions were used to thwart the video being shown worldwide of US forces entering Bahgdad today.


During the inspections prior to the war the same information ministry made statements that Iraq had no WMDs and that they were cooperating
with inspectors.

Many people in the US were on the side of the Iraq information ministry, siding with their claims of no WMDs and cooperation with inspectors.

My question for debate: If you agreed with the Iraqi information ministry then, don't you, and they, have a whole lot less credibility now?

Somehow, Sleeper, though I'm sure you think you've got us cornered now, I think most people were more likely willing to believe THE INSPECTORS THEMSELVES... I don't think most commie-pinko-lefties were sitting around saying, "gosh, that reliable old Iraqi Information Ministry, they're just so darn truthful all the time..."

An organization like that will say exactly what makes the Iraqi government look good. If it is true, ok, if it is not, well then. I just don't know of anyone who's belief that Iraq was complying came solely from the Iraqis themselves.

Y'know... I didn't take the word of either the Iraqi Information Ministry or the Bush administration regarding WMD's. I'm a bit of a skeptic so if somebody is going to make claims, I want to see support for it. Now, with it being rather hard to prove a negative I looked to the administration and the inspectors to provide evidence of WMD's. I found it both funny and frustrating that the two should have had mutual interests in finding this evidence, but the administration was doing their best to pressure and hurry the inspectors out of Iraq.

Discovering the inspectors were being sent into Iraq on false pretenses (resolution 1441) certainly didn't serve to support my "trust" in the administration claims.

As far as compliance goes, I kept up with the UN inspectors' updates and knew that they were receiving limited Iraqi compliance. But then again, I also knew that they had said they would be done in a matter of months, regardless of whether Iraq complied 100%.

Whether the Iraqi Information Ministry claimed they didn't have WMD's was irrelevant. What was relevant was that the administration in Washington was engaging in lies and "disinformation" in trying to build a case against Iraq. I've left it open as a possibility Iraq may have bio or chemical weapons (nukes, with radioactive traces, would be rather hard to hide), but I certainly wasn't going to trust an administration as equally deceptive -- if not more -- than the Iraqi Information Ministry.

The only way my credibility, or the credibility of others, would have been harmed would be if we had dismissed the idea of Iraqi WMD's based solely on the claims of the Iraqi Information Ministry. I'm simply guessing, but I doubt if many people just took their word for it without looking to the inspectors and UN press releases.

Here is that quote that is so often misinterpreted...



Note he never claimed that the Iraqi attitude was proactive, just that disarmament would take months if it was....

While chemical weapons have not yet been discovered, evidence pertaining to their manufacture and existance has. It is simply a matter of time before they are found.

Unless I'm mistaken, we aren't debating whether or not Iraq has chemical weapons here. The question for debate was...


As I have said, though, I don't think anybody really "agreed with the Iraqi Information Ministry" to begin with. The anti-war stance which opposed military intervention (at this time), and supported the role of continued inspections, was seemingly based primarily on the UN inspectors and their press releases. Personally, I didn't trust either the Information Ministry or the White House, considering the propaganda and disinformation coming from both.

So, as it pertains to myself and others like me, what the Iraqi Information Ministry says does not really affect my credibility. I've merely questioned the possession of WMD's by Iraq and sought to have further inspections for verification by as neutral a party as we could hope to find. That time has unfortunately passed and we are now left with only the two questionable information sources (or propaganda machines, if you prefer) on each side of the globe.

Sure, anybody who believed Iraq before the war didn't have any credibility back then, either.

The challenge is to come up with names of people who believed Iraq before the war.

Otherwise, this is the classic straw man question.

Forgive my ignorance, but what is a 'Strawman question' ?

Moif,

The straw man is when an argument is based on or directed to a non-existant person or group of people. So, if I claim that someone believed the official line from Iraq, and this person does not exist, I have set up a straw man to attack with my subsequent arguments.

Propagandists use straw men all the time. That's why citation is so important in fair debates, scholarly works, and any other work that seeks to be taken seriously.

Ignorance is always forgiven, as it is our natural state

I can't say I've agreed with the Iraqi Information Ministry at any stage. I would say that they have as much credibility now as they ever did - which is exactly the same amount that the Bush Information Ministry has ever had. Hidden in all the propaganda and self-serving lies, there is probably the occasional fact which slips through, whether it comes from Ari Fleischer or Mohammed Saeed Sahhaf. As with others here, I was much more likely to take the word of the UN inspectors themselves over either - until the US once again forced them out.

Thanks AM.

The Iraqi Information minister's daily briefing, aside from being comical, reminds me of Soviet propaganda from the cold war.

I'm wondering though, I hear that those go out on satellite, which most Iraqi's, because of the war, don't currently have access to. So are these *ahem* 'facts' for Iraqi consumption or world wide consumption?

DTOM,

That's a pretty good question. My reaction to the pronouncements is that the powers of Iraq are in huge denial of reality, and this is all really for themselves. They aren't fooling anybody else.

But then, all I know is what I see in the media. I guess in a sort of epistemological way, Iraq's info minister is trying to bend reality? Eh, good luck as the ordnance comes to visit.

Visions of Nero fiddling while Rome burns; Clinton drumming while his career dies . . . and many others.

This just in from the Iraqi Information Ministry...

"There are no American forces in Bahgdad! We have crushed them and driven them back!!!"


(As the statue of Saddam falls in the background)



Edit: I should have put this in the joke thread