Arms Issue Seen as Hurting U.S. Credibility Abroad

[joeunderdog]

The Bush administration's inability to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq -- after public statements declaring an imminent threat posed by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein -- has begun to harm the credibility abroad of the United States and of American intelligence, according to foreign policy experts in both parties.

snip

Already, in the crisis over North Korea's nuclear ambitions, China has rejected U.S. intelligence that North Korea has a secret program to enrich uranium for use in weapons. China is a key player in resolving the North Korean standoff, but its refusal to embrace the U.S. intelligence has disappointed U.S. officials and could complicate negotiations to eliminate North Korea's weapons programs.

Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, said the same problem could occur if the United States presses for action against alleged weapons programs in Iran and Syria. The solution, he said, is to let international organizations such as the International Atomic Energy Agency take the lead in making the case, as has happened thus far in Iran, and also to be willing to share more of the intelligence with other countries.

snip

Indeed, she said, the reverberations are still being felt, even as the administration tries to put the problem behind it. A recent CBS poll found that only 16 percent of those surveyed believed the administration lied about Iraq's weapons. But she said there is intense interest in the report's findings, with 35,000 copies downloaded from the think tank's Web site in just five days. "It is too soon to say there was no cost" to the failure to find weapons, she said. "I think there is a huge appetite for learning about this."

more...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27978-2004Jan18_2.html

[mbperrin]

1. So 84% of Americans shoot heroin or something stronger

every day?
"only 16 percent of those surveyed believed the administration lied about Iraq's weapons."

No other explanation possible!

[yellowcanine]

4. My response also - a big Duh? on this one.

Of course it hurt our credibility.

[denverbill]

5. Maybe the other 84% just think he's a gullible moron.

[chenGOD]

2. And the Washington Post clued into this fact when?

Took em long enough.

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. dictionary needed for Perle

"Richard Perle, another member of the Defense Advisory Board, said the criticism of the Bush administration is unfair. "Intelligence is not an audit," he said. "It's the best information you can get in circumstances of uncertainty, and you use it to make the best prudent judgment you can.""

'Prudent' does not mean the same as 'profitable', Richard, just because you hear them both when discussing investment strategies.

If the foreign policy experts think the WMD issue has just begun to harm the USA's credibility abroad, then they should try reading a non-USA newspaper from the past 18 months. The Bush regime's credibility is on a par with Brezhnev's.