DON'T HATE ME!

Well, it's the silly season again. Less than 100 days to the quadrennial clusterfuck we call the Presidential election. That means we are going to be deluged with ads—online and in media—attempting to persuade us (if we are actually persuadable) of the superiority of a particular party or candidate.

The key word here is 'persuade'. There is a big difference between persuasion and manipulation, and that's what I want to examine here. It's important to know whether the ad or FaceBook post or Tweet or Gram or Blog Post or news article (fake or real) or other social phenomenon you're viewing is trying to persuade you of something or manipulate your emotions.

If you are a philosopher, your allegiance is first and foremost to truthful, verifiable premises; consistent and consistently applied principles; coherent arguments based on these premises and principles; and legitimate, circumscribed inferences. But most of us are not philosophers. Thus, we are subject to all matter of wildly speculative, illegitimate claims that don't hold together—the sorts of things that make us abandon our reason and proportion: political ads, branding, and, more importantly, guerrilla marketing.

Or, in a word: Propaganda.

What is it? How can you spot it? And what can you do to shield yourself from its toxic and divisive effects?

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(1) The first thing you want to ask yourself is whether what you're seeing appeals to your reason or common sense or, alternatively, does it play on your emotions. Does it provoke an instantaneous, automatic, perhaps negative response—maybe a knee-jerk reaction that makes you want to retweet or repost it? What is your response to the piece? For example:

• Does it make you feel defensive?

• Does it incite you to be fearful?

• Does it incense you, make you indignant, anger you?

• Does it seethe with an infectious distaste, hatred, and loathing?

The answers to these questions, of course, require some degree of self-awareness and emotional honesty: 'What am I really feeling as I read this piece or look at this photograph or watch this video? And why?'

If you feel the piece is trying to provoke such an emotional response, you should be cautious about the material. That doesn't mean reject it entirely; it just means be aware that someone is attempting to play with your emotions.

(2) Another thing to pay attention to has to do with the object of piece: Where is the piece directing your emotional attention? Who or what is it attacking? For example:

• Is the emotion it elicits in you being directed toward a specific person or, as is often the case, a group or type of people?

• Does it seek to indict or condemn or demean an entire group of people by pointing out the flaws or sins of one individual who happens to be a member of that group?

• Does it make you feel morally or intellectually or spiritually superior or somehow vindicated by putting another person or group of people down?

These are often further signs that the piece you're seeing or reposting or retweeting or linking to is meant to be manipulative. Again, caution signs.

These first two questions are the kinds of things any of us can ask when we see something on social media or on the news and feel tempted or compelled to propagate it, copypasta, retweet, etc. We simply need to ask ourselves what we're feeling when we look at the piece and who is this feeling being directed at. This is what it feels like to be manipulated.

(3) We haven't gotten into an analysis of the specific claims of any particular post because that requires research into not only the specific claims that are being made in any given piece but into the (often shady) origins of the piece. Quite often, those things are not obvious to us the recipient, the casual reader or viewer. And they are hidden for a reason. The propagators of the piece don't want us to know the truth.

Those of us who grew up as "people of The Book"—meaning Jews, Christians, and Muslims—have been taught to believe we should have faith, we should believe "things not seen," we should take the words we read at face value as truth. Unfortunately, this simple faith, this uncritical acceptance, tends to make us vulnerable to clever manipulators acting in bad faith.

There are certain techniques we can look for, in general, that should excite our critical facilities. For example, we can begin by asking ourselves questions like these:

• Does the piece use emotionally loaded terms?

• Does the piece call people names or label them?

• Does the piece slander or demean someone or something?

• Is the emotion the piece elicits in you being directed toward a specific person or, as is often the case, a group or type of people?
• Does the piece use big words without defining them?

• Ask yourself: Do you really know the meanings of all the words the piece uses, or do you only think you do?

• Can you ask the author of the piece a question about what they mean when they say something you don't really understand?

• Does the piece originate from a legitimate, authoritative source with actual knowledge of the claims it is making?

• Or, is the piece copypasted from a friend who copypasted it from someone else nobody really knows?

• Does the piece rely on someone who claims to be an authority but whose specialization is in a field different from the claim they are making?

• Does the piece automatically assume you agree with its premises and conclusions?

• Does the piece assume an attitude about someone or something or some group of people or things or facts?

• Does the piece somehow imply that anyone who doesn't believe what it's saying is stupid or ignorant? 

• Does the piece rely on facts that are assumed or that have no grounding in fact?

• Does the piece ask you to take for granted facts you have no way of proving or verifying? 

• Does the piece take something factual and objective and try to color it emotionally, say, by making it seem toxic? 

• Does the piece make broad, sweeping general claims based on a single event or occurrence or a limited sample size or anecdote?

• Does the piece take a single, localized incident and blow it out of proportion, making it seem like it's omnipresent? 

• Does the piece make unjustified comparisons that can't be demonstrated?

• Does the piece use doctored images?

These are by no means all the rhetorical techniques used by bad actors to manipulate and divide us, but it's important to have a few critical shields in your arsenal.

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Some manipulative branding campaigns are very sophisticated, playing on our deepest fears. Let's look at a particularly effective guerrilla marketing propaganda campaign from the 2016 election and see how it works. 

In the run-up to the 2016 election, there was a ton of social media and even mainstream media hype given over to the 'creepy clown' phenomenon. Remember this? It began in Wisconsin (remember the significance of that state?) and built and built until, Wikipedia tells us, "By mid-October 2016, clown sightings and attacks had been reported in nearly all U.S. states."

People—some real and some imagined and some invented—dressed as clowns and appeared at odd, incongruous places and times. Nobody knew who these bogeymen were or where they were coming from or why they were doing it. It was a prank that became a trend and went viral. The clowns scared people. Some folks, especially suburban moms, were so freaked out by this trend they kept their kids home from school and forbid them to go trick-or-treating.

The viral phenomenon was picked up and hyped to an almost hysterical extent by the media and ran rampant on social media. It was repeated over and over and over again. Some freely joined the prank; others, it is suspected, were paid actors. The publicity proliferated. This was a guerilla marketing operation, deployed nationwide, designed to induce a broad fear of the unknown. Some say it started out as a marketing campaign for a movie. That may be so, but it was exploited and repeated by political operatives.

Now recall the context of that election: Trump vs. Hillary. The Republicans were branding themselves as the 'Daddy party' and trying to cast Hillary and the Democrats as the 'Mommy' party. Scaring people is one way to infantilize them, make them feel insecure like children. The subtext of the campaign was: "Daddy might be abusive, but he's strong and he and only he will protect you from these unseen terrors." The 'creepy clowns' played right into this narrative. It was a subtle, under-the-radar political ploy. No one claimed overt or public credit for it. Yet it worked! (See, e.g., Wisconsin)

Invented bogeymen: that's one type of manipulative political propaganda meant to scare you and incense you. They inculcate a pervasive attitude of fear and loathing. They occlude your reason. And as we know, political operatives are notoriously uninventive. If a campaign worked once, they tend to run it over and over again (with minor modifications) until it doesn't—and often even after that.

So, who are the bogeymen for this current election cycle? Who are we being manipulated to fear or resent or hate?

Ask yourself: Who are you being urged to fear or hate? And why?

J'Accuse: How Denial Might Just Cost a River in Egypt

Though you won't find it in the headlines, the Fukushima catastrophe keeps getting worse (h/t to Crow).

One day we may wake up to find that it was a turning point in the quest/battle for clean, renewable, planetary energy use. Germany is planning to scrap nuke use altogether, with positive repercussions elsewhere. In the market system, it's always been a question of true price discovery, a game that's been crooked from the outset because the resource controllers and refinery processors have had their thumbs on the scales.

"A recent analysis conducted by Carbon Brief investigated no less than 900 published papers, all of which cast doubts on climate change, or even speak against it. After concluding this investigation, they found that 9 out of 10 of the most prolific ones had some sort of connection with Exxon Mobil. You can find a link to these papers at the Global Warming Policy Foundation.

The results showed that out of the 938 papers cited, 186 of them were written by only ten men, and foremost among them was Dr Sherwood B Idso, who personally authored 67 of them. Idso is the president of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, an ExxonMobil funded think tank. The second most prolific was Dr Patrick J Michaels, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, who receives roughly 40% of his funding from the oil industry.

This goes in parallel with the ‘work’ of the Koch industries; even though you probably haven’t heard of them, Koch industries is the second largest privately held company in the US, and in the past 50 years, they have invested more than 50.000.000 dollars in spreading doubts about climate change, according to Greenpeace."

Read more: http://www.zmescience.com/ecology/climate-change-papers-exxon-mobil/#ixzz1QP3WPAJm

More on true price discovery of energy, or "energy return on investment" [EROI] here. How does society price in the costs of "circulatory/respiratory, central nervous system, musculoskeletal, gastrointestinal, urogenital, and ‘other’ types of defects" in children born under the shadow of mountain top removal into a ton of coal? Or the costs of "elevated rates of mortality, lung cancer, and chronic heart, lung and kidney disease in coal producing communities."

Indeed, there appears to be some evidence that the value of solar power far exceeds its actual costs "thanks to its ability to reduce peak demand on the transmission and distribution system, hedge against fuel price increases, and enhance grid and environmental security."

Where the costs of nuclear, coal, fossil fuel, natural gas, etc. are being wildly underestimated while the beneficial value of, e.g., solar is being shortchanged we do not have an efficient market. Necessary information is being squelched and distorted to prevent the emergence of a truly efficient market via proper price discovery.

As the facts emerge, we are seeing some inroads against the propaganda machine, though.

How many Cassandras is it going to take to get us to wake up to the facts? Will a mass sea life extinction event be our canary in the coal mine? (Welcome home, mate! Thanks for the pix.)

Progress—let's call it—is taking place, however slowly. Hell, even the royal Saudi oil barons are thinking ahead—to the tune of $100 billion. Maybe they recognize we're running out of their principal asset—oil. And we all know that the only thing they have more of than oil is sunlight. Or maybe sand.

Who would've thought to rent out the otherwise unusable sunny rooftop of your massive factory or big box store to become an efficient energy producer?

So, yeah, some solutions are emerging. Still, we must hold the paid deniers, the propagandists, the shills in the media and politics who are doing the 'dirty' business of trying to keep the scales—market, justice, moral, information—imbalanced, to account. It's the individuals I'm talking about here, not the corporations—with one exception.

J'accuse:

• Sammy Wilson, Environment Minister, Northern Ireland
• Vaclav Klaus, President, Czech Republic
• Steve Milloy, Columnist, FoxNews
• Pat Michaels, Senior Fellow, Cato Institute
• Christopher Monckton, Former Adviser to Margaret Thatcher
• Sarah Palin, Celebrity, Former R-Governor, Alaska
• James Inhofe, Senator, R-Oklahoma
• Melanie Phillips, Columnist, Daily Mail
• Christopher Booker, Columnist Daily Telegraph
• David Bellamy, TV Presenter
• Glenn Beck, Radio Talk Show Host, FoxNews
• Steve Doocy, Anchor, FoxNews
• Michael Steele (now Reince Preibus), Chair, Republican National Committee
• George Will, Columnist, Washington Post
• Blaine Leutkemeyer, Representative, R-Missouri
• U.S. Chamber of Commerce
• Phelim MacAleer, Film Director & Producer
• Stephen Moore, Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal
• Fred Barnes, Co-Founder, Weekly Standard
• Roy Spencer, Former NASA Scientist
• John Shimkus, Representative, R-Illinois
• John Coleman, Founder The Weather Channel
• David Koch
• Charles Koch
• Jim DeMint, Senator, R-South Carolina
• Sherwood B. Idso, President, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change
• Rick Santorum, Presidential Candidate, R-FMFL
• Rush Limbaugh, Talk Radio Host

[In another post, I'll address the corporate and lobbying issues.]
[UPDATED to fix links. Again to add FMFL and Solar Cost link.]

Speaking of Hate—And How

Ever wonder how, over the past few years, sometimes when you hear some rancid commentator (Coulter, Malkin, Pat Buchanan or Bay) on a cable "news" show (Hannity, Beck, O'Reilly—that's you FOX) or some bloated talk radio host (Limbaugh, Hannity), or you receive a forwarded "urgent" email from one of your too-political friends making some outrageous claims (Obama's the Anti-Christ, liberals want to take away all your guns), or read an editorial in the Wall Street Journal or New York Post or an op-ed in the Washington Post (Will, Krauthammer) or the New York Times (Brooks, Kristol (his job there's done)) saying there's a rumor out there, or some newsmagazine (Commentary>, New Republic, National Review) comes out with an issue deploring such things, or a new book hits the stands (Regnery Press) and even though its premises seem ludicrous on its face (Bernard Goldberg, Jonah Goldberg, Coulter (yet again), Bennett) everyone seems to be talking about it, and then some congressman stands up and vituperatively mouths the same pithy phrases—ever wonder how and why they all seem to hit certain points on the same week?

The tone of these talking points are usually an aggressive mix of sarcasm and resentment and some form of veiled/coded racism or sexism or xenophobia or other hate-filled bigotry. They often contain a toxic mix of truth, truthiness, lies, and bullshit in such measures as to make them indistinguishable. As often as not, they involve claims that can't be easily verified or make false or misleading sensationalistic assertions that are (probably deliberately) ignorant of countervailing proofs: a minute of bunk that takes (or would take, given the time and expense involved) five more to debunk. One favorite tactic of these bloviators is to accuse their enemies of trying to do the same things they've been doing the whole time or to claim they believe one thing while secretly doing its opposite. It's all about attitude, stance, opinion, villification, outrage (faux, usually), and, in a word, ressentiment. They are maddening.

So, where do these talking points originate? How do all these people keep on the same page? Is it the natural flow of ideas and issues? Or, does some gnome sitting in the Empire State Building or some Heritage Foundation hack send out a blast email to all the connected Blackberries with a list of items of the day? Paul Krugman wants to know, too.

According to Krugman, it seems that during the Bush Presidency*, talking points were distributed by the White House, presumably by its political director Karl Rove. One suspect he had some role in their creation, as well. But now that they don't have the White House?

I came across this recently. Here's one likely suspect: Grover Norquist, direct mail fund-raising champ and head of Americans for Tax Reform. Norquist is famous for his requisite Wednesday morning meetings. He's also the source of the quote that he wanted to shrink government "down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub." You can read more about him here.

Here's another suspect (though I guess they coordinate their agendas) : Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga) from the Savannah area. According to his own web site, it seems Mr. Kingston is head of something called the Republican 'Theme Team': "Known as an effective communicator and a conservative voice, Kingston has served as the Chairman of the Theme Team since 1997." This is another right-wing propaganda organ. Their Tuesday Morning Meetings are well-known and de rigeur in certain circles, as well.

Their charter reads as follows:

THE THEME TEAM
Purpose: To present to the American people a unified message on certain Republican themes.
Tuesday Morning Meetings (10 :30 a.m.):

•  The Theme Team is made up of Members who wish to coordinate a message with Leadership and other groups, including COS, the Wednesday Group, Republican Study, the NRCC, and other Republican Organizations.

•  Ideally, the Theme Team will develop ideas and phrases to be used by all Republicans. Outlets for these themes include one-minute speeches, special orders in coordination with the Communications Advisory Group.

•  The most immediate function of the Theme Team is to organize one-minute speeches. One-minute speeches should convey a single message, be clever enough to catch the attention of the viewing audience, and be clear enough to be effective with the public.

•  One-minutes are written by a variety of speechwriters from the Leader's Office, the Whip Office, Conference, Policy, and other Members' Offices and Committee Staffs .

•  Themes developed by the Theme Team and approved by the Leadership should be communicated to all Members of the Conference through a variety of ways.

•  Themes should be posted in the Republican Cloakroom. The Conference Boarding Pass and other appropriate venues will similarly communicate those themes.

•  The Whip Meeting and the Policy Forums should mention what the Team has developed for that week. And, under special circumstances, the Cloakroom line should be employed to communicate to all Republican offices
what the themes are.

Their use of repetition in forum after forum and media after media only serves to drive home their points:. It doesn't make them true:

"But the most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly and with unflagging attention. It must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over." -- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 184

"The purpose of propaganda is not to provide interesting distraction for blasé young gentlemen, but to convince… the masses. But the masses are slow moving, and they always require a certain time before they are ready even to notice a thing, and only after the simplest ideas are repeated thousands of times will the masses finally remember them." -- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 185
Quotes from Mein Kampf, trans. by Ralph Manheim, (Cambridge, Mass.: The Riverside Press, 1962).

Remember, Pres.* G.W. Bush once gave his own version of his job description as follows:

"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."

Never forget that.



Which raises the question: Without the Dauphin there to "kind of catapult the propaganda," one wonders how they'll be able to sustain. The usual method is the creation of a bogeyman, an "Emanuel Goldstein", an object around which to organize their periodical 'two minutes' hates'.

Look for it! Hate! Coming soon, no doubt, to a theater near you.

"Boo!"

"It was Napoleon, I believe, who said that there is only one figure in rhetoric of serious importance, namely, repetition. The thing affirmed comes by repetition to fix itself in the mind in such a way that it is accepted in the end as a demonstrated truth." Gustave le Bon, The Crowd

"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda." Pres* George W. Bush, May 24, 2005. Here.

"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction."

- Dick Cheney, Vice President
Speech to VFW National Convention
8/26/2002

"There is already a mountain of evidence that Saddam Hussein is gathering weapons for the purpose of using them. And adding additional information is like adding a foot to Mount Everest."

- Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary
Response to Question From Press
9/6/2002

"We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."

- Condoleeza Rice, US National Security Advisor
CNN Late Edition
9/8/2002

"Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons."

- George W. Bush, President
Speech to UN General Assembly
9/12/2002

"Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons. We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have."

- George W. Bush, President
Radio Address
10/5/2002

"The Iraqi regime...possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons. We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas."

- George W. Bush, President
Cincinnati, Ohio Speech
10/7/2002

"And surveillance photos reveal that the regime is rebuilding facilities that it had used to produce chemical and biological weapons."

- George W. Bush, President
Cincinnati, Ohio Speech
10/7/2002

"After eleven years during which we have tried containment, sanctions, inspections, even selected military action, the end result is that Saddam Hussein still has chemical and biological weapons and is increasing his capabilities to make more. And he is moving ever closer to developing a nuclear weapon."

- George W. Bush, President
Cincinnati, Ohio Speech
10/7/2002

"We've also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas."

- George W. Bush, President
Cincinnati, Ohio Speech
10/7/2002

“We know that Iraq and the Al Qaeda terrorist network share a common enemy — the United States of America. We know that Iraq and Al Qaeda have had high level contacts that go back a decade,” and that “Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gasses.”

- George W. Bush, President
Cincinnati, Ohio Speech
10/7/2002

"Iraq, despite UN sanctions, maintains an aggressive program to rebuild the infrastructure for its nuclear, chemical, biological, and missile programs. In each instance, Iraq's procurement agents are actively working to obtain both weapons-specific and dual-use materials and technologies critical to their rebuilding and expansion efforts, using front companies and whatever illicit means are at hand."

- John Bolton, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control
Speech to the Hudson Institute
11/1/2002

"We estimate that once Iraq acquires fissile material -- whether from a foreign source or by securing the materials to build an indigenous fissile material capability -- it could fabricate a nuclear weapon within one year. It has rebuilt its civilian chemical infrastructure and renewed production of chemical warfare agents, probably including mustard, sarin, and VX. It actively maintains all key aspects of its offensive BW program."

- John Bolton, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control
Speech to the Hudson Institute
11/1/2002

"Iraq could decide on any given day to provide biological or chemical weapons to a terrorist group or to individual terrorists...The war on terror will not be won until Iraq is completely and verifiably deprived of weapons of mass destruction."

- Dick Cheney, Vice President
Denver, Address To Air National Guard
12/1/2002

"If he declares he has none, then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading the world."

- Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary
Press Briefing
12/2/2002

"The president of the United States and the secretary of defense would not assert as plainly and bluntly as they have that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction if it was not true, and if they did not have a solid basis for saying it."

- Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary
Response to Question From Press
12/4/2002

"We know for a fact that there are weapons there."

- Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary
Press Briefing
1/9/2003

"I am absolutely convinced, based on the information that's been given to me, that the weapon of mass destruction which can kill more people than an atomic bomb -- that is, biological weapons -- is in the hands of the leadership of Iraq."

- Bill Frist, Senate Majority Leader
MSNBC Interview
1/10/2003

"What is unique about Iraq compared to, I would argue, any other country in the world, in this juncture, is the exhaustion of diplomacy thus far, and, No. 2, this intersection of weapons of mass destruction."

- Bill Frist, Senate Majority Leader
NewsHour Interview
1/22/2003

"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production."

- George W. Bush, President
State of the Union Address
1/28/2003

"Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent."

- George W. Bush, President
State of the Union Address
1/28/2003

"We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more."

- Colin Powell, Secretary of State
Remarks to UN Security Council
2/5/2003

"There can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more. And he has the ability to dispense these lethal poisons and diseases in ways that can cause massive death and destruction. If biological weapons seem too terrible to contemplate, chemical weapons are equally chilling."

- Colin Powell, Secretary of State
Addresses the U.N. Security Council
2/5/2003

"In Iraq, a dictator is building and hiding weapons that could enable him to dominate the Middle East and intimidate the civilized world -- and we will not allow it."

- George W. Bush, President
Speech to the American Enterprise Institute
2/26/2003

"If Iraq had disarmed itself, gotten rid of its weapons of mass destruction over the past 12 years, or over the last several months since (UN Resolution) 1441 was enacted, we would not be facing the crisis that we now have before us...But the suggestion that we are doing this because we want to go to every country in the Middle East and rearrange all of its pieces is not correct."

- Colin Powell, Secretary of State
Interview with Radio France International
2/28/2003

"I am not eager to send young Americans into harm's way in Iraq, or to see innocent people killed or hurt in military operations. Given all of the facts and circumstances known to us, however, I am convinced that if we wait, a threat will continue to materialize in Iraq that could cause incalculable damage to world peace in general, and to the United States in particular."

- Bill Frist, Senate Majority Leader
Letter to Future of Freedom Foundation
3/1/2003

"Iraq is a grave threat to this nation. It desires to acquire and use weapons of mass terror and is run by a despot with a proven record of willingness to use them. Iraq has had 12 years to comply with UN requirements for disarmament and has failed to do so. The president is right to say it's time has run out."

- Bill Frist, Senate Majority Leader
Senate Speech
3/7/2003

"So has the strategic decision been made to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction by the leadership in Baghdad? I think our judgment has to be clearly not."

- Colin Powell, Secretary of State
Remarks to UN Security Council
3/7/2003

"Getting rid of Saddam Hussein's regime is our best inoculation. Destroying once and for all his weapons of disease and death is a vaccination for the world."

- Bill Frist, Senate Majority Leader
Washington Post op-ed
3/16/2003

"Let's talk about the nuclear proposition for a minute. We know that based on intelligence, that he has been very, very good at hiding these kinds of efforts. He's had years to get good at it and we know he has been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons. And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons."

- Dick Cheney, Vice President
Meet The Press
3/16/2003

"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."

- George W. Bush, President
Address to the Nation
3/17/2003

"The United States...is now at war so we will not ever see what terrorists could do if supplied with weapons of mass destruction by Saddam Hussein."

- Bill Frist, Senate Majority Leader
Senate Debate
3/20/2003

"Well, there is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical particularly . . . all this will be made clear in the course of the operation, for whatever duration it takes."

- Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary
Press Briefing
3/21/2003

"There is no doubt that the regime of Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. And...as this operation continues, those weapons will be identified, found, along with the people who have produced them and who guard them."

- General Tommy Franks, Commander in Chief Central Command
Press Conference
3/22/2003

"One of our top objectives is to find and destroy the WMD. There are a number of sites."

- Victoria Clark, Pentagon Spokeswoman
Press Briefing
3/22/2003

"I have no doubt we're going to find big stores of weapons of mass destruction."

- Kenneth Adelman, Defense Policy Board member
Washington Post, p. A27
3/23/2003

"We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat."

- Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
ABC Interview
3/30/2003

"We simply cannot live in fear of a ruthless dictator, aggressor and terrorist such as Saddam Hussein, who possesses the world's most deadly weapons."

- Bill Frist, Senate Majority Leader
Speech to American Israel Political Action Committee
3/31/2003

"We still need to find and secure Iraq's weapons of mass destruction facilities and secure Iraq's borders so we can prevent the flow of weapons of mass destruction materials and senior regime officials out of the country."

- Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
Press Conference
4/9/2003

"You bet we're concerned about it. And one of the reasons it's important is because the nexus between terrorist states with weapons of mass destruction...and terrorist groups -- networks -- is a critical link. And the thought that...some of those materials could leave the country and in the hands of terrorist networks would be a very unhappy prospect. So it is important to us to see that that doesn't happen."

- Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
Press Conference
4/9/2003

"Obviously the administration intends to publicize all the weapons of mass destruction U.S. forces find -- and there will be plenty."

- Robert Kagan, Neocon scholar
Washington Post op-ed
4/9/2003

"I think you have always heard, and you continue to hear from officials, a measure of high confidence that, indeed, the weapons of mass destruction will be found."

- Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary
Press Briefing
4/10/2003

"But make no mistake -- as I said earlier -- we have high confidence that they have weapons of mass destruction. That is what this war was about and it is about. And we have high confidence it will be found."

- Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary
Press Briefing
4/10/2003

"Were not going to find anything until we find people who tell us where the things are. And we have that very high on our priority list, to find the people who know. And when we do, then we'll learn precisely where things were and what was done."

- Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
Meet the Press
4/13/2003

"I have absolute confidence that there are weapons of mass destruction inside this country. Whether we will turn out, at the end of the day, to find them in one of the 2,000 or 3,000 sites we already know about or whether contact with one of these officials who we may come in contact with will tell us, 'Oh, well, there's actually another site,' and we'll find it there, I'm not sure."

- General Tommy Franks, Commander in Chief Central Command
Fox News
4/13/2003

"We are learning more as we interrogate or have discussions with Iraqi scientists and people within the Iraqi structure, that perhaps he destroyed some, perhaps he dispersed some. And so we will find them."

- George W. Bush, President
NBC Interview
4/24/2003

"There are people who in large measure have information that we need...so that we can track down the weapons of mass destruction in that country."

- Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
Press Briefing
4/25/2003

"We'll find them. It'll be a matter of time to do so."

- George W. Bush, President
Remarks to Reporters
5/3/2003

"I'm absolutely sure that there are weapons of mass destruction there and the evidence will be forthcoming. We're just getting it just now."

- Colin Powell, Secretary of State
Remarks to Reporters
5/4/2003

"We never believed that we'd just tumble over weapons of mass destruction in that country."

- Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
Fox News Interview
5/4/2003

"I'm not surprised if we begin to uncover the weapons program of Saddam Hussein -- because he had a weapons program."

- George W. Bush, President
Remarks to Reporters
5/6/2003

"U.S. officials never expected that 'we were going to open garages and find' weapons of mass destruction."

- Condoleeza Rice, US National Security Advisor
Reuters Interview
5/12/2003

"I just don't know whether it was all destroyed years ago -- I mean, there's no question that there were chemical weapons years ago -- whether they were destroyed right before the war, (or) whether they're still hidden."

- Maj. Gen. David Petraeus, Commander 101st Airborne
Press Briefing
5/13/2003

"We said all along that we will never get to the bottom of the Iraqi WMD program simply by going and searching specific sites, that you'd have to be able to get people who know about the programs to talk to you."

- Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense
Interview with Australian Broadcasting
5/13/2003

"Before the war, there's no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical. I expected them to be found. I still expect them to be found."

- Gen. Michael Hagee, Commandant of the Marine Corps
Interview with Reporters
5/21/2003

"It's going to take time to find them, but we know he had them. And whether he destroyed them, moved them or hid them, we're going to find out the truth. One thing is for certain: Saddam Hussein no longer threatens America with weapons of mass destruction."

- George W. Bush, President
Speech at a weapons factory in Ohio
5/25/2003

"Given time, given the number of prisoners now that we're interrogating, I'm confident that we're going to find weapons of mass destruction."

- Gen. Richard Myers, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff
NBC Today Show interview
5/26/2003

"They may have had time to destroy them, and I don't know the answer."

- Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
Remarks to Council on Foreign Relations
5/27/2003

"For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction (as justification for invading Iraq) because it was the one reason everyone could agree on."

- Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense
Vanity Fair interview
5/28/2003

"The President is indeed satisfied with the intelligence that he received. And I think that's borne out by the fact that, just as Secretary Powell described at the United Nations, we have found the bio trucks that can be used only for the purpose of producing biological weapons. That's proof-perfect that the intelligence in that regard was right on target."

- Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary
Press Briefing
5/29/2003

"We have teams of people that are out looking. They've investigated a number of sites. And within the last week or two, they have in fact captured and have in custody two of the mobile trailers that Secretary Powell talked about at the United Nations as being biological weapons laboratories."

- Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
Infinity Radio Interview
5/30/2003

"But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them."

- George W. Bush, President
Interview with TVP Poland
5/30/2003

"You remember when Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons...They're illegal. They're against the United Nations resolutions, and we've so far discovered two...And we'll find more weapons as time goes on."

- George W. Bush, President
Press Briefing
5/30/2003

"It was a surprise to me then -- it remains a surprise to me now -- that we have not uncovered weapons, as you say, in some of the forward dispersal sites. Believe me, it's not for lack of trying. We've been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti border and Baghdad, but they're simply not there."

- Lt. Gen. James Conway, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force
Press Interview
5/30/2003

"Do I think we're going to find something? Yeah, I kind of do, because I think there's a lot of information out there."

- Maj. Gen. Keith Dayton, Defense Intelligence Agency
Press Conference
5/30/2003

"This wasn't material I was making up, it came from the intelligence community."

- Colin Powell, Secretary of State
Press Briefing
6/2/2003

"We recently found two mobile biological weapons facilities which were capable of producing biological agents. This is the man who spent decades hiding tools of mass murder. He knew the inspectors were looking for them. You know better than me he's got a big country in which to hide them. We're on the look. We'll reveal the truth."

- George W. Bush, President Camp Sayliya, Qatar
6/5/2003

"I would put before you Exhibit A, the mobile biological labs that we have found. People are saying, 'Well, are they truly mobile biological labs?' Yes, they are. And the DCI, George Tenet, Director of Central Intelligence, stands behind that assessment."

- Colin Powell, Secretary of State
Fox News Interview
6/8/2003

"No one ever said that we knew precisely where all of these agents were, where they were stored."

- Condoleeza Rice, US National Security Advisor
Meet the Press
6/8/2003

"What the president has said is because it's been the long-standing view of numerous people, not only in this country, not only in this administration, but around the world, including at the United Nations, who came to those conclusions...And the president is not going to engage in the rewriting of history that others may be trying to engage in."

- Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary
Response to Question From Press
6/9/2003

"Iraq had a weapons program...Intelligence throughout the decade showed they had a weapons program. I am absolutely convinced with time we'll find out they did have a weapons program."

- George W. Bush, President
Comment to Reporters
6/9/2003

"The biological weapons labs that we believe strongly are biological weapons labs, we didn't find any biological weapons with those labs. But should that give us any comfort? Not at all. Those were labs that could produce biological weapons whenever Saddam Hussein might have wanted to have a biological weapons inventory."

- Colin Powell, Secretary of State
Associated Press Interview
6/12/2003

"Those documents were only one piece of evidence in a larger body of evidence suggesting that Iraq attempted to purchase uranium from Africa...The issue of Iraq's pursuit of uranium in Africa is supported by multiple sources of intelligence. The other sources of evidence did and do support the president's statement."

- Sean McCormack, National Security Council Spokesman
Statement to press
6/13/2003

"My personal view is that their intelligence has been, I'm sure, imperfect, but good. In other words, I think the intelligence was correct in general, and that you always will find out precisely what it was once you get on the ground and have a chance to talk to people and explore it, and I think that will happen."

- Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
Press Briefing
6/18/2003

"I have reason, every reason, to believe that the intelligence that we were operating off was correct and that we will, in fact, find weapons or evidence of weapons, programs, that are conclusive. But that's just a matter of time...It's now less than eight weeks since the end of major combat in Iraq and I believe that patience will prove to be a virtue."

- Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
Pentagon media briefing
6/24/2003

MS. BLOCK: There were no toxins found in those trailers. SECRETARY POWELL: Which could mean one of several things: one, they hadn't been used yet to develop toxins; or, secondly, they had been sterilized so thoroughly that there is no residual left. It may well be that they hadn't been used yet.

- Colin Powell, Secretary of State
All Things Considered, Interview
6/27/2003

"That was the concern we had with Saddam Hussein. Not only did he have weapons -- and we'll uncover not only his weapons but all of his weapons programs -- he never lost the intent to have these kinds of weapons."

- Colin Powell, Secretary of State
All Things Considered, Interview
6/27/2003

"I think the burden is on those people who think he didn't have weapons of mass destruction to tell the world where they are."

- Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary
Press Briefing
7/9/2003