Hans Blix on Frontline last night....

[Postman]

Frontline: Now the whole question of the so-called centrifuge tubes, the aluminium tubes-- Nothing much has come of that, has it? And yet much was made of it.

Hans Blix: Oh, much was made of it. … We have learnt since then that the Department of Energy, which are the ones who do enrichment in the U.S., that they had also expressed doubts about it. I see that on the U.S. side of intelligence, they are still saying, "Well, there was one batch that was a little less precise, and there was another batch where the specifications were more demanding," etcetera. But to me, this looks more like a rear-guard action. They would rather end the whole thing by controversy than by an admission that it was wrong.


Frontline: So no one can say, "Well, there definitely weren't weapons."

Hans Blix: I think so. Controversy will be preferable to a judgment.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/wmd/interviews/blix.html

[DrBB]

1. "Controversy is preferable to a judgment"

I'm not absolutely sure, but I believe this particular "truth management" (read, propaganda) technique more or less originates with the big tobacco companies. You can't PROVE the link between cigarettes and cancer, therefore it's "controversial." Works for the oil companies on global warming. Works for Creationists on evolution, too--or at least, they think it does, which practically amounts to the same thing.

But I don't think any administration in history has made such good use of this Corporate-PR strategy. "If you're caught red-handed and you're guilty as sin, muddy the waters."

I don't think any administration has taken it so far as these guys and their apologists, for whom simply outright lying is considered one of the valid water-muddying techniques. I cite a statistic that doesn't exist, I flatly deny what I flatly asserted yesterday, and by the time you can come back at me with a fact check the discussion has moved on to whatever my latest fabrication is.

Truly astonishing. Nixon was an absolute piker by comparison.