The “Absence of Evidence Is Not Evidence of Absence” as the Basis for Bush Administration Propaganda for an Invasion of Iraq

In this presentation I place the George W Bush administration’s approach to evidence in the center of my analysis of administration propaganda for an invasion of Iraq. I demonstrate that for DoD officials (viz Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Feith) as well as VP Cheney, “the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” served as the basis for constructing a case for invasion that was prior to and independent of an evidentiary basis.

While administration officials voiced much rhetoric regarding Saddam Hussein’s “WMD,” it was the “nexus” that drove administration’s fears and actions, and shaped the administration propaganda case for invasion. The “nexus”—that Saddam Hussein, in possession of WMD, would collaboratively pass such weapons, most particularly a nuclear weapon, to al-Qaeda, to use against the US—was birthed in administration thinking simultaneously with the 9/11 attacks and was baptized with Cheney’s proclamation of his “1% doctrine.”

Simply stated, with the spectacular horror of the 9/11 attacks and the concept of the “nexus,” the time had come for “regime change” in Iraq. Rather than wait for “final proof” in the form of a “mushroom cloud,” the Bush admin­istration would take advantage of the “opportunity” that the 9/11 attacks presented and act preventively. As remarked by Cheney at the time of proclaiming his 1% risk calculus, “It’s not about our analysis, or finding a preponderance of evidence. It’s about our response.”

Administration claims of Iraqi WMD were undermined by UN inspectors prior to invasion and an evidentiary basis for the “nexus” did not exist. But through repeated manipulation of intelligence information and analysis in the offices of Douglas Feith—and with the assistance of George Tenet at CIA—the administration generated the “evidence” to make its case. This was indeed a post-evidentiary approach.