The Foreign Service Journal, June 2003

Saddam with weapons of mass destruction that the administration regarded as uniquely threatening. Senior U.S. leadership, drawing on the full panoply of intelligence, con- cluded that the reports of Iraqi WMD were accurate and reached the judg- ment that they would be used against us (later if not sooner). They bet their careers on these determinations. The Dissent Spectrum Nobody in 21st-century U.S. soci- ety blindly follows orders. Waste, fraud and abuse “hot lines” and recourse to the State Department’s Inspector General are vital elements of the modern Foreign Service. We may not regard these mechanisms as “dissent,” but they are one facet of the dissent spectrum. Moreover, those who feel strongly about a substantive position can “take a footnote” in an embassy reporting or analytical telegram. Nor is there any indication from the resignation letters or public com- mentary that the resignees exercised their right to use the Dissent Channel. A mechanism unique to the Department of State, the Dissent Channel is designed to raise policy concerns by subordinate officers to the most senior levels in the depart- ment with assured confidentiality. (This channel was born in 1971 as a reflection of Foreign Service disquiet over Vietnam; it has been used persis- tently, if not extensively, in interven- ing years.) While few officers using the channel have come away with the vindication of having reversed U.S. policy, it has given Foreign Service personnel an opportunity to partici- pate in the process. But there is no indication that any of the three offi- cers employed this option, either. If the dissenters had uncovered intelligence that clearly demonstrated there were no chemical or biological weapons in Iraq, or that they had all been comprehensively destroyed, they would have had a duty to bring this evidence forward. Likewise, if they had evidence that the “intelli- gence” had been fabricated and spe- cific elements of Secretary Powell’s briefing to the U.N. Security Council were systematic lies, it would have been pure patriotism to reveal such duplicity. But these were not the dis- senters’ claims. Likewise, if the dissenters had strong evidence to refute the depic- tion of Saddam as a bloody-handed tyrant, such material would have been vital. If, for example, Iranians rather than Iraqis used nerve gas on the Kurds, or there were no torture chambers in Iraq and the reports were propaganda constructs by Saddam’s domestic opponents, that would have been vital information — but the dissenters did not so suggest. Instead, they took their stance on the much softer ground that action against Iraq would damage our rela- tions with various countries, some friendly and others not; that it is gen- erating global anti-Americanism and “ill will,” would be an “unjustified” use of force, etc. Obviously, they believed them- selves more insightful and witting (despite their distance from the intel- ligence judgments and calculations) than those at senior levels who believed otherwise. Forgive me if, even at the cynical age of 60-plus, I remain more willing to accept the administration’s credibility than the dissenters’ demurrals. I do not know how long the offi- cers in Greece and Mongolia were assigned overseas; all appear to have spent the majority of their careers outside the United States. It may be that they lost touch with the degree to which we are no longer willing to accept the judgments of others J U N E 2 0 0 3 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 15 S P E A K I N G O U T