Carl von Clausewitz Quotes
Many intelligence reports in war are contradictory; even more are false, and most are uncertain.
von Clausewitz, Carl. On War. Translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret, Princeton University Press, 1984, p. 117.
Theodore Roosevelt was the Presidential nominee. See {634097} and {585962}--Samuel Johnson, for a 1758 version of this idea.
During the Iraq War, the Congressman partially changed his mind the following year and called for a plan to move American troops to the periphery of the fighting. A highly decorated war hero with two Purple Hearts, he was then called a coward, by some Republican members of Congress and the Bush Administration—almost always by people who had never served in the military and often sought and obtained deferments.
She was explaining why she supported the Iraq War which the George W. Bush administration started claiming that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. After invading Iraq, it turned out that the “intelligence” was wrong—there were no WMDs. Many believe that the intelligence was fabricated to justify a war that Bush, Vice President Cheney and the neo-conservatives wanted for other reasons.
The CIA intelligence had been shared with key world leaders to gain support for the George W, Bush administration invasion of Iraq. Blix was bothered by the fact that although the intelligence was so certain why were not any of the locations known. The answer, of course, was that there was no such development and the intelligence was faulty, but at the time, only he seemed to be bothered by this point. See also {588115}.
President Roosevelt and Secretary of state Cordell hull felt that a Japanese invasion of the Philippines was a likelihood. The army chief of staff disagreed citing his intelligence reports. Japan of course attacked Pearl Harbor and then invaded the Philippines. Marshall, perhaps America’s greatest military administrator, turned out to be wrong while the President and Secretary of State proved more accurate in their assesment of the Japanese threat. This quotation stands as a testament to the fact that the intelligence fiascoes of the Iraq war are not unique in American military history.
This is always a problem in parts of the world where conflicts operate with many different parties and theater are personal grudges and scores to settle.
Carl Philipp Gottfried (or Gottlieb) von Clausewitz was a Prussian general and military theorist who stressed the "moral" (meaning, in modern terms, psychological) and political aspects of war. His most notable work, Vom Kriege transl. On War, was unfinished at his death.
