THE SCIENCE OF WMD

Fumbling through a maze of my belongings to initiate the cleansing ritual better known as packing for the Bay Area, I came upon a printed copy of an article given to me by my roomate, Daily Nexus Science Editor Josh Braun. In fact, I briefly blogged about it at the time (for once my permalinks don't appear to be bloggered).

Anyway, this is the article. Excerpt:

HHS Seeks Science Advice to Match Bush Views
By Rick Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 17, 2002; Page A01

The Bush administration has begun a broad restructuring of the scientific advisory committees that guide federal policy in areas such as patients' rights and public health, eliminating some committees that were coming to conclusions at odds with the president's views and in other cases replacing members with handpicked choices.

In the past few weeks, the Department of Health and Human Services has retired two expert committees before their work was complete. One had recommended that the Food and Drug Administration expand its regulation of the increasingly lucrative genetic testing industry, which has so far been free of such oversight. The other committee, which was rethinking federal protections for human research subjects, had drawn the ire of administration supporters on the religious right, according to government sources.

A third committee, which had been assessing the effects of environmental chemicals on human health, has been told that nearly all of its members will be replaced -- in several instances by people with links to the industries that make those chemicals. One new member is a California scientist who helped defend Pacific Gas and Electric Co. against the real-life Erin Brockovich.

The changes are among the first in a gradual restructuring of the system that funnels expert advice to Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson.

Why is this relevant? Because it is very possible that the Bush administration's MO regarding science is similar to their MO on justifying the Iraq war. This is assuming the absolute best, of course, being that the administration ignored many of the intelligence findings of the CIA and others, while having their bellicose fantasies tickled by Chalabi's flights of fancy "insider" information. Bush seemed so utterly convinced that Iraq still had thousands of tons of WMD, and the confidence regarding WMD of the public face of the administration (Bush, Cheney, Powell, Rummy, Wolfy, and to a less sane extent, Perle) was a big part of why a big chunk of flyover country was sold on the case for war. (of course, doing the equivalent of Conan O'Brien's "If They Mated" with Saddam and Bin Laden sure helped)

Yeah, the intelligence community was iffy, including the leaked "no reliable information on Iraq's chemical weapons" report from September, but dern it, the Bushies seemed so suuure!* The only explanations for this could be 1) outright deception or 2) a very selective ear for intelligence.

And if they manipulated HHS to hear what they want to hear, wouldn't they do that with the intelligence community too! I wouldn't put it past them. Either way, that "Bush Lied, People Died" potential 2004 bumper sticker will remain justified until further notice.