TY - JOUR
T1 - 'Iraqi Winnebagos™ of death'
T2 - Imagined and realized futures of US bioweapons threat assessments
AU - Vogel, Kathleen M.
N1 - Funding Information:
The author wishes to thank: Sonia Ben Ouagrham-Gormley, Gerald Epstein, Anna Geltzer, Dennis Gormley, Hugh Gusterson, Stephen Hilgartner, Rachel Maines, Nicole Nelson, Judith Reppy, the participants of the March 2007 Futures of Life Workshop at Cornell University, plus the anonymous reviewers for all of their useful comments on earlier versions of this paper. The author also appreciates financial support for this research from Cornell University’s Einaudi Center for International Studies and Institute for the Social Sciences.
PY - 2008
Y1 - 2008
N2 - In February 2003, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell gave his now famous speech to the United Nations, laying the groundwork for the US invasion of Iraq. Using specially declassified intelligence information, Powell highlighted, with dramatic visual imagery, Iraq's continued development of biological weapons (BW), emphasizing the purported development of a mobile BW capability. Yet, within a year, all the evidence about the mobile biological labs presented in Powell's UN speech was discredited. In this paper, I will illustrate how US intelligence analysts used particular kinds of anticipatory assumptions and communication techniques to produce classified and unclassified information about the Iraqi mobile labs, which contributed to the flawed assessments and public understanding of the threat.
AB - In February 2003, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell gave his now famous speech to the United Nations, laying the groundwork for the US invasion of Iraq. Using specially declassified intelligence information, Powell highlighted, with dramatic visual imagery, Iraq's continued development of biological weapons (BW), emphasizing the purported development of a mobile BW capability. Yet, within a year, all the evidence about the mobile biological labs presented in Powell's UN speech was discredited. In this paper, I will illustrate how US intelligence analysts used particular kinds of anticipatory assumptions and communication techniques to produce classified and unclassified information about the Iraqi mobile labs, which contributed to the flawed assessments and public understanding of the threat.
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U2 - 10.3152/030234208X377407
DO - 10.3152/030234208X377407
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:58449103835
SN - 0302-3427
VL - 35
SP - 561
EP - 573
JO - Science and Public Policy
JF - Science and Public Policy
IS - 8
ER -