Why Leaders Lie - Mearsheimer, John J_ [2]
I gratefully acknowledge the editorial expertise of Jessica Ryan and Ben Sadock at Oxford University Press, who helped so much to polish the final version. In addition, I received excellent comments and suggestions from two anonymous reviewers for the press and a long list of other individuals, some of whom I have never met. They include Eric Alterman, Stephen Ansolabehere, Robert Art, Richard Betts, David Blagden, Risa Brooks, Michael E. Brown, Jonathan Caverley, Joseph Cirincione, Michael Desch, Louis DeScioli, Daniel Drezner, David Edelstein, Francis Gavin, Hein Goemans, Charles Glaser, Emily Goldman, Jennifer Hochschild, Ian Hurd, Robert Jervis, Chaim Kaufmann, Christopher Layne, Keir Lieber, Eric Lorber, Carlo Masala, Nuno Monteiro, Michael O’Connor, Joseph Parent, Susan Peterson, Arnd Plagge, Eric Posner, Richard Posner, Cynthia Roberts, Lawrence Samuels, David Schwartz, Jack Snyder, Ivan Arreguin-Toft, Monica Toft, Peter Toft, Matthew Tubin, Stephen Van Evera, Abraham Wagner, Alexander Wendt, and Joel Westra. My apologies to anyone I forgot.
I deeply appreciate everyone’s help, as I could not have written this book without it. A special word of thanks is in order for Serge Schmemann, who introduced me to the subject of international lying and helped pique my interest in it. Of course, I bear full responsibility for all of the mistakes and foolish arguments, but owe a considerable debt to others for whatever insights this book contains.
Finally, I would like to thank my family, especially my wife, Pamela, for actually encouraging me to spend the endless hours that go into producing a book. I loved doing the research and writing anyway, but it is much easier when the people most affected by your work schedule fully support what you are trying to accomplish. Speaking of family, I would like to dedicate this book to my five wonderful children—Ann, Max, Nicholas, Julia, and David—who have been a source of great pride and pleasure for more than three decades.
WHY LEADERS LIE
Introduction
The key individuals in the Bush administration who pushed hard for the United States to invade Iraq before March 19, 2003 maintained that they were certain that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Their claims, they said, were based on hard evidence. Proponents of the war who were not in the administration frequently repeated those claims, creating a chorus of hawkish voices that helped convince many Americans that it was essential to disarm Iraq and depose Saddam. In this view, Iraq was a necessary war, not a war of choice. Anyone who doubted that claim was almost certain to be labeled an appeaser or a fool, or even accused of being unpatriotic. When no WMD were found in Iraq, those in the war party had to explain why they were so profoundly mistaken. How was it possible that so many who were so sure about Saddam’s capabilities were so wrong?
One explanation offered for this blunder placed the blame squarely on Saddam, arguing that he effectively lied to us about whether Iraq had WMD. Specifically, he is said to have been deeply worried that Iran—or maybe even the United States—might attack Iraq, which had been badly weakened by its drubbing in the 1991 Gulf War as well as the sanctions and inspections regime that was imposed on Baghdad after that devastating defeat. To deter an attack on his country, so the story goes, Saddam put out false information that was designed to make Tehran and Washington think that he had WMD which he would use in the event of war. His job was made easier by the fact that the United Nations (UN) was not able to establish with a high degree of certainty that he no longer had any WMD, although