Ken Pollack wrote an apologist’s commentary in the New York Times titled “Saddam’s Bombs? We’ll Find Them” on June 20, 2003. In his piece Pollack tried to rebute accusations that Bush administration made up Iraqi weapons threat to justify invasion and said that US and allies had plenty of evidence that Iraq had retained illegal weapons program.

In response, I wrote a letter to Pollack’s boss at the Sabin Center for Middle East Policy and copied Pollack (see below). Pollack’s response was to attack me in an email that he meant to send to his boss but inadvertantly sent to me.

Martin S. Indyk, Ph.D.
Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy Studies
Director, Saban Center for Middle East Policy

Dear Martin:

Ken Pollack undermines his own credibility by sounding like an apologist for the Bush administration. His arguments are not rational. His conclusions are not based upon the facts that we now know but upon what he wishes to be true. He is the Director of Research at the Saban Center but his arguments are not the ones made by an unbiased researcher but by a wishful thinker or someone with an agenda. Perhaps his book: “The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq” was based upon the best information that was available at the time. But now he sounds more like a defender of unproved hypotheses. He does a disservice to the Saban Center for Mideast Policy by undermining its credibility and thereby its mission to conduct unbiased research and analysis.

Stephen Nodvin

From: Kenneth Pollack
Sent: Friday, June 20, 2003 4:47 PM
To: Stephen Nodvin (by accident)
Subject: Re: Ken Pollack’s Commentary in the New York Times

Yeah, he sent this to me too. Given his credentials, I’m not taking this too seriously. Thanks about the piece–although I HATED the title they gave it.

BTW, don’t know if you’ve caught me on CNN–been on a LOT recently.
Three times so far they have forgotten Saban and I have found ways to work it into my answers. Usually along the lines of, “Well, Judy, sitting here at the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution I certainly don’t have access to the same kinds of materials that the U.S.
intelligence community does so it’s hard for me to contradict that claim, but. . .”

Did you get my note about Richard and Haim? Does my proposed course sound right? Are you communicating with Haim directly? Just looking for guidance–and by the way, I will be out on Monday and Tuesday at a confrence on (what else) Gulf security.

Hope you are doing well.

Best,

- Ken

Kenneth M. Pollack
Senior Fellow and Director of Research
The Saban Center for Middle East Policy
The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20016
202-797-6266
kpollack@brookings.edu

From: “Stephen C. Nodvin”
Sent: Friday, June 20, 2003 7:39 PM
To: KPOLLACK
Cc: mindyk
Subject: RE: Ken Pollack’s Commentary in the New York Times

Ken:

I may not be a major player like you but my credentials are just fine. I have served as an educator and government scientist. I have founded my own business and worked in the corporate technology world. I was a National Science Foundation Predoctoral Fellow and my doctoral dissertation at Cornell on ecosystem functioning was the basis of a number peer reviewed publications including one published in the journal Nature.

Other responses to your guest op-ed in the New York Times Forum were completely unanimous with my view of your piece.

The e-mail that you inadvertently sent to me shows clearly that you have lost your perspective. You sound more like a pitchman than an unbiased researcher.

I too have been interviewed by CNN and other media in the past regarding my work on air pollution and acidic deposition in the national parks. I know that this can be flattering but I hope that I never let it go to my head as you seem to have.

Martin Indyck’s recent interviews on the cable and television news media have been like a breath of fresh air on the Middle East debate. Without being gratuitous, his presentations made me aware of the Saban Center and thankful that such an institution exists and is working to promote a voice of thoughtful reason.

A few weeks ago, I heard your interview on National Public Radio. Your responses were reasonable and I, and I believe most people, were willing to give you the reason of the doubt. But your op-ed today goes over the top.

Judis and Ackerman report in the June 19 issue of The New Republic the multitude of information missteps that may have led to improper conclusions regarding WMD.
They suggest that The First Casualty of this process will be the credibility of the Bush Administration when it comes to new pronouncements of new and potentially real security threats.

Now, you seem to have lost your balance as a researcher. Is celebrity worth more to you than the credibility of your work? The casualty here could be the respect for your career work by both the public and the community of scholars.

Stephen Nodvin

———————————————–
Stephen C. Nodvin, Ph.D.
http://www.nodvin.net/nodvin/
———————————————–

The current administration does a great job of marketing. They came up with a new plan called “The Clear Skies Initiative.” The plan actually weakens the 1990 Clean Air Act.

After they developed the “plan”, they had the EPA do an analysis to show that under this new plan, air quality would improve from current (2002) conditions.

However, what the administration didn’t have the EPA show is that in fact their plan weakens the Clean Air Act.

Their Clear Skies Initiative should more truthfully be called the Dirtier Skies Initiative .

The administration also has no shame. When they announced the “initiative” last year, they did it with a big flashy campaign. They dragged out the air quality specialists in all the National Parks to talk about how bad pollution was and how things need to be “improved.”

My friends in the Park Service were duped into becoming part of a shameful marketing campaign that is dishonest to the American people.

The Bush administration believes, as I do, that Saddam Hussein was a chronic liar and boaster. So isn’t it entirely
possible that Hussein continued to use the THREAT of WMD to maintain his power after the 1991 Gulf War by
bolstering the appearance that he continued to have weapons through non-cooperation with the inspectors?

Did Saddam and his sons care that the Iraqi people suffered terribly as a result of his evasiveness with the inspectors?
Clearly not, as we see that he, his family, and the Baath party members still lived the life of luxury as the people suffered.

What if he had cooperated with the U.N. and the inspectors and it demonstrated that he had little, if any, WMD
left and that his military was weak? Would that not have bolstered his enemies within the country and around the world
(e.g. Iran, Israel, even Saudi Arabia and Kuwait) by reducing their fear and seeing his weakness?

After all, South Korea, the United States, and other nations in the Pacific are NOT attacking North Korea because it is believed
that they may have nukes and that their forces could harm Americans in the DMZ and South Koreans in Seoul.

On the one hand, the Bush administration will readily argue that Saddam was a deceiver, liar, moron, madman.

But on the other hand, Bush, Cheney, and even Powell, selectively accept as truthful the lists that Saddam’s regime prepared at one time describing vast stores of biological and chemical weapons. The rational for the the war was that Saddam failed to demonstrate and document that the weapons described on these lists had been destroyed. What if the original lists were a big lie?