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Younghusband
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Younghusband

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November 29th, 2005

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Should Bush say sorry?

Discussion of pre-war intelligence before OIF has been hotly debated in the press and has resulted in 5 official inquiries from 3 different governments. Regardless of Saddam’s numerous transgressions, both those known before the war and those evidenced afterwards, debate and inquiry still center on the argument over the existence of WMDs.

Now, there is a minority of the population that is still sticking to the president’s line, and another minority that is tripping all over itself to burn effigies of Bush. Then there are the middle-grounders, which may have wanted Saddam deposed due to humanitarian concerns etc, but have been slowly turning against Bush over the past couple of years. The anti-Bush argument is that pre-war WMD intel was flimsy, and all this was a mistake.

I was thinking, what if Bush made a pre-emptive strike at these dissenters by outright apologizing for the decision to invade Iraq based on WMDs? He wouldn’t be apologizing for the war, in fact he would probably have to pair this with a speech about how to fix the situation, but he would accept responsibility for acting on uncertain WMD intel. Hell, it isn’t like he is looking out for another term. Would this defuse some of the dissent we currently see, taking the wind out of the anti-Bush crowd and converting over more of those from the middle ground?

The question could be simplified by asking if a mistake is made, is it better to take responsibility or not? This can be analyzed by using game theory.

We could look at this by setting up a simple 4X4 payoff matrix, pitting making a mistake [M], and not making a mistake [M] versus accepting responsibility [ R] and not accepting responsibility [R].

R
R
M
M

Now we load the model with a preferential order of outcomes, 1 being the worst payoff, and 4 being the best payoff.

1 (worst) = Make a mistake and not accept responsibility
4 (best) = Not make a mistake and accept responsibility

2 and 3 are always hard to put in, but I will say (and you don’t have to agree with me here):

2 (2nd worst) = Make a mistake and accept responsibility
3 (2nd best) = Not make a mistake and do not accept responsibility

R
R
M
2
4
M
1
3

Now let’s solve for maxi-MINs and mini-MAXs and look for a saddle point.

R
R
MIN
M
2
4
2*
M
1
3
1
MAX
2*
4

Joy! The saddle point is 2 = Make a mistake and accept responsibility

That’s interesting! The outcome with the most logical payoff is accepting responsibility when making a mistake.

Now, what if you switch the positions of 2 and 3. Say, for moral reasons, you prefer to make a mistake and accept responsibility.

2 (2nd worst) = Not make a mistake and do not accept responsibility
3 (2nd best) = Make a mistake and accept responsibility

R
R
MIN
M
3
4
3*
M
1
2
1
MAX
3*
4

Joy2! The saddle point is 3 = Make a mistake and accept responsibility

It is interesting to see that according to the sensitivity analysis it doesn’t matter whether you switch the payoff preferences of 2 and 3, the saddle point remains at M+R. So maybe if Karl Rove knew game theory he would tell the president to step and do the right thing!

Comments to this entry

scott
November 30, 2005
12:06 am
The ancient Chinese Thinker Hanfeizi talks a lot about how to stay in power and how to advise someone in power. He says that one of the ways you can know you are in power (that is: not controled by the trickery of your advisors) is that you have no intimates. Another is that you never have to say 'thankyou' or 'I'm sorry'.
If there is pressure on Bush to say he is sorry, I'd say he has lost his role at the center of power. I personally think he is the best president we have had in my lifetime and that he should not hesitate to call his detractors moral cowards (how else will they learn?).
The more off-the-cuff he is about it, the more points he will earn.
Kirk H. Sowell
November 30, 2005
4:17 am
I don't agree with your classification scheme, although I understand the need for simplicity. On the WMD issue, there is also a group of people, limited to those of us who follow things closely, who think that the WMD estimates were badly flawed, and pretty exaggerated, but that Saddam probably still had small quantities because (a) much effort was taken in moving materials of some sort across the border, along with the fact that most of the WMD scientists have vanished into thin air, and (b) small quantities of chemical weapons have shown up, once used against U.S. troops (although they could have come from Syria).

That being the case, Bush should have freely admitted that Saddam wasn't near having nukes, and that he didn't have this ongoing WMD production plants the CIA claimed he did. I don't think that requires an apology per se, but where the intel was wrong, admit that it was wrong, and move on. But he should have done that a while back, now would be a little late.

At the same time, I believe the administration should be more aggressive with regard to its critics on the terrorism issue. The evidence is as stong now as ever that Saddam was cultivating Islamist terror groups, and al-Qaeda is included in that. They never claimed that Iraq was involved in 9/11 (although Syria may have aided the Hamburg cell), so the lack of any tie to that operation is irrelevant. Given that Iraq clearly maintained the capability to produce biological and chemical weapons, its relationship with terrorist groups was a legitimate point to raise. And it should be raised more often.
Curzon
November 30, 2005
4:55 am
There's a lot here I don't understand. First, why is not making a mistake and not taking responsibility the best outcome? And those scores don't seem like logical assignments. Nor do I get maxi-MINs and mini-MAXs. I accept that you're theory is sound, but with little less than a cursory understanding of the concept I'm confused.

On a sidenote, the only president in the modern era to go on TV and say sorry for something was Carter after the helicopter-hostage rescue fiasco. And he lost in the biggest failure of any incumbent president's reelection campaign.
Dan
November 30, 2005
5:34 am
Without getting into the mathematics, I have the same problem with this as I have with my own work: mathematics is a crutch. We are not built to think mathematically, and too often the mind shuts off when confronted with numbers.

More specifically...

The best outcome is an improved correlation of forces. M and R only make sense in that context. M, R, etc seem to be assigned values out of some moral worth. The post discusses payoffs, but a qualityless (semantically meaningless) act ("making a mistake," "accepting responsibility") never has any payoff; that act only generates heat when it produces friction against a sea of other entities.

The real work comes from calculating potential friction in a complex environment, which is pseudo-Bayesian / magical, not from rationalist arithematic.

Quantitative analysis does have a place in research -- Edwards' and Hibbing's groundbreaking works, for example -- but not so much in decision making. Methodological Struggle went out with the Marginot Line.

Excellent post, btw -- great for discussion! :)
Kelvin
November 30, 2005
7:57 am
I don't think this is really a good analysis because you're assuming that you have to decide whether to admit responsibility *before* you know whether you've made a mistake!

The game goes something like this: I am about to do something tomorrow and I have to decide today on whether to give a press conference tomorrow on whether I goofed.

That's not the way the world works.

Plus, whether one makes a mistake is *not* a choice.

A more correct analysis would be:
E(R) = p(RC) + (1-p)(RI)
(where RC is payoff of responsibility when correct, RI is payoff of responsibility when incorrect, p is prob. of correct)
E(D) = p(DC) + (1-p)(DI)
(where DC is payoff of denial when correct, DI is payoff of denial when incorrect, p is prob. of correct)
And then compare E(R) and E(D)

But that *still* doesn't address the fact that _we_ _can_ _observe_ _when_ _we've_ _erred_! What's really happening is that Bush is faced with an M and is evaluating R|M vs. !R|M.
(! = not, | = given)
Gabriel Mihalache
November 30, 2005
9:39 am
You're on the right track but let me make a counter-offer. :-) Bush should "pre-emptively strike" his detractors by appologizing, resigning and going to jail for a very long time.

As far as I know, criminals don't pay for their crimes with an "I'm sorry!", but with hard time. If I were to steal a loaf of bread in the US, would I get off with an "I'm sorry!"? Should a man individually responsible for a lot more?

The legal double-standard for the political class must end! If I was wiretapping an organization, I'd go to jail or pay a huge settlement, at least. When Nixon did it, he just had to resign. There's "justice" for you.
snow
November 30, 2005
12:10 pm
Hmm, what crime did Bush commit (according to US laws)?

I think Bush should have and should now go on an all-out offensive and been all-round more open as a president. Chat up the people alot more (I like the idea of those fireside chats that FDR used to have). Instead of shutting down and turtling defensively, he should put his case forward forcefully and aggressively (at the same time, I don't think they should have put so much emphasis on WMDs before the war-I think they could have gone ahead by making a concerted case for getting a foot in the door for reshaping the middle east).
G Travan
November 30, 2005
12:31 pm

The ancient Chinese Thinker Hanfeizi talks a lot about how to stay in power and how to advise someone in power.


Yes, I'd say George Bush is definitely following the path of Han Feizi and the Legalists, who insisted on fear rather than humanity or virtue as the foundation for government. Their system was put into practice perfectly by the Qin Emperor, who buried scholars alive, banned all scholarly books and built the Great Wall with a gigantic slave army.

Bush is certainly not following Mencius, who stressed the need to provide for the people and always act with virtue.

Unfortunately, it is not just Western martial arts afficcianados like Scott who embraced Han Feizi, and cast aside the traditional Confucianist focus on virtue rather than power. Mao Zedong, and George Bush to a lesser extent, showed how much power was to be had by being ruthless and conniving. It must be great fun to have your nation pay the price for your experiments in political philosophy.
Dan
November 30, 2005
1:21 pm
The legal double-standard for the political class must end! If I was wiretapping an organization, I'd go to jail or pay a huge settlement, at least. When Nixon did it, he just had to resign. There's "justice"Â? for you.


Shock! A horror! A politician... used a dirty trick!

Nixon was the first time in history that had ever happened.

As we all know, Kennedy, Johnson, etc, were never deceptive.

Losing South Vietnam war so worth the ego-trip the liberal/left got out of removing President Nixon.

Yes, I'd say George Bush is definitely following the path of Han Feizi and the Legalists, who insisted on fear rather than humanity or virtue as the foundation for government.


Yeah, Han Fei-Tsu talked a lot about exporting economic and political freedom....

/sarcasm
Younghusband
November 30, 2005
4:30 pm
Lots of interesting comments. I admit this is a simplification, and might not make any sense to someone who isn't familiar with game theory.

First of all let me clarify my idea of "apology." I think Kirk said it best:

bq. Bush should have freely admitted that Saddam wasn't near having nukes, and that he didn't have this ongoing WMD production plants the CIA claimed he did. I don't think that requires an apology per se, but where the intel was wrong, admit that it was wrong, and move on. But he should have done that a while back, now would be a little late.

The intelligence wasn't wrong. It was unclear and dated. But they took a gamble. This is what the apology is for. And yes, it is too late to do it now (thought maybe coupled with the speech last night...)

Second, to answer Curzon's question:

bq. First, why is not making a mistake and not taking responsibility the best outcome?

Actually, the best outcome is Not making a mistake and TAKING responsibility. In other words, you do something good and take responsibility for it.

Dan says:

bq. M, R, etc seem to be assigned values out of some moral worth.

Yes, that is the assignment of numbers. And like I said, you don't have to agree with me. That is why I ran the game using two different sets of numbers, to account for moral sensitivity. The interesting thing is that the results were identical.

Kelvin criticizes:

bq. The game goes something like this: I am about to do something tomorrow and I have to decide today on whether to give a press conference tomorrow on whether I goofed. That's not the way the world works.

This is called "What if?" analysis and it is used all the time, before deciding on all kinds of policies. If I am going to make a decision based on something, I should always ask "What if I am wrong? What do I do then?" You should have a backdoor plan.

Gabriel, Bush _could_ resign but he couldn't go to jail since he didn't commit any crime. I don't think he has to resign. A strategic "fireside chat" apology for foaming at the mouth over WMD coupled a review of the other arguments for going into Iraq backed up with evidence we have found (and there is lots) could pay off politically. Bush is revered as being a straight talker with values. I think this would have a big payoff for him. Like I said, he differs with Carter in that he is not looking for re-election.

The only negative effect I can see (and it is a big one) is that the high-ups in his administration (Rumsfeld, Rice, Cheney) would be blackballed since they were part of the decision-making process and have a future in other US administrations. Maybe he is protecting the others?
Gabriel Mihalache
November 30, 2005
7:38 pm
Sir Younghusband, I think that Bush & Co. should face the charges of:

(a) CRIMES AGAINST PEACE: namely, planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances, or participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing;

(b) WAR CRIMES: namely, violations of the laws or customs of war. Such violations shall include, but not be limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave labor or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity;

(the wording is taken from the Nuremberg trial)

... In connection with the invasion of Iraq and continuous detention, in disregard of habeas corpus, of "illegal combatants" in Guantanamo Bay (and, it seems, other secret prisons)

The double standard politicians enjoy and their criminal acts when commanders-in-chief and the like must be dealt with head-on. An apology is not sufficient.

WW1 was a failure of State elites. So was WW2. We can't stand by while politicians ruin the lives of millions and then forgive them when they "apologize".
Younghusband
November 30, 2005
8:50 pm
Gabe, I am not advocating he apologize for the war. I think a strong case could be made that (a) doesn't apply at all, though Guantamo sure makes (b) hard to refute.

I expect comparing the Bush Administration to the Third Reich will generate some commentary from those far more knowledgeable than I...
Dan tdaxp
November 30, 2005
9:10 pm
I expect comparing the Bush Administration to the Third Reich will generate some commentary from those far more knowledgeable than I"¦


What Gabe doesn't realize is that he's right on, and that John Ashcroft, Karl Rove, and Paul Wolfowitz spend their days reading blogs, writing down the idenities of critics.

Let's see whose laughing when the "subversives" are put on slow-trains to the camps. Bwa ha ha ha ha!
Kirk H. Sowell
November 30, 2005
11:24 pm
Gabe's analysis is amazingly fact-free with regard to international law issues. Even assuming that the WMD claims were 100% wrong, as to the legal issues:

1) The U.S. and Iraq were technically at war when Bush came into office, because not only were we shooting at each other, but Iraq violated the terms of the 1991 armistice, and

2) the Geneva Convetion makes a clear distinction between legal soldiers who are prisoners of war (i.e. members of Iraq's regular army), and terrorists and others who don't follow the convention's rules about wearing uniforms, separating themselves from civilians, etcetera. The former get Geneva treatment, the latter get Gitmo or some equivalent. Although there have been instances of Geneva violations in both Iraq (i.e. Abu Graib) and Afghanistan, there is no evidence Bush ordered those violations.
lirelou
December 1, 2005
2:47 am
Much of the pre-war inteligence was merely that, intelligence. In the end, after all the reporting have been sifted, collated, and analyzed, it is merely any administration's best judgment. My complaint is not with the intelligence, per se, but with the Bush team's ignoring the caveats of some reporting in order to "sex-up" their case. The President has the right to do that, (after all, his instincts could be right) but he must also live with the consequences. Within stable parliamentary systems (i.e., not the French Fourth Republic), those consequences have a more immediate effect than within our own. On a more immediate level, the Global War on Terrorism is a U.S. constitutional problem that cannot be remedied by either apologies or a few firings (though the latter would be welcomed by many). We are fighting a war that has not been declared. That is more than a mere legal problem. War requires the mobilization of the nation. Only a portion of this nation is mobilized, and that voluntarily. Constitutionally, we are engaged in a massive contingency operation. By rights, the president has the power to conduct contingency operations, but war requires a declaration from Congress precisely because it is the fiscal (and physical) health of the nation which is being placed at risk. We are well into ruining our financial health precisely because the President's team proved incapable of listening to any advice or intelligence that did not match their preconceived notions prior to the invasion, denied any evidence that things might not be going as planned, and then glibly brushed it aside as not worthy of note. I cannot help but feel that under a sane parliamentary system, those key advisors would have long ago been sent packing, even if Bush retained his position as PM. I rarely agree with Traven, but must second his observation. Bush would have been better served by basing his conduct of the war on ethical values, rather than legalist arguments.
G Travan
December 1, 2005
3:03 am

Yeah, Han Fei-Tsu talked a lot about exporting economic and political freedom"¦.

/sarcasm


Well, you got me there. However, Han Fei-Tsu did go on at length about the need to maintain order and security by crushing freedom.
Younghusband
December 1, 2005
4:24 am
So, Lirelou (and any others who would like to answer), would you respect Bush more if he accepted responsibility for his judgement and for over-selling the war?
lirelou
December 1, 2005
5:56 am
Yes, I would, but no Bush has ever been wrong. It seems to run in the genes. I would expect that in any such speech, he would admit that mistakes were made, and that some of those could be laid to his door, while others could be laid to Rumsfeld's. At the same time, I would expect a steely-eyed "that said, we have cogent interests in Iraq that demand we stay the course." In short, something akin to Pericles speech to the Athenians during the Peloponesian War. (Kaplan probably knows it by heart. It runs something like ... we may not have asked for this empire, but for our own good, we must now defend it...) We can, but certainly must, iron out the Constitutional matters later. On an unrelated note, several stories in the press suggest that we now have a Chairman of the JCS worthy of his stars. We appear to have found a Brasidius (OK, wrong side), now we need to find a Pericles.
Gabriel Mihalache
December 1, 2005
7:16 pm
"technically at war" means nothing. By the same loose criteria I could argue that the any 2 individuals or countries are "technically at war".

Bush didn't go before the American congress and ask for a declaration of war but rather he acted in the spirit of "planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression" and then went before congress to ask for money to fund this unjustified aggression.

Also, war crimes are war crimes regardless of the existence of the Geneva convention. Reread the (b) point above. I don't care what acts/conventions the American State signed or didn't signed. Justice means hold all men and women accountable to the same standards, regardless of their wealth, social position or role in the running of the State.

Returning to the topic at hand, I don't think that the administration made mistakes but rather willfully manipulated reports and public opinion to pursue its illegal and criminal agenda. You can't undo a criminal conspiracy which led to the death of thousands with a half-hearted "I'm sorry."
Gabriel Mihalache
December 1, 2005
7:24 pm
Dan tdaxp: LOL, I guess that means I should stay away from that new US base they're building in Romania!
lirelou
December 2, 2005
1:54 am
"illegal and criminal agenda"!? Sorry, Gabriel, you've lost me. Ah, don't forget our secret base in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon for taking over South America. And then, there's Site 51.
Gabriel Mihalache
December 2, 2005
6:42 am
lirelou: No. It's true. They're builing an US base in Romania. It was temporary during the land campaign in Iraq (it was used for air transit) and now they're making it permanent. Regarding the secret prisons scandals and the suggestion that Romania had one, I can't comment since I don't know more than you do. I wouldn't consider it outside the realm of possibility, seeing how my government likes the US government, etc.
Sonagi
December 2, 2005
11:10 pm
Like Gabriel, I also believe the Bush White House deliberately manipulated evidence to sell a war Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and others had been peddling since Clinton was in office. Any hard evidence of this has probably been destroyed, but there could be more damaging leaks from disgruntled government officials like British bloke who ratted out George's plan to bomb Al-Jazeera. The military had derisively denied intentionally killing that Al-Jazeera cameraman on the rooftop in Baghdad during the initial invasion, scoffing that they had more important things to do than kill reporters.
lirelou
December 5, 2005
8:17 am
Gabriel, I apologize for trivializing your concern. And as a Romanian, you have every right to view any foreign military presence in your country with a jaundiced eye. But note just how quickly U.S. forces can be sent packing. All it takes is the host nation authorities saying: "Go." But I do think you may be reading too much into it. Sonagi, are you referring to the tank firing incident? If so, I would have to heartily disagree that it was intentionally meant to kill an Al-Jazeera cameraman. Tank guns are not exactly a point weapon, and tank commanders lack the radio link-up with higher level commands that such an operation would entail.
Younghusband
December 15, 2005
9:45 am
"It's happening":http://duckofminerva.blogspot.com/2005/12/confusing-headline-of-day.html!
scott
December 16, 2005
12:34 am
I guess the original reason I tried to bring Hanfeizi into the conversation is that in ancient China there was an ideal of having a single leader at the center. Our ideal is broad political participation by informed citizens.
Hanfeizi said that you know you are in power when no one else knows your true thoughts-- you have no intimates and when you don't have to say thankyou or "I'm sorry."
By apologizing to us citizens, Bush points to the American people as the true rulers. Perhaps he did need to say he was sorry, but we never need to say we're sorry-- and secret ballots allow us the possibility of having no one know what we are actually thinking.
I remember how offended I was when Clinton apologized on behalf of all Americans for Slavery, what a jerk.