Cognitive Dissonance and Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs)
In July 2016, a comprehensive report was issued about Britain’s decision to join the United States in war against Iraq. Tony Blair was Britain’s prime minister. The Chilcot report, named after the chairman of the inquiry, Sir John Chilcot, is a damning description of poor and hasty decision making, blunt ego posturing, and retrospective justification for decisions.22 All of these are common in leadership, but the consequences are the world we now live in: over 100,000 Iraqi civilians killed, more displaced as refugees, the rise of ISIS and global terrorism, and the wars now raging in the Middle East including Iraq, those wars driving millions to flee and creating Europe’s refugee crisis.
This report holds Blair publicly accountable for his actions. But let’s not delude ourselves into thinking that other leaders, upon reading this report, will learn from this and proceed more cautiously in responding to threats, real and perceived.
Blair’s justifications are a tragic study in cognitive dissonance. In the lead-up to war, he maintains his position, continually asserting that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq even when, as evidence mounted, they did not exist.23
In late September 2002, before the war, he made a speech where he emphatically stated, “His [Saddam Hussein’s] WMD program is active, detailed and growing. . . . He has existing plans for the use of weapons, which could be activated in 45 minutes.”
When no evidence of WMDs was forthcoming, Blair reframed this.
They certainly existed—they just hadn’t been found yet. He shifted the discovery of WMDs into the future in a later speech in 2003 to the House of Commons: “There are literally thousands of sites . . . but it is only now that the Iraq Survey Group has been put together that a dedicated team of people . . . will be able to do the job properly. . . . I have no doubt that they will find the clearest possible evidence of WMD.”
Twelve months later, when the Iraq Survey Group still hadn’t found the weapons, Blair still couldn’t accept that WMDs were not there. Instead, he changed tack again, arguing in a speech that “they could have been removed, they could have been hidden, they could have been destroyed.”
When this stance became untenable because there were no WMDs, Blair reached for a new justification for the war: “I can apologize for the information that turned out to be wrong, but I can’t, sincerely at least, apologize for removing Saddam. The world is a better place with Saddam in prison.”