You have learned a lot about the heuristics, biases, and cognitive shortcuts that can lead any of us to wrong conclusions. And you have now watched a substantial portion of Colin Powell’s speech to the United Nations, presenting evidence of weapon of mass destruction in Iraq prior to the Iraq War. As we know, there turned out not to be any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Which of the heuristics, biases, and cognitive shortcuts you have learned about might have lead Powell and others to believe so strongly that the weapons were there?
21 thoughts on “Colin Powell’s Speech to the UN”
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Which of the heuristics, biases, and cognitive shortcuts you have learned about might have lead Powell and others to believe so strongly that the weapons were there?
Authority was a key cognitive shortcut in Secretary Powell and the rest of the Bush administrations strong belief that Iraq posed weapons of mass destruction. While the administration are leaders they took the advice of leaders in the intelligence community seriously. Multiple times Powell references Eye Witness accounts, these witness are the authority on evidence.
Tversky & Kahneman’s theory of availability which explains man estimates based on previous situations, also played a part in Powell’s belief. This is seen in Powell’s statement that in past Iraq hid that they possessed biological weapons.
Colin Powell believed Iraq possessed and was hiding weapons of mass destruction. The Authority of experts convinced himself of the presence of the weapons. The Consistency of the parade of inspectors, recordings, and photo experts reinforced his beliefs. And he used his own Authority to persuade the UN as a form of Social Proof. If he believes it we all should.
The theory of availability influenced Colin Powell belief that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. The fact that Iraq had in the past used biological and chemical weapons was evidence that they possessed such weapons but no one knew the extent of the capabilities of their weapons systems. This unknown fact led to the over estimation of Iraq’s ability to launch large scale attacks. Recent events such as the 9/11 attacks had the world’s attention on the possibility of mass attacks and how devastating it can be. America estimated based on previous mass attack experiences and focused on the extremeness of the available evidence with insufficient regard for its weight or credence. Colin Powell then used America’s authority on global intelligence gathering capabilities, technical superiority and expertise to convince himself and the United Nations of the security threat posed by Iraq.
The evidence presented in Colin Powell’s speech to the United Nations rely heavily on Powell’s interpretation of the material. Interpretations of unclear surveillance and voice recordings gives Powell the advantage to shape the viewer’s understanding of the material presented. For example, the photo of Chemicals Munitions Stored at Taji shows an area with yellow circles and red squares. According to Powell, the red square areas have active chemical munitions bunkers. Then, he provides a close up, which is another blurry picture, and continues to explain the meaning of the photo. The evidence presented are unquestioned because Powell is seen as the “expert” in interpreting the information. Because the public lack of knowledge in this area, we rely on Powell’s interpretation, which may be completely bias, to understand evidence presented. In a situation where the aim is to show proof there are weapons of mass destruction, one can assume that the Bush administration only seek information which supports their predisposition. That said, Powell’s interpretation of the evidence presented is a form of confirmation bias. Although some viewers may be skeptical, it will continue to convince those who already believed there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Colin Powell, and likely a large number of other people in the administration, were so thoroughly convinced of the presence of WMDs in Iraq that they took the risk of entering into war. They were swayed by authority, made more believable by precedence and the theory of availability that made it seem the presence of weapons more certain. Intelligence gathering by the largest, and probably most advanced, organizations in the world, left little doubt that the information was a certain truth. The amount of info compiled, combined with the generally accepted capabilities of the agencies investigating, amounted to an accepted consistency. All of this lent itself to the very well-supported self-delusions of a nation’s administration.
“”Every statements I made today is backed up by sources” solid sources”. They are not assertions”” says ex- secretary of state Colin Power (2:45 mns in segment three). Previously in segment first he had said “Ladies and gents, these are facts and evidence corroborate by other sources; some from the US, some of them sources from other countries. And to add to his arguments, he said in segment two “What we are giving you today are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence.”
Focusing on those statements only, one can infer that Powell is using the principle of authority. He knows that most Americans would have a tendency to believe him as he is in a position of power and more so has titles that would add to his credibility. According to me, he used what Walter Lippman (from previous class) would call “expert knowledge” as a deliberative process. Assuming that what he is saying was in fact right, then ex- secretary Colin Powell would have made “the unseen facts intelligible to those who have to make decisions” But in the contrary, because he was wrong and they relied on his credibility, he was able to mislead people using authority as an “expert” on the Iraq issue.
More so, in this speech he used what psychologist call representativeness, confirmation bias and social proof. For instance, he only refers to Iraq as whole (representing countries of the Middle East) Doing so, can lead one into false implications. By doing this, Americans are prone to reflect back to the 9/11 attack and thus will associated Iraq ( as a whole) with terrorism and by association all other countries in the region. More so to make use of availability, he states “ “ as it did in 1990, Iraq is using […]”. Henceforth, confirmation bias take place. In Powell’s case, he emphases only on the cognition that would make him right and rather dismiss any evidence that would prove otherwise. And thus, as a consequence, he incites the national and international representatives into focusing on peripheral route processing and social proof (everyone believes it so I do) rather than really thinking about if there are enough evidence to support his arguments.
Colin Powell was perhaps persuaded by the Availability shortcut in his judgement of Iraq’s possession of mass weapons of destruction. He mentioned that Iraq hid Biological weapons in the past and that may be his reasoning behind his interpretation of the voice recordings he played. Because of his past knowledge on Iraq – he assumed that they continue to hide other weapons.
The others were easy to believe that Iraq had these weapons due to the Authority cognitive. This is the Secretary of State of the United States of America displaying a strong belief in an issue, while providing supposed facts which he explained as deeply troubling. His credibility proves to be valuable to the others in proving that Iraq is concealing its effort to produce more weapons of destruction. Just like the example in the lecture, people were willing to exert more electric shock on others despite the fact that it was going against their conscience due to the power of authority.
As far as Colin Powell and WMD’s are concerned, I am not entirely convinced of it simply being that it was an available shortcut, though that does fit. Perhaps he was kept out of the dark, I know that he has claimed that he did believe there were WMD’s on many occasions. If he was relying on evidence that was tainted or misleading, personally, I think that is a bigger causal factor. That said, for Mr. Powell I think that it was likely a cognitive shortcut, much like it is for most of Americana, to equate Islam with dangerous. This is as a cognitive shortcut to reviewing evidence resembling consistency. You already see Muslim/Arab as bad then your less likely to question the evidence and perhaps he should have. Perhaps he did question the evidence, perhaps his other cognition, the belief that Muslims/Arabs = Bad won out over the rational cognition of the evidence, an obvious incongruence, and one that may simply have been answered by accepting the evidence to keep these congruent.
One of the key issues here falls under representativeness, specifically an illusion of validity. Powell begins by sharing a short history of Iraq and how they like to evade inspectors (since they are not detectives), and how this was their final chance to comply. Thus, any and all suspicious activities must be related to hiding nuclear weapons, even something as vague as a modified vehicle. Rather than discussing other potential meanings of the conversation, they just assume its related to nuclear weapons, because that is what they believe Iraq is hiding.
There are also multiple instances of poor reasoning due to availability. First is the bias due to retrievability of instances – no matter the substance of the information, Powell makes clear they have a lot, attributable to numerous, credible sources. They are trying to create a negative atmosphere based purely on quantity of information rather than quality. Second, there is also bias of imaginability. Powell makes numerous leaps based on the evidence they have. For example, when one scientist was caught with suspicious documents, he speculates all scientists have them, and that it’s impossible for inspectors to visit all their homes. He thus creates the impression of a conspiracy that needs to be addressed.
As Powell demonstrates, it’s easy to be swayed when you are anchored in the belief that Iraq has the weapons. The quantity of information and the leaps to conclusions easily support the theory, even if they aren’t very substantial.
Colin Powell was led by the cognitive shortcuts of consistency and authority to believe that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Consistency is described as “the impulse to bring our beliefs, values and attitudes into line with what we have already done or decide.” According to Powell, facts that had been obtained from government monitoring proved that Iraq was still producing weapons of mass destruction. Since the government was already in Iraq inspect for weapons, the need for consistency would led him to align the actions of invasion with the belief that inspectors would find something. This is very much the case also for the bias of the illusion of validity. Powell’s need to match the information he was obtaining from the surveillance with the predicted outcome made him believe that weapons weren’t being found because people were hiding them from the inspectors. The option of Iraq not possessing weapons of mass destruction didn’t exist. Powell also took advantage of his authority as Secretary of State of the United States to make many believe that Iraq in fact had weapons of mass destruction.
Former Secretary uses several heuristic techniques to make his argument. Authority and availability were shown in Powell’s speech and explanation. His authoritative figure created a sense of trustworthiness to the public. He used statements to create messages that seemed to be reliable and believable. These evidence included, information from other countries, pictures and phone calls. We are only able to see and hear what is available and presented to us by him. The public has a tendency to rely evidence from authority figures before analyzing them themselves. People were disposed to believe that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction because of the September 11 attacks. Many people, including Powell, were deeply affected by this. Past events made him think in an irrational way. Thus making him cloud his judgment. He picked certain evidence bits and pieces without collectively thinking the evidence as a whole.
Colin Powell’s speech to the UN’s Security Council was his interpretation of the events, facts and intelligence about Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). It is a perfect example of Tversky’s and Kahneman’s study of the three heuristics that were employed by Powell to assess probabilities and to predict values. Powell used representativeness when judging all evidence based on what he believed was true about Iraq and its’ people. Parts of his speech where he reminded the audience of 9/11 and its consequences led everyone make judgments about the probability of the future attacks on the U.S if Hussein’s regime persisted – availability heuristic. And anchoring in the assessment by Powell is presented by the numerous times he highlighted the amount of evidence and facts he had to back up his statements. All the evidence and facts were cherry-picked by intelligence agency and interpreted by Colin Powell for the only purpose – to justify going to war in Iraq.
Cognitive shortcuts of consistency, authority and scarcity led the audience believe so strongly that Iraq had the weapons. Consistently presenting particular summaries of intelligence, using his authority, scaring the audience of the dangers of not acting, Powell convinced everyone that Iraq possessed WMDs.
The United Nations is an organization that functions to prevent and mitigate conflicts. Operating on a global scale, they have the incredibly difficult task to make sound arguments and to enact holistic initiatives in a timely manner. The factor of time is pertinent because crisis tends to grow rapidly and it’s the task of the U.N. to stop said crisis to the best of their ability in as little time as possible. That being the case, rash judgments and rushed decision-making are unproductive methods of resolution and easily can lead to systematic errors.
When Colin Powell addressed the U.N. Security Council in 2003, he employed heuristics and biases with data of limited validity, which in turn highlighted the paranoia within the U.S. Department of Defense and led to a premature invasion under false claims. The bias of imaginability is present in Powell’s address when he presents the “modified vehicle” recording and photographs of chemical factories. Powell distorts the danger of these instances by claiming that they are immediately threatening. He espouses that these pieces of evidence equate to hidden WMDs – a claim that cannot be proven with this evidence. According to Tversky & Kahneman, these constructed claims do not “reflect their actual frequency”, making this method of evaluation subjective and problematic in terms of global peace affairs.
Furthermore, imaginability is effective in Powell’s case because of the 9/11 attacks. This event alarmed the United States because domestic attacks are rare for them. But if one considers the large extent and frequency of force and violence globally, 9/11 is somewhat of a rare and small case. Powell defends the unique nature of the attacks and frames the scenario as exceedingly dangerous, warping the logic of global affairs.
I think that Colin Powell’s speech used a variety of different biases to persuade the members of the council that weapons of mass destruction were in Iraq. First, Colin Powell is considered an authority figure and is knowledgeable about the topic in this situation and that plays a part in pushing council members to agree with him. He is the Secretary of State for the United States, and he presents a lot of intelligence information to the council.
Additionally, he uses the principal of social proof/consensus throughout the speech by stating early on that all of the member of the council voted for resolution 1441 in the previous year. It also plays on consistency by implying that they have had these beliefs before and they should keep thinking that way. Going back to our previous readings and assignments, he uses the buzz words of “weapons of mass destruction” and “terrorism” to provoke negative feelings towards the situation and Iraq.
Finally, I can see how the members of the council could be struggling with cognitive dissonance during this presentation. They may believe that Iraq is not doing these things and have a positive attitude towards the inspections or changes they have seen, but Colin Powell is giving opinions and facts that contradict their thoughts.
Collin Powell’s Speech at the United Nation for Iraq war is one of well-known speech in the United States Foreign Affairs history. Through out the speech, he presents his facts about why United States should attack Iraq. Although he seems very confident through out the speech, I think he uses the technique of cognitive consistency and confirmation bias to get the attention of his audience. He uses cognitive consistency when he repeatedly mentions about how Saddam Hussein can hide the mass weapons. His technique was successful because repeating the same type of sentence in same speech makes him more credible. However, listening the speech now, after knowing the fact that there is no mass weapons destruction, I think he was credible through his sources. He says that he had information only from intelligence, however, one time he also says that he has information from other countries. Sourcing of information questioning his credibility because it seems that he actually did not have all accurate information to invade the war in Iraq. Moreover, it seems like he was using his prejudices to attack the Iraq, which I think is very dangerous. He think as Bin Laden as a Muslim can attack the country, then Saddam Hussein, another Muslim, who is dictator can attack the country too. Therefore, it is better to stop him right now. However, the entire speech raises some questions in my mind. My question is: if Saddam Hussein is the main culprit according to Collin Powell then why we need to punish the whole state for his act? Did he think about the after mass of the Iraq war? What he should say now about finding no mass weapons in Iraq?
Mr. Powell’s authority was a key part of making people believe in the existence of mass destruction in Iraq. People sometimes don’t question authority figures because of the backlash they might receive. Mr. Powell’s consistent use of videos, photos, and eye witness accounts made his speech sound believable. His repetition that the information was based on facts and solid intelligence was his way of trying to reinforce that what he was saying was the truth. For people how lacked knowledge of the issue with Iraq, they would go solely with the information given to them by Mr. Powell and the rest of the Bush administration because they are authority figures and perceived experts. Showing photos and explaining them might be a good thing for those who lack knowledge because it puts Mr. Powell in a position to look like he is an expert. However, for those who did know better, all the supposed evidence provided only raised suspicion.
Looking back on this now, it’s amazing how poorly Powell’s argument holds up, even when taking into account the outright lies. To support his claim that Iraq has failed to disarm, he plays an audiotape of two Iraqi soldiers who are discussing what to do with a vehicle that contained weapons. During the conversation it is revealed that the weapons are no longer present. From this, Powell immediately concludes the Iraqi soldiers must be hiding the weapons. To jump to this conclusion based off the simple acknowledgement is a serious failure of logic given that any number of things could have happened to the weapons, including the possibility that they were, as the UN demanded, destroyed. Powell provides several more examples where weapons are not found to conclude that they must be hiding somewhere. This is an extreme heuristic bias that ignores the actual probability of Iraq successfully hiding weapons which, even at the time, was considered highly unlikely.
He makes the same logical failure again when citing missing hard drives: “Our sources tell us that, in some cases, the hard drives of computers at Iraqi weapons facilities were replaced. Who took the hard drives? Where did they go? What’s being hidden? Why? There’s only one answer to the why: to deceive, to hide, to keep from the inspectors.” Again, the odds of this being true are very low. There are lots of reasons why hard drives are replaced and given the low probability of Iraq having these weapons, it is wrong to assume that this was the intent behind removing the hard drives.
Each of these conclusions shows the confirmational bias at work in Powell’s reasoning. At that point, the US was determined to invade Iraq and basically anything the country did could have been used as evidence by the hawks in the US government that they were hiding dangerous weapons.
I believe insensitivity to predictability occurred since there was a lot of description provided that included facts from secret sources and ominous details that painted a picture of wrongdoing that helped shaped the belief in everyone’s mind and led them to that prediction.
The illusion of validity was created by presenting a multitude of evidence gathered through surveillance such as Iraq moving equipment and recorded telephone conversations which they perceived were associated with a plot to destroy evidence.
Adjustment and anchoring contributed to an incorrect assumption as well. Using chain-like conjunctions, as the author described, led to overestimation and inflated information. Emphasis was place on the fact that a particular occurrence was directly attributable to other occurrences.
Availability also played a role in Powell’s belief since he stated that Iraq in the past used chemical and biological agents on their people. This brought about their belief that Iraq used it before and would not hesitate to us it again.
The cognitive factor of authority lead Colin Powell and others to believe so strongly that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Colin Powell used is influence and the power of persuasion to prove to Congress that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Colin really believed this to be true and thus provided the same information to those having the power to make decisions. Availability also played a role in the credibility of such a claim against Iraq. Because Iraq in the past has kept things secret from inspections and is blamed for 9/11 it was dare I say easier to find Iraq guilty of other crimes and cast blame. America was looking a reason to invade Iraq, Colin Powell provided us with that reason supported by circumstantial evidence and in turn became the scape goat for the Bush administration when it was proven Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction.
Colin Powell and much of the Bush administration came to the lockstep conclusion that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction thanks to the validation of other parties. Social proof was a major contributor to the group-think that lead to the WMD decision. Sources in British intelligence, pro-invasion CIA analysts, and a hive of Neo-Conservative thinkers in the Defense Department reinforced the preconceived notion that Saddam Hussein possessed WMDs. With this overwhelming internal support, Secretary Powell and other decision makers in the administration trusted the opinion of others rather than come to his own conclusions.
Throughout the early 2000s, Colin Powell, along with many other politicians, media outlets, and seemingly informed individuals, believed that Iraq was in possession of weapons of mass destruction. This affirmation and continued belief, even in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary, was in no doubt influenced by a number of heuristics, biases and cognitive shorthands. One such cognitive shorthand is the principle of authority. Powell was initially opposed to overthrowing Saddam Hussein’s regime, and often clashed with others in the Administration. However, he eventually agreed to go along with the Administration’s plan to overthrow the regime, and his stance that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction was influenced by information he received from high-ranking authority figures within the Administration, including former President Bush.
Even in the face of mounting criticism and speculation that Iraq did not possess weapons of mass destruction and that much of Powell’s “evidence” was flawed or outright fabricated, and despite Powell’s initial opposition to the Administration’s plan to dismantle Saddam’s regime, Powell maintained that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and led the initiatives to garner international involvement and support for the Invasion of Iraq in 2003. These actions allude to the consistency principle, in which an individual has the impulse to bring their attitude, values and beliefs into line with what they have already done or decided.
The availability heuristic also comes into play with Powell’s belief that there were weapons of mass destruction, as availability is a useful clue for assessing frequency or probability. Several times throughout his speech, he referenced the chemical weapons Iraq had admitted to possessing in the 90s, and used this as a basis of confirmation that Iraq was again in possession of weapons of mass destruction; stating, “I believe that Iraq is now in further material breach of its obligations. I believe this conclusion is irrefutable and undeniable.”
Unfortunately, the reliance on availability may also lead to predictable biases. In this case, the Biases of Imaginability principle was also at play, in that Powell’s belief was based on past experience, causing him to misjudge the frequency of the event as being a recurrence of the past instance in which Iraq possessed chemical weapons. Since imaginability plays an important role in the evaluation of probabilities in real-life situations, Powell’s evaluation of the material facts was distorted in that his interpretation of intercepted intelligence was clouded by his biases. Therefore, he viewed all information from a distorted lens that sought confirmation of the frequency, rather than actual likelihood or objective pursuit and analysis of factual and supporting evidence.