Evaluation of Iraq war through group think Essay

The War on Iraq was unflinching by a small group of people that was headed by the President and comprised of the Vice-President, Defense Secretary, CIA Director and opposite senior administrative officials. The decision to go to contend was a decision of a small think-tank kind of than of an item-by-item or a larger group of people. The decision of the think-tank pushing the case for the Iraq War seems to be an apt example of confirmation bias. This confirmation bias during the steadyts leading to the Iraq War has led to a widen rift between policy makers and the intelligence community.It is widely believed that the war think-tank defied the pointers presented by the official intelligence. Instead, the intelligence open in a raw form was misused to prevalently justify the war on Iraq and induce a positive public perception that would endorse the war. As the Washington Post reports the discussion on the war The case was thin, summarized the notes taken by a British national security aide at the meeting. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran.However, the think-tank was convinced to the highest degree going for a war with Iraq and it used the available intelligence to confirm its beliefs. Cognitive diversity was wanting(p) in the think-tank that drew up the plan for the Iraq War. All ingredients involved in the decision process had equal political leanings, were to a large extent a culturally homogenous group and formed a small police squad that worked closely with each other on various policy qualification issues.The team did not comprise of various political voices even though the decision to go to war squeeze the entire country. It did also not take advice and heed to objections of World bodies like the United Nations when some of the member countries objected to the unilateral action of the United States and its ally Britain to go to war. The team did not invite any s weet members to its coterie of decision makers to infuse fresh or alternative thinking in its decision making process.As Senator Barbara Boxer said, Iraq was a war of choice, not necessity. The intelligence community was roped in save to substantiate claims made by the think-tank on the reason to go to war. The group behaved with a preset schedule ignoring the alternatives at hand and made biased decisions. The Iraq War is also an example of group comparison where the decisions of the individual members could have been different from the decisions of the group that they were part of.The study of group polarization began with an unpublished 1961 Masters thesis by MIT student James Stoner, who observed the so-called risky shift, meaning that a groups decisions are riskier than the average of the individual decisions of members before the group met. After the wide public criticism of the U. S. handling of the war, two prominent members of the Iraq think-tank put in their papers. Secr etary of State Colin L. Powell resigned after close to 4 years of at the helm of affairs.He was seen as less supportive of the war even though he was the public face on international forums to drum up support amongst its traditionalistic allies. Whereas Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld who took over the course of foreign policy after Powells exit was seen as a hardliner. It seems that the hardliners would have grown even more resolute in their decision to go to war after several rounds of deliberations that the think-tank might have had. They would have presented intelligence information and other reasons to hard distribute their belief thereby subduing the reluctant supporters of the war.