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About this quote

What does it mean?
Highlights the contradiction between certainty about weapon existence and ignorance of their location.
In plain terms
How can you know weapons exist but not where they are?
What can you take from it?
Absolute certainty without specific evidence is logically inconsistent.

Where it applies

  • intelligence analysis
  • policy justification
  • fact-checking

Putting it to work

  • demanding specific evidence
  • questioning certainty
  • analyzing intelligence

Questions to consider

  • What counts as proof?
  • Can you know something exists without knowing where?

Another view

Intelligence can be reliable about existence while lacking location data.

More from Hans Blix

  1. It was to do with information management. The intention was to dramatise it.

    Permalink to quote #1
  2. I have my detractors in Washington. There are bastards who spread things around, of course, who planted nasty things in the media.

    Permalink to quote #3
  3. : there are people in this administration who say they don't care if the UN sinks under the East river, and other crude things:

    Permalink to quote #4

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