Looks like Karl Rove is back off the mat.
Do you guys really deny that the Administration manipulated intelligence? There was plenty of evidence they were doing so at the time. Colin Powell's UN speech was widely derided in Europe as a "load of bollacks"--I'm quoting the UK Gaurdian--an assessment later confirmed by Powell himself. It's a bit rich for Bush, at this date, to be blaming the debacle in Iraq on his critics. But then, in Rove/Cheney/Rumsfeld world, war is peace, etc.
16 comments:
Tom:
1) I think that everyone thought that Houssien had banned weapons, plus violated other stipuplations of the Gulf War I cease-fire.
2) I think that in addition to this, Bush exaggerated some of the evidence regarding the claims of banned weapons.
3) I do not fully understand why Bush would exaggerate the claims of banned weapons given that all of the war opponents agreed with him on this point. However, the following is a logical explanation: since this was a point of widespread agreement, Bush wanted to elevate the intensity of it, as he viewed it as the key to getting a majority vote from the US senate and the UN.
4) The banned weapons violation was just one of a set of factors that contributed to justifying the invasion as a response to 911.
5) Bush did a poor job of making the full case, and of casting the banned weapons violations as more than merely one of several factors composing the war justification.
6) Charges that Bush wanted to invade Iraq and Afgahnistan prior to 911 may be true (I am unconvinced of this), but to the extent that the lack of a democracy in those countries contributed to 911, and to the extent that a US invasion could establish democracies in those nations, such hypothetical pre-911 plans represented a good strategy. Surely any post-911 justification for invading those nations existed pre-911.
7) I am disappointed that Bush responded to the initial military victory the way that he did, with the landing aircraft carrier. While it is true that many of the peaceniks had predicted that the US military would not suceed as it did in that phase of the war, I believe that most of us invasion supporters viewed the next phase as the real challange: would Iraqis respond by establishing a democracy? Would the US forces step aside and permit the Iraqis to create an independant and autonomous government? Would a terrorist reaction ensue?
8) I am very disappointed that Bush did not make as priorities the minimization of civilian causulty and destruction, as well as humane treatment even of the most disgusting fascist killers captured.
9) I admire Bush for trying, and I hope that he succeeds.
Tom: Why have you named this thread, "War is Peace"? You do agree that there are situations where war is better than "peace". The debate here is not whether or not Bush has made the 1984 case that "war is peace", but rather if Bush is correct that invading Iraq and establishing a democracy there is a just and logical aim, and if indeed he is making a genuine effort to facilitate the erection of a democracy there. Right?
My use of "War is peace" refers to official reliance on outright lies in order to push an agenda. Bush lied about WMD, and now he's lying about lying about WMD. As far as banned weapons, does anyone remember Hans Blix? While I'm sure he's derided around here with the Foxian cliche "surrender monkey," he looks more and more like a serious fellow, and his critics look more foolish.
Tom:
1) What did Bush lie about?
2) Do you think that Bush believed that Hussein lacked banned weapons?
3) Prior to the invasion, who was claiming that Hussein lacked banned weapons? As I recall, Hans Blix never claimed that Hussein lacked banned weapons. Instead, he asked for more time to perform more inspections, and claimed that more inspections was the proper course, rather than invasion. I believe that Blix had the authority to certify Iraq as having complied with the banned weapons stipulation, but did not. To the contrary, I believe that Blix held Hussein in violation.
4) Why do we call Saddam Houssien by his first name, rather than his last?
What did Bush lie about? It's been shown ad nauseum that he repeated the nonsense about Iraq getting nuclear technology long after those charges had been debunked (indeed, maintaining that lie inspired Libby and Rove to go after Joe Wilson and Plame, in a move that Nixon's thugs would have applauded); he played up supposed links between Al Queda and Iraq long after those allegations had been debunked; he sent Powell to the UN with meaningless pictures of aircraft that State Department staff later revealed they knew were meaningless; he actively promoted and failed to check the lies of Chalabi, despite serious skepticism about the credibility of Iraq's current oil minister, which NY Times reporter and Libby confidante Judith Miller reported as fact, helping gain a key measure of public credibility for his case; he undercut at every opportunity the efforts of Hans Blix to check his trumped-up allegations, barely able to restrain himself from launching "shock and awe" before the inspector could flee Iraq. Blix wanted to finish checking before certifying; the bombs started flying before he finished. He did not think the banned weapons existed. Let's not let this episode slip down the memory hole. Now, here Bush is, lying again: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051114/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_asia;_ylt=AgrbB35iPxKsPcdSP6RaxBWs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--
The intelligence agencies of Britain, Germany, Russia, China, Israel and--yes--France all agreed with this judgment. And even Hans Blix--who headed the U.N. team of inspectors trying to determine whether Saddam had complied with the demands of the Security Council that he get rid of the weapons of mass destruction he was known to have had in the past--lent further credibility to the case in a report he issued only a few months before the invasion:
"The discovery of a number of 122-mm chemical rocket warheads in a bunker at a storage depot 170 km [105 miles] southwest of Baghdad was much publicized. This was a relatively new bunker, and therefore the rockets must have been moved there in the past few years, at a time when Iraq should not have had such munitions. . . . They could also be the tip of a submerged iceberg. The discovery of a few rockets does not resolve but rather points to the issue of several thousands of chemical rockets that are unaccounted for."
Mr. Blix now claims that he was only being "cautious" here, but if, as he now also adds, the Bush administration "misled itself" in interpreting the evidence before it, he at the very least lent it a helping hand.
British, the French and the Germans, all of whom signed on in advance to Secretary of State Colin Powell's reading of the satellite photos he presented to the U.N. in the period leading up to the invasion. Mr. Powell himself and his chief of staff, Lawrence Wilkerson, now feel that this speech was the low point of his tenure as secretary of state. But Mr. Wilkerson (in the process of a vicious attack on the president, the vice president, and the secretary of defense for getting us into Iraq) is forced to acknowledge that the Bush administration did not lack for company in interpreting the available evidence as it did:
"I can't tell you why the French, the Germans, the Brits and us thought that most of the material, if not all of it, that we presented at the U.N. on 5 February 2003 was the truth. I can't. I've wrestled with it. [But] when you see a satellite photograph of all the signs of the chemical-weapons ASP--Ammunition Supply Point--with chemical weapons, and you match all those signs with your matrix on what should show a chemical ASP, and they're there, you have to conclude that it's a chemical ASP, especially when you see the next satellite photograph which shows the UN inspectors wheeling in their white vehicles with black markings on them to that same ASP, and everything is changed, everything is clean. . . . But George [Tenet] was convinced, John McLaughlin [Tenet's deputy] was convinced, that what we were presented [for Powell's UN speech] was accurate."
The Washington Post, which greeted the inauguration of George W. Bush in January 2001 with this admonition:
"Of all the booby traps left behind by the Clinton administration, none is more dangerous--or more urgent--than the situation in Iraq. Over the last year, Mr. Clinton and his team quietly avoided dealing with, or calling attention to, the almost complete unraveling of a decade's efforts to isolate the regime of Saddam Hussein and prevent it from rebuilding its weapons of mass destruction. That leaves President Bush to confront a dismaying panorama in the Persian Gulf [where] intelligence photos . . . show the reconstruction of factories long suspected of producing chemical and biological weapons."
All this should surely suffice to prove far beyond any even unreasonable doubt that Mr. Bush was telling what he believed to be the truth about Saddam's stockpile of WMD. It also disposes of the fallback charge that Mr. Bush lied by exaggerating or hyping the intelligence presented to him. Why on earth would he have done so when the intelligence itself was so compelling that it convinced everyone who had direct access to it, and when hardly anyone in the world believed that Saddam had, as he claimed, complied with the 16 resolutions of the Security Council demanding that he get rid of his weapons of mass destruction?
Tom:
I agree somewhat with with at least some of your charactorizations of Bush (which which I mean of course he or his team members). But in none of these cases can I agree with your phrase "lie", as in, Bush knew as a certainty that Saddam's govt absolutely did not attempt to obtain nuclear weapons material from Niger, to cite just one example. Instead, I am convinced that in all of these examples there were differing interpretations, with none of the competing interpretations desearving 100% certainty. Persuing this one example, did Joe Wilson claim to have proven that Saddam's govt certainly did not attempt to purchase nuclear weapons material? No, he did not. Instead, he claimed only to have found no evidence to support that claim.
The competing views at the time were not Saddam Has Banned Weapons vs. Saddam Lacks Banned Weapons. Instead, the competing views at the time were: Given that Saddam Has Violated UN Sanctions, Invade ASAP vs. Continue As Before. And having banned weapons was just one example of sanctions violations.
In selling his view, Bush behaved as all politicians and attornies do, presenting all examples in terms of the the interpretation that best supports his position. Had the invasion uncovered banned weapons, I am certain that you, Blix, Cindy Shehan, Martin Sheen, Jesse Jackson, Howard Zinn, Alexander Cockburn, etc. would *NOT* have expressed shock and dismay. Rather, all of you would have maintained that "there was a better, peaceful way" to have confronted the existance of those weapons.
None of the above contradicts the specific charges made above.
Tom: Please exaplain something to me about Bush "lying" about the banned weapons. Did you, Howard Zinn, Hans Blix, etc., all *KNOW* that he was lying? Or did you believe his claims? Here are the possibilities:
1a) You guys were smart enough to have ascertained that Bush was lying, and thus knew with certainty that Saddam lacked those weapons. However, lots of Democratic Senators did not know as much as you guys.
1b) The senators who voted against invasion, did they declare that Saddam lacked those weapons? Or did they say that despite Saddam having those weapons, they still did not want to invade?
2) If you believed Bush's claims, did you oppose invading anyway?
3) Why did the intelligence agencies of other nations (France, Britain, Germany, Russia) believe that Saddam had banned weapons? Surely Bush could not have lied them into believing something that was so clearly false.
The way Bush was conjuring justifications to invade Iraq seemingly daily made me, and many others, seriously question his credibility. If you remember, you and I were having the same fight during the runup to the war; if only we had a blog to record it. Other nations believed Hussein had banned weapons; few if any thought he had the technology to deliver them over any distance, or that he posed any serious security threat. I remember one "leaked" CIA report from the time saying, in effect, we think he might have chemical weapons but we doubt seriously he has the ability to send them over long distances. If we attack him, though, we assume he'll use them against us. Creatively, Bush spun this into a justification for attack. Logic: My neighbor may own a pistol. I doubt he'll turn it on me. However, if I barge through his door, I dear he may shoot me. Therefore, he poses a threat, and the way forward is to barge through his door.
Tom: I agree that claims Hussein had the capacity to deliver bio-nuke-chem weapons to the USA were unfounded, and that Bush should not have made them. However, the falsity of that claim does not faslify the logic for invading and establishing a democracy in Iraq, as either a way to have prevented 911 or to prevent a second 911.
And your analogy lacks some essential modifications:
1. The neighbor has invaded two other neighbors.
2. The neighbor has funded, and continues to fund, individuals killing residents in the home of a third neighbor.
3. In response to the neighbor's second and most recent invasion of another neighbor, the neigbor agreed to not possess a gun, and to submit to searches for guns.
4. Meanwhile another guy in the neighborhood has attacked us.
Under these circumstances, it made sense to some people, such as you, to attack only the neighbor who has most recently and directly attacked us, and to simultaneously continue monitoring that first guy, without excersizing the option to act upon that guy's ongoing consistant violations of his original agreement that had prevented our invasion in the first place.
I am not 100% convinced that you are wrong. I am not, and have never been, 100% convinced that Bush would succeed.
The Bush Adminstration lied about WMD's!!Wait a minute. Democrats and Bill Clinton were saying Saddam had WMD's when George Bush was still Governor of Texas lol. Never Mind!lol
Repo Bro: It has never made sense to me that Bush "lied" about those weapons, which would mean that he claimed that they were there despite knowing that they were not.
First of all, that would make the Bushies the only people on earth at the time who knew that no such weapons existed; even none of the peaceniks at the time made such a claim.
Second, arguing for an invasion based on knowingly false ( = lie) claims of such weapons would constitute requesting the only possible action that would 100% expose that your claim was false (even 1,000 more Hans Blix inspections could not 100% disprove your claim), and thus open you to accusation of having lied... before an election.
Bush and his team certainly behaved like people who genuinely believed that banned weapons existed in Iraq. And the lack of finding them should add some credability to Bush's claim: if he and his crew were so devious as to lie about those weapons existing, why weren't they devious enough to have planted evidence in support of their lie?
When I expressed this to one of my many leftist friends, he responded: "I'm still waiting for that". In other words, if the invasion had uncovered such weapons, my friend would have assumed that they were plants.
Note that I'm not accusing Bush of "lying about WMD." I'm saying he shamelessly manipulated intelligence to make a case for a war that's always been unpopular. Official, concerted, sustained manipulation of classified information to fool a public is hardly the behavior of an administration bent on "promoting democracy." LOL? The only thing funny around here is the naivete.
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