← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · weisbrot
Thread ID: 12105 | Posts: 3 | Started: 2004-02-01
2004-02-01 21:48 | User Profile
*With White House support and input, the investigation becomes less an independent inquiry than a guided whitewash. The Bush administration will steer this commission away from the White House and the Pentagon, throwing Clinton-appointee (but GHW Bush friend) Tenet and company to the wolves. Yup, says Rush, just another Clinton conspiracy quashed by the gallant Bushies.
Today on CSPAN I heard a Georgia caller respond to the question of whether viewers supported or opposed an investigation into the intelligence gathered on Iraqi WMD. This caller mentioned the Office of Special Plans, and how the intelligence cooked up by the neocon rat's nest in the Pentagon both fed the CIA intelligence and cooked raw intelligence coming out of that agency. He also brought up the Project for the New American Century and the connections between that report and the OSP, then talked about the Zionist ideology behind the authors of the PNAC. Another caller immediately afterwards agreed, and discussed how the Hutton report's notoriety had stirred up pressure for an American investigation, and how the failure of that report could possibly increase public clamor for real truth. Yet another caller from Syracuse jumped in with full agreement. Perhaps some folks with above room temperature IQ's are finally starting to ask questions. Meanwhile, note the deluge of Fox News quotes jammed into the NYT/IHT report below. Nowhere to be found are the usual cautionary "leading conservative ideologue" or "far-right opinion maker" comments inserted when FOX is mentioned, or when Trent Lott chews marbles trying to speak. The rats nest is getting stirred up, and it's time for all those serving the inner party agenda- left and right- to pull together.
Those who listen to CSPAN are less likely to be the "gravy-sweating" dispensationalists ready to excuse any actions this administration takes to protect Israel. And with this commission getting ready to whitewash the cooked intelligence provided by administration neocons and Israeli puppet masters, the time to speak out is now. With the investigation proceeding and being pushed to conclude before the elections- while Gibson's film opens across the country- there might not ever be a better time to discuss, debate and argue with the NFL zombies and SUV mommies each one of us knows and loves.*
[url]http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/01/international/middleeast/01CND-INTE.html?amp;ei=5062&en=6307196a8a69d713&partner=GOOGLE&ex=1076302800&pagewanted=print&position=[/url] Pressure Grows on Bush to Order an Inquiry on Iraq Intelligence By BRIAN KNOWLTON, International Herald Tribune
WASHINGTON, Feb. 1 ââ¬â Pressure grew on the Bush administration over the weekend to conduct an independent inquiry into Iraq-war intelligence failures. One report said that the White House was already negotiating details of such an inquiry with Congressional leaders.
The White House has yet to confirm that it would support a new investigation, which Democrats say is urgently needed to understand the gap between prewar intelligence pointing to major Iraqi weapons programs, and the failure so far to find significant evidence of them.
But some Republicans in Congress are beginning to lend support to such an inquiry, and Reuters reported that top White House aides were working out the details of a blue-ribbon commission with leaders of the Senate intelligence committee.
Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi, a top Republican on the Senate intelligence committee, confirmed today that the administration was considering an independent inquiry, following the widely publicized public appeals for such a review from David Kay, the former chief United States weapons inspector for Iraq. Mr. Kay said inspectors had found no significant evidence of banned weapons in Iraq, and did not expect that they would be found.
Mr. Lott, generally a strong supporter of the administration, added, "I may be willing to go along with an independent commission."
And Vice President Dick Cheney has broached the possibility of a new commission with members of Congress, according to people in government cited by The Associated Press.
Senator Pat Roberts, a Kansas Republican and chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, was originally to have appeared on "Fox News Sunday." He canceled his appearance at the last minute and was replaced by Mr. Lott.
But Mr. Roberts said on Saturday that a bipartisan panel of recognized experts could usefully reduce the politicization around the extraordinarily sensitive matter and "leapfrog" past current debate to quickly recommend intelligence fixes, The Washington Post reported.
If the administration does relent and launch an outside inquiry, it would mark an extraordinary stepdown by the White House, which has steadfastly defended the quality of the information around which it built its case for invading Iraq and ousting Saddam Hussein.
And it would carry political risks in an election year in which Democrats already have been fiercely attacking administration decision-making surrounding the war; some have suggested that the White House exaggerated Iraqi weapons capabilities and links to Al Qaeda terrorists to build a case for a war it was determined to fight.
A decision to appoint an inquiry panel would doubtless spark an immediate tussle over whether its members could and should complete their work before the Nov. 2 elections.
Senator Lott, a conservative who said he generally opposed "government by commission," said that after the evident "intelligence failure" surrounding the Iraq war, "it's important for the Congress, the administration and the American people to know as much as we can about this."
And Mr. Kay, the former inspector, said he would be "very happy" if the administration authorized an inquiry.
Learning where intelligence errors originated, and how to avoid recurrences, was fundamental to ensuring the future credibility of the United States ââ¬â particularly if the administration presses for new military action in the face of threats in places like Iran or North Korea, he said.
"If you cannot rely on good, accurate intelligence that is credible to the American people and to others abroad," Mr. Kay said on "Fox News Sunday," "you certainly can't have a policy of pre-emption."
"Pristine intelligence, good accurate intelligence is a fundamental bedstone of any sort of policy of pre-emption to be even thought about," he said.
The Post, citing Republican and Congressional sources, reported that Mr. Bush had agreed to an independent inquiry but had yet to settle on a specific plan. Only days earlier he had insisted that the United States weapons-search group in Iraq should first be allowed to complete its work.
Democrats in Congress and on the presidential campaign trail have argued vigorously for an independent commission ââ¬â Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, one of the presidential candidates, said today that "we desperately need an independent commission" ââ¬â but until recent days, many Republicans have resisted such a review or sought to narrow its scope. They say that in a presidential election year an inquiry inevitably would be politicized.
Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, a senior Democrat on the intelligence committee, insisted today on the need for a broadly framed review to begin "very soon."
"You don't take national security and say, `Oh, let's just put it on hold for a year,' " Mr. Rockefeller said on Fox. An inquiry, he added, should embrace not just prewar intelligence errors but "also the use of ââ¬â by decision-makers ââ¬â of that intelligence."
Mr. Rockefeller asserted that a broad inquiry was needed to investigate accusations that the administration was planning to go to war long before it began making the case publicly, and perhaps even before the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. He said he had voted to authorize war but had done so based on intelligence "which was clearly flawed"; he now considers that "a wrong vote" for a "wrong war."
Administration spokesmen have said that they were not alone in believing that Iraq possessed banned biological, chemical and nuclear weapons or programs to make them.
But while France, Germany and some other countries have said they did believe Mr. Hussein held banned weapons, they did not believe he posed so imminent a threat that there was no time to contain or defang Iraq through moves short of war.
The C.I.A., in its prewar analyses, resisted drawing too strong a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda. It was far less wary in asserting that Iraq held banned weapons stocks.
Both Mr. Lott and Mr. Rockefeller side-stepped when asked whether they believed that Mr. Bush should ask George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, to resign.
Mr. Lott said this was up to Mr. Bush to decide. But he said, "I'm very unhappy with the quality of and the reliability of the intelligence we get."
Mr. Lott repeated administration arguments for war and said later events had not weakened them: Mr. Hussein had possessed weapons of mass destruction; he "was a threat" to the region and the world; he had repeatedly defied the United Nations; and he was a "murderer" who stood in the way of a more stable Middle East. "Was that worthwhile?" he asked. "I think the answer is yes."
But Richard C. Holbrooke, the former United States ambassador to the United Nations, said on ABC that while he supported efforts to oust Mr. Hussein, the timing of the war had been "premised by the administration entirely on weapons of mass destruction."
"The rush to war on a timetable which fractured our international relations and has put us in such a deficit position around the world," Mr. Holbrooke said, "was based on things like" the statement by Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain "that they were 45 minutes away from attacking London"
"All of that turned out to be wrong," he said.
2004-02-01 22:57 | User Profile
I agree the timing is good. Someone else agrees also, and seems to be trying to head the debate off at the pass.
Gunboat Charlie is a good indicator of what direction the spin will be going in: Notice his "people forget" and "every intelligence agency on the planet agrees" and all the great old Pravda phrases all turning up here. Also like his Soviet role-models, Charlie his heading toward serious incoherence.
[B]What David Kay really said[/B]
Charles Krauthammer
[url]http://www.townhall.com/columnists/charleskrauthammer/printck20040130.shtml[/url]
January 30, 2004
WASHINGTON -- Before the great hunt for scapegoats begins, let's look at what David Kay has actually said about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
First, and most trumpeted, he did not find large stockpiles of newly produced weapons of mass destruction.'' He did find, as he reported last October, WMD-related activities, from a very active illegal missile program to research and development (right up until the end'') on weaponizing the deadly poison ricin (the stuff found by London police on terrorists last year). He discovered ``hundreds of cases'' of U.N.-prohibited and illegally concealed activities.
Significant findings, but still a far cry from what the administration had claimed last March. Kay has now offered the most novel and convincing explanation for why U.S. intelligence -- and, for that matter, U.N. inspectors and the intelligence agencies of every country that mattered -- had misjudged what Iraq possessed.
[B]It was a combination of Iraqi bluff, deceit, and corruption far more bizarre than heretofore suspected. Kay discovered that an increasingly erratic Saddam had taken over personal direction of WMD programs.[/B] But because there was no real oversight, the scientists would go to Saddam for money, exaggerate or invent their activities, then pocket the funds.
Scientists were bluffing Saddam. Saddam was bluffing the world. The Iraqis were all bluffing each other. Special Republican Guard commanders had no WMDs, but they told investigators that they were sure that other guard units did. [B]It was this internal disinformation that the whole outside world missed.[/B]
Congress needs to find out why, with all our resources, we had not a clue that this was going on. But Kay makes clear that Bush was relying on what the intelligence agencies were telling him. Kay contradicts the reckless Democratic charges that Bush cooked the books. All the analysts I have talked to said they never felt pressured on WMD,'' says Kay.Everyone believed that (Iraq) had WMD.''
Including the Clinton administration. Kay told The Washington Post that he had found evidence that Saddam had quietly destroyed some biological and chemical weapons in the mid-1990s -- but never reported it to the U.N. Which was why Clinton in 1998 declared with great alarm and great confidence that Iraq had huge stockpiles of biological and chemical arms -- ``and some day, some way, I guarantee you, he'll use the arsenal.''
The intelligence failure is quite spectacular, but its history is quite prosaic. When the U.N. inspectors left in 1998, they assumed that the huge stockpiles of unaccounted-for weapons still existed. What other assumption could they make? That Saddam had destroyed them and not even reported that to the very agency that could have then vindicated him and gotten sanctions lifted?
[B]Secretary of State Colin Powell correctly makes the case that this very fact -- the concealment of both the weapons and their possible destruction -- clearly justifies the legality of the Iraq War,[/B] since the terms of the 1991 cease-fire placed the positive obligation on Iraq to demonstrate its own disarmament. And that it clearly and repeatedly failed to do.
But beyond the legal question is the security question. [B]People forget that when the Bush administration came into office, Iraq was a very unstable situation.[/B] Thousands of Iraqis were dying as a result of sanctions. Containment necessitated the garrisoning of Saudi Arabia with thousands of ``infidel'' American troops -- in the eyes of many Muslims, a desecration (cited by Osama bin Laden as his No. 1 reason for his 1996 Declaration of War on America). The no-fly zones were slow-motion war, and the embargo was costly and dangerous -- the sailors who died on the USS Cole were on embargo duty.
[B]Until Bush got serious, threatened war and massed troops in Kuwait, the U.N. was headed toward loosening and ultimately lifting sanctions, which would have given Saddam carte blanche to regroup and rebuild his WMDs.[/B]
Bush reversed that slide with his threat to go to war. But that kind of aggressive posture is impossible to maintain indefinitely. A regime of inspections, embargo, sanctions, no-fly zones and thousands of combat troops in Kuwait was an unstable equilibrium. The U.S. could have either retreated and allowed Saddam free rein -- or gone to war and removed him. Those were the only two ways to go.
[B]Under the circumstances, and given what every intelligence agency on the planet agreed was going on in Iraq, the president made the right choice, indeed the only choice.[/B]
2004-02-01 23:11 | User Profile
Maybe Edwards will use his trial lawyer experience in shaking down the tobacco companies and sue the pants off the Bush gang if they stonewall on this. :(