Yep, no shenanigans out of the White House.

[TheKurp]

Lie: The administration said it did not have the forged documents before the SOTU. An investigation has proved otherwise.

Deception: Bush has blamed the CIA for the 16 word gaff. Apparently the CIA did object to the mention of the Niger uranium connection just prior to the SOTU but Robert Joseph, an assistant to Bush, decided to use creative word-play and state that the British said there was a connection.

Okay Kilmer et al, spin away.

U.S. Had Uranium Papers Earlier (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8777-2003Jul17.html?nav=hptop_tb)

By Walter Pincus and Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, July 18, 2003;

The State Department received copies of what would turn out to be forged documents suggesting that Iraq tried to purchase uranium oxide from Niger three months before the president's State of the Union address, administration officials said.

The documents, which officials said appeared to be of "dubious authenticity," were distributed to the CIA and other agencies within days. But the U.S. government waited four months to turn them over to United Nations weapons inspectors who had been demanding to see evidence of U.S. and British claims that Iraq's attempted purchase of uranium oxide violated U.N. resolutions and was among the reasons to go to war. State Department officials could not say yesterday why they did not turn over the documents when the inspectors asked for them in December.

The administration, facing increased criticism over the claims it made about Iraq's attempts to buy uranium, had said until now that it did not have the documents before the State of the Union speech.

Even before these documents arrived, both the State Department and the CIA had questions about the reliability of intelligence reports that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger and other African countries.

Beginning in October, the CIA warned the administration not to use the Niger claim in public. CIA Director George J. Tenet personally persuaded deputy national security adviser Stephen Hadley to omit it from President Bush's Oct. 7 speech in Cincinnati about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.

But on the eve of Bush's Jan. 28 State of the Union address, Robert Joseph, an assistant to the president in charge of nonproliferation at the National Security Council (NSC), initially asked the CIA if the allegation that Iraq sought to purchase 500 pounds of uranium from Niger could be included in the presidential speech.

Alan Foley, a senior CIA official, disclosed this detail when he accompanied Tenet in a closed-door hearing before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on Wednesday.

Foley, director of the CIA's intelligence, nonproliferation and arms control center, told committee members that the controversial 16-word sentence was eventually suggested by Joseph in a telephone conversation just a day or two before the speech, according to congressional and administration sources who were present at the five-hour session.

At the hearing, Foley said he called Joseph to object to mentioning Niger and that a specific amount of uranium was being sought. Joseph agreed to eliminate those two elements but then proposed that the speech use more general language, citing British intelligence that said Iraq had recently been seeking uranium in Africa.

Foley said he told Joseph that the CIA had objected months earlier to the British including that in their published September dossier because of the weakness of the U.S. information. But Foley said the British had gone ahead based on their own information.

When Foley first began answering questions on who from the White House staff sought to put the uranium charge in the State of the Union address, he did not mention Joseph's name, referring only to "a person" at the NSC. It was only after Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and several other senators demanded the name that he identified him.

A senior administration official said yesterday the only conversation that took place was about the classification of the source of the alleged uranium transaction. The question was whether to attribute the alleged transaction to a classified U.S. intelligence estimate or to a published British dossier and, he said, it was "agreed to use the British."

However, there are six other references to information carried in the U.S. estimate, and they are attributed to "U.S. intelligence" or "intelligence sources."

Both the Senate committee and the White House have begun internal discussions over how to handle the potentially delicate task of questioning presidential aides as part of a congressional investigation. Claims of executive privilege have in the past increased public interest and complicated the process of calling on White House aides to testify.

Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) said Wednesday night: "We will take this where it leads us. We'll let the chips fall where they may." A senior congressional aide said Roberts is prepared to seek a way to question Joseph and any other White House aides.

Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (W.Va.), the ranking Democrat on the panel, said yesterday: "The intelligence committee has crossed that line . . . and we are looking at people in the executive branch, including the White House." He said that both Republicans and Democrats are concerned "about the further implication beyond Tenet."

The FBI is also considering opening a counterintelligence case if it suspects a foreign government created the forgeries about the alleged Iraqi uranium purchase to influence U.S. foreign policy.

Next week, the Senate intelligence committee will hold a closed-door hearing to question the CIA's inspector general, who has been investigating the agency's handling of nuclear-related intelligence on Iraq.

The documents first came into the U.S. government's hands when a journalist turned them over to U.S. Embassy officials in Rome. Other officials said previously that the Italian intelligence services had given the documents to the British, which first mentioned the Niger-Iraq claim in its published case against Iraq in September.

"We acquired the documents in October of 2002, and they were shared widely within the U.S. government, with all the appropriate agencies in various ways," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said yesterday.

The embassy promptly informed the CIA station chief in Rome that it had the documents and, on Oct. 19, gave copies to intelligence officials.

A senior intelligence official said the agency did not consider the documents revelatory because they contained the same information, from other sources, already in intelligence reports. But in hindsight, the official said, "we failed to see the signals" that would have indicated they were forged.

Another intelligence official said "the documents were such a minor point of analysis for anyone" because the information was not deemed reliable.

On Feb. 4, the U.N. inspectors' Iraq team was called to the U.S. mission in Vienna and verbally briefed on the contents of the documents. A day later, they received copies, according to officials familiar with the inspectors' work.

Using the Google Internet search engine, books on Niger and interviews with Iraqi and Nigerien officials, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) experts determined that the documents were fake.

On March 7, IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei announced they were forged. It is not yet known who created the forgeries.

[Kilmer17]

Did Iraq try to obtain Uranium from Niger?

More importantly, did the British have evidence to support that?

The answer is clear to all but the blind lefty bush haters.

[TheKurp]

Kilmer?????

Who's blind? Did you read the article?

[Sarge]

It's funny the Brits still stand by this info. Think it's still possible they might have better intelligence than us in that particular region of the world. Of course, this might not have been the case had the previous administration not gutted our HUMIT (Human Intelligence) apparatus as badly as they gutted the military. I can't wait until they finish translating all the documented stuff our military has found over there about the Iraqi WMD program and publish it. It'll be fun to watch Bush open the Dems mouths, shove it down their throats and make them chew.

[Buford]

I just read the transcript from the White House and I'm siding with Kilmer here. I think the President said it best when he said....

"Move 'em on (Head 'em up)
Head 'em up (Move 'em up)
Move 'em on (Head 'em up)
Rawhide
Cut 'em out (Ride 'em in)
Ride 'em in (Cut 'em out)
Cut 'em out (Ride 'em in)
Rawhide"


That's good enough for me!

[gbear]

We're only just now considering a counterintelligence case?

[Kilmer17]

I read it fine Kurp. Have you read the other articles that say the British stand behind the claims and had other evidence to support it?

The forged document that has the lefties panties in a bunch was nothing more than extra evidence to back up facts they already had.

[Kilmer17]

Do you think he tried to obtain Uranium from Niger?

[TheKurp]

Blair is under more pressure from British citizens than Bush is at home from U.S. citizens.

Do you really think British Intelligence would admit to bad info? Perhaps after Blair is gone we'll find out for sure.

[jbooma]

Originally posted by TheKurp
Kilmer?????

Who's blind? Did you read the article?

it is sad if you believe everything you read :doh:

[Buford]

I'm just happy the money to the Palestinian Homocide Bombers is drying up.

I don't think they are going to find a ton of WMD though.


I'm glad that Saddam is out of power

I'm not happy that people from our Military are being killed everyday

So......there are mixed feelings there. I just want this to be over so we can focus on our own country and its internal needs right now.

[Sarge]

We will find plenty Bufford. Trust me.

[Buford]

and if you're wrong?

I'm hearing that it doesn't matter....which I tend to agree with. But that should end our time in that country.

[redman]

The arguments about the knowing use of forged documents remind me of (of all things) the defense in the OJ case.

The evidence in favor of conviction was overwhelming, so the defense used a smear campaign against one person who gathered a small amount of the evidence - labelling Mark Fuhrman a racist - to tar the entire prosecution, this despite there being absolutely no evidence that race influenced Fuhrman's investigation, much less the investigation at large which involved literally dozens of different people.

Here, there was a great level of justification for invading Iraq. Unfortunately, some of the best justification - WMD's - has not (yet) been fully borne out with physical evidence being found in Iraq. But rather than really even attacking that issue, the Dems are going hog wild over a single set of documents that were forged, but were part of a larger case that said precisely the same things about attempts to acquire yellow cake that the documents did.

One false document does make a case against Iraqi efforts to acquire nuclear components, much less does it defeat the case for an invasion of Iraq.

[Kilmer17]

Basic premise people. He DID have them. He USED them. If we cant find them it's because they are well hidden, given to terrorists, or moved to Syria.

Or was EVERYONE wrong?

[Buford]

Wrong about having them? No, he did have them.

Wrong about how much of them? perhaps

Wrong about trying to get more? I don't know

[Sarge]

We WILL find them. Keep in mind I have a little better "in" than most folks. Give us about 5-6 six months

[TheKurp]

Redman,

While I fully understand the point you're making, and agree with it, this is not my issue.

My issue is one of credibility and honestly before the American people. This is not turning out to be some innocent oversight. There is mounting evidence of an intent to deceive. The end does not justify the means.

[Buford]

ok, 5-6 months.

[Kilmer17]

Only in the mind of Bush hating lefties is this a deception.

More and more Im beginning to think the Bush WH is setting the Dem party up for a huge suprise and a sweep in 04. 60 in the Senate, a few more statehouses and Governor Mansions.

Im curious about the "motherlode" of Documents we discovered this week.

[JackC]

What I find is all of a sudden the right wing is so interested in the exact truth. Hmmmm! I guess it all depends on what the word "tried" means

[Kilmer17]

Im interested in the truth. The truth is, Saddam had weapons. Saddam tried to buy Uranium from Africa. Why is the left so quick to dismiss facts and pursue fantasy?

[redman]

Originally posted by TheKurp
My issue is one of credibility and honestly before the American people. This is not turning out to be some innocent oversight. There is mounting evidence of an intent to deceive. The end does not justify the means. I've already granted you that the documents are forged.

I'll even grant you that the Administration, if not even Bush himself, knew that those documents were forged as of the SOTU.

However, they indicated reliance upon the British, not the documents in the SOTU.

So I ask you, where's the mounting evidence? Is there something that I've missed?

[TheKurp]

Kilmer,

Why did Bush blame the CIA when all along it was his assistant who, knowing the CIA objected to the use of the intel, took it upon himself to include the 16 words into the SOTU? Clearly this was not Tenent's fault and it's become apparent he was ordered to "fall on the sword."

2. Why did the administration fail to give the documents to U.N. inspectors? The documents were badly forged and would have dispelled the U.S. case for Iraq's nuclear program. I'll tell you why, turning over the papers to the U.N. inspectors was not to our advantage. It was to our advantage to continue to make the world believe that Iraq was pursuing nuclear capabilities.

[Kilmer17]

apparent to whom? You and the Bush hating left?

redman says the most concices point. Bush said that the British had intelligence..... Is that false?

[JackC]

Originally posted by redman
I've already granted you that the documents are forged.

I'll even grant you that the Administration, if not even Bush himself, knew that those documents were forged as of the SOTU.

However, they indicated reliance upon the British, not the documents in the SOTU.

So I ask you, where's the mounting evidence? Is there something that I've missed?


Boy that sure sounds like what some used to call Clinton speak! Hmmm! It's OK to be deliberatly evasive during the State of the Union speech with regard to a coming war?

What does this evil administration need to do for you to complain? Come to you house and slap your dog around? Oh I guess the dog deserved it right?

[redman]

Jack,

if you have three pieces of good evidence that support a premise, and a fourth forged piece of evidence that purports to also support that premise, is that premise invalidated? Of course not! This ain't even in the same zip code as questioning what "is" means!

God knows why the French created that forgery. I suspect it was to either discredit us and the Brits in a high stakes diplomatic contest and/or to sabotage a paper/inteligence trail that led weapons investigators to their doorstep. Clever actually. But that doesn't discredit the intel on the subject at large.

[fansince62]

Blair asnwered many of these questions vis uranium in hios address to Congress yesterday. hmmmm...whom to trust...washington post hack or leader of Britain.....pincus was on NPR yesterday. much of the assault on Bush and the intelligence agencies focuses on very nuanced interpretations of words and phraseology. admitting thatt his is a game both sides play, it nevertheless doesn't rise to the level of certainty the Left is claiming either.

[JackC]

Redman,

Don't you think a forged piece of evidence should have been left out of the State of Union address? Come on! Do the Bushies know what their doing? To me they're at best inept and at worse liars!

[redman]

Jack,

Point me to a reference to the forged docs in the SOTU. (Hint: it's not there.)

[JackC]

Redman,

Are we now redefining the word "is" now? Wow how ironic.

[Kilmer17]

No were defining the word "lie"

[redman]

No, your love for irony will have to wait until another day. We're defending a trusted ally's intelligence service, a source which is also defending its own information.

You can't find that SOTU reference, can you?

[TheKurp]

None of you [Bush defenders] are speaking to the deceit and the attempt to cover-up that deceit.

It is deceitful to withhold information from the U.N.

It is deceitful to state the the British has information on Iraq's pursuit of nuclear material and neglect to reveal that our own intelligence discovered forged documents that dispelled that intellgence.

It is deceitful to claim that you had no knowledge of the forged documents [prior to the SOTU] and lay blame on the CIA for not sharing that information; when all along the CIA did indeed attempt to strike the Niger reference from the SOTU.

[Kilmer17]

Kurp, the British DO have evidence of it.

Where did Bush claim he was using the forged document as proof?

What info did he withold from the UN? And what difference doies that make? We gave the UN PLENTY of evidence and they did NADA, why would this have made a difference.

[TheKurp]

Speak to the deciet Kilmer, speak to the deceit.

Really man, this type of debate from you might fly with elementary school children but you're going to have to climb a few rungs before I continue to engage you on this.

[Sarge]

Kurp,

TO at least part of your post...Eff the UN. Had they actually done something in this case, or used some of the billions they get every year to form their own intelligence agency instead of living high on the hog in New York, we wouldn't be having this discussion

[TheKurp]

The thing is Sarge, we went to the U.N. to gather support for our issue with Iraq. We at least owed them the courtesy of fair play, otherwise I agree, what's the point of trying to present a case to them?

[Buford]

The UN is powerless......I say we send in our secret weapon...Barbara Bush!

http://home.comcast.net/~daldude/soccermom.gif

[Kilmer17]

Kurp, there is no deceit except in the mind of the Bush Haters.

[ross3909]

Democrats and the far left want us to believe that Bush was the only one before the war saying that Saddam was a dangerous man with a WMD program. Maybe they dont remember the years after the war in 1991 when they admittedly used Chemical and Biological weapons on their own people killing hundreds. Or the 1998 report from the weapons inspectors that listed the large cache of Chemical, Biological, and early stages of Nuclear weapons programs that Saddam's regime was in possession of. But even if they dont recall all of that, I hope their little short attention span minds remember UN article 1441, where the entire UN security council agreed that Saddam Hussien's store of WMD posses a serious threat to his neighbors and the rest of the world. No, all the arguments being made against the president right now is just the normal anti-American sentiment from a party that has totaly lost touch with the population at large. God bless America and thank God we have a leader like George Bush right now.

[TheKurp]

So I can presume then Ross3909 that you have no issue with the administration counting on your gullibility, correct?

[ross3909]

I am just not chasing every ridiculous claim that a liberal puts on paper. Just because someone writes it down does not make it true. And this president is not another Clinton. It is going to be harder than that to catch him trying to decieve the American public. So tell me Kurp, do you think that Saddam Hussien posed no threat to the world? Do you think the world would have been safer with him in power? If you think so, why dont you ask some people from Iraq. I happen to have the honor of having a couple of friends from there. Try to convince them that Saddam was a great ruler that should be left in power. Better yet, why dont you call anyone in Kuait. The Liberals view of foreign affairs is wake up and see if you are still alive, that means everything is ok right? Dont worry about the guy next door with a bazooka aimed at you.

[TheKurp]

Listen Ross, you're speaking to the "ends". I'm talking to the "means". Predictably, just about every person on the right responds to this debate by saying, "Well so what, Saddam is a bad man."

I'm not arguing that Saddam shouldn't have been removed. I'm on record in support of the war. However I don't give a free pass to anyone for walking on a tightrope with regards to the truth, and that includes Bill Clinton.

Apparently you're okay with the government spoon-feeding you partial truths, half-truths, and non-truths; just so long as you agree with the objective.

I'm not okay with that. So spare me the "Saddam is a bad man" rationale.

[ross3909]

So it is your argument that we should burn Bush at the stake for information that no one has proven to be false. Matter of fact, in Bush's statement he says the British inteligence claims the nuclear African connection not the US. And as of yesterday, Tony Blair has yet to back off that claim. I just think it is a little early to be accusing Bush of fabricating the truth. It stinks of partisan BS. The nuclear information from Africa was one small brick in a much larger arguement to go to war. If this is all the Democrates have to pick on...Bush has it made.

[Matt Kyriacou]

Originally posted by TheKurp
Apparently you're okay with the government spoon-feeding you partial truths, half-truths, and non-truths; just so long as you agree with the objective.

Last I heard the Bush administration didn't control the left run media. You and the rest of the left seem to be okay with desperately searching for and grasping at anything the media spins in an effort to disparage the White House.

[redman]

Originally posted by TheKurp
It is deceitful to state the the British has information on Iraq's pursuit of nuclear material and neglect to reveal that our own intelligence discovered forged documents that dispelled that intellgence.to respond to this I'll simply repost what I said before:
if you have three pieces of good evidence that support a premise, and a fourth forged piece of evidence that purports to also support that premise, is that premise invalidated? Of course not!

[redman]

Kurp,

I don't want my leaders lying to me. Teh problem here is two-fold:

1) I see no evidence of a lie as of yet; and

2) when dealing with intelligence matters, telling the whole truth - even to dispel rumors that you're lying - becomes a very problematic thing. We never expect our leaders to divulge everything they know about intel, but yet we're demanding that we do it here. Why?

[TheKurp]

Because Redman, the administration was selective in what it chose to reveal, not for security reasons, but because they wanted to mold public opinion in their favor. I'm insulted by that; so should the rest of America. Our support for the government and our country should come with full knowledge of their policies and the rationale for those policies.

Frankly right now as an American I'm a bit ashamed. I want to be able to stand before the rest of the world with the full knowledge that we are a righteous and moral country that demands the highest of ethical behavior from our leaders. Instead, Bush has demonstrated that he is willing to manipulate the facts and practice low-level deceit to achieve his political goals. It is a black-eye on America regardless of how good our intentions are in Iraq.

I have a set of ethics and live by a moral standard of conduct that at the very least, our leaders should match, if not exceed. It is how I judge the worthiness of a political candidate for office. As much as I'm sure this will surprise everyone, I voted for Bush, as I did for Clinton before him. I can tell you that I am extremely disheartened by the actions of both. It has shaken my faith in this country's ability to lead by example. I only hope that someone emerges in the next election that will restore that faith.

[redman]

Fair enough, Kurp. I agree with you in large part, although I don't want such debates over intel occurring in public.

But suppose that these forged documents were concocted by the French to undermine the case for war in Iraq which they opposed (there's evidence to suggest that that's precisely what happened). Would that change your view about the President's obligation to be "selective in what he chose to reveal"?

[Sarge]

Hey Kurp,

We're you ashamed to be an American when Bubba was displaying his high ethical and moral standards to the world? People like you that say they ashamed to be American crack me up.

[TheKurp]

Sarge,

I thought I covered that in my last post.

Suffice to say, it was the reason I voted for Bush. It disappointed me that Gore didn't do more to take Clinton to task for not being candid about his infidelity.

You also misread my post. I did not say I am ashamed to be an American. I said as an American I am ashamed. I am ashamed of Bush. I am ashamed of members of his administration. In fact I am quite proud to be an American in that I have the freedom to vote the likes of Bush and Clinton out of office when they fail to live by a basic set of ethics.

[TheKurp]

Originally posted by redman
But suppose that these forged documents were concocted by the French to undermine the case for war in Iraq which they opposed (there's evidence to suggest that that's precisely what happened). Would that change your view about the President's obligation to be "selective in what he chose to reveal"?

Absolutely not Redman. In the absence of verifiable information, the prudent thing to do is to not mention it at all.

Sometimes the deceit isn't in what you say, it's what you don't say.

It was Bush's intention to lead everyone to believe that Saddam was pursuing nuclear armament; even though he knew at the time he gave the SOTU there was no verifiable proof. Bush chose semantics over being upfront with the American public and he did so because he feared opposition at home as well as abroad from war opponents. He would have garnered far more respect from me had he simply stuck by his conviction that the Iraqi people were better off without Saddam as their leader.

[redman]

Kurp-

forget the SOTU and the forged letter for a moment: here's a write up of Iraq's non-compliance with the IAEA inspections (http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/iraq/iaea.htm) which I might add has been on that website since long before this flap. It concludes:
There are a large number of unresolved issues regarding Iraq's nuclear weapons program. These issues were raised by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in its October 1997 consolidated inspection report, but were never resolved in subsequent IAEA reports. Important questions remain to be answered in the areas of weapons design; centrifuge research and development; missing weapon components and equipment; remaining uranium stocks; the EMIS ("calutron") enrichment program; Iraq's reporting to the IAEA and its efforts to conceal elements of its weapons program from the Agency; and post-war nuclear program activities. [NCI 980512] Even at the present level of highly intrusive monitoring and inspections, under some scenarios, Iraq might be able to construct a nuclear explosive before it was detected. All Iraq lacks for a nuclear bomb is the fissile material.

I'd also remind you that the nuclear weapons are one of the three different types of WMD's we were citing, and we acknowledged beforehand that we believed that they were not as far along in that program as they were in their chem and bio weapons programs.

[Larry]

It was Bush's intention to lead everyone to believe that Saddam was pursuing nuclear armament; even though he knew at the time he gave the SOTU there was no verifiable proof. Bush chose semantics over being upfront with the American public and he did so because he feared opposition at home as well as abroad from war opponents. He would have garnered far more respect from me had he simply stuck by his conviction that the Iraqi people were better off without Saddam as their leader.

But, he knew that that excuse wouldn't have flown. While the american people may care about the suffering of foreigners, they don't care enough to start a war over it.

So, he decided to whomp up a reason that would work, and then after the fact, fall back to a different reason. (Which, we're now supposed to believe was the real reason. Obviously, anybody who disagrees with the fallback reason is simply a Bush-hater who won't believe anything.)

[fansince62]

larry, kurp....stop referring to the "American People" as though you are either blessed with some unique insight into what that abstraction means, or that you speak as Joe Everyman. Neither happens to the case. I much prefer you keep to the first person singular, make your case, and move on.

[Larry]

Please permit me to phrase things more to your liking.

But, The President knew that that excuse wouldn't have flown. The President believes the american people may care about the suffering of foreigners, they don't care enough to start a war over it.

(Unless you have another theory as to why W thought he needed to feed the public information that was deliberatly slanted in a direction that was calculated to lead people to certain conclusions. In short, my assertion is: The President thought the people wouldn't go to war without a nuclear threat, or he wouldn't have invented one.)

(If it helps you feel better, I believe it was Dick Cheny who's literally said so, about two weeks ago. I don't have the exact quote, but what he said was that the administration never believed Saddam had a nuclear threat; that was simply the reason that, for political reasons, they chose to give the people. He claimed one of the real reasons was to get our troops out of Saudi Arabia.)

[codeorama]

redman, I'm gonna have to disagree with you on the OJ thing. The jury has to convict if there is NO reasonable doubt that the accused did it. There was plenty of reasonable doubt. I'm not saying OJ didn't do it, I'm just saying that no matter if you like Cochran or not, he did his job. The fact that the blood evidence "disappeared" for 24 hours basically ruled out a ton of evidence.
BTW, the BBC did their own investigation and concluded that they had enough evidence (by their law standards) to prove that evidence was planted.
They concluded that OJ's oldest son did it. I'm not sure, but I know that there was enough doubt.

[Larry]

I remember a friend claiming that OJs dog did it.

His barking placed him at the scene, at the time of the murder.
His DNA is all over the crime scene.
He was seen leaving the scene with bloody paws.

:)

[fansince62]

It is a President's job to "mold public opinion". In fact, every politician since Adam attempts to "mold public opinion". You don't know whether "The American People" would not have supported OIF without a nuclear threat. The ones not in the streets carrying ineffective placards certainly supported it absent a threat after the fact.

Thrill as you might at the prospect.......this is not going to have any traction in the long run - your "heartfelt" ethical considerations notwithstanding. But, take heart, this may end in shame for the administration and damage for America yet: this has always been a high stakes gamble to alter the strategic equation in the ME. If this fails in Iraq first and secondarily doesn't wring the concessions from the murdering terrorists in Palestine it is also intended to influnce, then, yes, many dominos will fall. and it will have been a colossal waste of life, treasure and honor. keep your fingers crossed!!!!

[SEF]

Yeah, how dare you people call these liars out? Why do you hate America? :rolleyes:

[Tarhog]

Originally posted by Larry

(If it helps you feel better, I believe it was Dick Cheny who's literally said so, about two weeks ago. I don't have the exact quote, but what he said was that the administration never believed Saddam had a nuclear threat; that was simply the reason that, for political reasons, they chose to give the people. He claimed one of the real reasons was to get our troops out of Saudi Arabia.) [/B]

Larry, I attempted to find Cheney's exact words but without success. However, think you're mischaracterizing what he said. I believe both he and Rumsfeld's primary message has been that the nuclear potential was just a small part of the justification for taking Hussein out.

These repeated discussions drawing conclusions about a situation that is far from static or over are mind-numbing. There is a fundamental difference between promulgating inaccuracies and willfully and knowingly lying. The point fan is making is a valid one. The essential purpose of political office is to persuade. Half-truths are daily fare for ALL politicians. You guys act like a bunch of virgins, astonished after coming to in the local Motel 6 with some biker dudes after a night of too many rum and cokes. I suppose if incontrovertible evidence that Iraq did seek to secure nuclear technology/materials came to light, the argument would then become 'Ok, so Iraq was pursuing this stuff, but the Bush Administration didn't know that for sure at the time and therefore lied to the American people'.

This 'scandal' plays well, largely because our electorate is split 50-50 to begin with, which essentially means there's a huge minority out there pre-disposed to mistrust/dislike the current Administration from the outset. But its really disingenuous and intellectually shallow to take one statement (flawed, misleading, or outright false for that matter) and use it as a springboard to conclude an entire war was unjustified, unwarranted, and unjust. If we eventually find huge stores of chemical and bio weapons, I'd be curious to know if you guys would then be willing to admit that the Bush Administration's overall characterization of Hussein's Iraq (as a dangerous owner and potential supplier of WMDs) was essentially correct. Until we know the final outcome in Iraq, these conversations are mostly a lot of noise, and unfortunately I believe, mostly about 'payback' for perceived wrongful attacks the previous 8 years.

[fansince62]

who said anything about hating America? nice little spin, and par for the course.

out them if you must! but you're not going to find the proverbial "smoking gun". that much should be obvious by now. again......this will all turn on the success of events in the ME. but keep looking....someone just might have that stained dress!

[Larry]

You don't know whether "The American People" would not have supported OIF without a nuclear threat.

For the third time,

No, I don't "know" what the people would have done. All I can conclude is that Geroge W Bush thought they wouldn't. That can be determined from his actions.

(Well, actually, I can see three possible scenarios to explain his actions:
[list=1]
He needed a better reason that the ones he had.
He didn't really need a better reason, he just thought he did.
He's irrational, and he didn't have a good reason to spend two years pressuring our intel agencies to slant the data, and then filter the slanted results some more, so he can present it to the public.
[/list=1]

Now, I tend to doubt reason #2. Although there are many things I dislike about our current President, I don't think he's gotten to where he is now without understanding which sales pitches will and won't work on the voters. In short, I suspect that he is qualified to know how the people will react better than you or I.

(To get back to your "Joe Everyman" complaint: If you'll look at my posts, including the one you're complaining about, I haven't said "the people would've done so-and-so because I say so", I've said they would have done so-and-so because Bush says so." )

(Granted, I made the same argument when Dan signed Deion: "He didn't get to be a millionaire at 30 by overpaying his employees." Past accomplishments do not prove infallibility. OTOH, any of the Bushies here want to claim that, yeah, he spun the data to get us into a war, but he didn't need to: He only thought he did?)

By a similar reasoning, I think we'll find very few people arguing for reason #3.

And, frankly, your statement that he was "moulding public opinion", so that's OK, has got to rank right up there with the folks who claim the Constitution gives the President the power to start a war whenever he feels like it, and that the only purpose they intended for Congress was to decide, after the fact, whether to call it a war.

[Larry]

If we eventually find huge stores of chemical and bio weapons, I'd be curious to know if you guys would then be willing to admit that the Bush Administration's overall characterization of Hussein's Iraq (as a dangerous owner and potential supplier of WMDs) was essentially correct.

I'll try to make your case easier for you by trying to reduce some hypotheticals.

Was this war justified as a case of self-defense?

Unfortunately, the administration chose to sell this war as a war of self-defense. We're now in a position of someone who snuck into his neighbor's house and cilled him, and claimed it was necessary because the dead guy was going to attack us.

The first problem with this claim is, in order to claim self-defense for a murder, the threat has to be immediate. If the Army were to find 200 empty chemical weapons burried in the sand right now, that still wouldn't constitute an immediate threat to the safety of the US. (Weapons burried in the sand aren't an immediate threat.)

There's a difference between "he was attacking me" and "he was starting on a project, where, if everything went the way he wanted, he might have been able to attack me in a few years".

The other problem with the self-defense claim is: It's tough to convince people that the threat was so imminent that no action short of invasion and conquest could have averted disaster, when your country's just spent two years trying to convince people to go along with the idea. (If you had two years to try to bribe the members of the Security Council, to get them to vote in favor of "your" war, then the threat was immediate?)

(His case would look better if he'd just invaded two years ago, without going to the UN. Then, at least, he could claim that he thought an attack was imminent.)

Now, in Bush's defense, if I can pull the "self-defense" analogy even further, there is also precident where someone spends years begging the police to protect them from a threat, and the police don't, and so the terrified stalking victim eventually deals with the problem directly. A case could be made that the US had to act unilaterally, because the folks who should have done so, failed. But, since the people you're making this claim to are the same people you're accusing of ducking their responsibility, you're going to have a tough sell.

Short response: The odds of making a self-defense claim stick, at this point, are just about gone, even if weapons are found.

The "We did it for the Iraqi People" claim.

This claim might be easier to make stick, although there are some problems, like

A great many Iraqis want us to leave, and we aren't.
A great many Iraqis want to have elections, but we won't let them. (And, our stated reason is because we think they'd vote for somebody we don't like.)


The rumors that we had a hand-picked replacement for Saddam, and that it was the convicted felon who's been in charge of slanting the intel to justify the war, doesn't help the "humanitarian" claim. Fortunately, the Bushies never attempted to annoint their replacement (if that was their intention), so even if the rumors are true (not guaranteed), they're likely to remain just rumors.

This justification may have the best chance of producing a happy ending. Unfortunately, I don't think this ending can happen in less than 10 years (and 40 is possible), so I don't think it's going to help anytime soon.

[fansince62]

or maybe the process is irrational to start with because it moves down paths that address the concerns, biases and prejuidices of people who are the most vocal in dissenting. and the dissent is usually insular, emotional and, ultimately, unaccountable.

the Constitution? What value does that document have when the prevailing judicial philosophy is that it should be shaped to existing social mores? As though there was consensus on what these might be. We'll ignore the inherently relativist risk in that position.

As for process: This poor piece of parchment is now victim to whatever interpretive, activist notion the arbiters of goodness have in store for the rest of us. It is also inherently undemocratic. Why do you think the Left's mouthpieces in the Senate are fighting the two Bush Federal judicial appointees so strenuously, defeating any move toward the normal democratic process of taking a vote? Precisely because they think, right or wrong, that these people may one day become SCOTUS members and as such exercise "disproportionate" influence in turning back the "gains" achieved through the courts rather than legislation.

But here's the real beauty...the ends and means pursued by the Left have an inherently self-defeating quality:

- the thought processes themselves don't rest on any firm foundation. The semantics change to suit the ends. Something that can be played by more than one interest group over the span of time.

- the Left's preferred strategy is essentially divisive. It segregates society into a thousand and one aggrieved and perpetrating groups. it's very social taxonomy is corrosive. it shoulders much of the blame for the entrenchment and friction that we wrestle with today. it sews the seeds of resistance by its very logic and practices.

- it is, by all appearances, very forgiving when the ends justify its means. which, of course, frees the rest of us to behave similarly.

- we'll ignore the Left's unrelenting assault on your life, your labors, your freedom, your families' options as it contemplates what it should do with your income.

the linear mindset you suggest hardly encompasses all the possibilities. what the Bushies did was miscalculate the need to placate voices/objectives that detracted from its strategic goal of changing the proverbial "correlation of power" in the ME. it instead allowed itself to become mired in the appearance of placating/considering these process specific (as opposed to security specific) concerns. by doing so, it gave credence to viewpoints it should have simply ignored. it should have pressed with its agenda, suffered the short-run angst and fulisades of the dedicated and permanent opposition. instead, it tried to play both sides in a PR game it can neither play well nor dominate.

as an aside...perhaps it would be of some service to explain what "moulding public opinion" means since this doesn't appear to have sunk in. The President is one among many competing public power nodes. As the executive his role includes a requirement to embody and shape common values. It it his role to frame his vision in a language and argument that wrings assent from the governed. It it his role to initiate action, god help us, even when the bulk of the population resists. In this capacity, he needs to shape/mould the public to achieve sustainable results.

you and your pals want to straight jacket "mould" into the idea that this equates to lying. hardly the case, but not surprising given how the Left itself operates.

[Larry]

(Just to begin, I've got to admit that I'm having a problem understanding what you're saying in most of your post. This isn't some clever, semantic, way of slamming your positions, I'm really saying I don't understand what you're talking about in most of that post. But, I'll try responding to the parts that I think I do understand)


The President is one among many competing public power nodes. As the executive his role includes a requirement to embody and shape common values. It it his role to frame his vision in a language and argument that wrings assent from the governed. It it his role to initiate action, god help us, even when the bulk of the population resists. In this capacity, he needs to shape/mould the public to achieve sustainable results.

I'll agree with you. In fact, on another thread here, (asking what the role of the President is), I'd said that his biggest power is the ability to lead.

I'd rank Kennedy as perhaps the best President of the 20th centure, based simply on his commitment "before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon, and returning him, safely, to the Earth".

If Bush had chosen to attempt to push the people toward invading Iraq through persuasion, I might put him at that same (to me, exhalted) level.

But, the technique he chose to use was to tell us that the reasons we needed to do this were classified (by him), and that, well, "we" had this information that said we had to go right now, but that he couldn't tell us about it.

It's one thing to make your case by citing a document, and chosing to take selected quotes from the document to support your case.

It's another to deliberatly slant a document, then take only selected portions from the document, and then claim that the entire document is like this one piece of spin, but you can't let us see the whole thing.

It makes things different when the guy who's trying to influence the people is also the person who decides which parts the people are allowed to see.

[fansince62]

larry...ok we can agree to cordon off one area: real leaders have a vision and they carry the rest of us, sometimes, along the way.

I think we can both agree that our system, as it is evolving, has not been particularly adept at generating visionary leaders. let's just say Keenedy was a flawed man. there certainly were some visionary qualties. there was also a lot of political expediency and personal excess. it may take 100 years before true perspective can be achieved. others might argue that Reagan was another visioary - one who saw the tides of history and helped precipitate the downfall of one of the greatest, most ruthless forms of totalitarianism in the last 2000 years.

as for the Iraqi nuclear issue the agendas should be pretty clear. The offended want to focus on what they feel was a duplicitous attempt to manipulate public opinion. they argue that the whole war, and therefore the "reasonableness" , "validity" or "morality" of the war balances on the fulcrum of truth/dishonesty for this line item. others feel that this is neither the central issue nor even a central concern.

there are profound differences between the camps currently engaged in "preparing the battlespace" for the next election in what constitutes a threat; what makes for security; the nuances of intelligence; the larger strategic picture of security concerns in the ME and globally. and this small list doesn't even begin to address the heated battles that are sure to follow on domestic issues.

I would also point out that PM Blair persists in asserting that the intelligence he received from Brit intel is quality information. If Bush lied then the condenmation has to stretch across the Atlantic to include the Brit PM and his supporting intel services. I personally don't happen to jump onboard with the conclusions so many of you want to make. What I have read and heard suggests that there was divison of opinion, based largely on nuanced wording, as to the credence/assurance that should have been placed on the information. This is different from a deliberate effort to manipulate data - to lie as is being asserted by the opponents of the war.

In the event, I return to a prediction forwarded earlier. This will have no traction in the long-run: it's inherent in the ambiguity of the intelligence and the wording itself that nothing definitive will arise. Bush's fate is gong to rest on the success/failure of building a peaceful Iraq. Secondarily, he will be judged on his success in promoting peaceful coexitence between the Palestinians and Israelis.

You and I are never going to agree on the war itself. As Art, Tar, myself and others have argued, this was the right thing to do from a strategic and humanitarian pov. You and your fellow travelers are keeping to the narrower grounds that the justifications presented to execute a preemptive war don't rise to the facts of the situation. Whether the Bush adminstration made the correct argument, taking the liberty of speaking for these folks, is irrelevant - to the advocacy we have adopted. You all have made the mistake of assuming that our, or at leat my, position is staked to defending the Bush adminstration. It isn't. I would also argue that we will never agree for another reson - this was inherently a problem of risk management. There is no clear cut right/wrong answer. Our assessments of threats, probabilities, impacts, safeguards apparently vary too widely to admit much consensus.

[TheKurp]

Fan, et al.,

My view of this is a few thousand feet higher than the plane on which you stake your views.

The Electoral College aside, the president is elected by a decision that is collectively handed down by the court of public opinion.

I find it duplicitous on one hand to court favor with the American public by way of soliciting their votes and yet on the other hand, feel a need to "mold" their opinion by presenting selective and biased information for their consumption.

A politician, if he expects to get elected, must "mold" himself into a candidate who's views align with the majority of his future constituents. That's the process of democratic elections. I'm puzzled why you think it's acceptable that once elected, a politician no longer should feel obligated to serve the people, but instead "mold" their opinion in order to service his own agenda.

In other words, if people are adaquately informed enough to vote for a particular person, why can they not then be depended on to have an opinion without having thier thoughts "molded"?

[Larry]

A possible counter-point:

I've heard that a lot of people who study history a lot more than I do (which includes a lot of people) point out that many people's perception that the Civil War was fought over slavery is incorrect. (For example, the Emancipation Proclamation wasn't passed till after the South seceeded from the union. In fact, it might very well not have passed Congress were it not that there weren't any southern Congressmen present: they'd all gone home.)

There's historical evidence that Lincoln's real reason for the war was his belief that allowing states to leave the country would weaken our country. (By preventing our country from being seen as a country, as opposed to a bunch of mini-countries.) That, in effect, he chose to sell the war to the electorate as a crusade to end slavery, because it was a motive they would agree with.

Assuming this were true, was Lincoln justified in selling the people one reason for a war, when his real reason was different?

[luckydevil]

Larry, sometimes we do the right thing for the wrong reasons

[Tarhog]

Originally posted by TheKurp
Fan, et al.,

My view of this is a few thousand feet higher than the plane on which you stake your views.

The Electoral College aside, the president is elected by a decision that is collectively handed down by the court of public opinion.

I find it duplicitous on one hand to court favor with the American public by way of soliciting their votes and yet on the other hand, feel a need to "mold" their opinion by presenting selective and biased information for their consumption.

A politician, if he expects to get elected, must "mold" himself into a candidate who's views align with the majority of his future constituents. That's the process of democratic elections. I'm puzzled why you think it's acceptable that once elected, a politician no longer should feel obligated to serve the people, but instead "mold" their opinion in order to service his own agenda.

In other words, if people are adaquately informed enough to vote for a particular person, why can they not then be depended on to have an opinion without having thier thoughts "molded"?

Kurp...first of all, I respect you as an articulate intelligent individual. But if ever you've made a statement which clearly separates you from myself, fan, a few others, this is it. The moral courage (some might characterize it as arrogance - I do not) which is at the center of a true leader absolutely requires that he make his/her own decisions, then attempt to mold others. The truth is that 'people' ARE NOT adequately informed enough to determine what should/should not occur in the name of this nation. Its a sad, sad fact. I consider myself average in many ways, however, I'm better informed, better read, and more intellectually involved in the events of our day than 90% of our populace. I'm not a snob. I love my fellow man, even the uninformed and disinterested (I'm married to one). However, the average person out there is clueless, and I want a President who has the moral courage to do what they believe is right, whether the majority of Americans agree or not. And I want that in our President, Democrat or Republican. That is leadership. If the American public wants then to punish that individual by throwing them out on their tail in the next election cycle, so be it. But I don't want a poll-sniffing President. The American people, while they have many many incredibly admirable qualities, cannot count long-term vision and patience among them.

[fansince62]

Kurp...you're the one who persists in manipulating words. somehow leadership morphs into "mold" in your lexicon. Tar's point is well taken - particularly in the arena of foreign policy. no one is arguing that you or anyone else whould blindly follow the leaders. but leaders sometimes must shape public consciousness. kennedy pursued his agenda of civil liberties for african americans despite what wide swaths of the population wanted in the early 1960s. much of his language was cloaked in soaring phraseology that was long on vision and short on specifics.

why not settle for the obvious? a President should not lie to the American people. Whether it's about sexual harassment in the White House or nuclear material in Iraq the principle is the same. it's about the va;ues our leaders are expected to adhere to. that is not the same thing as moving the public mind to a vision based on platitudes and poetry - which occurs precisely at the 10,000' altitude you refer to.

[TheKurp]

[i]Originally posted by fansince62

why not settle for the obvious? a President should not lie to the American people. Whether it's about sexual harassment in the White House or nuclear material in Iraq the principle is the same. it's about the va;ues our leaders are expected to adhere to.

Works for me!

[Larry]

But we need bring in more troops and start sniping the snipers and take out the troublemakers instead of arresting them

I remember one scene from McArthur. (The only scene I've seen). It's McA's return to the Phillipenes. A private looks up and sees God (well, almost) walking towards him accross a clearing.

The private comes running up to McA: "Sir? Are you shure you oughtta be out here, sir? I mean, sir, we killed a Japanese sniper right here, not five minutes ago."

McA (walks past him): "Excellent, son. That's exactly what you should do with 'em."


Can't do a lot to prevent gurella attacks. But, you can make shure nobody does one twice.