The Washington Post has published a column by its editorial page editor, Fred Hiatt, about the Rockefeller report on the intelligence the president had at his disposal when critical decisions we being made about going to war in Iraq.
Even Rockefeller’s own report concludes that the major accusations made of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq by the Bush administration were “substantiated by intelligence information.”
Hiatt concludes:
But the phony “Bush lied” story line distracts from the biggest prewar failure: the fact that so much of the intelligence upon which Bush and Rockefeller and everyone else relied turned out to be tragically, catastrophically wrong.
And it trivializes a double dilemma that President Bill Clinton faced before Bush and that President Obama or McCain may well face after: when to act on a threat in the inevitable absence of perfect intelligence and how to mobilize popular support for such action, if deemed essential for national security, in a democracy that will always, and rightly, be reluctant.
H/T: Newsbusters
UPDATE by Pitbull: I think it is vitally important for everyone to understand the depth of the sophistry that has been going on for seven years. We have been witness to a coordinated campaign to dissemble facts and to obscure truth by creating catchy one-line slogans — pretty much the intellectual capacity of a typical liberal — and memes that are nothing but lies. Was there a failure of intelligence gathering? Maybe. Was there hubris in the halls of our national intelligence agencies? Maybe. But to dismiss our war preparation based on the best available evidence at the time, is not only dishonest, it’s dangerous. Maybe if the Dems hadn’t dismantled the CIA, et al in the nineties, the quality of the data would have been better….
Please read the entire editorial below and note my emphases. Remember, this is the Washington Post writing this, not National Review:
‘Bush Lied’? If Only It Were That Simple.
By Fred Hiatt
Monday, June 9, 2008; A17Search the Internet for “Bush Lied” products, and you will find sites that offer more than a thousand designs. The basic “Bush Lied, People Died” bumper sticker is only the beginning.
Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, set out to provide the official foundation for what has become not only a thriving business but, more important, an article of faith among millions of Americans. And in releasing a committee report Thursday, he claimed to have accomplished his mission, though he did not use the L-word.
“In making the case for war, the administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when it was unsubstantiated, contradicted or even nonexistent,” he said.
There’s no question that the administration, and particularly Vice President Cheney, spoke with too much certainty at times and failed to anticipate or prepare the American people for the enormous undertaking in Iraq.
But dive into Rockefeller’s report, in search of where exactly President Bush lied about what his intelligence agencies were telling him about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, and you may be surprised by what you find.
On Iraq’s nuclear weapons program? The president’s statements “were generally substantiated by intelligence community estimates.”
On biological weapons, production capability and those infamous mobile laboratories? The president’s statements “were substantiated by intelligence information.”
On chemical weapons, then? “Substantiated by intelligence information.”
On weapons of mass destruction overall (a separate section of the intelligence committee report)? “Generally substantiated by intelligence information.” Delivery vehicles such as ballistic missiles? “Generally substantiated by available intelligence.” Unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to deliver WMDs? “Generally substantiated by intelligence information.”
As you read through the report, you begin to think maybe you’ve mistakenly picked up the minority dissent. But, no, this is the Rockefeller indictment. So, you think, the smoking gun must appear in the section on Bush’s claims about Saddam Hussein’s alleged ties to terrorism.
But statements regarding Iraq’s support for terrorist groups other than al-Qaeda “were substantiated by intelligence information.” Statements that Iraq provided safe haven for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and other terrorists with ties to al-Qaeda “were substantiated by the intelligence assessments,” and statements regarding Iraq’s contacts with al-Qaeda “were substantiated by intelligence information.” The report is left to complain about “implications” and statements that “left the impression” that those contacts led to substantive Iraqi cooperation.
In the report’s final section, the committee takes issue with Bush’s statements about Saddam Hussein’s intentions and what the future might have held. But was that really a question of misrepresenting intelligence, or was it a question of judgment that politicians are expected to make?
After all, it was not Bush, but Rockefeller, who said in October 2002: “There has been some debate over how ‘imminent’ a threat Iraq poses. I do believe Iraq poses an imminent threat. I also believe after September 11, that question is increasingly outdated. . . . To insist on further evidence could put some of our fellow Americans at risk. Can we afford to take that chance? I do not think we can.”
Rockefeller was reminded of that statement by the committee’s vice chairman, Sen. Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.), who with three other Republican senators filed a minority dissent that includes many other such statements from Democratic senators who had access to the intelligence reports that Bush read. The dissenters assert that they were cut out of the report’s preparation, allowing for a great deal of skewing and partisanship, but that even so, “the reports essentially validate what we have been saying all along: that policymakers’ statements were substantiated by the intelligence.”
Why does it matter, at this late date? The Rockefeller report will not cause a spike in “Bush Lied” mug sales, and the Bond dissent will not lead anyone to scrape the “Bush Lied” bumper sticker off his or her car.
But the phony “Bush lied” story line distracts from the biggest prewar failure: the fact that so much of the intelligence upon which Bush and Rockefeller and everyone else relied turned out to be tragically, catastrophically wrong.
And it trivializes a double dilemma that President Bill Clinton faced before Bush and that President Obama or McCain may well face after: when to act on a threat in the inevitable absence of perfect intelligence and how to mobilize popular support for such action, if deemed essential for national security, in a democracy that will always, and rightly, be reluctant.
For the next president, it may be Iran’s nuclear program, or al-Qaeda sanctuaries in Pakistan, or, more likely, some potential horror that today no one even imagines. When that time comes, there will be plenty of warnings to heed from the Iraq experience, without the need to fictionalize more.
How? Usually false flag attacks you hope to pin on the enemy you wish attack. The Gulf of Tonkin is one example of a false flag attack that our government now admits never happened. Pity about the 58,000 dead GIs.
Sorry Tomas, I can’t agree with you. The Vietnam war was lost here at home not on the battlefield. And in the end, we stopped the expansion of communism in Southeast Asia.
Tomas, have you been hittin’ the Kool-Aid a wee too much lately?
they’ll still blame bush. The dems who voted for the war are playing sgt. shultz politics.
———————
Henry, the vietnam war was lost before it started by bad political decisions starting from the Ike Administration, exacerbated by JFK, and totally bolixed by LBJ who did lie to the congress and the people about the cost and what it would take to win. He was afraid that if he told the truth, then all his great society programs would go down the tubes.
Just read the Pentagon Papers — A Major indictment on the JFK/LBJ admins.
It’s not only the Washington Post, it’s their Editorial Page editor not a columnist from the right like Krauthammer.
Amazing that the lib blogs are discounting the report and the op ed as if the WP is out to help GWB.
why bother arguing with liberals, they can’t handle the truth….
It’s amazing. You’d think that it would it be possible for them to set aside their derangement syndrome for a minute and say “I still don’t like Bush and I hate this war but maybe he isn’t the devil and maybe he thought he was doing the right thing at the time.”
But sadly they can’t.
Didn’t I write above that “catchy one-line slogans [are] pretty much the intellectual capacity of a typical liberal”? I stand by my statement…
I thought Iraq had WMD at the time. But, as evidence duly documented in Takeover, Hubris, and David Kay’s testimony showed, the severity of the threat was doubted by plenty of analysts. Rumsfeld and Cheney were always convinced Iraq was a threat, and instructed their aides to get them RAW intelligence that supported their claim. If you work for a car dealership and your boss says, “In order to make a convincing sales pitch, I need information proving that Hondas are more dangerous than sedans. Give it to me,” you’re going to ignore conflicting data. It’s human nature. You’re right about the CIA’s utter incompetence; it has been for years (the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan suggested dismantling it entirely). But, again, a republic runs the risk of creating “backchannel” intelligence units that have been bugaboos for every administration from Johnson onwards — and far from legislative oversight.
But I never believed Rice’s claim for a second that Saddam possessed nuclear capability — plenty of evidence existed in 2002 and 2003 showed it was probably untrue.
Finally, you don’t go to war when you can’t plan the reconstruction.
T.W. Duke: Sure glad guys who think the way you do aren’t running our country, yet. You just don’t get it, do you! As the leader of this country after the attacks of 9/11, Bush, based on the information provided to him, made what he thought was the most prudent move to protect us. He was aggressive and bold, making very painful decisions that were focused on protecting all 300 million of us, not just the few that may have had to go in harms way to guard our nation. The Democrats are cowards, and won’t lift a finger to defend us until it is absolutely too late. Also, I happen to know how Intelligence decision-making works, and it isn’t as cut and dry as you want it to be. Every intelligence assessment has pro and con analysts involved. The concensus is what usually goes forward, with some mentioning of possible alternatives. So, you’re way off on your lame observation that somehow the Administration went against the tide in the intelligence community. I’ll let you in on another not-so-secret fact, the government is packed with people who think just like you, i.e., liberals and leftists. Those folks will ignore reporting that goes against their preconceived political notions, and put out biased analysis that ultimately hurts our country. Certain members of the Bush team were aware of that, and fought mightily to push back – they had to in order to defend this country. Two good books that detail the resistance in our government, “Sabotage” (Scarborough) and “Shadow Warriors” (Timmerman) – read’m, get the facts, otherwise, you basically don’t know what the f… you’re talking about. Stinking liberals are gutless wonders who’ll sell this country down the road.
First there is the mystery why President Kennedy picked far away Vietnam and not nearby Cuba to stop communism.
Then there is Kennedy’s decision to allow the assassination of the Diem brothers.
Well Kennedy learned his Bay of Pigs lesson well it is far easier to betray an ally than rid oneself of an enemy.
Now it seems probably that Obama wishes to do the same, betray the present governments of Iraq and Colombia.
It is the Russian sled trick, the wolves chase you. So it seems easiest, instead of fighting the wolves, for you to sacrifice your loyal horses one by one by hamstringing them and cutting them loose to feed the wolves …
until you have no horses left.
However with that done
the wolves are still there.
Then what do you do to save yourself!!!!!!!!!!
Mambi, I’m wounded! Here I wrote wanting to offend no one and now I gotta wipe spittle from my glasses. But a few rebuttals are in order:
The Democrats are cowards, and won’t lift a finger to defend us until it is absolutely too late
Which is why most of the Senate and House Democrats voted in favor of aggressive action against Al Qaeda in 2001 and gave the president authority to use any means necessary to get Saddam to rescind WMD programs in 2002.
Every intelligence assessment has pro and con analysts involved. The concensus is what usually goes forward, with some mentioning of possible alternatives.
Precisely my point. A lot of ambiguity existed.
What Bush should have done at the time: allow the inspections to call Saddam’s bluff, and they would have. Bush would have kept my guarded support. At the time I thought, “Why is he in such a bloody hurry?” Then I remembered, “Oh, right, the midterm elections in November.”
Finally, you need to go back to school if you think I’m a liberal for opposing the war. But it should delight you to know that guys like you have run the country, in both parties, for a long time now, and you’re welcome to it. Useful fictions keep us going.
TWD: I can tell it’s hopeless, but here goes.
“Which is why most of the Senate and House Democrats voted in favor of aggressive action against Al Qaeda in 2001…”
What the hell were they going to do, at least the sane ones – vote against striking back at the organization that just attacked us? They are slimey politicians, and much of their aggressive “grandstanding” was for political reasons, not because they are tough guys. They do that, then pull back when we need to win. Does JFK/Democrats and the Bay of Pigs ring a bell? Talked tough during the campaign, approved the invasion, but then gutted the plan because he was afraid of the USSR and “world opinion.” GUTLESS wonders, even today!
“Why is he in such a bloody hurry?”
Yea, lets just sit and wait til they plaster us, then react. That’s a chicken-shit argument, and not the leadership I’d want after what I saw on 9/11.
“A lot of ambiguity existed.”
A leader is paid to lead, not sit around and wring his hands. He received information and acted on that information, caveats and all. Once again, given the attacks of 9/11, Bush acted to defend this country, not go hide in a corner waiting for something good to come our way.
“Useful fictions keep us going.”
It certainly keeps you going. Cognitive dissonance comes to mind – I see you prefer to ignore the facts and live in la-la land. The point Henry made with the article is that even a stinking liberal newspaper now admits that Bush had some tough choices and the Democrats are duplicitous rats.
The NYT and Washington Post editorial pages (especially the latter) both supported the invasion. Judith Miller was a constant presence on The NYT’s front page, pushing the WMD case. If anything, the newspapers weren’t skeptical enough.
Plenty of evidence showed that Saddam and Al-Qaeda were not actively collaborating. That Al-Zarqarwi hid in Iraq and Saddam rewarded monetarily the families of suicide bombers doesn’t suggest an operational relationship. This was known then. B
But, as you’ve shown by your posts, you actually trust your government, which, frankly, astonishes me, after 48 years of perfidy, starting with – you’re right on this point – Bay of Pigs.
I suspect you would have approved an invasion of Iraq, with or without the events of 9-11, as a proxy for Cuba. It was brutal for my parents and grandparents to accept that the United States doesn’t give a damn about el exilio: embargoes, travel bans, and vitriol are sprinkled on us to keep us distracted and vote for the latest shill coming to hustle you. Es un engaño, as Agustin Tamargo realized near the end of his life.
My support for action to take out Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11. The president went to the U.N in early 2003 and read a long list of transgressions committed by Saddam’s regime. Possible WMD programs were just one of those reasons. Among the others were the continuing violations with regards to the no-fly zones, the attempted assassination of a former U.S. president, the ongoing refusal to have weapons inspections. It’s not like Saddam had been an eagle scout before the Gulf war either. The world wants the U.S. to intervene in some countries but not in others. They want to beat our country up when we act and when we don’t act. It’s all bullshit.
If all these monday-morning quarterbacks had their way we’d go back in time, re-install Saddam and get the “rape rooms” back up and running in no time.
You didn’t mention that CNN was in the tank for Saddam. Sound familiar?
TWD: You’re wrong again. NO, I couldn’t support a war against Iraq if there hadn’t been a 9/11. The rest of your argument continues to be lame; it’s not even worth trying to point out the weakness in it. Keep your head buried in the sand, quite obviously, it makes you feel secure, because you don’t have to deal with reality. ‘Nough said.
The president went to the U.N in early 2003 and read a long list of transgressions committed by Saddam’s regime
You didn’t mention the years of Western perfidy inflicted on the Kurds, starting with the Treaty of Sykes-Picot, continuing through Kissinger’s cynical attempts in the mid seventies to woo them into rebelling against Saddam (he took the hint and crushed them) and the Anfal campaign in 1988, to Bush’s abandoment of them in 1991.
This is why I (for a time) supported the war in the early part of 2003 — I saw it as a redress of grievances. I was under no illusions about Saddam. Had Al Gore been elected president, we might have confronted Saddam over UN violations too, as his predecessor did. But the cynical attempts by the administration to use WMD as a pretext for war, and then, shockingly, lacking any means to set up the civilian authority that would create the magic flowering of democracy (the adminstration wasn’t interested), soured me sometime in July 2003. I was wrong. Call me weak-kneed. I can afford it: I have nothing at stake. The ones who have little at stake in blood often shout the loudest.
Mambi, when you learn to argue like a man of sense and good will — as Henry is — instead of a shill enfeebled by cliches I’ll address you.
I don’t claim to be an expert on Iraqi of Kurdish history but I know that the President GHW Bush abandoned the Kurds. The problem with your premise is that you hold succeeding administrations responsible for what their predecessors did. That’s unfair. Our system of government is not perfect and the lack of continuity in policies can be one of the downsides to it but it can also be an upside. A redress of grievances as you state. But it’s a little disingenuous to say you were for it at the time and against it now or that it was a mistake. War sucks. War is hard. War means loss of life. Despite the origins of the war, its here and we have to live with it. I fully expect Barack Obama to renege on his promise for immediate withdrawal if elected. It’s simply not a viable option and he’s lying when he says he’ll do it. He’ll start backing away from it and hedging just like he backed away from the “unconditional meetings” with rogue dictators flub. And the media will applaud him for being open-minded and pragmatic instead of foolish and/or cynical.
You’re right about Obama’s real intentions. I’ll take full credit for persuading you then…
This is an excellent response to Hiatt. Please note that Yglesias spares no one, not Obama, HRC, nor McCain. The key portion:
Meanwhile, the war sales pitch was deeply dishonest. No fair-minded person could possibly deny that the overall effect of the way the administration talked about Iraq was designed to get people to believe that there was a short-term threat that Saddam Hussein would transfer a nuclear weapon to al-Qaeda for use against the United States of America. It’s equally clear that this was not supported by the evidence. But more to the point, it’s perfectly clear that the whole pitch was made in bad faith. The administration had a different, more nuanced and more medium-term set of concerns about Iraq. It believed that preventive war was the best way to deal with those concerns. And it also believed, correctly I think, that the public would not support an action of pure “anticipatory self-defense.” Thus they took bits and pieces of real intelligence plus some very flimsy stuff plus some made up stuff plus some rhetorical excess and they weaved their dishonest tapestry.