Centerfield

Is there really any point in bringing this up again? Tully will soon, I'm sure, post the litany of quotes from previous administration officials and foreign government officials who believed for many, many years that Saddam was continuing to develop WMD. If we're concerned about "admitting mistakes", rather than partisan attacks, why is Bill Clinton railing against President Bush instead of George Tenet, whom he appointed as director of CIA?

And how do you know he isn't angry about it? Or that he hasn't imposed consequences on anybody? Is Ahmed Chalabi in power in Iraq right now? Nope. That's a consequence. I doubt it's the only one.

In fact, I know it's not the only one. Who's head of the CIA right now? George Tenet? Nope! He's been replaced. And his replacement is busy trying to crack down on the analysts who have been politicizing intelligence analysis. But that's hard to do, because everybody "feels" that the President mislead them. If you want consequences, then support Porter Goss' revamping of the CIA.

And remember, it took us quite some time to be certain, after the war began, that there for certain were not any WMD. And we still don't know for absolute certain that there never were; they could have been shipped to Syria before the war started.

Can I feel misled? I feel misled by the media and the Democrats who ignored what the President, the Vice-President, and his cabinet said about why we were going to war, and why the Congress voted to authorize him to do so. Can the media step up and say, we misled you when we claimed that the President said this was all about WMD and an "imminent threat", when the President in fact said we had to take action BEFORE the threat became imminent?

"Perhaps" the President was not deliberately misleading? Show me some solid evidence that the President knew there were no WMD. In fact, all the recent media reports, when you read beyond the anti-Bush headlines, acknowledge that pretty much all the intelligence reports going to the President were certain that there were WMD. And that the intelligence reports released to Congress did contain dissenting views on the issue, though much in the minority of analysts, and the Congress still voted to authorize war.

Posted by: PatHMV at November 14, 2005 09:11 PM

There were consequences.
CIA Director George Tenet got the Presidential Medal of Freedom :-}

Posted by: Bob J Young at November 14, 2005 10:02 PM

It was that or a gold watch, Bob! :-)

I'll pass on the quotes, as anyone capable of getting that point without another trip up the Egyptian river has already gotten it long since. And those who keep making that river trip will NEVER get the point, simply because they don't want to. Too much cognitive dissonance involved. But I WILL drag up an old post from a long time back....

Clarke, WMD's, and the Aspirin Factory

Remember al-Shifa, folks? So let's say those magic words that throw the current situation into stark relief. "Double Standard." It's not about the facts. It's about the partisanship. It's about pin-the-tail-on-the-demon. And any pin that sticks is acceptable, so new pins will be tried endlessly in the search for one that sticks.

In the roar of all the poli-demonization and zealotry, I keep coming back to one question that won't go away. What would the world be like today had the United States not invaded Iraq?

Posted by: Tully at November 14, 2005 10:27 PM

The reason I don't think the Bush Administration made it up out of whole cloth is that I don't think they would have wanted to be in a position they are now. I think they believed there were some WMD's, and they exaggerated a bit to make it seem an even bigger problem than it was, figuring that once they found some WMD's, no one would complain about the relative quantities. I think they were as shocked as everyone that there were no WMD's at all.

The reason I'm bringing this up again is that it continues to be of general interest, and that the message that "Bush misled the public" is starting to become a majority position. In fact, as much as I don't link Bush, I think the public is souring on him even more than I have. To regain people's confidence, Bush should be more forthright about his own mistakes.

Posted by: rickheller at November 14, 2005 10:31 PM

Maybe a bit of self-flagellation, too? Will that satisfy you? The President has admitted that we didn't find the WMD that EVERYBODY thought were there. If he wasted all his time admitting "mistakes" that you claim were made, that wouldn't satisfy the partisan hack critics. They'd say, "see, even HE admits it!"

And what mistakes, exactly, do you want him to admit to, in this context? "I'm sorry, I relied on the CIA to do their job and not send puerile, self-important former ambassadors on nepostically arranged 'fact-finding' journeys?" "I'm sorry, I trusted the CIA director and the prior assessments of Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Madeline Albright, etc., etc. when I made the case to Congress for our national policy?"

You believe the President "exaggerated a bit". You don't say exactly about what. You don't quote him. Your assertion about exaggeration is already backing away from your original statement that "perhaps" the President was not deliberately misleading us.

Nobody fabricated evidence of WMD after we got there to try to cover up "mistakes". The President has been completely honest that we didn't find what EVERYBODY thought was there. Why isn't that enough for you? What else matters? He's appointed a new CIA director who is trying hard to make significant institutional changes. Isn't doing something more important than wasting time whining about "mistakes"?

And for the record, some WMD were, in fact, found. Mostly small caches of artillery shells with some gas left in them, nothing like what the CIA said was there beforehand.

Posted by: PatHMV at November 14, 2005 10:44 PM

I see I'm early enough to get in a preemptive strike. "Bush lied, people died"

Posted by: Dennis at November 14, 2005 11:54 PM

And for the record, some WMD were, in fact, found. Mostly small caches of artillery shells with some gas left in them, nothing like what the CIA said was there beforehand.

But, Pat, that's not what most people heard. They heard "Iraq may have WMDs" and then they heard W say "we dare not wait for a mushroom cloud" and they thought Oh my God! Saddam's gonna nuke us! WE GOTTA INVADE RIGHT NOW!

Posted by: Blue Jean at November 15, 2005 12:05 AM

Dennis;
I'm supposed to say that as a premptive strike.

Rick;
This quote surprises me

The reason I'm bringing this up again is that it continues to be of general interest, and that the message that "Bush misled the public" is starting to become a majority position. In fact, as much as I don't link Bush, I think the public is souring on him even more than I have.

Am I hearing you correctly. Because the polls are more in sync with the theme of being "mislead" it makes it more important if not more true. Isn't that just the opposite of what happened in the run up to the war; Bush and many other officials were convinced there were WMD's and this was "more true" because the polls concurred.

Please reassure that you're not going down that road, particularly given the profession you are entering.

Finally, I know this is a question no one can really answer but would we care as much if it really had been "Mission Accomplished" some two years ago.

Posted by: c3 at November 15, 2005 12:05 AM

That's a good point, Chris. If this had been over within a few months, with few deaths, and little drain on the treasury, then whether or not the WMDs were actually nukes would have mattered far less, at least to most people.

Posted by: Blue Jean at November 15, 2005 12:19 AM

What would the world be like today had the United States not invaded Iraq?

I'd like to take a stab at that what if question.

Compared to the upheaval we are watching now it would have been relatively calm throughout the mideast. Roughly 50,000 people would still be alive. World oil prices would have been 25% lower than present. The present headcount of jihadists in the world would have been half of what it is. The openly bad relations we have with several countries would be a simple undercurrent. The current deficeit would have been less than half of what it is now. Bush's poll numbers would be higher than 50% and social security *might* stand a chance in hell of being addressed realistically. Iran would not be as beligerent as it is. We would be living in constant fear that the intelligence was right.

Unless you mean:

What would the world be like (twenty years from now) had the United States not invaded Iraq?

Then I would have something entirely different to say.

Posted by: Dennis at November 15, 2005 02:36 AM

I actually agree with most of what Dennis says above. However...

I would also add that Qaddaffi likely would not have ended either his open support for jihadist terrorist organizations or his quest to acquire nuclear weapons. The real impact there would be a state sanctuary for terrorist organizations and a huge funding loophole in the effort to reduce/eliminate financing of terrorism.

Musharraf's regime in Pakistan might never have engaged in the ISI crackdown that started in 2003 and ultimately led to two attempts against his life by early 2004. The real impact there is hard to gauge-- at best, even more support to terorrist organizations from an Islamabad team that wouldn't have gotten into the anti-jihadist fight; at worst, AQ Khan could have gone unpunished and might even now be selling his nuclear wares to Libya, North Korea, and Iran in a greater degree than we already suspect he got away with.

Likewise in Saudi Arabia, the 2004 "interlude" wherein Saudi security forces got into more than a dozen firefights with Islamist jihadists would never have taken place-- those were an indication of Riyadh's own (albeit brief and minor) crackdown on the jihadists. It's hard to say how much jihadist financing was shut down during this time period, or how much has since resumed (although indications are that it is resuming).

Now long term, if we fail to subdue the insurgency in Iraq, the pendulum may move in the other direction. As the Saudi Arabia case study suggests (and Iran/Syria clearly demonstrate) what gains we achieved in clamping down on terrorist financing and organizational support through our destruction of the Saddam Hussein regime can go (and, in some cases, has already gone) in the other direction as we demonstrate our own inability to overcome the insurgency and win the war of occupation. Conversely, if we do succeed in Iraq-- and success means the installation of a democratically-elected constitutionally-liberal government-- then the entire calculus changes in the Middle East.

And that's precisely why the War in Iraq is so important to American strategic interests, even if it means having to pass up the all-too-popular opportunity to score easy political points by trashing the War as purely a function of President George W. Bush and neocon hubris.

Posted by: Bobby at November 15, 2005 08:43 AM

That's a rosy scenario, but I'm not nearly that optimistic, Dennis. Take those 50K people. Sanctions would likely have collapsed by now, given the extra time for Saddam's extensive (and apparently effective) bribery to work. At Saddam's minimum estimated average rate of killing his own people, about 100K Kurds and Shia could be expected to have died in the last 30 months in Iraq from regime executions and genocide alone. The Marsh Arabs of Iraq would be extinct, as would the marshes themselves. And we still wouldn't know if there were Iraqi WMD's or not--we only really have that certain knowledge today because we invaded.

If the sanctions had collapsed, it's a fair bet that Saddam's chem weapons production would promptly have resumed at minimum, and his conventional arms purchases would have skyrocketed (oops, a pun). If the sanctions had continued we don't know how long he would have stayed in "suspended" production mode, but it wouldn't have taken Iraq a month to resume chem weapon production, even with the sanctions. It's not rocket science (more like sophomore chem) and no nuclear reactor is required. And Bush'd be getting slammed by the left for starving the poor Iraqi children through sanctions, while Saddam merrily spent the cash for his own purposes, as he did all along.

We'd still be in Afghanistan, and Islamic terrorists would be going after us there rather than Iraq. And maybe here at home as well. There is no way to know where else we might have directed focused attacks at terrorists, but that we would have done so seems certain. Both Iran and Iraq would still be openly sponsoring and sheltering terrorists. Iran might indeed be less belligerent with our military not tied down in Iraq--or maybe not, as our troops were tied down in the area by containment policies to some extent anyway. And they would have been bigger targets, as they would have been more concentrated with less control of their immediate areas, dependent on their "host" nations for security. Sitting ducks, albeit ducks with big, nasty, sharp, pointy teeth.

Libya would still have a nuclear weapons program. Lebanon would still be occupied by Syria. I sincerely doubt if oil would be much less at all--Chinese and Indian demand would still be driving the oil markets, the hurricanes would still have beat up the Gulf of Mexico platforms and the coastal refineries, and Chavez would still be in office in Venezuala, kissing up to Castro.

The French, Russians, and Germans would still be selling conventional arms to Iraq through third parties--or directly. (Iran and Iraq might have resumed their eternal war--I'm not sure whether we would count that one as a plus or a minus.) Our deficit would be a bit less, but nowhere near half-of-current less. Most of that deficit spending was domestic, and the troops woul still be getting their paychecks, and still be doing something somewhere. Totally eliminating the military portion for Iraq would knock it down about a quarter over those two years, and there's no guarantee it might not have ended up funding a more robust presence in Afghanistan.

The jihadis would still be slaughtering innocents in the name of bringing on the new Caliphate, and we don't know at what scale they'd be doing it.

Even accounting for my professional cynicism, I don't think it would be rosy at all. Different, but not better.

Posted by: Tully at November 15, 2005 08:45 AM

I think Bush and his admin had a much higher level of responsibility for the faulty intelligence than "everyone" else who believed the intelligence, because he was the one who acted upon it by launching an invasion. Bush and his admin made a list, but did they check it twice, or were they impatient and hot to go? My gut tells me they were hot to go. It alwasy did. And I freely admit that it's just an impression. But there were a lot of people like me saying we could afford to slow down a little bit, especially because we HAD to know that our intelligence was incomplete, in large part due to the period after which inspections ceased, during which we were unsure what had gone on inside Iraq.

If we had not invaded when we did, this does NOT preclude invading at some later point. It also does not preclude continuing to keep up the pressure, assess the situation on the ground more closely, and come up with a much better and more detailed plan for an invasion if it came to that.

I've made the analogy elsewhere that if you accept 9/11 as the openiong move in the war on terror (I argue that everything prior was just foreplay, and the fact that Bush declared this war after 9/11 supports this view), then the act of invading Iraq was the equivalent of bringing out your queen on the 3rd or 4th move of a chess game.

OK, on to dogs playing Poker. Just because you're dealt a pair of kings doesn't mean it's OK to wag your tail. Because winning the hand is not the ultimate goal. The short-term goal is to get the most money from the hand being played, and the long-term goal is get all the money. IMO, if you accept the notion that the US however powerful, still must act on the basis of its finite resources, then you want a clever, cagey poker player as President, one who has studied and has deep appreciation for the virtues and pitfalls of diplomacy.

Quite honestly, we all know that we have no way of knowing where any of the paths not taken would have led us. Sometimes being straightforward and very aggressive about what you want, like Bush was, is a good strategy. My gut tells me could have done much better than collecting the antes when everyone else folded.

Posted by: bk at November 15, 2005 09:17 AM

My position hasn't changed from what it was a year ago, so I'm not going down any new road. I feel misled, and I think the Bush Administration was misled, by Iraqi exiles. But I have lost what confidence I originally had in them (I never voted for Bush, but I originally though he had a more than competent national security team).

I do think the public's view of Bush is changing. And I think it's mostly because of Hurricane Katrina. Obviously, a hurricane has nothing to do with the Iraq War, but people lost confidence in Bush due to the hurricane, and are retroactively applying it to his actions about the war (just as 9/11 shifted the public's perception of the danger Saddam posed)

At this moment, I wish we had a parliamentary system, and Bush could be challenged from within his party--as Thatcher once was. I'd like to see him replaced by McCain, but even Lugar would do.

Posted by: rickheller at November 15, 2005 09:20 AM

On the topic of misleading prior to the war, it is important to distinguish between lying about WMD and lying about evidence for WMD. An analogy to another field would be helpful, albeit with imperfect recollection of specific facts. A couple decades ago, there was a large scale clinical study to determine if lumpectomy was as effective as mastectomy for treating breast cancer. One of the directors at one of the centers for this study decided to use his position to influence the result of the study toward lumpectomy being as effective, a belief which turned out to be correct based on untainted trials. Now the correctness of his belief did not justify his sleight of hand in trying to nudge the results of the experiments at his center to point to that conclusion.

Such is the case with Bush's claim about WMD. While it is true that others thought Saddam did have the weapons, that only means that Bush did not lie in claiming to believe that the weapons were there. However, Bush went further in bringing evidence that the weapons were there, such as the aluminum tubes were part of a uranium centrifuge system rather than for conventional rockets. Even if Saddam actually did turn out to have WMD, claims like the aluminum tubes claim would have been no more justifiable than the cancer study director who skewed the experiments at his center to point to an ultimately true conclusion.

The issue of honesty in making the case for war is not just idle fighting past wars. Recently, our intelligence forces have found an Iranian laptop computer with "the goods" on Iran's nuclear program. Ordinarily, this would be a slam dunk as far as proving that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, but due to Bush's demonstrated mendacity, other nations are dubious that this computer is genuinely from Iran as opposed to a CIA plant.

Posted by: Scott Smith at November 15, 2005 09:51 AM

World oil prices would have been 25% lower than present.

World oil prices are determined on a market that is influenced by global supply and global demand. The demand side is mostly influenced by growth in China and India, which has nothing to do with the Iraq War. Supply is somewhat affected due to the effect of the war on production within Iraq and I highly doubt that it had any effect on production elsewhere (unless anyone has any hard evidence the suggests otherwise). However, there is oil coming out of Iraq and if I recall correctly, it is roughly the amount that was coming out before the war. Therefore, the notion that the war had any appreciable effect on oil prices is suspect, and the claim that it caused a 33% increase is nonsense.

The present headcount of jihadists in the world would have been half of what it is.

I would hesitate to quantify the effect of the war on jihadi recruitment. Some of them are probably would have been inclined towards jihad in the absence of a war, but the war provided them an address to go to. Others were motivated by the war. The ratio is anyone's guess.

Posted by: Scott Smith at November 15, 2005 10:16 AM

"I hope this clears the air a bit. It is precisely because the Bush Administration has been so reluctant to admit they blew it on the WMD's that skeptics think it all went according to plan, i.e. that the administration made up a cock-and-bull story and sold it to an uncritical press."

I don't agree with this assessment at all.... The Democrats with the MSM have constantly repeated the 'Bush Lied' mantra for over 2 years, that is what is causing the 'shift in perception', especially since Bush wasn't actively showing the claims to be the lies that they are.

"Compared to the upheaval we are watching now it would have been relatively calm throughout the mideast. Roughly 50,000 people would still be alive. World oil prices would have been 25% lower than present. The present headcount of jihadists in the world would have been half of what it is. The openly bad relations we have with several countries would be a simple undercurrent. The current deficeit would have been less than half of what it is now. Bush's poll numbers would be higher than 50% and social security *might* stand a chance in hell of being addressed realistically. Iran would not be as beligerent as it is. We would be living in constant fear that the intelligence was right."

I don't think that all of the upheavel is a bad thing, Syria has pulled out of Lebanon, Libya has given up it's nuclear program, Iraq is on it's way towards becoming a Democracy. They have had several votes now, interim government, choosing a government system and writing a constitution - they had a higher voter turnout at the threat of being blown up than we do, even on a hotly contested presidential election. What does that tell you?

As for the 50,000 people being alive, there might be different people dead but Saddam 'regularily' killed civilians during his regime so you really don't know how many 'more' people would be alive or if it would actually be less people alive.

As others have posted, oil prices are determined aren't being determined by Iraq. They are being determined by the growth of India and China and the required oil for that growth and by the lack of refineries here at home along with not enough drilling of our own oil.

We don't have any idea what the 'jihadist' number would be, just because they wouldn't have been as 'overt' doesn't mean that they wouldn't have existed.

The openly bad relations only brought a 'cancer' to light, I would much rather know my enemies than to have them working against me without my knowledge. How is this a bad thing? We have found out that Russia and France were actively working against us for their own gain.

Social Security would have been blocked by Dems attacking it just because they wouldn't have wanted Bush to get any credit for anything at all. This is an issue that I really don't understand... Why wouldn't the Dems want the 'average Joe' to have some ownership over his retirement? Knowing that this would help the working poor the most, why are they against this? It would actually give the working poor a chance to 'will some of the money they paid into retirement' to their children and increase the chances of it being used to move each succeeding family further up the ladder.

Is it better to know what the enemy is up to, even if they are beligerant than to allow them to 'lie' to us by acting respectful and really building up a nuke program that could then one day provide a mushroom cloud over one of our cities?

Posted by: debsay at November 15, 2005 10:57 AM

That some dems also believed Iraq possessed WMD is irrelevant. For myself, I believed that Iraq may have had small quantities of WMD, but I still did not support the invasion.

The issue is whether Bush intentionally misled Americans into believing Iraq posed a much greater threat than demonstrated by the available and credible evidence, in order to push for a war for a number of reasons, other than national security.

First of all, within the State department, Pentagon, and the CIA, there was nothing like a consensus that Iraq amounted to a "grave and gathering" threat. Richard Clarke, for example, charged that the President urged his staff to unduly focus on Iraq after 9/11.

Second, there is a large amount of evidence that Bush was gunning for Iraq from the beginning of his Presidency. Paul O'Neil in his book said that the Admin had discussed this matter at his first meeting. The official policy of Cheney and Bush I since 1991 was regime change.

Third, Scott Ritter, former UNSCOM weapons inspector declared that 90% of the WMD in Iraq had been accounted for and destroyed. Of the remaining biological and chemical weapons, the shelf-life of over half had expired.

Fourth, the CIA intelligence on WMD was stale, since the CIA had not been inside Iraq since the end of the first gulf war.

Fifth, Ahmad Chalabi was never the most credible fiqure around. He most certainly had an axe to grind with Saddam and had ambitions of his own that tainted his information.

Sixth, the downing street memo, explicity states that the Bush admin was looking for evidence in order to mount a war.

The evidence points to dliberate deception.

Posted by: Joboat at November 15, 2005 11:18 AM

Yes Tully, it was painted with my extra rosy brush. It only works on the back side of the canvas.

The 50K number was worked backwards from the 100K+ numbers I have seen put out there. I'm not an oil trader, but to say the war had no effect on oil prices is hard to believe. Greed and fear rule the marketplace. The jihadist quota is purely guesswork of course, but Iraq does seem to be bringing a lot of types out of the woodwork I wouldn't normally expect to see. Its all conjecture and butterflies in Brazil.

I tried to cover the rest with "we would be living in constant fear".

The overall point I was trying to make without being very clear about it is that the real rewards to be reaped by our Iraq action are mostly long term. But immediacy has become the American motto. Whatever good that has come in 2 1/2 years is not enough for the populace. They expect more faster.

Posted by: Dennis at November 15, 2005 11:21 AM

Is it better to know what the enemy is up to, even if they are beligerant than to allow them to 'lie' to us by acting respectful and really building up a nuke program that could then one day provide a mushroom cloud over one of our cities?

It's definitely better to know. If you know the truth about what's going on, you don't make stupid half-assed mistakes.

Of course, that's what our spies are supposed to be for, too bad they were so far off on Iraq. It sure would have been a lot better for the U.S. if our spies had been right, and Bush had acted on accurate intelligence.

And that points at the giant downside here, doesn't it? The next time a US Sec. of State goes before the UN with satellite photos, and the next time a President tells us that sound evidence shows we must act right away, who's going to believe us?

The reasonable possibilty that Bush actually believed this intelligence and accepted it at face value doesn't change the fact that he turned out to be full of sh!t when he relied on it as the rationale for a costly invasion. The US's credibility has been substantially damaged, on Bush's watch. He made the call to act on it, he's the commander in chief, and the bucks stops with him. It has to...

A lot of Bush's defenders are trafficking the notion that "everyone else" accepted the intelligence. My recollection is that Bush's view was that whatever uncertainty existed was reason to invade, while many others counseled that whatever uncertainty existed was reason to keep up the diplomatic pressure, try to get additional inspections, and NOT to invade at the time Bush said that we had to. Does this ring a bell? Anyone?

Posted by: bk at November 15, 2005 11:31 AM

And I forgot. About the deficeit. I was figureing in the fact that Bush seems to be trying to buy off the Congress by letting them spend wildly. It's not working so well.

Posted by: Dennis at November 15, 2005 11:40 AM

Richard Clarke still believes (and has so stated under oath) that al-Shifa was a chem-weap factory controlled by bin Laden producing WMD's for Saddam. I do love irony.

The "deliberate deception" argument relies entirely on the fantastic premise that the upper-echelon Bush administration somehow had better intel and better intel interpretation skills than its own intel community, and the world intel community. Anyone buying into those claims had better go check out the bipartisan Robb-Silberman Report, the bipartisan Senate Select Intelligence Committee Report, and the British Butler Report.

The Commission found no evidence of political pressure to influence the Intelligence Community's pre-war assessments of Iraq's weapons programs. As we discuss in detail in the body of our report, analysts universally asserted that in no instance did political pressure cause them to skew or alter any of their analytical judgments. We conclude that it was the paucity of intelligence and poor analytical tradecraft, rather than political pressure, that produced the inaccurate pre-war intelligence assessments. --Robb/Silberman

But articles of faith are rarely shaken by inconvenient facts.

Posted by: Tully at November 15, 2005 11:42 AM

The overall point I was trying to make without being very clear about it is that the real rewards to be reaped by our Iraq action are mostly long term. But immediacy has become the American motto. Whatever good that has come in 2 1/2 years is not enough for the populace. They expect more faster.

Absolutely. Bruce Willis woulda wrapped it up in two hours, three with commercial interruptions.

Posted by: Tully at November 15, 2005 12:13 PM

I think Bush and his admin had a much higher level of responsibility for the faulty intelligence than "everyone" else who believed the intelligence, because he was the one who acted upon it by launching an invasion.

Brian; If I collaborate with you and a few other guys on how and why we need to kill a guy. And you all agree but I plan our the method and pull the trigger, I think you still can be prosecuted as an accomplise. Posted by: c3 at November 15, 2005 03:30 PM

Right. But if we all only agree that a guy is a problem, and you go ahead and kill him, then I'm just some guy that acknowledged that there was a problem. You're a murderer.

And if you briefed me on info that suggested murder was the only solution, and I based my approval on that info, and you assured me that it was reliable, and then it turned out the info was wrong, I'm coming at you for talking out your @ss.

Posted by: bk at November 15, 2005 04:24 PM

But Brian, the same reports Tully cited showed that the National Intelligence Estimate given to Congress had more cautions and disclaimers about possible alternative points of view than did the actual Presidential Daily Briefings. So what Congress saw was actually more equivocal (relatively speaking) than what the President himself was seeing.

As to the analogy, if you agree that I should murder the guy if I have the chance, and you buy me the bullets and the get away car, then you are a murder right along with me.

Posted by: PatHMV at November 15, 2005 05:05 PM

Your analogy doesn't hold up, yet you cling to it.

The Dems in Congress and in the White House were making the case and agreeing with the GOP on the solution long before Bush came to office. They were affirming it both before and after he came to office. Then he belled the cat, and they started backpedalling like mobsters caught on tape in front of a grand jury. "No, no! When we said take him out we meant in tiddly-winks, not literally!"

And now they want a PR do-over, with scapegoat and fall guy. Pin-the-tail-on-the-demon for partisan political purposes. Throw bones to the far left. Talk the anti-war talk without actually walking the anti-war walk. Just pile up the tinder, and prep the torches. Regardless of the facts. Regardless of the damage to the country, or to the Iraqi people. Despicable. It almost makes Jimmy Swaggart look moral.

Posted by: Tully at November 15, 2005 05:32 PM

"And now they want a PR do-over, with scapegoat and fall guy. Pin-the-tail-on-the-demon for partisan political purposes. Throw bones to the far left. Talk the anti-war talk without actually walking the anti-war walk. Just pile up the tinder, and prep the torches. Regardless of the facts. Regardless of the damage to the country, or to the Iraqi people. Despicable. It almost makes Jimmy Swaggart look moral."

Exactly, this is why I have lost almost all of my respect for Democrats!!!! This is ridiculous. The only thing that they are doing is trying to score political points at the expense of the President, the troops in the Middle East, and the Iraqi people. Nothing is as important to them as getting back in power.... nothing.

Posted by: debsay at November 16, 2005 12:54 PM

It wasn't my analogy. It was Chris's.

I'm not sure what part of commander-in-chief you guys don't understand. The buck stops with him. And don't forget, I lived through the last few years too. I know that part of Congress's war approval stemmed from the need to present a united front when Bush went before the UN. Regardless of the rules, I'm confident that many congresspeople expected Bush to confer with congress anew after whatever transpired at the UN.

Sure some Democrats have talked out their ass about Iraq in the past, but rattling the saber and using it are 2 different things.

I don't particularly agree with the tack democrats are taking, and I think they're way off to talk about the President deliberately lying without any good proof. (Apple polishing is another matter.) But none of you seems to want to address upfront the notion that our nation, by acting as it did on information that was way off, has damaged and even disgraced itself, both to a substantial portion of its citizenry and to much of the rest of the world. I'm still waiting for people to step forward and say "OK, that's on me." If not the commander in chief, then who?

Posted by: bk at November 16, 2005 03:30 PM

And that points at the giant downside here, doesn't it? The next time a US Sec. of State goes before the UN with satellite photos, and the next time a President tells us that sound evidence shows we must act right away, who's going to believe us?

Why worry? We carry all of the military weight anyway. Also, if we only lost, say, 350 soldiers, would these complaints even exist?
I never voted for Bush, but I agree with Deb that this is nothing but politics. What if the public really paid attention to who was joining in the chant about WMD's? A few Dems (who happened to be Presidential nominees) would be unusually silent.
Even Michael Moore called them "Quisling Democrats"

Posted by: Rachel at November 16, 2005 05:57 PM

Brian, you kept using it, I wanted to point out the falseness of it. Of course ALL analogies are suspect anyway, simp[ly by virtue of being analogies. They're only as good as they are accurate.

The "buck stops here" line sounds great, but let's face it, it's also a bogus argument unles there's a clear line of knowing cause and effect to him. The top dog may get all the grief, but is he realistically responsible for everything everyone under him does? As I keep asking, does Bush need to pay off those parking tickets that Private Raw Recruit racked up on leave? An extensio ad absurdum, to be sure, but so is the argument itself.

I know that part of Congress's war approval stemmed from the need to present a united front when Bush went before the UN.

They knowingly failed to do their jobs, and so they're not responsible for the results? Talk about top dog all you like, but we're not a dictatorship. Congress is in charge of Congress. We have a divided form of government. War powers authorization is in the hands of Congress, and for good reason. That line of "we just went along" reasoning leads back to the "we're too stupid to be responsible" defense, which is what those historically revisionist Dems are saying. "We voted for the war, but we're too dim to be held to account for it." Not in those words, but it's what it amounts to.

If they're too stupid or incompetent at their jobs to accept responsibility for their actions, we need some new Congresscritters. (Of course we usually do anyway at any given time, for the same reason that babies need new diapers. That's one truism that respects no party line.)

Posted by: Tully at November 16, 2005 06:18 PM

The fact is, I've never really believed Bush deliberately made up the intelligence, or twisted it to make the case for war. Those on the Left who hopelessly cling to this idea of flat-out deception do themselves and the country a disservice. However, it is clear that Bush and the Adminstration blew the WMD case, and it bothered a lot of people that Bush couldn't just admit the error, and take real steps to improve our intel.

As I said, I don't believe Bush lied, but I don't believe he was as interested in being as solidly accurate as he should've been. Broad assumptions were made, many based on good policy (the case for regime change went beyond WMDs, BTW), but I think Bush looked at what he had, and as far as WMDs were concerned, hoped it would pan out.

Now, unless the argument that Bush had different intel than the Dems in the runup to the war is true (which it could very well be), the Dems made the same judgment call. Proceed from there as you will.

Posted by: Rafique Tucker at November 17, 2005 04:48 AM

Tully, I have no problem with point out where democratic members of congress may have been full of crap. But I'm curious, what would you say to the notion that a given congressman might say, i voted for the resolution ebcuase I diddn't think we could afford to send Bush to the UN without it, but I expected further input subsequent to what occurred at the UN. Seems to me at least some members of congress might have felt they had no choice but to trust.

And I agree with Rafique's 2nd paragraph assertion. Again, only gut, but it was my impression of Bush that his eagerness swamped his prudence. (look how far THAT apple rolled from the tree!)

Bush is the quarterback who's going to get too much credit if this works out and too much blame if it fails. that's the way it is. Right now, the public is obsessed with failure and much of the balme goes to Bush. He was the frontman, and it falls on him.

So let's all take time right now to notice that Bush's defenders are saying that congress has to take responsibility too. Well, suppose it works out and Iraq becomes semi-democratic, semi-stable, and if not an ally, at least not a dangerous enemy.

Should that occur, how many of Bush's current defenders will be stepping forward to say "Hey, let's not give all the credit to President Bush, we should give credit to all the senators who approved the war resolution, especially the democrats who did so at the risk of alienating their base!" Tradesports has the over/under on that at zero. :-)

Posted by: bk at November 17, 2005 11:19 AM

Two points: It will be years before we really know what Saddam did with his WMD's. That he had them in 1991 is indisputable (by the sane, anyway). That we haven't found very much but scraps in Iraq is also indisputable. (We HAVE found some scraps, BTW.) What happened in between and where the WMDs went will be argued over and dissected and analyzed forever, and I can say with 100% assurance that we don't have all the facts today. But the intel, while wrong in many respects, wasn't pulled out of thin air.

Second: Of course they did a sell job using what they had. Every single thing ever done publicly by an admin is a sell job. I haven't seen any solid evidence that it was a dishonest sell job, just a lot of wing nuttery and hyperbole. The sell job started many years before W got elected. Some of the best salesman are now the lead critics. Frame away from there, but at least be honest in calling it "apologetics."

I've said all along that W's biggest failing as a President was his apparent unwillingness to communicate with the people. To continue selling himself and his actions and policies even when there wasn't an election. I've been saying it since 2001. That hasn't changed, and it's a major part of his troubles today. Reagan and Clinton both had that touch. Bush doesn't. And it's biting him in the ass.

If Iraq turns out a success, the worst of the Congresscritics will still call it a failure. They have to. They've cast their votes and staked their ground, and I think that Tradesports would put the odds of them being allowed to try and take ANY credit at approx. zilch.

Posted by: Tully at November 17, 2005 07:07 PM