Why Leak Instead of Openly Declassify? To Deceive
The New York Times, the recipient of the Bush-Libby-NIE leak, finally weighs in with a breakdown of the deceptive nature of the leak entitled Iraq Findings Leaked by Cheney's Aide Were Disputed.
Here's a key portion of the story, though the whole thing deserves a full read.
Too bad the NYT didn't think enough of the American public to bring a lil skepticism to the Bush administration's leaks back in the day. Liberal indeed.
Here's a key portion of the story, though the whole thing deserves a full read.
The court filing asserts that Mr. Bush authorized the disclosure of the intelligence in part to rebut claims that Mr. Wilson was making, including those in a television appearance and in an Op-Ed article in The New York Times on July 6, 2003. The filing revealed for the first time testimony by Mr. Libby saying that Mr. Bush, through Mr. Cheney, had authorized Mr. Libby to tell reporters that "a key judgment of the N.I.E. held that Iraq was 'vigorously trying to procure' uranium."
In fact, that was not one of the "key judgments" of the document. Instead, it was the subject of several paragraphs on Page 24 of the document, which also acknowledged that Mr. Hussein had long possessed 500 tons of uranium that was under seal by international inspectors, and that no intelligence agencies had ever confirmed whether he had obtained any more of the material from Africa.
Too bad the NYT didn't think enough of the American public to bring a lil skepticism to the Bush administration's leaks back in the day. Liberal indeed.
posted by Macswain at
9:30 AM
8 Comments:
Bush lied us into an unnecessary war.
Up to now, the Bushies' best case was that reasonable minds could disagree with such a contention. The stuff that's emerging now will destroy that case. Usually, history has to wait decades for such accounts.
As for the Times, perhaps they'll learn a lesson (which I suspect is taught in Journalism 101)--don't permit yourself to be used by your source to promote a one-sided agenda.
By
Anonymous, at 10:57 AM
This is quite a revelation - the statement was in the text rather than in the Key Judgements. Why, that's enough to hang a man. Here, by the way, is the relevant portion of the key judgements:
Although we assess that Saddam does not yet have nuclear weapons or sufficient material to make any, he remains intent on acquiring them. Most agencies assess that Baghdad started reconstituting its nuclear program about the time that UNSCOM inspectors departed--December 1998. How quickly Iraq will obtain its first nuclear weapon depends on when it acquires sufficient weapons-grade fissile material. If Baghdad acquires sufficient fissile material from abroad it could make a nuclear weapon within several months to a year.
While true that the Key Judgements don't mention Nigerien yellowcake, they do state that Saddam wanted uranium for his reconstituted nuclear weapons program.
It should also be noted that Bush was trying to support his entire case for the war, not just refute Wilson's claims. So he declassified the summary section of the NIE (i.e., the Key Judgements section) to show the American public the information he had during the runup. This isn't nefarious or calculating - it's showing the relevant claims while protecting the detailed classified info that supports them.
This, too, will go nowhere.
By
Anonymous, at 11:02 PM
why the need to ramp
the war with such haste and urgency.
The "haste" and "urgency" involved a six month period prior to the invasion. If you believe extreme liberal rhetoric, Bush had Iraq in his sites from the day he was elected. That's quite a casual pace.
But he was hemmed
in, sequestered, and isolated.
Oh yes, sealed off like a drum. Except that he wasn't.
he had no way to deliver to
US soil
Did anybody ever say he did? Directly, at least? Nice strawman.
By
Anonymous, at 5:34 PM
eah, they proably would, since 64% of them believed (up until 2005)
that there was a DIRECT link between
Al Qaeda and Saddam.
The Harris survey question actually said "STRONG" link. But note that the question simply asks for a "True" or "False" answer, and doesn't ask, for instance, if there is proof that Saddam and Al Qaeda have a strong link. So they're asking for an opinion ("Do you believe that the following statements are true or not true?") without allowing any gradations for the strength of that opinion.
But do you believe that Al Qaeda would have the slightest compunction about accepting a nuclear device from Iraq and smuggling it into the US? Truly?
By
Anonymous, at 7:19 PM
I, for one do not accept discounted
existence in exchange for safety.
That's your judgement to make. I don't think the measures taken to improve safety have been particularly draconian - except for taking my laptop out and my shoes off at airports, I haven't noticed them at all (though I *am* very uncomfortable with face-identification cameras in public places). But my experience is not yours, nor do we share phobias or perceptions of the most dangerous "slippery slopes."
But please don't characterize the pro-GWOT position as simply concerned for "safety." Most of the people I interact with look at this as an incarnation of Huntington's Clash of Civilizations. We're trying to ensure that the "Clash" gets resolved now before the potential outcomes slant even less favorably toward us.
It's not about safety as much as fundamentally changing the religious and sociological dynamics in the Middle East. That's why Iraq is important.
By
Anonymous, at 9:02 AM
All the more reason to take measured steps into the undiscovered territory instead of fucking it up.
So you've mentioned "graft" and "incompetence" as two factors that have undermined the effort in Iraq. I'd argue the "graft" claim - none of the accusations have held up thus far. Incompetence is in the eye of the beholder, but most of the alternate solutions (more troops, not disbanding Iraqi security forces) have easily forecasted consequences that are at least as dire as the problems we currently have.
There is an area, though, where I'd agree that Bush was incompetent: he didn't completely gut and rebuild the intelligence services. I know that he "implemented the recommendations" for changes, but it looks like we're back to business as usual in the intelligence community.
Looking over the Key Judgements of the NIE just makes me shake my head. If a quarter of the key judgements were correct, the WMD portion of the case for war would have been more than justified. It looks like their accuracy was more like 10%, and was restricted to the "fuzzy" items. Letting the intelligence apparatus that created such an inaccurate document survive is reckless and irresponsible. And that error I *do* lay at Bush's feet.
By
Anonymous, at 10:07 AM
Revamping this vast and powerful
bureaucracy wiould be a daunting and
decades long process that no 2 term
presidency could accomplish.
So are rebuilding Iraq and the GWOT. The fact is, though, that the agencies have only made cosmetic changes in the way they do business and interact. And even the cosmetic changes are fading. Bottom line: there's no assurance that the next NIE will be any more accurate than the last, and that's a Presidential-caliber problem.
If it was necessary to lie to the
american public...
This sort of misstatement is why these discussions continually go awry. You don't even the thoroughly discredited "lie" meme to make your point, but you can't resist. I'll ignore it in the hopes that you reconsider this lapse into extremist rhetoric.
As far as the "end justifying the means" goes, my stance is: pre-war = no; during war = mostly yes.
I am loathe to cite the indivdual
miscalculations, missteps, wrong
readings, failed vision and mission
creep that is Iraq because you
seem well versed in this subject.
I doubt that we agree on much of this. As I said before, most of the liberal critiques I've read have been unimpressive. Suffice to say that there are always mistakes which increase the cost and tragedy of war and reconstruction. You can be cheered by the accomplishments (which are many) or discouraged by the failures (also many), but in the end you have to move on and decide how best to accomplish the tasks still remaining.
It's odd to me that everybody in the blogosphere seems more excited about 3-year old post-invasion leaks than the ongoing situation in Iraq. The political situation in Baghdad changes day-to-day, and the Sunni insurgents' failed attack on Ramadi would seem to bear heavily on the political and military situation.
It's also interesting that an unacknowledged but fundamental transition in Iraqi attitudes has taken place. Formerly united against the US, the religious factions have now elevated their internal quarrels above their hostility to the US. We always knew the Shiites and Sunnis would have to come to an accommodation, but the process of arriving at a such an accommodation couldn't begin until they faced up to their mutual enmity.
They've certainly started that process now, and, having gazed into the abyss, most are starting to understand how important some sort of mutually acceptable agreement will be. Hopefully that agreement works for the Kurds as well.
By
Anonymous, at 11:30 AM
This statement is difficult for me
to follow.
No, I'm saying that Bush "lied" is a thoroughly discredited partisan extremist distortion which amounts to an offensive lie in and of itself. I'm saying that when you (or webhub) say "Bush lied," you are lying to me and committing an offense against integrity and justice. But I gave you a mulligan in the spirit of rational discourse.
Sorry for making it too difficult.
By
Anonymous, at 12:10 PM
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