Bush Lied! (Or Not.)
Democratic Senator John D. Rockefeller claims victory in investigating whether or not Bush lied in order to get us into war with Iraq.
"In making the case for war, the administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when it was unsubstantiated, contradicted or even nonexistent," he said.
"Bush lied, people died!", went the call, which is now a piece of Received Wisdom on the Left. But just a the slogan was disingenuous, so is Rockefeller’s pronouncement on the report. Fred Hiatt of the Washington Post (no stalwart of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy, they) lays it out.
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.
So what went wrong? Hiatt comes to admit that it’s what the Right has been saying all along.
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.
(Wow, is having the MSM call the "Bush lied" meme "phony" one of the signs of the apocalypse?)
So the line has been drawn, ironically by the Democrats themselves. Henceforth, anyone parroting this idea is themselves lying or hopelessly uninformed. Stay tuned.
[tags]Bush lied,Washington Post,Frank Hiatt,Senator John D. Rockefeller,Iraq war[/tags]
Filed under: Democrats • Doug • Iraq • Middle East • Politics • War
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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 so, we invaded a country pre-emptively to stop possible bad guy activity and our best hunches were wrong?
Sounds like yet more evidence against the whole immoral concept of “pre-emptive” invasions. Prudence calls for conservative action when we simply don’t know, as clearly – even given your rosy best case scenario – we simply did not know.
It’s why the most moral military approach is a defensive one. TRULY defensive.
Should we scrap intelligence agencies, since they can be so wrong? If we can never act pre-emptively, should we always wait for disaster to hit our shores first? Hey, we simply don’t know what’s going on.
If we’d found nuclear, biological and/or chemical weapons in Iraq, Bush would’ve been proclaimed a hero. If a WMD had gone off inside Israel, he would have been proclaimed a sloth and a fool. Instead, declaring that their 20/20 hindsight is as good as foresight, he got pilloried for political purposes by the same guys who agreed that Hussein was an “imminent” thread, including Rockefeller. All the intelligence and Saddam’s cagey responses to the UN indicated something substantial.
And I think your framing of our intelligence efforts, and the efforts of countries around the world that concurred, as “best hunches” is a gross mischaracterization.
I have not scrapped intelligence agencies. I have scrapped “pre-emptive” attacks. They’re morally wrong and strategically stupid.
As our present situation gives ample testimony.
No, our present situation gives testimony to needing better intelligence. As I note, given a different situation on the ground, pre-emption wouldn’t be debated nearly as much, if at all.
Not to mention that this situation also gives ample testimony to the fact that Democrats have been playing politics with the war. Further, if they continue with the “he misled us” excuse, it will show that they have a complete disregard for the reality of the situation. Obama needs to tread lightly. Perhaps they got bad intelligence from their leadership as well.
To be completely fair, it’s not just the Dems who think there is sufficient evidence to suggest that Bush misled us, it’s Bush’s own people (ie, Clarke, McClellan) who are stating this.
I think that if one looks at the evidence objectively and not with a partisan blindness, one has to question the integrity of this man and, I believe, call for investigations.
Let’s start with the evidence that those opposed to Bush found that the lion’s share of his claims and reasons for action were, in fact, backed up by the intelligence. I don’t think we can accuse Rockefeller of “partisan blindness”.
And exhibit B would be the Senate Intelligence Committee’s finding that indeed Al Qaeda and Al-Zarqawi had a “good relationship” with Saddam Hussein officials before the war. More “partisan blindness”, I suppose.