Jackson Free Press

Bob Woodward did an interview with President Ford in 2004 that was embargoed by the former president until after his death. It is published today in the Washington Post, along with recordings:

Former president Gerald R. Ford said in an embargoed interview in July 2004 that the Iraq war was not justified, criticizing Bush and his former employees Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. "I don't think I would have gone to war," he said a little more than a year after President Bush launched the invasion advocated and carried out by prominent veterans of Ford's own administration. In a four-hour conversation at his house in Beaver Creek, Colo., Ford "very strongly" disagreed with the current president's justifications for invading Iraq and said he would have pushed alternatives, such as sanctions, much more vigorously. In the tape-recorded interview, Ford was critical not only of Bush but also of Vice President Cheney -- Ford's White House chief of staff -- and then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who served as Ford's chief of staff and then his Pentagon chief.

"Rumsfeld and Cheney and the president made a big mistake in justifying going into the war in Iraq. They put the emphasis on weapons of mass destruction," Ford said. "And now, I've never publicly said I thought they made a mistake, but I felt very strongly it was an error in how they should justify what they were going to do."

Previous Comments

ID

90473

Comment

In short; if you're going to go to war come up with a better excuse. We can all understand that.

Author

Ironghost

Date

2006-12-28T11:06:59-06:00

ID

90474

Comment

Or perhaps a better reason.

Author

Todd Stauffer

Date

2006-12-28T11:15:55-06:00

ID

90475

Comment

... or a strategy not contacted by neo-cons.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2006-12-28T11:35:37-06:00

ID

90476

Comment

Iron, please. He also says we shouldn't have invaded at all, that we should have carried on with sanctions or tried some other alternative short of war. And he skewers Bush exactly where he deserves it, for this shift from a war to protect America to a war to liberate the downtrodden. We simply would not have gone to war had the president told us it was to liberate the Iraqi people. The threat--that the smoking gun could come in the form of a mushroom cloud--was a lie, a deliberately fabricated piece of misintelligence that came to us courtesy of Cheney's stove-piping and cherry-picking. When it fell through, Bush just sagged into this messianic rhetoric about freedom, even though it constituted a radical break with Republican foreign policy ideology, which was always based--they told us--on our national interest. Republicans spent years mocking Clinton for thinking that human rights and suffering should have some weight in how we use our military. Then Bush flips the whole thing on its head and turns his war in Iraq into some kind of spiritual crusade. The fact that most Republicans went along with it, for at least some time, is very dispiriting to me, and they deserve to get thwacked upside the head, over and over again, for trying to wriggle out of responsibility for a strategic catastrophe by selling it as a moral victory. That is both hypocritical and ugly. Ford and other "realist" Republicans should have spoken out before the invasion, but that was precisely what the mushroom cloud argument was designed to suppress. It was like a loaded pistol pointed at the heads of the American people, and Bush et al. kept yelling, "There is no time to consider anything! This is a crisis and we have to move now!" We did not know that the pistol was loaded with blanks.

Author

Brian C Johnson

Date

2006-12-28T12:04:20-06:00

ID

90477

Comment

I though the emphasis was on finding a better excuse for going to war if you're going. There is no doubt we can find a better way to win.

Author

Ironghost

Date

2006-12-28T12:32:34-06:00

ID

90478

Comment

From the NY Daily News [quote]Ford was a few weeks shy of his 93rd birthday as we chatted for about 45 minutes. He'd been visited by President Bush three weeks earlier and said he'd told Bush he supported the war in Iraq but that the 43rd President had erred by staking the invasion on weapons of mass destruction. "Saddam Hussein was an evil person and there was justification to get rid of him," he observed, "but we shouldn't have put the basis on weapons of mass destruction. That was a bad mistake. Where does [Bush] get his advice?"[/quote] This interview was from May of this year, his last one. I think Ford would have gone in more carefully, if he went in at all. His Presidency was fresh from the disaster of Vietnam which exemplified the saying "too many cooks spoil the soup".

Author

Ironghost

Date

2006-12-28T13:00:41-06:00

ID

90479

Comment

If Bush and his cronies had read the history of the people of Iraq, he would not have gone to war. His little club members, Chaney, Rove, Rumsfeld, Rice, ect. thought that they could take the Mighty American Army in, kick butt and then place an American-Bush-Chaney flag at the mouth of the oil field. Saddam Hussein was said to be an evil person; however, Bush has killed more people than Saddam. This man was a KING, a RULER. a DICTATOR and it was up to the POPLE to decide on the changing of their government. This would have been a democratic approach: instead, Mr. Bush decided that he would snatch him out of office. You can not argue with the fact that inspite of his "meaness" their country was not faced with "Insergents" killing people in the streets and bombings and fires everywhere. The Shia, Suni, and the Kurds were living side by side with an occasional flare-up and which was quickly erased by King/President Hussein. Since the iron hand of King Hussein is nolonger there to seperate the historically, inherent , hostile religious factions utter chaos has resulted. Thousands, including Americans have been killed. Blame Bush! Preaident Ford was right and for this truth, may he forever rest in peace.

Author

justjess

Date

2006-12-28T13:33:09-06:00

ID

90480

Comment

Just so we're clear that this is not simply a matter of how the war is justified and that Ford would not have gone to war but "more carefully": In a four-hour conversation at his house in Beaver Creek, Colo., Ford "very strongly" disagreed with the current president's justifications for invading Iraq and said he would have pushed alternatives, such as sanctions, much more vigorously. ... "Well, I can understand the theory of wanting to free people," Ford said, referring to Bush's assertion that the United States has a "duty to free people." But the former president said he was skeptical "whether you can detach that from the obligation number one, of what's in our national interest." He added: "And I just don't think we should go hellfire damnation around the globe freeing people, unless it is directly related to our own national security." ... Describing his own preferred policy toward Saddam Hussein's Iraq, Ford said he would not have gone to war, based on the publicly available information at the time, and would have worked harder to find an alternative. "I don't think, if I had been president, on the basis of the facts as I saw them publicly," he said, "I don't think I would have ordered the Iraq war. I would have maximized our effort through sanctions, through restrictions, whatever, to find another answer." From the Washington Post article.

Author

Brian C Johnson

Date

2006-12-28T14:07:54-06:00

ID

90481

Comment

Of course, sanctions don't come without a price either -- a price, apparently, born most heavily by the people of Iraq (as opposed to Sadaam's inner circle, the Republican Guard, and some others close to the government). Just something to keep in mind.

Author

GLB

Date

2006-12-28T16:35:59-06:00

ID

90482

Comment

I opposed sanctions for several reasons. One is that they made Saddam even richer and allowed him to pay off France, Russia, and China. The most stable or surest way to regime change is class warfare. As groups gain economic power, at some point they start demanding political power. Imposing sanctions on Iraq's economy strangled it and wiped out its middle class, assuring that most money and political power would remain in the hands of Saddam and his cronies. As for Ford not going into Iraq, for what it is worth, I don't think Reagan would have either. Reagan saw communism as a very dangerous threat, which it was for decades. However, he didn't invade Nicaragua and depose Ortega nor did he do so to Cuba. He supported the contras and in the end, Ortega held free elections. The result was less bloodshed and strife then if we had just invaded the country and occupied it. I think he would've done something similar in Iraq and had a government in exile agreed upon by reps from the three major groups and given them support to operate out of Khurdish and Shiite Iraq. For all of Reagan being reputed to be a warmonger, he rarely used the US Military on a large scale.

Author

Kingfish

Date

2006-12-28T17:00:40-06:00

ID

90483

Comment

Brian: I will disagree with you on the lying part. Many intel services thought Saddam had WMD's and at one time he DID have a WMD program. You don't need massive facilities to conduct research in biowarfare like you have with nuclear weapons. I think the CIA bears ALOT of responsibility for bad information. It gave Clinton bad information and the Democrats in Congress in the select intel committees had access to that info as well. There was a case for going to Iraq. I disagreed with the reasons for going to Iraq but I can see the reasons for doing so and understand them. Sometimes it does come down to a judgement call and that is what I think it was, not a cold blooded decision to lie so they could rape, pillage, and plunder.

Author

Kingfish

Date

2006-12-28T17:04:17-06:00

ID

90484

Comment

And, in any case, in EVERY forseeable scenario, the people of Iraq bear the price. They suffer if we invade, the suffer if we leave Sadaam in power and do nothing, they suffer if we impose stiffer sanctions, they suffer if we support an outside government. Of course, the degrees of suffering can be much different, and they may have sufffered much less had we not taken the course that we did. But I think it is important to note that NO alternative could have guaranteed that the widespead suffering of Iraqis wouldn't result from that choice.

Author

GLB

Date

2006-12-28T17:30:35-06:00

ID

90485

Comment

We'll have to disagree on that score, King. I accept that there was uncertainty about Hussein's WMD programs, but it simply was not an honest mistake. And it was not the CIA's fault. There was very serious arm twisting of George Tenet by Cheney and Rumsfeld. Moreover, when the CIA was rushing through its national intelligence estimate, Cheney was at CIA headquarters, day after day, basically harassing analysts to give him the intelligence he wanted. Then there's Rumsfeld's Office of Special Plans, the sole purpose of which was to stovepipe intelligence (mostly from Chalabi) they knew was unreliable. At some point, you have to call a lie a lie. Cheney went on talk shows for years, literally, repeating the claim that Atta met with Iraqi intelligence in Prague, long long long after that had been debunked. The administration knew that the Niger yellow-cake story was crap before Bush invoked it to take us to war. The administration knew that the aluminum tubes story, i.e. that they were only suitable for use in gas centrifuges, was a lie, because the Department of Energy had already told them that the tubes would be unsuitable for centrifuges. By the way, that's why it's a lie--yes, a lie--when the administration or its hatchet men say, "Well, we all saw the same intelligence, don't you know." That is a lie, plain and simple, because even people on congressional intelligence committees got only the briefings administration officials chose to give them. I think it is untenable to the point of being ludicrous, at this point, to say that our intelligence agencies made an honest mistake which our president then acted upon. The evidence for this administration's manipulation of intelligence is now staggering, and responsibility for the war and its failures rests on their shoulders, namely Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney. Cheney and Rumsfeld in particular deserve a toasty spot in hell for the things they've done to our country and to our soldiers.

Author

Brian C Johnson

Date

2006-12-28T17:35:13-06:00

ID

90486

Comment

I knew that going to war in Iraq was crap to begin with. Does the name Project For A New American Century ring a bell to anyone?

Author

golden eagle

Date

2006-12-28T17:50:17-06:00

ID

90487

Comment

I agree that sanctions were very harmful to the Iraqi people, which is one reason why alternatives might have been in order. I won't pretend to know what the proper course of action would have been, and there's obviously some difficulties associated with more covert regime change via the Shiites or Kurds, most promiment among them that it had never worked in the past. It's important to note that mere saber rattling from the U.S. got inspectors re-admitted, and if they had been left to do their jobs, they would have found that there were no active WMD programs. Maybe we couldn't have been sure even then, but we didn't even wait to see. (I hope we all agree that Cheney's "1 percent doctrine" is asanine.) The idea that Hussein would transfer WMDs to terrorists has always been a non-starter, in my opinion. If Hussein had built a nuclear weapon, he would have clutched to it for all he was worth, and for good reason. The alleged connection between al-Qaeda and Hussein has been so thoroughly debunked at this point that I hope we don't have to cover that territory again, although I have this pit in my stomach that tells me we might. In short, the terrorist-transfer scenario has never made any sense. WMDs are, paradoxically, defensive weapons, especially if you don't have very many of them. Hussein wanted those weapons to protect himself from a U.S. attack--using such weapons, even through proxies, would have exposed him to a devastating nuclear counterattack, sooner or later. Can anyone sensibly dispute this? My main point is that y'all are still playing the shell game with this talk of sanctions and what we should have done because we never got to have that debate. The war was presented as an urgent response to a dire threat to our national interests, specifically the threat of a catastrophic attack on U.S. soil. That was a lie. It was clearly not in our national interests to invade Iraq, even if it was good for the Iraqi people, which is highly dubious. Call me an old-school Republican, but all this talk about the Iraqis seems beside the point to me--the U.S. is not a charitable operation. Whether or not invasion was good for the Iraqis, it has clearly been a disaster for us.

Author

Brian C Johnson

Date

2006-12-28T17:51:06-06:00

ID

90488

Comment

Brian, I guess this is all fiction and I just made it up: PRESIDENT CLINTON: Good evening. Earlier today, I ordered America's armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces. Their mission is to attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors. Their purpose is to protect the national interest of the United States, and indeed the interests of people throughout the Middle East and around the world. Saddam Hussein must not be allowed to threaten his neighbors or the world with nuclear arms, poison gas or biological weapons. I want to explain why I have decided, with the unanimous recommendation of my national security team, to use force in Iraq; why we have acted now; and what we aim to accomplish. Six weeks ago, Saddam Hussein announced that he would no longer cooperate with the United Nations weapons inspectors called UNSCOM. They are highly professional experts from dozens of countries. Their job is to oversee the elimination of Iraq's capability to retain, create and use weapons of mass destruction, and to verify that Iraq does not attempt to rebuild that capability. The inspectors undertook this mission first 7 1/2 years ago at the end of the Gulf War when Iraq agreed to declare and destroy its arsenal as a condition of the ceasefire. The international community had good reason to set this requirement. Other countries possess weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles. With Saddam, there is one big difference: He has used them. Not once, but repeatedly. Unleashing chemical weapons against Iranian troops during a decade-long war. Not only against soldiers, but against civilians, firing Scud missiles at the citizens of Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Iran. And not only against a foreign enemy, but even against his own people, gassing Kurdish civilians in Northern Iraq. The international community had little doubt then, and I have no doubt today, that left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will use these terrible weapons again.

Author

Kingfish

Date

2006-12-28T23:32:08-06:00

ID

90489

Comment

Kingfish, I'll give you one thing: Clinton is not a credible critic of the Iraq War, and this is a large part of the reason why. He basically laid the rhetorical groundwork for Bush II's samurai revenge epic. I always thought the humanitarian argument for war had much, much more credibility than the WMD argument, and that's probably why it was Tony Blair's primary argument from the get-go. I kept wondering why Bush was so reticent to follow the same path, why it had to be about WMDs and WMDs only. Then of course when the WMDs didn't materialize, he shifted very awkwardly and unconvincingly to something vaguely resembling a humanitarian argument, or not. It was really more of a jihad; not "Look at what horrific things these people are having to go through, we must help them," but more "We are spreading freedom and democracy abroad," which could be just as easily used to justify the invasion of China or Saudi Arabia. My position on the war is identical to the one G.H.W. Bush expressed in his autobiography: There were plenty of valid reasons to overthrow the Iraqi regime, which was dangerous, brutal, oppressive, murderous, occasionally genocidal, and certainly not sovereign by any legitimate definition of the term, but no practical way of doing it. It's all well and good to say that there's a mountain blocking the road and you'd like to remove it, but if your solution involves multiple 100-megaton warheads that would make everything within three states uninhabitable for five million years, that's not a viable solution. I don't think anyone would make the argument that if things in Iraq really did go as well as Cheney and company had predicted, that virtually every leader in both parties would still be trying to take credit for it. (I can see Kerry, Edwards, and Clinton now: "We are proud to say that when we voted to authorize the war, we led the charge to recommit ourselves to the deepest American democratic values and overthrow the brutal regime of...") But everyone should have seen the risk factors involved, and nobody should have trusted the Bush administration to address them. In some ways, the Iraq War has been a very tragic but necessary reminder, post-9/11, that this is not and cannot become a conquering empire and that the executive branch should never be trusted to wage war on blind faith. But I wouldn't want to trade those thousands of American lives, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, for that lesson, however necessary it might have been. That's the devil's math. Cheers, TH

Author

Tom Head

Date

2006-12-29T01:08:35-06:00

ID

90490

Comment

"both parties would still" --> "both parties wouldn't still"

Author

Tom Head

Date

2006-12-29T01:11:36-06:00

ID

90491

Comment

A comment on an earlier post that "flare ups" were quickly erased by Hussain. In 1991 I was a recon section leader with the Fox Trp 2/2 ACR occupying an observation post on the military demarcation Line near the town of Kati Al Hamad. I wittnessed one of these "erasures" - about 100 people machine gunned in the street. And we could do NOTHING. Bush I made us stop shooting too soon.

Author

JLYerg

Date

2006-12-29T01:38:34-06:00

ID

90492

Comment

Tom: Excellent post. I don't endorse 100% it, but most of it seems pretty "sooth" to me (to flex my uber-geek vocabulary). The only thing I'd object to is that I think we have to place some faith in our executive branch, and in our intelligence gathering. We are a bit hamstrung in that regard, because any sensitive information that is made public is thereby useless with repect to strategic advantage. So, that's always going to be a difficult problem, I think.

Author

GLB

Date

2006-12-29T02:36:05-06:00

ID

90493

Comment

Kingfish, that is such a non-answer, and once again, your thinking seems locked in binary, partisan thinking. If Clinton supported it, the Democrats will have to take his word. I second Tom's comments on Clinton. More to the point, I already said there was uncertainty in the intelligence community about WMDs, and in the late '90s, Hussein was really playing games with UNSCOM. Clinton punished Hussein for kicking out the inspectors, and he punished "him" with airstrikes. Note the differences. Under Bush, inspectors were on the ground and were doing their work largely unencumbered. He pulled the inspectors and launched a massive invasion. Clinton believed that Hussein had WMD programs, but he did not make up stories about mushroom clouds. His response was proportional, and it cost the U.S. nothing in lives and little in treasure. It was hardly an ideal solution, considering that the inspectors were out and we were bombing Iraq off-and-on all the time, but compared to the Bush alternative, it looks downright brilliant. Honestly, King. Are you trying to make my point for me?

Author

Brian C Johnson

Date

2006-12-29T10:25:29-06:00

ID

90494

Comment

That was a pretty good post Tom made and is probably more in line with my thinking on Iraq. Clinton's comments were made in 1998. I don't think both he and Bush were lying, I think the CIA and other intel services said the same thing and they relied on them. I agree that Tony Blair made a stronger case and at the time Bush was criticized, even by conservatives for not making the case that Blair made. Keep in mind Hussein was a state sponsor of terrorism. One legitimate question to ask is what do we do after 9/11 with regimes that sponsor terrorism. Terrorist groups need countries that allow them to operate, train, and raise funds. If a country refuses to crack down on them, you are left with few options besides doing nothing and going to war. Sanctions usually do not work and in this case Saddam had bought off the UN, France, China, and Russia. The sanctions merely enriched Saddam. Brian, Saddam WAS sponsoring terrorist organizations. He was allowing them to operate out of Iraq and had them on the payroll. Its nice for us to say none of those groups had attacked us but do you wait on them to one day decide they will attack us when they feel like it or do you do something to take them and their sponsor out? Hitler had never attacked us yet we did make war on him first even though he was no real threat at the time to attacking the US. I don't think Saddam would've given them nukes if he had had them. Saddam was not stupid. However, I do see Saddam giving terrorist groups things like sarin nerve agents and biowarfare agents with which to commit acts of terrorism. Such things would be very hard to link to Iraq and hard to prove. As for Atta, there was a debate for a long time about that meeting in Prague and you are talking about people who are not known for telling the truth when you are dealing with spooks and terrorists. I don't think Iraq had anything to do with 9/11 at all. Saddam was not that dumb. Having said that, there HAVE been documented links between AQ and Saddam as declassified docs have shown. Saying Iraq and AQ had no links or contacts is just plain wrong. As I have said, I was not in favor of going to Iraq but I understand the reasons for making that decision and I don't think its because Bush wanted to lie about WMD's and callously kill a bunch of Iraqis, Americans, and get called a war criminal by other Americans.

Author

Kingfish

Date

2006-12-29T10:34:57-06:00

ID

90495

Comment

So was Clinton lying when he mentioned Saddams nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons programs? If Bush was lying, then so was Clinton.

Author

Kingfish

Date

2006-12-29T10:38:34-06:00

ID

90496

Comment

Brian, I think we should certainly take into account Iraqi lives lost under both policies. I heard the statistic frequently cited--I have never been able to verify it--that over 500,000 children died as a result of the sanctions. The folks who told me this said so pre-9/11, when invasion wasn't really on the table and the argument they were making was "drop the sanctions," not "invade." This is certainly part of the anti-U.S. sentiment in much of the Muslim world: We just sat back and let countless Iraqis die as an indirect result of economic sanctions while Saddam kept building his palaces, then we invaded ten years too late, killed hundreds of thousands more Iraqis, and are now trying to occupy a nation that obviously does not want to be under U.S. occupation. I'm not sure I would say that what Clinton did was any better than what W. Bush did. Truth is that we have NEVER done Iraq right; we cheerfully supported Saddam's genocidal campaign against the Kurds and even helped him blame it on the Iranians, then we were shocked, shocked to find gambling in this establishment when he invaded Kuwait, created a Bay of Pigs scenario after the war that essentially destroyed the entire anti-Saddam revolutionary movement, starved off the Iraqi people (occasionally bombing the hell out of them to break the monotony), and then invaded with "shock and awe." I have no respect whatsoever for U.S. policy in Iraq, which has been consistently incompetent beyond words, going all the way back to Reagan and probably beyond. And don't even get me started on Iran--there was a democratically elected, secular leader in 1953, extremely popular, and we deposed him to replace him with the Shah because of the fear that British oil revenues might be affected. This allowed Khomeini to built the Islamist-Communist coalition he needed to take over in 1979. In both cases, our government literally created the conditions that it now protests, and at great human cost. But back to Clinton: Right after 9/11, a progressive friend of mine in San Francisco said that he hoped the response, if it was military, was more focused than Clinton's--not (in his words) a policy of "push a button and somebody dies," because there's too much civilian collateral damage in those cases. I think Clinton did overuse the missile strike option to spare American lives under the correct assumption that Americans would not be offended if innocent civilians were killed during the strikes. Clinton's air war strategy spared American lives, but at an incredibly high cost--note, for example, the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade back in 1999. Bombs and sanctions are painless policies for Americans because they do not cost American lives, and as a nation we obviously do not care about the lives of non-Americans (particularly if their skin is darker than ours and they live in pre-industrial conditions, as demonstrated by our government's collective yawn in response to the Darfur genocide). Cheers, TH

Author

Tom Head

Date

2006-12-29T10:46:37-06:00

ID

90497

Comment

To put it another way: The United States is a shining beacon of human rights because it fights totalitarianism in the same way that Ted Bundy was a deeply compassionate man because he counseled suicidal teenagers. Our foreign policy is and always has been based on U.S. national interest at the expense of non-U.S. lives, which is of course perfectly natural and probably to be expected, but then we deny our own role in all this when the chickens come home to roost. I will never defend al-Qaeda, but it's reasonable to ask why they were so successful at recruiting people to hurt us. Here's a hint: It wasn't the flashy brochures. Cheers, TH

Author

Tom Head

Date

2006-12-29T10:50:42-06:00

ID

90498

Comment

Kingfish, there were contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda but there was no "collaborative relationship." In fact, there was tremendous hostility between Hussein and al Qaeda, and Hussein was actively trying to assassinate Zarqawi. Implying anything else is misleading. There are many state sponsors of terrorism we do not invade, and for good reason. It's nice to see you essentially recapitulating Cheney's "1 percent doctrine." As for Atta, the question was settled--in the sense that Atta did not meet with an Iraqi intelligence official in Prague because Atta was not even in the Czech Republic at the time the meeting took place--long before Cheney chided the media in June 2004 for being "irresponsible" even as he repeated, one more time, the story about Atta in prague. I've seen your comment about Hitler before, and it is really out of line. For one thing, Japan and Germany were allies. When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Germany declared war on us, not the other way around. It's an extraordinarily poor example. Besides, such examples only make sense if you believe--and I know you do--in that nonsense word "Islamofascism." The word is Orwellian, in that it has no descriptive value--it doesn't help us understand the many different groups that operate under different leaders with different goals in the Middle East and beyond. Instead, it is a political word. It is an attempt to link al Qaeda and fascism to automatically justify total war against al Qaeda, or rather, "The Global War on Terror." The word obscures far more than it illuminates.

Author

Brian C Johnson

Date

2006-12-29T10:51:55-06:00

ID

90499

Comment

Kingfish, you're being childish: So was Clinton lying when he mentioned Saddams nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons programs? If Bush was lying, then so was Clinton. I accuse you of binary thinking and this is what you come back with? If my comments above do not demonstrate sufficiently why your comment here is a ridiculous non sequiter, I don't know how to make it any clearer.

Author

Brian C Johnson

Date

2006-12-29T10:55:06-06:00

ID

90500

Comment

There are not many sponsors of state terrorism as you put it. The main ones are Syria, Iran, formerly Iraq, and formerly Afghanistan. I have not said they have collaborated but there have been contacts between the two as well. As for Zarqawi, he was oppposed by others in AQ as well besides Saddam. Zawahiri opposed him if I'm not mistaken. You still have not addressed one of my main points though. If you have a country such as Iraq that is thought to have programs for chemical and/or biological weapons and actively sponsors terrorism, do you let them be after 9/11 or do you tell them to change their ways or else they are face the consequences for their sponsorship?

Author

Kingfish

Date

2006-12-29T10:58:43-06:00

ID

90501

Comment

Kingfish, I think part of the problem with the U.S. response to 9/11 is that we declared a general "War on Terror," which is too big and in many cases a matter of interpretation (we call brutal Taliban guerrillas terrorists now, but we called them "freedom fighters" twenty years ago when they were fighting the Soviets). We should have declared a war on al-Qaeda and allied groups. That would have been the more sensible alternative. Declaring a war on all terrorism just isn't practical; it's like declaring a war on burglary. Cheers, TH

Author

Tom Head

Date

2006-12-29T11:02:29-06:00

ID

90502

Comment

Welcome to why it's useful to try to have an intelligent conversation with Kingfish. He sees the world in black and white; cut down the middle. If you don't agree with one side, you're with the other. Uh, kinda like the Bush Doctrine.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2006-12-29T11:05:38-06:00

ID

90503

Comment

I'm not sure the question "Was Clinton lying?" is childish, by the way. If it was justified for Clinton to maintain sanctions and arrange bombing strikes in part because of his suspicion that Iraq had or was building WMDs, then he was instituting a very real policy with a very real human cost using the same rationale that Bush would later use to justify the war. I mean, people say "When Clinton lied, nobody died," but if we're going to say that Bush "lied" and that this is the reason for the Iraqi and U.S. casualties in the war, then we have to say that when Clinton lied, people did in fact die. Not nearly as many, but people did. Personally, I believe that both had bad intel. Bush's use of the bad intel was more egregious, but both killed people because of data that later turned out to be false. Cheers, TH

Author

Tom Head

Date

2006-12-29T11:07:32-06:00

ID

90504

Comment

Tom, that is one thing you and I have agreed on in the past. I think we have gotten too loose with things like war powers in that I like a declaration of war or resolutions authorizing the president to go to war. I did not like the war on terror deal. Its a tactic and strategy, not a terrorist or group and can be very loosely defined. One thing about a war on terror is one day it can be applied to domestic enemies or criminals and that does frighten me more than a little. Bob Barr has made some very good points on that issue. Having said that, he should have declared war on AQ, its sponsors, and any other nations he names as state sponsors of terrorism.

Author

Kingfish

Date

2006-12-29T11:08:00-06:00

ID

90505

Comment

I think he should have declared war on al-Qaeda and its sponsors and left it at that. A stable secular democracy in Afghanistan, with a working constitution; the capture and death of Osama bin Laden and the capture or death of all other high-ranking al-Qaeda officials; astonishingly high levels of international sympathy for the United States; these are all the best possible forms of revenge we could have had for 9/11, and Iraq cost us most of that. It's a shame. Cheers, TH

Author

Tom Head

Date

2006-12-29T11:10:57-06:00

ID

90506

Comment

Ms Ladd: If you haven't noticed, I have said more than once I was not in favor of invading Iraq as Bush did. However, I also realize that when you are in office you have to make certain decisions and I am laying out some of the reasons for why they decided to invade. I'm not prepared to say he was lying about WMD's when I show a speech by Clinton talking about Saddam's WMD's. My point is that I don't think they were both lying about them and that they got faulty intel. So if I disagree with some of you on this thread, I'm not intelligent or I am not providing an intelligent discussion. ok.

Author

Kingfish

Date

2006-12-29T11:12:40-06:00

ID

90507

Comment

Tom: I agree with every point made in that last post. Its also why I like the Nicaragua model for Iraq. Commit yourself to regime change but let the Iraqis figure out the best way to form a new government and support them.

Author

Kingfish

Date

2006-12-29T11:14:09-06:00

ID

90508

Comment

If that's the case, 'Fish, why do you try to turn every discussion into an immature binary shuffle?

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2006-12-29T11:14:25-06:00

ID

90509

Comment

I was not doing so. I see where Bush is accused of lying about WMD's. I point out that Clinton made same or similar claims. Is it really that unreasonable to point this out and then state that you think that neither was lying but that they were relying on the same bad intel? If you want to call that binary then go ahead. If you think I am doing it to say nyah nyah the Democrats did it too I am not. I am making the point that I think the intel was bad and that Bush hurt himself by not forcefully stating the other reaons as Blair did for invading Iraq. By focusing on the WMD's, when the intel turned out to be bad, he opened himself up to charges about lying about WMD's among other ones.

Author

Kingfish

Date

2006-12-29T11:25:16-06:00

ID

90510

Comment

by the way, "binary shuffle". that was a pretty good one.

Author

Kingfish

Date

2006-12-29T11:26:24-06:00

ID

90511

Comment

I think he's making some very good points, and asking some very good questions, here. We can't condemn Bush's policy without also condemning Clinton's. This is not a Republican problem. We also need to establish that if the Bush Doctrine is inadequate, that there's another doctrine we would embrace. Do we completely neglect humanitarian concerns? If not, how bad does the situation have to get before we intervene? And so forth. I think our Iraq War discussions as progressives tend to be way too comfortable, way too smug, when the truth is that we need to be criticizing ourselves while we criticize Bush or we'll be right back where we started when we elect the next president in 2009. Kingfish has a habit of playing devil's advocate and turning some discussions, most notably those on race, into binary shuffles. But in this case, I'm kind of glad somebody is putting us in a position where we have to condemn our own policies and our own history, and not just write this off as a Bush problem. Because it isn't. Anyone who is certain that Clinton or Gore wouldn't have invaded Iraq needs to take a hard look at what our post-WWII foreign policy priorities have been. This problem is much bigger than Bush, and the solution must be much bigger than just electing a candidate who has the right governing virtues. Virtues don't mean squat. Doctrines matter, and we're not going to be able to define our doctrines if we base these discussions on what we're not (i.e., Bush) rather than on what we are (i.e., a country that has consistently achieved international power on the backs of others). This is not just about the neocons. We need to change the whole way we do business. Cheers, TH

Author

Tom Head

Date

2006-12-29T11:31:31-06:00

ID

90512

Comment

I agree, even if I do say so myself. ;-) No one here that I've seen is a huge fan of Clinton's. The problem is that, in your effort to cut things straight down the middle (and make sure Repubs don't get *more* heat than Dems, even when deserved), you will offer an example like that to try to prove that they have not gone further than the Dems did. Kingfish, we're dealing with some truly disreputable, naive and ruthless people in this administration. It truly is time to admit that. Most of the country has by now, even though it's taken nearly 3,000 dead U.S. soldiers to get it through the thick U.S. skull that allowing the Bush administration to "fix" the problems it created wasn't the answer. (Ahem, Ledger edit-boyz.) You're unconvincing not because there are kernels of truth buried in your argument, but because much of your argument is so defensive and single-focused that the kernels of truth are buried deep inside it and get lost in your overall premise, which is incorrect. For another example of the Kingfish binary shuffle, see thread on federal Katrina corruption.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2006-12-29T11:32:55-06:00

ID

90513

Comment

(BTW, I was agreeing with Fish's comment about the "binary shuffle" there. I don't completely disagree with what Tom just said—I really dislike Clintons and their history—but the problem is that 'Fish's line of thinking doesn't get us there unless we do a shuffle ourselves to avoid his logical minefields. I just can't deal with a "Clinton did it, too" attitude to try to excuse any of the mess this administration has gotten us into. I am a grown, intelligent woman, and I am perfectly capable of having each discussion on its merits, not mired together in a defensive blob that leaves little hanging out there except some attempt to equate certain bad actions with bigger bad actions.That doesn't work for me. So, on that part of your post, Tom, I heartily disagree. Kingfish says little that makes me think, in other words.)

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2006-12-29T11:36:42-06:00

ID

90514

Comment

As for establishing democracy in Iraq as pushed by the neocons, allow me to propose the following hypothesis. Yes we did support Saddam in the 80's against Iran. I think neocons see that and our past history of backing dictators/tyrants in the Middle East and think that in the long run, it creates a bunch of regimes that are not stable and engage in behavior that does not bring about peace in the region. I think they see democracy as a way of breaking out of that cycle. I did not say they were right. Democracy has its flaws and I think there are too many things working against it in that region but I also understand the way of thinking. I think that what they favor is instead of backing more Saddams, Assads, and royal families, they wish to introduce democracy and create more stability. Did not say they were right, but I think that is their logic.

Author

Kingfish

Date

2006-12-29T11:37:45-06:00

ID

90515

Comment

I might try to contribute here if Tom weren't saying most of what I'd try to say, but about 5 times better. There is a role for military power here, but I think real solutions will arise primarily from within the west, and from within Islam. From within the West , as we develop and implement new foreign policy goals that protect our interests without running roughshod over the lives of the citizens of troubled countries. Perhaps we made the mistake of only looking at the stong-man in each country, and not seeing the power of grassroots movements like Al Qaeda. In any case, I hope we can learn to do better. From within Islam, there has to be a Reformation. I see Islam sort of like Christendom, only time-shifted by 500 years. Those within Islam who would impose their religion by force are the modern analog of the Inquisitors. There has to be a movement, a strong movement, within Islam that sees secular and spiritual power as separate things. There has to be a movement that recognizes that "compulsory religion" is not only evil, it's logicaly incoherent. Whether it is possible for this movement to happen is another question. I don't know. I am not Muslim. However, I do think we do a GREAT disservice to the promotion of this view when we use the words "Radical" and "Moderate" to distinguish between these views. Why can't a Muslim who is committed to peace be considered radical? Can he not also be "radially" committed to his faith? The use of these descriptioon imply that those who really believe are the violent elements, whereas those who promote peace are just marginally Muslim. I think this is a horrible message to send to the world.

Author

GLB

Date

2006-12-29T11:38:19-06:00

ID

90516

Comment

Ms Ladd: once again, you misunderstand. I have not tried to excuse Bush for getting us into a mess. I am tired of the demonizing though for what I think was a decision based on bad information and pointed out that others used the same information as well for similar conclusions. Its the demonization I'm attacking for the most part. As I said, I was against invading Iraq and think there was a better and still forceful way to deal with the problem even if it involved using military options. As I've also stated, we are in a mess. We can debate all day how we got to this point and it does help to some degree but I am more interested in what do we do now.

Author

Kingfish

Date

2006-12-29T11:41:14-06:00

ID

90517

Comment

I disagree somewhat GLB. After the Reformation, there were more sects of Christianity but they were still pretty intolerant towards each other. I think we need an enlightenment where tolerance and freedom of worship are seen as virtues and not sins.

Author

Kingfish

Date

2006-12-29T11:44:49-06:00

ID

90518

Comment

Well, I should have said "somewhat analogous". I didn't mean to stretch the metaphor too far. I have wondered, though, if that 500 year time shift is more than just concidence, since Islam is roughly 600-700 years younger than Christianity. Is there a natural life-cycle for world religions? But, anyway, I digress.

Author

GLB

Date

2006-12-29T11:54:29-06:00

ID

90519

Comment

Yeah, King, it's time to ____ or get off the stool. Other people have to use it, and know exactly what they need to do. Ain't but a few of ou disbelievers left, King. Most republicans too are tired of the subterfuse by now. There was a scene in Animal House where the fat boy was complaining about the fraternity brothers tearing up his biological bother's car, and one of the fraternity member told him "let's face it, you f_____ up, you trusted us." Those comments explains Iraq predicament.

Author

Ray Carter

Date

2006-12-29T11:55:30-06:00

ID

90520

Comment

The car is tore up and GM, Ford, Chrysler, Toyota, and Nissan are all lost as to how to fix all this damage. Despite all that expertise they don't know if the car can be fixed.

Author

Ray Carter

Date

2006-12-29T11:59:37-06:00

ID

90521

Comment

"We didn't win the war by being depressed, you know" -- Basil Fawlty

Author

GLB

Date

2006-12-29T12:05:19-06:00

ID

90522

Comment

As I compare going to war with Animal House, I've always had a sneaky suspicion Cheney was crazy long before he shot the fellow who apologized for getting in the way of the bullet. And somehow I just knew Bush was dumb, arrogant (although I can't imagine a personal basis for it) and seeking attention. Add the all-powerful regime of having control of both houses of congress, control of the CIA, to the beer-gushing, lying, corruption, stealing, orgies, abused females republican complicitors, and Otis Day and the Knights performing; and some shat had to soon go haywire. And it did.

Author

Ray Carter

Date

2006-12-29T12:14:46-06:00

ID

90523

Comment

I have not tried to excuse Bush for getting us into a mess. I am tired of the demonizing though for what I think was a decision based on bad information and pointed out that others used the same information as well for similar conclusions. Its the demonization I'm attacking for the most part. Kingfish, you are being ridiculous here, but with such tenacity as usual. You are trotting out a straw man—"demonization" of Bush—to be the subject of your attack (your word). But in the same breath, you tell us you are not trying "to excuse" Bush. The first problem here is your characterization of others' critique as "demonization." You don't just get to hurl such a logic-ridden insult, and then dance around as if you're the kitty with the canary in its mouth. Do you truly not get that the word "demonization" implies that someone is being criticized without merit??? The first huge problem with your argument itself is that the approach of Clinton and Bush were exactly the same (which is a right-wing radio/blog talking point right now, by eerie coincidence). An intelligent person can actually realize that both could have handled things incorrectly—while not ignoring all the evidence of how purposeful, how extreme and over what an extended a period of time the Bush side of your two-sided coin was (and, yes, that's a terrible sentence, but I think you'll get my drift. Or, probably not.) That is, we can all agree that Clinton handled things very poorly, and still not be blind to how much effort the Bush administration extended to purposely deceive the American public over a very long period of time. Stating that fact is not "demonization"; it is stating a fact. The dumb binary part here is in these little illogical minefields that you plant in your argument—and trying to argue that pointing out how extreme this administration has deceived the public, and that it is *worse* than Clinton's muck-ups, is by definition "demonization." That is a binary shuffle at its worst. And now I'm done trying to hop over your illogical minefields. I just can't have a smart conversation with someone who drops this little fallacy bombs and then acts like a martyr when called out on it. Lata.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2006-12-29T12:18:46-06:00

ID

90524

Comment

Dick is probably crazy because of all the crap Lynne whispers in his ear every night. I've been saying for years that *she* is the real problem.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2006-12-29T12:19:54-06:00

ID

90525

Comment

King, the reasons why the Clinton comparison distorts the argument are many. Intelligence agencies did believe that Hussein had some WMD programs under development to some extent. The reason why Bush is a liar and Clinton is not is that Clinton did not stovepipe and cherry pick intelligence. Clinton did not say that our smoking gun would come in the form of a mushroom cloud. He did not perpetrate the Niger yellow-cake fraud. He did not bury the debunking of the aluminum tubes gambit. Bush's lies were lies about the reliability of his intelligence. You can blame the intelligence agencies if you want--and they certainly deserve some blame--but the plain truth of the matter is that Al Gore was not at CIA headquarters demanding "better" intelligence from analysts. Madelaine Albright was not pressured into presenting information the UN that the administration knew was highly suspect at the very least. Most important, Clinton did not lie about his certainty as a means of stampeding the country into war. Clinton believed that Hussein had WMD programs, but he obviously did not believe his evidence was sufficient to justify invasion. That, in some small measure, is why your either/or is a false choice.

Author

Brian C Johnson

Date

2006-12-29T12:25:19-06:00

ID

90526

Comment

Tom, This is what it really comes down to, I think. Bush's use of the bad intel was more egregious, but both killed people because of data that later turned out to be false. This is where we disagree. The evidence that Bush et al. distorted the intelligence process is now overwhelming. I won't recite that evidence here, as it is voluminous, but the suggestion that Bush just relied on faulty intelligence is simply false.

Author

Brian C Johnson

Date

2006-12-29T12:42:40-06:00

ID

90527

Comment

**Dick is probably crazy because of all the crap Lynne whispers in his ear every night. I've been saying for years that *she* is the real problem.** <--Ladd, 11:19 a.m. post I think you've nailed it, Donna. From what I've read and heard, Mrs. Cheney's views are those of a far-right idealogue, and I suspect that her influence on the VP is why Ford said (in his '05 interview with Bob Woodward released this week) that Cheney is *more pugnacious* now than when he was Ford's Chief of Staff 32 years ago. I hear she's really a pill.

Author

Kacy

Date

2006-12-29T12:44:27-06:00

ID

90528

Comment

but the suggestion that Bush just relied on faulty intelligence is simply false. Amen. Once someone asserts that distortion, you know there is little conversation worth having to come. Folks, the evidence is overwhelming against this administration. That is fact, not demonization. Thank God most of the American people are finally seeing the light. Just two years ago, it was near unthinkable that things would shift so dramatically that the last thing someone would want to call themselves was "Republican." But some bad apples have mucked it up pretty badly. The question is whether good Republicans will eject the a$$holes and stop playing really ugly politics just to get tainted votes.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2006-12-29T12:47:48-06:00

ID

90529

Comment

Then take issue with this: the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's bipartisan Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq. Among the findings: "The committee did not find any evidence that intelligence analysts changed their judgments as a result of political pressure, altered or produced intelligence products to conform with administration policy, or that anyone even attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to do so." Silberman-Robb concluded the same, finding "no evidence of political pressure to influence the Intelligence Community's prewar assessments of Iraq's weapons programs. . . . Analysts universally asserted that in no instance did political pressure cause them to skew or alter any of their analytical judgments." What the report did find is that intelligence assessments on Iraq were "riddled with errors"; "most of the fundamental errors were made and communicated to policy makers well before the now-infamous NIE of October 2002, and were not corrected in the months between the NIE and the start of the war

Author

Kingfish

Date

2006-12-29T13:04:37-06:00

ID

90530

Comment

Are yall saying a woman, God's greatest gift to mankind, the cure-all to Adam's loneliness, has made Dick pugnacious, bellicose or war-like? Now, I know many women have caused many Dicks to wind up in untenable places, but I can't imagine that beautiful soul, that help-mate telling Dick to invaid Iraq and take her or us some oil for the future. Despite the foregoings, I'm ambivalent, though, because I hear one of the joys or benefits that women get from being with a man so long is watching him grow old and feeble-minded then ruling and bossing him in his last days and hours. If this is indeed the case with Dick Cheney, it's too bad and so sad. And we all are likely to continue to pay for the consequenses.

Author

Ray Carter

Date

2006-12-29T13:06:05-06:00

ID

90531

Comment

or this by Peter Wehrner, Bush's aide: Let's review what we know. The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) is the intelligence community's authoritative written judgment on specific national-security issues. The 2002 NIE provided a key judgment: "Iraq has continued its [WMD] programs in defiance of U.N. resolutions and restrictions. Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons as well as missiles with ranges in excess of U.N. restrictions; if left unchecked, it probably will have a nuclear weapon during this decade." Thanks to the bipartisan Silberman-Robb Commission, which investigated the causes of intelligence failures in the run-up to the war, we now know that the President's Daily Brief (PDB) and the Senior Executive Intelligence Brief "were, if anything, more alarmist and less nuanced than the NIE" (my emphasis). We also know that the intelligence in the PDB was not "markedly different" from that given to Congress. This helps explains why John Kerry, in voting to give the president the authority to use force, said, "I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a threat, and a grave threat, to our security." It's why Sen. Kennedy said, "We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction." And it's why Hillary Clinton said in 2002, "In the four years since the inspectors, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability and his nuclear program." Beyond that, intelligence agencies from around the globe believed Saddam had WMD. Even foreign governments that opposed his removal from power believed Iraq had WMD: Just a few weeks before Operation Iraqi Freedom, Wolfgang Ischinger, German ambassador to the U.S., said, "I think all of our governments believe that Iraq has produced weapons of mass destruction and that we have to assume that they continue to have weapons of mass destruction."

Author

Kingfish

Date

2006-12-29T13:06:12-06:00

ID

90532

Comment

and this makes some good points better than I can: http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110007540

Author

Kingfish

Date

2006-12-29T13:10:52-06:00

ID

90533

Comment

Well folks, I'm out for the New Year. I realize some of you think I was out for 2006 too judging from by bad jokes and poorly constructed and written comments. Anyway in 2007, since we ran those repubs off, I expect to see more introspection and soul searching; more admission of responsibilty; less deflection of criticism; less assignment of blame; reduced radical conservatism; less belligerence and/or isolationism; less winner-take-all ethos; more judicious projection of military power; increased cooperation with other nations (after all, we cant whip the whole rest of the world); more addressing of the global problems of poverty and Aids, no more Zell Millers, great and good progressivism whether liberal or so-called conservatism, and more LOVE. Love is kind, loveth all thing, forgoveth all things, not puffed up ... Sho Nuff. Watch out there now.

Author

Ray Carter

Date

2006-12-29T15:35:19-06:00

ID

90534

Comment

Here is a report from the CIA that took place BEFORE Bush took office. If Ladd and Brian want to say this is all a lie, feel free to do so. https://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/721_reports/july_dec2000.htm#4

Author

Kingfish

Date

2006-12-29T17:01:48-06:00

ID

90535

Comment

King, citing a WSJ opinion piece by a right-wing attack dog is not particularly helpful. I mean, this is a guy who apparently believes that Iraq actually did have WMDs before the war. (I just love it when people talk about the WMDs being buried in the Syrian desert--there is no evidence for it, and it makes no sense.) Most of his argument works through very selective citation. So he says, for instance, that the 9/11 commission's report found that Hussein had a "cooperative, if informal" relationship with al Qaeda, when the truth is that the 9/11 commission found there was no "collaborative relationship." So, he's trying to use the commission's report to back up the claim that there was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda of the sort the administration described when in fact the commission found just the opposite--there were contacts, but there was no working relationship. He goes so far as to argue that Hans Blix gave the administration good reason to think there were WMDs, when again, Blix clearly did the opposite. He acts as if the administration's public certainty that the aluminum tubes were only suitable for centrifuges was an honest mistake, when it clearly wasn't. He also loves to play the quoting from Clinton officials game you played, and it is just as pointless. It's all misdirection.

Author

Brian C Johnson

Date

2006-12-29T17:06:09-06:00

ID

90536

Comment

Kingfish, it is remarkable to me how selective you are when filtering through information. Where have you been the last few years!?! Do you know nothing that has has been revealed about this administration or has emerged over the last few years? Is your head in the frackin' sand? Are you one of the few Americans who still will argue with a straight face that the Bush administration did not lie to the American public!?! If so, you're more disconnected with reality than I'd guessed. Dude, you don't want this to be be true, but there is evidence from here to Mars that this administration did everything it could to bury any information that did not support their war plans—any facts that contradicted any earlier findings that supported the war they wanted to wage. We. know. this. Kingfish. Stop the silly games. They won't want work in this crowd. (These aren't the kind of folks who believe the playing field was level after the Civil War for blacks and whites, if you know what I mean. You have to work harder than repeating these mindless memes in these parts.)

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2006-12-29T17:08:01-06:00

ID

90537

Comment

It's all misdirection. And it's all misdirection designed to hide the truth that most Americans are facing now. Kingfish, it's time to hitch your wagon to a new star, buddy. This one's sinking fast. Hell, when a fellow Republican president disses you from the grave, you know your legacy is in trouble. Jump ship, King.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2006-12-29T17:10:04-06:00

ID

90538

Comment

From King's link: We believe that Iraq has probably continued low-level theoretical R&D associated with its nuclear program. That's a far cry from what administration officials said. They pushed so hard for the nuclear threat even though the evidence for it was by far the weakest.

Author

Brian C Johnson

Date

2006-12-29T17:10:05-06:00

ID

90539

Comment

This is from the CIA report that was made before Bush took office: Given Iraq’s past behavior, it is likely that Iraq has used the period since Desert Fox to reconstitute prohibited programs. We assess that since the suspension of UN inspections in December of 1998, Baghdad has had the capability to reinitiate both its CW and BW programs within a few weeks to months. Without an inspection-monitoring program, however, it is more difficult to determine if Iraq has done so. Since the Gulf war, Iraq has rebuilt key portions of its chemical production infrastructure for industrial and commercial use, as well as its missile production facilities. It has attempted to purchase numerous dual-use items for, or under the guise of, legitimate civilian use. This equipment—in principle subject to UN scrutiny—also could be diverted for WMD purposes. Since the suspension of UN inspections in December 1998, the risk of diversion has increased. After Desert Fox, Baghdad again instituted a reconstruction effort on those facilities destroyed by the US bombing, including several critical missile production complexes and former dual-use CW production facilities. In addition, Iraq appears to be installing or repairing dual-use equipment at CW-related facilities. Some of these facilities could be converted fairly quickly for production of CW agents. UNSCOM reported to the Security Council in December 1998 that Iraq also continued to withhold information related to its CW program. For example, Baghdad seized from UNSCOM inspectors an Air Force document discovered by UNSCOM that indicated that Iraq had not consumed as many CW munitions during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s as had been declared by Baghdad. This discrepancy indicates that Iraq may have hidden an additional 6,000 CW munitions. In 1995, Iraq admitted to having an offensive BW program and submitted the first in a series of Full, Final, and Complete Disclosures (FFCDs) that were supposed to reveal the full scope of its BW program. According to UNSCOM, these disclosures are incomplete and filled with inaccuracies. Since the full scope and nature of Iraq’s BW program was not verified, UNSCOM had assessed that Iraq continued to maintain a knowledge base and industrial infrastructure that could be used to produce quickly a large amount of BW agents at any time, if the decision is made to do so. In the absence of UNSCOM or other inspections and monitoring since late 1998, we remain concerned that Iraq may again be producing biological warfare agents. Iraq has continued working on its L-29 unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) program, which involves converting L-29 jet trainer aircraft originally acquired from Eastern Europe. It is believed that Iraq has conducted flights of the L-29, possibly to test system improvements or to train new pilots. These refurbished trainer aircraft are believed to have been modified for delivery of chemical or, more likely, biological warfare agents. We believe that Iraq has probably continued low-level theoretical R&D associated with its nuclear program. A sufficient source of fissile material remains Iraq’s most significant obstacle to being able to produce a nuclear weapon. Although we were already concerned about a reconstituted nuclear weapons program, our concerns were increased last September when Saddam publicly exhorted his "Nuclear Mujahidin" to "defeat the enemy." Iraq continues to pursue development of SRBM systems that are not prohibited by the United Nations and may be expanding to longer-range systems. Pursuit of UN-permitted missiles continues to allow Baghdad to develop technological improvements and infrastructure that could be applied to a longer-range missile program. We believe that development of the liquid-propellant Al-Samoud SRBM probably is maturing and that a low-level operational capability could be achieved in the near term — which is further suggested by the appearance of four Al Samoud transporter-erector-launchers (TELs) with airframes at the 31 December Al Aqsa Cal parade. The solid-propellant missile development program may now be receiving a higher priority, and development of the Ababil-100 SRBM – two of such airframes and TELs were paraded on 31 December—and possibly longer range systems may be moving ahead rapidly. If economic sanctions against Iraq were lifted, Baghdad probably would increase its attempts to acquire missile-related items from foreign sources, regardless of any future UN monitoring and continuing restrictions on long-range ballistic missile programs. Iraq probably retains a small, covert force of Scud-type missiles. Iraq’s ACW acquisitions remain low due to the generally successful enforcement of the UN arms embargo. The weapons and ACW-related goods which have been delivered to Iraq tend to be smaller arms transported over porous land borders. Iraq continues, however, to aggressively seek ACW equipment and technology.

Author

Kingfish

Date

2006-12-29T17:12:20-06:00

ID

90540

Comment

Frankly Brian, the nuke part of the WMD issue in Iraq never really concerned me. I didn't think he was close to getting them. Biowarfare and chemical weapons concerned me more. The material needed to kill millions can be housed in only a few 18 wheelers, not massive structures like a nuclear program would require. Since the fall of Iraq we have discovered stores of Sarin nerve agents. The scope and size of the chemical bioweapons program is grounds for debate but some have been found and as this CIA report shows, there were many who thought there was an ongoing active program.

Author

Kingfish

Date

2006-12-29T17:15:53-06:00

ID

90541

Comment

Ms Ladd: in case you think I am some knee jerk Bush defender why did I post a link to a story written in Am. Spectator by a former long time editor of NR who cricitized the Bush admin's decision and also its defense by the neocons?

Author

Kingfish

Date

2006-12-29T17:19:16-06:00

ID

90542

Comment

King, what concerned you is an interesting side note, but it's not what we're discussing here. We're discussing what the administration sold to the American public, and a serious, if not necessarily imminent, nuclear threat was the centerpiece of it.

Author

Brian C Johnson

Date

2006-12-29T17:19:27-06:00

ID

90543

Comment

And since non-nuclear weapons are what worry you, let's address Curveball, the source of the administration's claim that Hussein had mobile biological weapons labs. In his presentation to the UN security council in February last year, the US secretary of state, Colin Powell, explicitly used Curveball's now discredited claims as justification for war. The Iraqis were assembling "mobile production facilities for biological agents", Mr Powell said, adding that his information came from "a solid source". ... German officials said that they had warned American colleagues well before the Iraq war that Curveball's information was not credible - but the warning was ignored. ... It has now emerged that Curveball is the brother of a top aide of Ahmad Chalabi, the pro-western Iraqi former exile with links to the Pentagon. ... David Kay, who resigned as head of the Iraqi survey group in January after a fruitless nine-month search for weapons of mass destruction, said in an interview that Curveball had been "absolutely at the heart of the matter", but had turned out to be an "out and out fabricator". ... US and British intelligence officials have acknowledged since the war that much of the information supplied by Mr Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress and other Iraqi groups was wrong.

Author

Brian C Johnson

Date

2006-12-29T17:24:07-06:00

ID

90544

Comment

Who can we blame for giving us Curveball? We can blame the Office of Special Plans, which was created to stovepipe intelligence from Chalabi and other sources straight to the president while circumventing verification and analysis. I mean, are we really having an argument about this? Did the Office of Special Plans exist or not? Did Cheney spend day after day at the CIA pressuring analysts at work on the NIE or not?

Author

Brian C Johnson

Date

2006-12-29T17:27:09-06:00

ID

90545

Comment

Brian: Do you have any comment on the WSJ piece's take on the Joe Wilson affair?

Author

GLB

Date

2006-12-29T17:30:12-06:00

ID

90546

Comment

The part about Chalabi I do not dispute at all although ironically our prosecution of him turned out to help him gain favor among Iraqis. What was sold was WMD's. There were other reasons given but that was the main one that was made. WHat I posted was a CIA report issued before Bush took office. It is on their website. The CIA has missed the boat on quite a few things and have let down Bush I, Bush II, and Clinton. The report is in line with what Bush was saying when justifying invading Iraq. It states that in 95 Iraq admitted to an offensive bioweapons program. This also begs the next question. If Saddam was stopping, then starting, then stopping, then starting nuke, bio-, and chemical weapons programs, at what point do we say enough?

Author

Kingfish

Date

2006-12-29T17:30:53-06:00

ID

90547

Comment

Let me ask you this Brian: If Cheney had the NSA and DIA telling him that what was in the CIA report was valid and given the CIA's history of botching assessments, would Cheney be justified in pushing them?

Author

Kingfish

Date

2006-12-29T17:33:43-06:00

ID

90548

Comment

Remember King, that the point here is not whether the CIA believed Hussein had WMD programs. Clearly, the CIA did believe that. The point is, did the administration manipulate intelligence? Clearly, they did. Is it the intelligence community's fault that Powell called Curveball "a solid source"? No. Is it the intelligence community's fault that the administration said there was no other possible use for the aluminum tubes than centrifuges? No. Is it the intelligence community's fault that the administration was pushing the yellow cake story even after the CIA had debunked it? No.

Author

Brian C Johnson

Date

2006-12-29T17:34:00-06:00

ID

90549

Comment

Clearly, Cheney would not be justified in pushing them. It is not the job of the vice president to pressure intelligence agencies to give him the intelligence he wants. The vice president has absolutely no business even speaking to individual analysts, let along brow beating them about what they're reporting. There was a great Frontline piece this year about Dick Cheney called "The Dark Side." (The title is melodramatic, but it's Cheney's own melodrama, taken from his gleeful post-9/11 declaration that we were going to have to spend time on "the dark side" to fight terrorism.) It's chock full of former intelligence analysts describing just how much pressure Cheney brought to bear on them. One of the guys--can't remember right now, but I have it on my harddrive at home--in that program said it was unprecedented to have a vice president at CIA headquarters day after day like that. Usually, this man said, we only see the vice president if there's a new wing getting dedicated or something. The CIA's job is to present its best assessment of the intelligence data. The executive's job is to hear that presentation and make a decision. The executive has absolutely no business meddling in the intelligence process, but it's not even debated that this is what they did.

Author

Brian C Johnson

Date

2006-12-29T17:41:22-06:00

ID

90550

Comment

Brian: I think the CIA's credibility is so shot I don't know if I would take their debunking of anything seriously. That is not a shot at you, its an honest opinion. I was in military intel. Its not a case of a-ha or smoking guns. It usually a case of assembling a bunch of various pieces of information and interpreting them and trying to reach a conclusion. You can take the same info and get different conclusions. The devil is in trying to reach conclusions. I don't think the Administration had to manipulate it too much if the CIA for years had already been saying the same thing. Chalabi had been working the hill for years. He had a following in Washington and was believe by quite a few people. The sad part is is that if we had followed his advice more, we would've avoided alot of problems after we occupied Iraq. He had a armed Iraqi force with him that had a good bit of success in what it did. Then we disarmed him, couldn't trust Iraqis to govern themselves of course, went the Proconsul route and shut out the Iraqis and assured ourselves of more violence. If we had followed his advice and assembled an actual Iraqi government first, alot of bloodshed might have been avoided.

Author

Kingfish

Date

2006-12-29T17:42:43-06:00

ID

90551

Comment

Is there a link? would like to see it. the frontline piece.

Author

Kingfish

Date

2006-12-29T17:43:30-06:00

ID

90552

Comment

Let me see if I've got this straight, King. On the one hand, Cheney was justified in pushing the CIA because they're often wrong. On the other hand, it's not Cheney's fault that the intelligence was wrong because he was just relying on the CIA. As for when we say "enough is enough" to Hussein, we could have had a national discussion about that question. Again, however, the purpose of the Bush administration's blitz was to act as if there was no reason to discuss anything at all, because we knew for a fact that Hussein was actively building WMDs. You can't have it all ways at once, King.

Author

Brian C Johnson

Date

2006-12-29T17:48:10-06:00

ID

90553

Comment

Here's that Dark Side link for you, amigo. However you feel about these issues, that's one of the best programs on this question I've seen.

Author

Brian C Johnson

Date

2006-12-29T17:49:23-06:00

ID

90554

Comment

Paul Pillar is probably the most tragic figure in that program. He signed off on the NIE even though he knew it was B.S.

Author

Brian C Johnson

Date

2006-12-29T17:50:46-06:00

ID

90555

Comment

good point. allow me to retort. I'd say that CIA thought he did and went on record for doing so. I'd say some elements in CIA said he didn't and Cheney was probably pushing them with evidence from NSA and DIA as well as other agencies as well as waving their own reports at them. I don't know if he manipulated it as much as he was argueing with them. Its a good question to ask, did he try to manipulate their opinion. What keeps me from saying no is I read past and not old reports from the previous administration where they were giving him the conclusions he wants. When you read that CIA link, do you wonder why he would try to manipulate the CIA? How do you manipulate the willing? Having said that, I can't say Bush was lying about WMD's when the CIA thought he had them. I'd say that supports Bush as well as the fact that other people like Blair and Schroeder said he had them as well. And by the way, I DO think its a massive intelligence failure. I read the CIA stuff and I think we have them. We go over there and don't find them. how do you reconcile the two?

Author

Kingfish

Date

2006-12-29T17:56:33-06:00

ID

90556

Comment

And why didn't Sadaam come cleaner sooner? Why did he make it so diffficult to verify? I'm not saying his behavior means that any weapons were there, but it does seem to beg for an explanation. I've heard lots of speculation about this, much of which seems plausible at least. But I'd be interested to know what you people think.

Author

GLB

Date

2006-12-29T18:09:42-06:00

ID

90557

Comment

Clearly, it was a massive intelligence failure, even though the administration pressured the intelligence community. What it really comes down to is that the administration pressured the CIA and others to include dubious information and to state that it was ironclad. In other words, the CIA believed that Hussein had WMDs, but they did not believe that they could actually "prove" that case. The administration had to have that proof or they would not be able to stampede the country into war.

Author

Brian C Johnson

Date

2006-12-29T18:12:48-06:00

ID

90558

Comment

That is the problem when you deal with rogue nations. They are not stupid and he learned from 1981 not to do things in the open. So you are left with the dilemma of you think he has them, you think he is workign on getting them, other people or agencies with credibility think the same thing but there it not a smoking gun. I think that is the dilemma they faced. Keep in mind, I opposed going into Iraq. I am merely stating what their side was and can understand it even if I disagree with the course of action taken.

Author

Kingfish

Date

2006-12-29T18:23:11-06:00

ID

90559

Comment

By the way, a moment of frivolity. When I lived in Milwaukee, not long after the war started, I made a mix CD full of late-night trip hop and trance--honestly, it was stoner music, though I always try to make it clear to our young people that you don't need some chemical to get you high if you listen to music that's weird enough. I designed cover art for it--a shockwave of ionized gas speeding away from a supernova--printed out on photographic paper and cut to fit in a regulation CD case. The name of this CD, you ask? The Office of Special Plans. That's right, baby. I mean, doesn't it have a kind of sleazy potential? "Where are we going, John?" Charlotte asked, clutching at his arm. "Baby," he said, grabbing her passionately, "we're going to the Office of Special Plans." Anyway, it made for a good stocking stuffer that year.

Author

Brian C Johnson

Date

2006-12-29T19:30:05-06:00

ID

90560

Comment

you want weird album art, here ya go: http://www.waiting4louise.de/cover/Cover-KingCrimson-Court.jpg

Author

Kingfish

Date

2006-12-29T19:33:19-06:00

ID

90561

Comment

Brian, I wrote my first book to Genesis' The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. Good times. :o) Cheers, TH

Author

Tom Head

Date

2006-12-29T19:59:22-06:00

ID

90562

Comment

This is really my last comment on this. Bill Clinton was the only reason the repubs hadn't gotten us in this kind of fix or shat earlier. Or something worse. He outsmarted Rove, Gingrich, Norquist and many other republicans for a long time. At least 8 to 10 years. We didn't have anything else like him once his terms were up. He knew the conservatives' arguments and neutralized them as much as any individual could have. He also had to switch positions many times to stave them off. He also knew the liberals' arguments and supported them when he could without grave consequences. Clinton outsmarted the "reupbicans gone wild" for years because of his brillance that even big money and lots of adverse talent couldn't overcome. Once he was out of the way the big money machine along the evil ideology of those named above eventually swept the country for a brief decade or so. Even without the Monica Lewinsky fiasco I don't believe a less brillant and charismatic democratic hopeful could have stopped the tide. Thank God for self-destruction and for making it happen so quickly.

Author

Ray Carter

Date

2007-01-02T16:25:04-06:00