Asymmetrical Information

The President’s enemies are getting desperate. The odds are very high (perhaps 80%) that he will be reelected barring a national disaster. Moreover, they are betting the ranch that we will never find the so-called smoking gun. That is not a wise thing to do! After all, we have only been in Iraq for a few months. We are probably going to uncover a lot of shocking revelations. These folks are likely to soon look ridiculous---and will be haunted by their current statements.

Why is this occurring? The number one reason is Howard Dean. He is pushing the Democrat Party to the far left of the political spectrum. I am utterly convinced that the majority of the other candidates would be more sensible if Dean was not in the race.

It may be simpler than that. Part II of Jane's law explains (I go from memory here):

The party out of power is insane.

This of course applies regardless of which party happens to be in power.

The British still stand by their claim. They say that it is based on intelligence that they can't share all the details with the US. (One reasonable explanation is that a foreign intelligence service provided the information on the condition that it not be shared.) Why is not: "We trust the British," a reasonable explanation? The British say that they have documents different from the ones that the CIA discredited. They and the Administration say that the US told them about the CIA's reservations, that the British told us that these were different documents, we agreed to say that it was British sources that told us, and all was fine.

Furthermore, I'm confused as to how many Democrats who (as recently as a week ago) were writing "Why can't Bush be like Blair?" articles are now savaging Bush for... trusting Blair.

Oh, that's gotta be made into a song:

Why can't Bush...be more like Blair?

I can almost hear Rex Harrison singing it now.

Jane,

It appears that you are willfully misrepresenting Kinsley's piece to make your point. Given his archly tongue-in-cheek lead, one might assume that he's mocking the administration's convolutions in this whole affair. In fact, you quote Kinsley saying it pretty clearly, ". . . but to descend to the administration's level of nitpickery . . . "

I'd say that Kinsley's central point about the administrations equivocations, also quoted by you, is more in line with his, "This is a contemptible argument . . . " rather than any grammatical grudge he holds.

I supported this war, reluctantly, based on evidence laid out by the administration and others (notably the Blair government). Now I'm puzzled as to why there haven't been any WMD found, and why seemingly robust rationales for the war have turned out to be, shall we say, suspect.

I wonder - are doubts allowed, or will they all be downplayed into pettyfoggery and quibbling ? And, for the $64,000 question, do my doubts qualify me as one of the President's enemies in David Thomson's book ?

Cheers,

Let's compare Clinton on North Korean nukes to Bush on the British intelligence estimate.

1. Bush told the truth. clinton lied.
2. Impact -- Bush made the world safer by removing Saddam from power. clinton gave NK billions to develop their nukes and then lied when they used the gift to build bombs. World is now far more dangerous.
3. Media coverage -- press has no interest in clinton's real deceit which did very real damage. Press is going crazy on Bush's true statement which is irrelevant even if it were false. Should we conclude that journalists are incompetent? Or that they are so corrupted by bias that they are really propagandists?

Stan,

Eureka ! You've hit the motherload. From now on, all the rightie posters can simply invoke your name with the understanding that, on every issue there is to discuss:

"1. Bush told the truth. clinton lied."

Think of all the time and bandwidth that will be saved.

Robert, strangely, Condoleeza Rice was not at all making the argument that you and Kinsley accuse the Administration of making. Instead, she stated essentially my argument-- that we trust the British, who say that they have their own independent sources, the exact documents they cannot share for some reason.

I await the Democrats' simultaneously blasting Bush for trusting our British allies while saying that we should do more to respect our allies. Especially since, as I mentioned above, so many of the Democrats, in a The New Republic sort of way, wanted to support the war without supporting (ugh) a Republican, and so latched upon Tony Blair as their reason for support and role model as an executive. Yet now the plan of attack against Bush is to attacking him for trusting Blair.

John,

I understand your point, though I couldn't disagree with it more.

Why does it seem to be inconceivable to the right that anyone who voted against Bush would actually (truly, sincerely and completely in the face of The New Republic) support our government in a foreign policy action (hell, I'll cut the diplo-jargon and say war) that's in the best interest of our country ?

And why does it seem to be inconceivable that when supposedly robust information and evidence turns out to be not so robust (and some of it is clearly not robust, even though it was absolutely presented that way) that skepticism arises ? To me, it would be counterintuitive if that weren't the case.

I know, I've heard the shrill partisan voices, too. But have we really been reduced to partisan bickering on every issue that comes up, regardless of how important ?

I supported the war in Iraq and I didn't vote for Bush. Hell, I've never voted Republican for president (I'm 50) and I don't particularly like Bush (or his Dad). However, despite the Democrats "nitpickery" (love that term) I still support it. And there's no way I'll vote Democrat in the upcoming elections (and beyond). Those vying for the Democratic nomination are a bunch of whiners and weaklings whom I wouldn't trust as mall cops let alone with the security of the nation.

Robert, I have no doubts whatsoever that the vast majority of Democrats are capable and do support the interests of the country, as they define it. (Sometimes of course, people have different ideas about the right thing to do.)

However, you can't fail to admit that quite a few op-eds or comments from moderates and liberals supporting the war made remarks wishing that Bush were more like Blair in some way. The reference to TNR is simply their interesting habit of refreshingly being able to entertain and discuss ideas from many places in the political spectrum-- liberal to conservative-- even sometimes coming to quite conservative conclusions, while still retaining the committed partisan's bile and dislike for Republican politicians.

Perhaps I'm misreading your early comments, but you certainly made it sound as though the Blair Government's evidence and participation made you much more likely to be in favor of the war than if it were only Bush and the US Government. In any case, the British Government stands fully behind the claim still, saying that it was based on other evidence (and that they knew this at the time, and informed the US when we asked them about it, telling them of the forgeries we had) which they are unable to share for certain reasons. I trust them.

In any case, there's very little to really ask President Bush and the US Government about this subject, except to query why they decided to believe the Brits, who claim to have different documents than the ones the CIA decided were forged. Questions can be directed to Tony Blair, but the British Government stands behind the report, and probably will not release the intelligence documents to the satisfaction of questioners, if it didn't release it to the US because of considerations.

John,

In fact, I was home sick the day Tony Blair addressed Parliament in the prelude to war. He was more than admirably persuasive. (And, yes, George Bush pales considerably in contrast. I would say that any posters who missed Blair's presentation and then had the temerity to liken Bush's 'Bring 'em on' to Churchill should blush in shame. But I digress.)

Apart from Blair's eloquence, I was more swayed by the body of evidence presented by the administration. I live in Germany, and as I discussed developments with colleagues and friends (a tough audience, as you can imagine) I was unequivocal - Iraq had WMD, Saddam was a threat and had to be brought down, the war had to be fought.

Since the heady days in April when I could point out that Iraq is 'free', there's been something of an empty, dull thud in that line of reasoning. I'm faced with the very odd juxtaposition of being even more convinced that we were right to bring Saddam down while wondering just how much of a bill of goods we were sold to justify the war.

Wouldn't it be better politically for Democrats to side with the President on the issue of finding these weapons? That is, take the attitude that OF COURSE the President would never lie about such a thing and OF COURSE the President would ensure that intelligence is reliable?

If the reports turn out true, no egg on the face, plus credit for supporting the effort. If false, then there is plenty of time to be terribly, TERRIBLY disappointed in the Bush Administration in 2004 -- just in time for elections!

Fortunately for the president's critics, he keeps giving the more ammo. His statments yesterday that the war was started because Saddam wouldn't let the inspectors in (I think we all can remember that he did) and that the CIA's doubts about the Niger story were "subsequent" to the SOTU defy the imagination. This is not nitpicking, these are complete falsehoods. Combine that with the ever changing and contradictory explanations emanating from the administration and you get something we haven't seen since. . .Clinton

One thing I don't understand about this issue is why there is no effort to find the source of the forged documents. Clearly, this was attempt to mislead the US and provoke it into war, which sounds like a pretty serious offense to me.

I supported the war and feel that we had myriad other valid reasons for attacking. However, the fact that someone/some country went to significant lengths to try to "trick" us into attacking Iraq seems like a huge deal to me, and I'd expect us to be trying to track down the responsible parties and "have a word" with them.

Jane Galt is missing Kinsley's point. See Volokh.

None of this changes the fact that the current crop of Democratic contenders are nothing more than weak-kneed losers who don't have the courage to face America's enemies.

hi all,

i agree with david p (as opposed to t) on this. the issue is not 16 words. the aim of reducing it to 16 words is an attempt to bog down discussion into an issue of semantics (something the administration would very much like to do). the issue raised, deals with credibility. from mid 2002 on, we have been told of credible nuclear threats. they appear to be WRONG. many of you won't like this, but there APPEARS to be a pattern of lying (lets get that word out there-- either through ommission, through exaggeration, or dare we say it: commission), not just on this issue but on issues concerning the economy, etc.

when the admin tells us that the "info was technically accurate" they sound just like clinton asking us to consider what the meaning of "is" is.

here is my question for those who don't think this is a major issue: what if everything (at least vaguely plausible) being offered by the administration's critics were true about the wmd intelligence? how would that, if at all, change your opinion about the admin, the war in iraq, and what should happen as a consequence of all this?

Bush critics seem to think intelligence is not credible unless it is an established fact. All the major intelligence agencies, French, German, Australian, British, US, Russian, not to mention the UN, had credible intelligence that Saddam had WMDs and was embarked on clandestine efforts to develop nukes. Were they all lying? Should we have waited until he had them, showed them off, and dared someone to do something about it (ala Kim)? Were the Israelis wrong for taking out the Osirak reactor? After all, it was only for research purposes.

You're engaging in an academic argument about an existential threat to millions of people for political gain.

Yeah, because when Clinton was reduced to parsing the meaning of "is" that was really his moment of greatest triumph.

Those who support the war and its aftermath have the obligation to demonstrate that things are truly better, both for Iraqis and for the U.S. They are the ones who own the responsibility

Those who opposed the war and predicted that the aftermath of the invasion would turn nasty are praying that things will get better but we need some evidence that will persuade us, given the hubris and incompetence amply demonstrated by the "adults" supposedly in charge, that this will happen.

In other words, if the pro-war folks want the support of the anti-war folks the pro-war folks have to earn it.

I'll second Thacker and suggest reading Michael Smith's column in Daily Telegraph on the true "source" of the yellowcake intel. Namely, French intelligence. This is almost too obvious, considering Niger is their former colony and the uranium mining co's are under their control. Also explains why Brits can't divulge sources or methods. French involvement may also have something to do with the forgery, separate from the intel the Brits find convincing. The better question to be asked is whether Bush is just being a big pussy, with Rumsfeld & Rice referring to statement being "technically accurate" and saying it should not have been in SOTU, or whether this is a back door way to show George Tenet the door. He may have placed the noose around his own neck in an effort to play turf games with Rumsfeld & co over use of non-CIA sourced material. Anyways, our dems may have an argument with Chirac in addition to Blair on this one.

"And, for the $64,000 question, do my doubts qualify me as one of the President's enemies in David Thomson's book ?"

There is nothing wrong with doubting the President. There is, however, a serious problem with accusing George W. Bush with lying if the evidence is not there to support one’s accusation.

If anyone thinks this uranium-lying thing isn't doing any damage to Bush, perhaps they can explain why else Bush's re-elect numbers are dropping so precipitously. (Scroll down to the Ipsos-Reid poll, second from top.)

here is my question for those who don't think this is a major issue: what if everything (at least vaguely plausible) being offered by the administration's critics were true about the wmd intelligence? how would that, if at all, change your opinion about the admin, the war in iraq, and what should happen as a consequence of all this?

Okay, cas, I'll bite. I'm supposed to assume that all the WMD intelligence was flimsy, and that deep down all the US (and UK?) decision-makers were pretty sure that there were no WMDs? That seems pretty implausible to me, frankly, but I don't know if it does to you.

If Bush and Cheney and Rice and Rumsfeld and Powell _all_ "knew" that there probably weren't any Iraqi WMDs, then they engaged in wholesale fraud and deception, and I'd be very mad. I'd also wonder why we were wasting time with Iraq when we still haven't found Osama, etc.

Of course, it's very hard to believe this, because if this were true, why weren't the French and German and Russians and UN all saying this back in 2002? They weren't saying it because their intelligence agencies also believed there really were WMDs in Iraq.

What the press and the Democrats are really saying (as opposed to trying to imply) is, "The intelligence on Iraq's WMD wasn't as strong as you led us to believe. You implied it was 100% reliable and now it looks like it was only 70% reliable." If that's the truth, then my opinion isn't changed at all. Part of the Administration's job is to obtain and evaluate intelligence and then make foreign policy decisions based on it.

The Administration said, "We think Iraq has WMDs. Here's some evidence about it. For that and other reasons, we think we should go to war with Iraq." And Congress said, "How high?"

In terms of reliability, I'm sure there was lots of other evidence which was judged less-credible; some of it may turn out to be true, down the road. Are we then going to have to go through this all over again, with the press complaining that Bush didn't mention this other evidence? I can see the headlines now, "Bush Omitted Important Intelligence; More Lies in State of the Union Address".

Sadly, with the slow summer news season upon us, we'll probably be listening to this for the next month.

We should be more concerned with America's avowed enemies than Bush's political 'enemies'. They have the capability (remember 9/11?) and the will to kill Americans, including Bush opponents and various other leftists.

Somehow, the rhetoric and behavior of the anti-war crowd leads me to doubt whether they're 'praying that things get better'.

And if the unimaginable occurs, a weak, vacillating Democrat is actually elected, how vulnerable will our nation be? I fear it'll give the green light to America's enemies to attack with impunity, since they'll lack the courage to do anything to stop it.

If you're losing and you know it, blame the French.

And as far as who is quibbling over grammar, have you read any Ari Fleischer transcripts lately? This whole scandal doesn't take way any justification for the war, but it should be a character issue for George "technically accurate straight talker" Bush.

And as far as who is quibbling over grammar, have you read any Ari Fleischer transcripts lately? This whole scandal doesn't take way any justification for the war, but it should be a character issue for George "technically accurate straight talker" Bush.

Didn't Congress approve the Iraqi war before the SOTU? Wait a minute, if we knew you were going to lie to us in the future we would never have given you the approval. We take it back.

This is all about the election. The Democrats have no plan for the unlikely event they win the presidency and have to deal with the very real threats facing our nation. I suppose they'll just wing it, praying that it all works out. If they take a tough stand and criticize Bush really, really hard, then maybe our enemies will say, "Oh, Dean's the president now, let's call off the jihad." The thought of the Democrats putting this nation and its people at risk just to get elected just makes me sick.

Those who support the war and its aftermath have the obligation to demonstrate that things are truly better, both for Iraqis and for the U.S. They are the ones who own the responsibility.

Is that "they" supposed to be those who supported the war, or Iraqis? Either way, I think the fact that no one has been shredded in Iraq for 3 months is pretty good evidence that "things are truly better."

Those who opposed the war and predicted that the aftermath of the invasion would turn nasty are praying that things will get better...

Joe, I'm glad to hear it, because frankly it looks more like "those who opposed the war" are praying things get worse so they can say "I told you so."

perhaps they can explain why else Bush's re-elect numbers are dropping so precipitously.

NB, I'm not sure what numbers you're looking at. The current "Definitely Bush" percentage is 41%, down from the mid-40s (as high as 47% in mid-April). But in March, the number was 38%. I think we're just seeing a tailing off of the Iraqi victory bump.

The "Definitely Bush" number was also at 41% last August, though the "Vote for Someone Else" number was a bit lower then.

There's been little substantive news lately. Be interesting to see what happens when things pick up again, probably after Labor Day. (Or, I suppose, if some WMDs are found.)

Actually, I happen to be aware of some top-secret info that if the Democrats win, we will actually turn over control of America to Saddam Hussein (with OBL as VP, of course). Looks like you guys are on to us, though.

'by engaging in such arguments, make themselves look like pettyfogging quibblers out to injure the president by any means necessary.'

Don't think so. This allows the Dems to directly attack Bush without actually trying to defend their positions on the war. For once this gives them the upper hand by forcing the GWB gang to defend their actions without being able to say it's in our national defense or it's for the American people. The Dems are doing some serious stretching of the truth to make their point but it seems to be working for them.

"Actually, I happen to be aware of some top-secret info that if the Democrats win, we will actually turn over control of America to Saddam Hussein (with OBL as VP, of course)."

Whew! For a minute there I didn't think the Democrats had a plan. Do Saddam and OBL still get to kill Americans? Bush supporters, or does it matter?

hi ni,

"And if the unimaginable occurs, a weak, vacillating Democrat is actually elected, how vulnerable will our nation be?"

is that opposed to a strong balanced decisive rational thoughtful honest democrat?

PJ/Nobody Important/Stan:

By engaging in such arguments, you make the Right look like complete incompetents.

Some uncomfortable truths:

1) Iraq hasn't been "the enemy" since 1992. They weren't a threat to American security. Saddam was a bad guy and all but so were a lot of our allies--say it with me--"Karimov".

If you think Saddam was a threat--prove it. Please. What connections to Al Qaeda? What WMDs? Forget what so-and-so said 5 years ago--why was he a threat five months ago?

2) While you were distracted, North Korea is proliferating with nuclear weapons directly in response to Bush's Axis of Evil response.

What lie did Clinton tell about North Korea?

Oh that's right. Facts. You don't do facts.

3) 9/11 happened on Bush's watch. Bush and Rice were warned by the CIA in the summer of 2001 that Al Qaeda was planning to hijack planes and mount a "spectacular attack" in the United States. Bush knew from his WTO trip to Genoa that summer that Al Qaeda was planning to attack buildings with planes.

Bush's bluster didn't stop 9/11.

Unless you don't believe 9/11 happened (you guys are so shifty with those stubborn facts it's hard to tell where to even begin).

4) You should be part of the "anti-war" crowd unless you like being lied to by your own government.

Maybe you just like being lied to, period, since you apparently lie to yourself all the time.

5) President Bush is lying when he says that Sadddam Hussein was an imminent threat to American security.

President Bush is lying when he says that Saddam Hussein refused to let inspectors in his country.

President Bush is lying when he says that it's "technically accurate" to attribute a false statement to the British in his SOTU.

It's a lie. Just because the liar believes his own lie, doesn't make it true.

The British have no other intelligence. There's no possible other explanation. The IAEA believes that the Brits intelligence is actually about Niger, and that it's actually the same forged document.

What motive is there to "hide sources" at this point? Who are the Brits protecting, if it isn't Blair/Bush?

There is no other intelligence. The jig is up.

Lloyd:

The French categorically deny being the source of the intelligence.

Of course--you being a right-winger, I anticipate your response as "of course the French lie."

Why would they lie now?

What I find so surrealistic about this entire flap is how the meaning of the word "lie" has become distorted. At WORST what Bush can be accused of is doing a good job of selling the American people on the need to go to war. He persuaded the public of the correctness of his view. In doing so, he may have overstressed factors in his favor and underweighted uncertainties that may have argued for a different view. When trying to persuade, everyone does this and nowhere on this earth is it considered lying.

Political leaders are NOT supposed to give a balanced, nuanced, exposition of the facts. They are supposed to LEAD. Was Churchill required to note that, on all accounts, "Hitler was kind to his mother" before being allowed to denounce the Nazi regime? When listing Tojo's crimes, did we require FDR to also note Tojo was a loving father? We don't expect ANY president to make his opponents arguments for them. When they do, it's just to build up a straw man that can be knocked down. What Bush did was well within the norms for presidents. It was his job to educate, explain, and preach -- all with a view of persuading.

Some may argue that Bush did more than persuade; he lied because he knew his claims about Iraq were untrue. This is just untenable. All the intelligence services in world thought Iraq had and/or was developing WMDs. If this belief turns out to be incorrect, it won't mean Bush lied. It will mean he made a mistake. A lie (except as the word's meaning is becoming distorted by this debate) is the intentional telling of what the speaker believes to be untrue. Since what Bush said, on the whole and in detail, is in accord with what the world's intelligence community believed to be true, it is impossible to conclude Bush lied -- unless you want to change the word's meaning.

Final point and then I'm off:

If Bush wasn't actively deceiving the public about what he knew and didn't know about the Iraq/Africa uranium link--if he was truly "technically accurate" in his statement...

Then he is criminally incompetent.

Why?

Because he didn't bother to check his sources. He didn't ask that his CIA confirm the British intelligence.

The Brits don't work for us. The Brits might have every reason in the world to goad us to take up the war with Iraq--their national interests are served by their intelligence, not ours.

In essence, by laying it all at the feet of our Atlantic cousins, Bush is admitting to treason.

Bush served the ends of British intelligence.

hi ni,

"You're engaging in an academic argument about an existential threat to millions of people for political gain."

look, if it were that simple, we could have a laugh and brush this off as a "summer" filler. it is not. the issue isn't a statement. it is a pattern of statements made by admin folks over the last year and beyond.

why should we care? because the most important thing one has as a leader is their credibility. if you make statements that turn out to be untrue, and you knew it to be the case that they were probably not true (as is pretty clearly the case here), then your credibility suffers. that's the key issue.

what is political about it is that if the president wants to make a case to go to war against someone who really is a national security threat (and i am not convinced that iraq was at the time of this latest war), he or she will have a harder time doing so because of this mess. this isn't going to be just an issue for this white house. it will be an issue for subsequent administrations as well.

its not just dems and the "liberal media" who have questions. looking at some fox commentators, and we all know what lefties they are, even they question what is going on. if the admin continues to butcher their response to the questions being raised, they will be in trouble. when there appear to be serious issues raised, folks call it political to question what is going on. sorry, that is what you are supposed to do in a democracy.

"All the intelligence services in world thought Iraq had and/or was developing WMDs."

This statement is not true as of March 2003 when we went to war.

Flat out not true.

hi cas,

"is that opposed to a strong balanced decisive rational thoughtful honest democrat?"

Name one.

Thumper - Welcome back to the forum. You assert "[Bush]didn't ask that his CIA confirm the British intelligence." This is incorrect. The CIA did try to confirm the British intelligence but the CIA could not -- nor could the CIA disaffirm the British intelligence. That's right: The CIA did not (and does not) know whether the Brits were (are) right or not. Since when does stating: "The British have learned ..." become a lie (when our own agency does not know whether the British claim is accurate or not)?

Please make a decision about how much faith Bush should have placed in the CIA. Pre-9/11 there were one or two pieces of information (among millions of data points) that could have led to a warning that a 9/11 type attack would occur. Should Bush have acted on this very, very, sketchy intelligence? (You seem to argue Bush should have taken some action in your prior posts.) If so, why should Bush have placed less faith in the far, far, stronger intelligence suggesting Iraq had WMDs?

hi dw,
"Some may argue that Bush did more than persuade; he lied because he knew his claims about Iraq were untrue. This is just untenable. All the intelligence services in world thought Iraq had and/or was developing WMDs."

if it were so simple. intelligence comes with degrees of probability. and the intelligence process is not outside political interference. where did many countries get their intelligence from? from those folks with spy satellites and resources--i.e., from a limited number of countries like, well, america and britain (australia relied on us briefings before it signed up for the war--but the australians would have gone in any case). the germans and the french, for example, did not back up the admin's claims. so what countries are you talking about here? remember, the majority of the security council voted to give more time for weapons inspections, because they did not know.

it is one thing to say he had wmd's, but the examples chosen to show that he did were shown to be inaccurate. and believed to be inaccurate by our own people. as for whether bush knew them to be "inaccurate", its a bit like another delegator--reagan. what did he know and when did he know it?

Thumper, You have lied to Us! You say Korea "Is proliferating with nuclear weapons". I don't recall ANY C.I.A. or N.S.C. reports of our spies having SEEN these weapons. Or should we just believe Kim Il when he says he has them.

No one in the world lies except Bush and Blair. Not Chirac, not Schroeder, not Putin, not Saddam Hussein, not OBL, not Blix, not ANSWER, not Arafat, not Abbas, not Dean, not Kerry, not Leiberman, not Terry McAuliffe.

And by the way, I'm not on the Right; I'm not on the Left. I'm just nobody important (and it's lowercase) who's country has been attacked by self-avowed enemies who have sworn to indiscriminately kill Americans. And who have backed up that vow with action. I don't know about you but I take that pretty personally. And even you would admit that 9/11 was years in the planning, years that Clinton was in office.

I'm usually a contrarian who votes anti-incumbent because I mistrust zealots and 'activists' of any stripe. I don't like parties (I guess I'm kind of a party-pooper). I like my comfortable life and hope to live long enough to enjoy my retirement. I like the status quo and would thoroughly not enjoy being blown to bits.

DW:

Bush should put his utmost faith in his intelligence services, including the CIA, unless he was aware that Cheney or Rice or Rumsfeld were actively pressuring the intelligence stream to produce certain answers, which is likely.

So when the CIA tells him at his intelligence briefing--hey, Al-Qaeda is about to mount an attack at the end of THIS SUMMER--a "spectacular attack" by hijacking airplanes in multiple spots at once--I would think that Bush should listen.

Similarly, when the CIA tells him--hey, take this Niger evidence out of your speech in October and tells him again in January--hey, didn't we tell you to take this out in October?

I expect Bush and his team to not try to parse the language and pass the buck along to the British, but to listen to his own CIA who told him--"we can't confirm that." (not "we didn't disconfirm that." Wrong answer.)

If the MI6 cannot tell the CIA the basis for its conclusions, then the CIA cannot adopt the MI6's intelligence. If the CIA comes back to Bush and says--"they wouldn't tell us"--then that's not something we know at all. It's a rumor at best, gossip at worst. That's why Tenet disowned it and took the blame.

However, perhaps you're right that the word "lie," with its connotations of intent, doesn't quite fit here. I think "willful deception" or "gross negligence" would be the more accurate description of Bush's problem with intelligence.

The President is Constitutionally obligated to provide a good faith report as his State of the Union.

Good faith means that you don't report rumors as fact, no matter how much you want them to be true. Good faith does not require a person to proactively publicize bad news about oneself or give ammunition to the opposing party (or make the opposing side's point for them). However, it does mean that you don't shy away from the facts, and you don't actively conceal, manipulate, or destroy evidence that doesn't help your case.

The President did not give his speech in good faith, as he is Constitutionally required to do. I think all the evidence points to a bad faith manipulation of "sketchy" evidence at best, and a willful blindness to contrary evidence.

Nobody important--

Iraq wasn't behind 9/11.

Beloney--

You're an idiot.

http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/721_reports/jan_jun2002.html#5

"North Korea
Nuclear. The United States has remained suspicious that North Korea has been working on uranium enrichment for several years. However, we did not obtain clear evidence indicating that North Korea had begun constructing a centrifuge facility until recently.

In 2001, North Korea began seeking centrifuge-related materials in large quantities. It also obtained equipment suitable for use in uranium feed and withdrawal systems. North Korea's goal appears to be a plant that could produce enough weapons-grade uranium for two or more nuclear weapons per year when fully operational. We continue to monitor and assess North Korea's nuclear weapons efforts which, given the North's closed society and the obvious covert nature of the program, remains a difficult intelligence collection target."

hi ni,

"is that opposed to a strong balanced decisive rational thoughtful honest democrat?"

Name one.

mccain. though he is a little hot under the collar at times.

one back,
name me a strong balanced decisive rational thoughtful honest republican presidential candidate for the 2004 election?

by the way, (for dt) dean is not to the far left of the political spectrum, though i know that is the latest attempted meme from conservative media... if you examine his policy statements he sounds fairly mainstream on many issues. he is passionate, i'll give you that, and maybe a tad willing to mix it.

For the life of me, I can't figure out why NONE of the Democratic candidates are following a strategy such as this one:

(1): Acknowledge that Bush had good reasons for taking us to war, and that the war was a good idea. There, that took 30 seconds. :)
(2): Viciously attack Bush's domestic performance (which has been atrocious), and possibly his trade policies as well.
(3): On the War on Terrorism front, attack Bush for cozying up to the Saudis.

The only explanation I can think of is that campaign strategists think that ANY admission that Bush has done something right will be (for purposes of the Democratic presidential primaries) political suicide. In which case the Democratic party is doomed, this time around.

Thumper,

"Iraq wasn't behind 9/11."

And you know that for sure? Perhaps you should be the next DCI?

Nobody important:

Osama Bin-Laden and Al Qaeda have admitted to being behind 9/11, and I think that's pretty well established in the intelligence community and throughout the world.

I don't think you have to be the DCI to figure that one out (unless you're one of those wackos who believes it was all the work of the Mossad).

As for whether Saddam was sponsoring them...

Actually, unlikely, since the 9/11 commission report points the finger at the Saudis.

Do you have any proof to the contrary? Maybe YOU should be the head of the DCI!

Dan--

Are you even a Democrat? You're ideas are crazy. Republicans won't vote Democrat, which is fine since there are more of us than you.

(1) Lieberman, Edwards, Kerry, Gephardt all say we had good reasons to go to war. Hell, they voted for it.

(2) Bush is teflon on domestic performance. True or not, the media and the public is giving him credit for "trying" on the economy with his tax cuts. Bush is somehow spinning this as the Clinton recession.

(3) Graham and Kucinich are attacking Bush on the Saudis angle, although ultimately I'm not sure what you're proposing: the reason we suck up to the Saudis is that we're dependent on their oil, and the fact is that if we take a harder line, we lose one of the last allies we have in the region. Not that we shouldn't take a hard line, but it's hardly a winner argument.

he is criminally incompetent [...] He didn't ask that his CIA confirm the British
intelligence.

Your claim would be correct only if the following statement was true: "If Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger, we must go to war. If they did not, we must not go to war".

But the truth, of course, is that even if Iraq didn't try to make such a purchase, war was still completely justified for thousands of other reasons. The only risk in not having the CIA confirm the British report was the risk that the President would be embarassed. Risking embarassment isn't criminal. ;)

Uh.....Thumper. Korea "sought equipment" , "North Korea's goal 'APPEARS' to be", but since North Korea is a "difficult intelligence collection target", it's okay for you to ASSUME they have nukes?????, Or did you, as I stated,(using YOUR logic) Lie???

Thumper,

No thanks, I already have a job where I'm over stressed and under appreciated.

Beloney:

I said that North Korea was "proliferating." You're putting words in my mouth.

Dan:

If you read the SOTU, the Uranium line is pretty much the only proof we have that Iraq was attempting to restart their nuclear program. (the biggest fib is that the first line in that paragraph--where the IAEA produced reports "in the 1990s." Yeah--in 1991 and 1992!).

So, you're "technically" right that there were other reasons for going to war. But I'm not a figure skating judge. The "mushroom cloud" rhetoric swayed a lot of votes.

Leftists are like children on a long car ride who keep asking their parents "Are we there yet?"

At first, you, the adult, are obliged to give them the benefit of the doubt. "No, we have not found the weapons yet, children, it's going to take a while. Say! Why don't you read some books to pass the time?"

"Are we there yet?"

After the 200th time, you know it's not a sincere question; it's a primitive way to vent frustration, suffering as they do from short little attention spans. "Where are the WMD, huh? Why haven't we found them yet, huh?"

Settle down leftists, or there will be no Happy Meals for you.

God Bless America

JTM is like a chronic masturbator whose wife is cheating on him because he is a small-minded bigot who did not graduate from high school because everyone made fun of him.

Ha ha ha.

God bless America!

Thumper. Read your post. Your words, not out of context. Out of YOUR keyboard, if not your mouth.

beloney

You're a complete buffoon.

Read my post. I said:

"While you were distracted, North Korea is proliferating with nuclear weapons directly in response to Bush's Axis of Evil response"

Proliferating.

Do you read English, or just speak it?

Thumper,

Grow up.

Rofe,

Clinton had info within 6 months of the deal w/ NK that they were violating the deal. HE LIED about it when asked. As many democrats have said, Clinton is a "very good liar, very good." Why is it outrageous for a Republican to point out what Democrats have acknowledged for over 20 years going back to Arkansas? He is a liar.

The British stand by their assessment. Bush's statement is not a lie. Not even close.

Thumper, I repeat. Did You lie to us? If not, how do you say Bush did.

Stan--

Hey, I didn't start it. Freeper did.

Beloney--

I repeat. Are you completely mental or do you have a slow modem?

Stan--

Show me where Clinton lied about the KEDO arrangement. As far as I recall, he admitted that there were bumps in the road as far as implementation (within 6 months) but ultimately, it was the Republican Congress that breached the deal.

Plus, you obviously know nothing about the deal since you assert that it somehow contributed to North Korea's current attempts at proliferation. Light Water Reactors, Stan.

You grow up.

Stan--

Technical accuracy is not "good faith," which is the standard in this case. Otherwise, any rumor would be "technically accurate," such as the one I heard that you are a homosexual.

You're obviously not reading anyone's posts but your own.

cas - The Russians, French, and Germans did all they could to derail Bush's Iraq policy -- all except publicly repudiate US and British claims that Iraq had WMDs. Powel, in his presentation to the Security Council pointedly claimed that the intelligence services of each member agreed with the assertion Iraq had WMDs and/or WMD programs. So, if France was willing to "bribe" other members of the Security Council (as was the US) to secure their vote, why wouldn't France (or Germany or Russia) have said its intelligence led it to believe Iraq did not have WMDs? In this case, the silence spoke volumes.

But it was not just France, Germany, and Russia that could have spoken up on this issue. So, too, could have Saudi Arabia, Iran, and other countries in the region. While these countries did not openly support war with Iraq (some openly opposed the war), none of them said their intelligence differed from that of the US or Brittan. Indeed, after the war Iran said that its intelligence indicated Iraq had WMDs.

One last point: The examples (plural?) the President used in his SOTU address have not been shown to be inaccurate. The British STILL claim that their information is correct and the CIA says that the British are most likely correct! That's right. This flap is over a statement that our intelligence service currently believes is more likely than not correct. The ONLY thing the administration has admitted to is that the level of assurance, or proof, for that statement did not rise to the level necessary for a presidential address. In other words, the CIA thinks there is a 55% (more likely than not) chance that Iraq did try to acquire uranium from Africa, but the administration should have had a greater level of assurance (70%?) before using the example. You call this lying?

hi belony,

"Uh.....Thumper. Korea "sought equipment" , "North Korea's goal 'APPEARS' to be", but since North Korea is a "difficult intelligence collection target", it's okay for you to ASSUME they have nukes?????, Or did you, as I stated,(using YOUR logic) Lie???"

north korea have made it clear that they have nukes, and made it clear that they would reconstitute their nuclear program. what we don't know is whether they really have them, and whether they have really reconstituted their program. that is not what saddam said--he said he did not have a nuclear weapons program. so, what do you think: should we ASSUME that nk has nukes or not?

DW--

I agree that the Administration should have a 70% or so level of assurance, and I do call it lying if the CIA's actual assurance level is 10% instead of 55%.

Why do you say 55%? What's your proof of that?

From the intelligence that has been released--i.e. nothing--and what's been disclosed is that the "other intelligence" amounts to:

a) Fragmentary assertions--"Iraq is talking to Niger... Maybe about Uranium?"

b) British Stonewalling--"The Queen assures you that it is correct."

c) ???

I mean, the best evidence the Administration had was FORGED DOCUMENTS. You'd think that if we had something more substantial than FORGED DOCUMENTS, we would have used them by now and avoided the embarrassment.

So, yes it's lying if the actual level of assurance is 0%-10%, and we are asserting it as 100%.

Another way of putting it David:

You assert that the CIA thinks that the British intelligence is "more likely than not correct."

Huh?

Didn't you see Condi Rice explain that WE HAVE NOT SEEN THE BRITISH INTELLIGENCE? They haven't shared it with our CIA. We have no idea what it is.

How can we say that the British intelligence is correct, at a 55% level, if we haven't seen it?

Honestly.

What I believe about N.Korea is not relevant to the discussion. Thumper STATED they had nukes. (They Must have, to 'proliferate' them, No?) Saddam HAD WMD,not just nukes, and never showed evidence of destruction. But, without factual, hold in your hand,look at the picture evidence, Bush lied, and we believe Kim Il and Saddam?

Beloney, poor beloney:

First--the CIA knows that North Korea has one or two nukes from pre-1994.

"Moments earlier Tenet said it was likely that North Korea had been able to produce as many as two plutonium-based nuclear weapons."
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/asiapcf/east/02/12/us.nkorea/

Second--"Proliferating" means that they are engaged in the process of developing more nuclear weapons. It's a term of art in the arms control community and the political science community in general. You can start proliferating from zero, if that's what you're questioning.

"How can we say that the British intelligence is correct, at a 55% level, if we haven't seen it?"

Why shouldn’t we have a high degree of faith in the abilities and truthfulness of British intelligence? Are they supposedly our enemies? It would be foolhardy for us to categorically reject these conclusions simply because the British are obligated not to share their sources with us.

Also, Beloney, Iraq and North Korea are very different situations.

In Iraq, we had a leader deny he was proliferating. We had no intelligence about any constructed reprocessing or uranium enrichment capability. We had a full unimpeded inspection regime in place as of March 2003.

In North Korea, we have a leader admitting he is proliferating. We know about his Yongbyan reprocessing facility, and we have "in hand" satellite proof that it is operational. Not only did North Korea pull out of the NPT, but they also kicked out UN inspectors. Oh, and they have ballistic missiles that can reach Los Angeles.

I dunno. Which country do you think Bush attacks as the "imminent threat"?

Tenet said it "Was Likely" ?

Proliferating means developing MORE ? Can you develop MORE with out having one/some to begin with. I stand by my reading of your post. YOU stated they HAVE nukes. All your "Evidence is like the last, Tenet says"LIKELY". If this is sufficent evidence, then Bush did not lie in SOTU. If not, then you lied.

Jane,

Speaking of the meaning of the word "is"...

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/13/opinion/13DOWD.html

More and more, with Bush administration pronouncements about the Iraq war, it depends on what the meaning of the word "is" is.

W. built his political identity on the idea that he was not Bill Clinton. He didn't parse words or prevaricate. He was the Texas straight shooter.

So why is he now presiding over a completely Clintonian environment, turning the White House into a Waffle House, where truth is camouflaged by word games and responsibility is obscured by shell games?

The president and Condi Rice can shuffle the shells and blame George Tenet, but it smells of mendacity.

From Maureen Dowd, NY Times Op-Ed this past Sunday.

The way I see it, he has only a few choices:
1) Appear deceitful
2) Appear incompetent (not hard)
3) Use "Get Out Of Jail Free" card created by war-on-terror-driven (and misdirected) patriotism

David Thomson:

"Why shouldn’t we have a high degree of faith in the abilities and truthfulness of British intelligence?"

Because first, their intelligence should have and does have different agendas than our intelligence. Bush did not take an oath to the Queen. So you're right, they're our allies and all, but at the end of the day, we pay our CIA to be skeptical.

Second, all we have is their "say-so." That's the weakest form of intelligence, especially when they won't even divulge their sources.

Finally--and no one can answer this one for me yet--what motive do our allies have for hiding their sources or their intelligence, other than to provide Bush and Blair cover?

What motive? Who are they protecting?

Beloney--

You are beyond be'ef. Can I get some help from a pro-war person here to explain this to my addled friend?

You can start proliferating from zero. You don't have to have any nukes to start proliferating. What planet are you from where you think that nuclear proliferation is only a problem for nations that are already part of the "Nuclear Club"--i.e. like the U.S., U.K., France, and Russia?

Absurd.

They are probably protecting their covert assets, much the same as the cIA doesn't disclose all to the House of Reps. Cause they have a bad habit of leaking classified and sensitive info.

Beloney--

Exactly the point I'm trying to make. Why would they be covering their asses unless they really DON'T have any new intelligence information other than the Forged Niger Transaction?

This, after all, is the IAEA suspicion--that the British intel is basically the same as ours--based on a fraud.

What other ass do they have to cover?

Oh Well, Now I understand. When you said they were proliferating -MORE-, you weren't being specific to N. Korea. You were taking the world view, as in, if there's 1000 nukes in world now, if they make one, then there's more. Why didn't you say that. And I guess that maybe Tenet may have been speaking about France?

Thumper - "The President did not give his speech in good faith, as he is Constitutionally required to do. I think all the evidence points to a bad faith manipulation of "sketchy" evidence at best, and a willful blindness to contrary evidence."

If the evidence of Iraq's misdeeds were "sketchy", what do you call the evidence of Al Qaeda's intentions pre-9/11? By all accounts, we had massive amounts of evidence (maybe enough to convict even OJ of murder) on Iraq and by comparison very little -- virtually nothing -- about Al Qaeda. To maintain that Bush stands convicted of "allowing" 9/11 to occur through inaction while also claiming there was insufficient evidence to move against Iraq is logically absurd.

If the intelligence warning of Al Qaeda's intentions were a whisper, the case against Iraq was fireworks accompanied by a brass band. There is no real comparison in the amount, specificity, or sufficiency of the evidence. Even comparing the amount of evidence from the two situations misses what we learned from 9/11: Today we are much more focused on these issues. Pre-9/11 it would have taken a brass band to wake us up (this was true for any administration I am aware of); that's no longer the case.

On your point that Bush did not deliver his speech in good faith because he knew the CIA could not confirm the British report about Iraq's activities in Africa, I disagree. I am not aware of any rule (based in law, tradition, or logic) that requires a US President to be able to independently confirm information obtained from allies. That may be good policy (and would have saved Bush some embarrassment had it been followed in this case), but I don't think it's necessary. We do not share all of our sources (documents or people) with the British or any other country. We don't because it may put those sources at risk. Other governments don't share their sources with us. This is normal. It does not prevent us from relying on the British government's conclusions. So, since we routinely rely on such information for making decisions, it is in no way evidence of bad faith to disclose the information to the American people in a speech.

Finally, I think you are wrong when you claim the President's use of this example swayed a lot of votes. What votes? The SOTU speech was made AFTER Congress had voted to authorize use of force. No national elections were being held. If the President was tying to sway any votes, it was the votes on the Security Council -- a vote the administration "lost".

Basically, for all those still defending the President--

You are defending the distinction between "lying" and "making something up."

Given the context of the SOTU, where the President is supposed to be giving a good faith report, my contention is simply that there is no distinction.

To assert that the British have learned about a transaction is to create the impression that you concur with the British assessment--impossible unless you can independently verify it.

No, Beloney, that does not mean "have it in hand." Probability is okay. But if the Brits won't tell you what their intelligence is or how to verify the source--then it's not intelligence at all. It's a myth.

So, essentially, to say that the Brits know something when you have no idea what they know (other than the bare assertion) is no different from making it up yourself.

Why even have a CIA? Why not just make it all up as we go along? We know who our enemies are!

David--

I don't think we know the full scope about the intelligence before 9/11, in part because the Administration is stonewalling the Kean Commission. Maybe that's a brass band, too, but the President locked it outside the gymnasium.

I disagree that our intelligence on Iraq was a brass band. Rumsfeld disagrees with you, too. He says that after 1998, we had no new dramatic evidence. I think that Rumsfeld and Cheney made it sound like a brass band by pressuring the CIA to produce a hawkish NIE that agreed with what they were after. That NIE was produced to Congress prior to their authorization of use of force.

You're right that the SOTU did not "sway" any Congressional votes.

However, the SOTU did sway public and media opinion to not be critical of the war. It enabled President Bush to rush to war.

It's just a piece of thread hanging off a sweater of deceit, and free-thinking people are right to pick at it until the whole lie unravels.

David--

We don't share our sources because it puts sources at risk?

From whom? Saddam Hussein?

Next.

Beloney--

I can't believe you're still sticking to this asinine point. You're wasting bandwidth, you realize.

No, my point wasn't that there are 1000s of weapons out there, and therefore one can proliferate from nothing.

Even if there were ZERO weapons out there, a nation could begin to proliferate nuclear weapons. It's a term of art. You can start from ZERO.

That's why the specter of nuclear proliferation only applies to non-nuclear states--i.e. states with no nuclear wepaons. We're afraid of them joining the "nuclear club."

Maybe you hate the definition. I have no idea what your problem is.

However, you're just flat out wrong. I never made an assertion that North Korea had nukes when I said they were proliferating. I think they do have one or two nukes already, but it's not at all a necessary premise for my statement.

Thumper - Why do I say the CIA believes the British report is more than likely correct? Because, if I recall correctly, that is what Tennant said in his mia culpa. If not Tennant, it was someone else with the CIA at about that time.

Why would the British refuse to release the source of their intelligence (other than to cover for Bush and Blair)? For two very good reasons: People (a/k/a sources) sometimes die when their names are divulged too freely. For this reason, we might tell another country that we have reliable info about xyz, but we hardly ever let them interview our source. The Brits are no different in this regard. For example, suppose the British source is someone who works in the Nigerian uranium industry. How safe would such a person be if two suits from the US embassy showed up to interview him at his office? Talk about helping the other side identify a leak!

Second, when disclosed, sources tend to dry up. It can take a long time to develop a source. Often the condition for getting access to information is that the source not be revealed to another party. Journalists often refuse to reveal their sources for this very reason. Wouldn't an intelligence agent have just as much reason to keep his source's confidential?

Okay. Let's stipulate for a second that it is typical for sources to be protected. Why would it be reasonable for the CIA to believe the British are more likely than not correct? We have a long history of dealing with a lot of countries on intelligence matters. We know which countries, and even which people in those countries, have proven reliable in the past. Since the Brits get a lot of intelligence from us, it is NOT in their interest to mislead us. Do they occasionally pass along bad info? Sure. It happens. But I suspect they rarely pass along info they know to be bogus -- they rarely know when they are just confirming what we already know. Why risk a very important source of info (US) over something as small as this? Doesn't make sense.

David--

In a world where Saddam Hussein is still in power, yes, I agree, you wouldn't necessarily reveal the source.

However, that doesn't mean you couldn't describe the nature and quality of the intelligence.

Look--the British asserted that Iraq was trying to obtain uranium from Africa. Which country in Africa?

This is becoming a key part of the Bush defense. "There are lots of states in Africa."

Okay, name one. I've heard reports that its Niger, and the IAEA believes that what the British heard was exactly what the CIA heard.

Anyway, you're not revealing any sources there. But let's assume there's only one person who could have been contacted in Niger (doubtful, but let's play pretend).

You could divulge what the quality of the intelligence was: an email, a telephone conversation, a letter, a document, a chain of documents, a receipt. None of those divulge the country or source.

Furthermore, it might be possible to redact names and countries if you wanted to make it public.

Finally:

I'm making 2 gigantic assumptions, here.

One, Saddam is still in power. He's not, last I checked. Therefore, the chances of retribution are pretty slim, unless it's on the Africa side, but that makes no sense because there was no actual transaction, just an attempt, which means that Africa did nothing wrong.

Two, it assumes that the CIA can't keep a secret. Maybe so, maybe not, but it's highly doubtful that the MI6 has reason to believe that Iraq (or Niger) has infiltrated and compromised the confidentiality of the CIA.

If so, we've got bigger fish to fry.

I wonder why the administration, if its statement on the uranium was perfectly fine, is jumping through so many hoops to defend it? "Technically accurate" is a poor standard indeed. "Lying" or not, this administration's record on foreign policy (ill-considered adventurism with a dash of isolationism) and domestic policy (foolish tax cuts, record deficits, soaking state and local governments) leaves me with little confidence in its abilities. There is a myth of competence surrounding the Bush administration, as Josh Marshall has noted, that is almost totally unwarranted. Politically adept they are; effective federal executives they most certainly are not.

And on your last point--the repeat player phenomenon.

You're omitting the possibilty that MI6 is in cahoots with our CIA. The British House of Commons issued a scathing critique of Blair's intelligence on Iraqi nukes. The MI6 refused to divulge to its own Parliament!

No, the reason they are not divulging is that they have nothing. Nada zip zero.

And the CIA/Bush/Blair all benefit from this fig leaf of "confidentiality."

C'mon--if they had intel, you know they would divulge it just to have the satisfaction of being correct. However, they are waiting to see if this "technically accurate" defense is going to hold.

Thumper - There are more people in this world to be afraid of than the Saddam. A source in Africa may care little what Iraq thinks of him, but he may care a lot what his business associates think. Even if you had turned down a deal with Iraq, would you want some MI6 snitch around? I doubt a rumor that I worked undercover with the FBI would help my career (I'm a tax accountant) even if it did not shorten my life.

I think our political leanings are clouding our conclusions. You see absence of proof as proof of colusion between the CIA and MI6. I am much more willing to take both agencies at their word. Let's just leave it at that.

Well, as of yesterday the British were still saying their report was accurate and true, supported by multiple independent sources, and they were surprised by the way the Bushies were apologizing for it.

But it does seem, I guess, that a number of liberals now think accepting Tony Blair's solemn assurances about something you can't independently verify is tantamount to, oh, perjuring yourself before the nation.

I do hope they remember that if Tony ever tries to give the US warning information about a pending terrorist attack against the US, which information the CIA can't independently verify -- "Don't listed to that! That would be like lying, perjury! Ignore Tony the Warmonger most Untrustworthy!"

Look, the reality here is that either the British were *right* -- and considering all the uranium Saddam *did* buy in the region in earlier years, this is hardly implausible -- and a lot of people are going to owe Bush apologies; or the *worst* thing that can be said is that Bush trusted information from the US's closest and most reliable ally on a security issue.

Now that is just not a terrible offense. Which is why so many Democrats are madly parsing grammar trying to turn it into one, into some perjury-like deceit.

And in the process they stand to lose many of the registered Independent, middle-40%-of-the-political-spectrum voters who could vote either way -- like me. Whom they need to avoid getting wallopped again in the next election.

It all reminds me very much of what the Economist's "Lexington" columnist on US events wrote recently ...

"Far too many Democrats are just too angry to think straight at the moment."

http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=1875562

There was a "full, unimpeded inspections regime" in Iraq in March?

Odd, Blix didn't think it was "unimpeded" - he thought there was substantial un-cooperativeness. (And such as there was, was of course dependent on the presence of massed coalition troops in the area.)

And, er, Bush's administration "broke the deal" with North Korea? Well, yeah, I guess, if "broke" means "recognised that North Korea had long since broken it by not following it at all", yeah. That kind of "broke the deal". I suppose in some sense ending the fiction of a deal is "breaking" it, but that's not the sense that normal, sane people use to describe such a situation.

Who exactly do you think you're fooling with these lines?

Not fooling. That's a Republican trick.

Educating.

Blix said on March 7, 2003 that they had basically unimpeded inspections.

Quite different from Bush saying on July 14, 2003, that we had to go to war because Saddam wouldn't let inspectors in!!

The Brits have to stonewall on their "other intelligence" or else they will lose all face. Especially now that we've hung our reputation on their word.

However, think in the alternative for a second: imagine a world where the British were telling the truth.

Don't you think they would at least identify the country? Or give the CIA something to hang its hat on?

Really--the media and others are missing the point entirely. This isn't about Lying. That was a Clinton/Gore meme because the Right's attack was character-based.

This is about Incompetence. The Left attacks on substance.

Right now, Bush is backpedaling so fast and furious on his SOTU and all his war claims that at the end of the day, people are going to look at the carnage of our economy and the quagmire in Iraq and wonder if he's really fit to be the leader of the free world.

We're the stoolies of the British. We only jump if the British tell us how high.

Sorry. I tried, but just couldn't let this go without one more comment. Below is a link to an NRO article that summarizes the support for saying the claims in the SOTU speech were false.

Not the kind of support that should carry much weight.

http://www.nationalreview.com/may/may071103.asp

Okay, David, nice to know you read the National Review and all, but aren't you the least bit embarrassed to quibble over grammar like this?

What this article misses is that Bush didn't know this was based on "extra material," apparently, since Bush didn't ask.

How do I know Bush never asked?

Because Bush didn't know that the Niger document was forged until after his January 28 speech!

This May article is a piece of trash--typical rightwing pfaff.

For example--oh my god, he's Pro-Saudi! So is Bush.

Fact is--who the hell is Clifford May but a Right Wing Shill with a Partisan Ax to Grind and a Deadline to meet?

At least Joe Wilson was an ambassador to Africa for the good part of a decade. He knows that only a handful of countries produce uranium.

Plus, his report wasn't just that he asked some officials and they denied it. He all but falsfied the claim that it could have come from Niger!

How? Because the uranium consortium in Niger was heavily monitored by the IAEA.

Seriously people: The CIA could have speculated that the Iraqis "at some point may have sought" uranium from Africa based on their past record. Anyone could have speculated that.

Why attribute that to the British? Why not take credit?

Especially since Bush's defense is that HE DID NOT KNOW THE NIGER DOCUMENTS WERE FORGED until after January 28.

You can say it wasn't a lie. But you can't say it wasn't misleading.

Joe Betsin,

Regarding:

> In other words, if the pro-war folks want the support of
> the anti-war folks the pro- war folks have to earn it.

Dream on. Here's one way to categorize anti-war folks: (a)
those who, regardless of their misgivings about the process
are at least glad to have Sadaam out of the way (i.e. they are
taking seriously the confirmation of all the worst pre-war claims
of his monstrosity), and (b) those who wish he were still in power.
Forgive me if I misunderstand your meaning, but you sure sound
like you fit into category b. If so, "support" from you is the
last thing I would want or accept. Go hang out with your
Chamberlainesque buddies and get your strokes from them.

Thumper,

You make it sound like these confidence levels are actual
scientific measurements ("Out of the last 25 times we had
intelligence that Iraq was trying to obtain uranium from Niger,
18 turned out to be true, so we estimate the current claim has
a 75% reliability.")

It isn't the president's critics who are quibbling or nitpicking. It is the president's spokespeople.

I wonder how Tony Blair must be feeling about the president now.

Kirk--

Actually, that was David Walser who first started quantifying our levels of confidence. I'm just speaking his bogus language.

I think this flap will have repercussions, Jane. Possibly down the road, when Bush and Blair announce they have "learned" that N Korea or Iran are transferring weapons to al-Qaeda (or whatever scenario you can imagine) and more people wonder whether the boys are just crying "wolf".

This is potentially very dangerous, because we all know how "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" ended.

hi dw,

"Powel, in his presentation to the Security Council pointedly claimed that the intelligence services of each member agreed with the assertion Iraq had WMDs and/or WMD programs."

looking back at the news reports, the nations you mentioned agreed that iraq was likely to have wmd's. so i was incorrect there. they differed on what needed to be done re the inpections process. the inspections process needed to be enhanced vs immediate disarmament at point of war.

however, a question for you, for my own clarification: though they were pretty certain he had a capacity for chemical/biological weapons, what about nuclear weapons program? the wmd tag gets tossed around quite a bit and its easy to lump the three together, causing all kinds of misconceptions--my memory was that the nuclear evidence was always especially weak--based in large part on defectors with large axes to grind. your thoughts appreciated.

Thumper, in your long career as an intelligence officer, how many times did you expose your sources? Just curious.

We're not going to coerce the Brits into exposing sources; they either will cough up the source willingly or we'll never know. Or some of us might learn, but never be able to divulge. This is how classified information works. There's actually a great deal of intelligence data that's classified solely for the purpose of protecting the source.

The upside of this is it has entertainment value. Thirty hysterical posts in eight hours; gee, do you think maybe you're a little upset over this? Maybe you should get a grip until something resembling evidence shows up.

cas - Thanks for the civil, polite, response. It's a shame such is not more often the case in these kind of discussion.

As for your question. I agree. Of the three types of WMDs, chemical, biological, and nuclear, the evidence for the first two was much stronger than for the last. At least, the administration spent the bulk of its time documenting the current threat from chemical and biological weapons. By comparison, what was said about nuclear weapons amounted to an afterthought. By recollection (which is not always accurate), the administration said: "They once had a nuclear program. We believe that they would restart it if they could and there is evidence that they might be doing something in the area now."

Note: I did not think then, nor do I think now, that Iraq's nuclear ambition (all by itself) justified the war. The administration had a lot of reasons for going to war. As you would expect, they stressed one or more of these reasons depending on the audience. To the UN, they stressed the need to enforce Security Council resolutions. To the US public, they stressed the potential and current threats to US security. They also argued Iraq was a threat in the region, that Iraq supported terrorism (NOT that there was a direct connection to 9/11), etc.

I don't view this "changing story" as further evidence of the administration's deceit any more than I would view Sen. Clinton saying one thing to a group of Democrats and another thing (differing in tone more than substance) to a "mixed" audience. It may not be candid, but it's not lying.

"When the president's critics are reduced to quibbling over grammar, the battle is lost. "

Jane,

I think you have the sequence of events wrong. Here's the chronology as I understand it:

1. The President makes a statement clearly intended to imply that Iraq had bought lots of uranium from Africa. (Yes, that is what he intended to convey and you know it)

2. The implication turns out to be false. (Mysteriously, this is discovered in the days immediately following the SOTU, as Powell is preparing his address to the UN)

3. The Administration defends itelf by arguing that that statement was "technically true."

4. Kinsley and others point out that, aside from the implicationbeing false, the statement itself was not even technically true.

And so Jane decides that the key point is that the President's critics are engaging in "pettifoggery." Not a word about the underlying falsehood, or the Administration's semantic slithering.

Regarding 2), please tell me what your source is. AFAIK the source for the information still claims it's correct.

Bernard - Your ability to read Bush's mind far exceeds my own. Bush said the British government had learned that Iraq had recently SOUGHT to acquire uranium in Africa. From this you are CERTAIN we were to infer that "Iraq had bought lots of uranium from Africa. "? This only proves that Bush did not know this small portion of his audience very well. From what he said, I thought Bush wanted me to infer that Iraq had tried, but failed, to acquire uranium. I also thought the reason he did not stress the point is because it did not help his case much. The fact that Iraq was trying to acquire uranium was a cause for concern. The fact the current system had stopped them was a cause for comfort -- not much of a call for change.

David Perron:

You don't have to reveal the source. Just give some indication that there is actually a separate source--you can name the country, name the transaction without naming the country, name the type of evidence/intel that you have without naming the transaction or the country.

Or simply disclose confidentially to the CIA.

You don't have to be an intelligence officer to know that there are many ways to bolster a case, or to notice that the failure to do any of the above is prima facie evidence that no such "extra material" exists or is anything more than speculative.

You're right--I didn't need to put up 30 posts to prove a simple point:

The Administration has already conceded that the statement that Iraq attempted to purchase uranium from Africa is wrong, a mistake.

You are defending the statement as if that concession never happened. Remember--it isn't accurate or true. At best, the statement is "technically accurate."

Checkmate.

Thumper - Check out the editorial in today's Washington Post. The Post's official editorial policy (as reflected in its editorial) is that the 16 word statement was accurate. No weasel words nor slight of hand such as "technically, but still misleading." No, the conclusion is just that the statement was (and is) accurate.

The Post does not let the administration off the hook. They say that this may be one of several instances where administration statements were stretched to the limits of existing intelligence. (That's a paraphrase. I can't paste the exact quote in and I am too lazy to type the whole thing.)

Anyway, here's the link:

http://www.washington post.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62128-2003Jul15.html

DW--

Whoa, I disagree with your assessment that the Washington Post think the statement is accurate. That's a real "aggressive interpretation" to use their language, especially given that even the Bush Administration would disagree with that!

I think the Post is saying--"we don't know/let's investigate."

Again--maybe for you, "I have no idea whether..." is the same as "it's a fact that..."

I think you're being intellectually dishonest if you continue with this type of defense, because you seem like a smart enough guy to know that's "a bunch of bull."

Also--you did read the Walter Pincus article in the Post, right? The one that said that it's not just "16 words," but rather, the Iraq/Africa claim was at the time of SOTU the "only publicly unchallenged" evidence of Saddam's nuclear intentions?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61622-2003Jul15.html?nav=hptop_ts

The Administration has already conceded that the statement that Iraq attempted to purchase uranium from Africa is wrong, a mistake.

They have? Where?

Celebrations of victory notwithstanding, I don't think you've made your case yet.

David Perron--

Have you been in a coma for the past ten days? I have stuff to do, believe it or not, instead of wasting my time recapping current events with a head-in-the-sander like you. Read a newspaper.

The proof is below--everyone agrees that Bush had his people concede that the statement in the SOTU should not have been made because it was wrong, a mistake. You are putting forth a defense of the statement's accuracy when the President's men (and woman) have conceded the point.

Colin Powell saying: "It's that once we used the statement and, after further analysis and looking at other estimates we had and other information that was coming in, it turned out that the basis upon which that statement was made didn't hold up."

Or George Tenet calling the inclusion of the statement a "mistake" and Rumsfeld calling it only "technically" accurate.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0307140125jul14,0,2302861.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed

Or Ari Fleischer's July 7's press conference:

"Fleischer: I'm sorry, I see what David is asking. Let me back up on that and explain the President's statement again, or the answer to it.

The President's statement was based on the predicate of the yellow cake from Niger. The President made a broad statement. So given the fact that the report on the yellow cake did not turn out to be accurate, that is reflective of the President's broader statement, David. So, yes, the President' broader statement was based and predicated on the yellow cake from Niger.

Q: So it was wrong?

Fleischer: That's what we've acknowledged with the information on --

Q: The President's statement at the State of the Union was incorrect?

Fleischer: Because it was based on the yellow cake from Niger. "

Sounds as if you're the one who's been in a coma. The British Intelligence assessment had nothing to do with Nigerian yellowcake. Read up, man!

Oops. It wasn't that it wasn't Niger. It was that the source was not the same one that was known to be fabricated.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/07/14/wdoss114.xml

David Perron:

White House conceded that the Uranium claim in the SOTU was incorrect.

If it was based on the Brits "other intelligence," why did they make that concession?

DP--

You see, you have a nice ex post facto/revisionist history answer but it doesn't accord with the actual fact that the White House conceded that it was wrong.

That concession kills your defense.

DP--

The French Connection is story #437 from the Bush Administration. Sorry, it doesn't fly.

Since it's a claim that Saddam was shopping in Niger, it contradicts previous administration statements that the claim was correct because it referred to "other countries" in Africa that weren't Niger.

In the law, it's called impeaching a witness with a prior inconsistent statement. In politics, it should lead to impeachment of an entirely different sort.

Just keep running your mouth, Thumper. All conclusion and no evidence makes Thump a dull boy. I think there's a name for the condition where you believe what you want to believe, despite a dearth of evidence, but I forget what that is.

What a sophisticated argument from a sore loser.

I have to say we're not seeing much sophistication from the guy who insists on kicking the table over before the chess game is over, either. Seems like you did this once before when I was kicking your ass, here.

Look, I've laid down the gauntlet, provided the proof, and you've refused to answer the question.

I'd call you a coward if I wasn't so sympathetic to your quandry.

You have an indefensible position.

You are defending the truth of a statement that the Administration has admitted was Incorrect, Wrong, a Mistake.

Why would they make that concession? If the British intelligence had NOTHING to do with the forged document, and the Administration knew that, why concede instead of fight?

You can't answer that question, can you?

Game. Over. Insert. Coin. Loser!!!

I asked you to cite that source, and you neglected to do so. This makes you, in your own terms, a coward.

Now you are a liar as well as a loser.

I cited the source, 3 sources in fact.

Loser.

Answer the question.

Well, I guess that settles it then.

Jane, what do I win?

Where? You cited one article that doesn't say it was incorrect. The rest you provided sans cites.

Now, wipe the saliva and tears from your terminal and put up, buddy.

I think you win the highly sought-after Hysterical Volume Poster prize.

Like I would make something like that up. You are despicable.

Fleischer saying it was "incorrect."
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/07/20030707-5.html

Tenet statement
http://us.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/07/11/tenet.statement/

Here's Powell's statement.
http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2003/22350.htm

Now, answer the question or admit defeat.

(Checkmate)

Here's what Powell said, in its entirety.

First, he said this:

SECRETARY POWELL: I think this is very overwrought and overblown and overdrawn. Intelligence reports flow in from all over. Sometimes they are results of your own intelligence agencies at work. Sometimes you get information from very capable foreign intelligence services. And you get the information, you analyze it. Sometimes it holds up, sometimes it does not hold up. It's a moving train. And you keep trying to establish what is right and what is wrong. Very often it never comes out quite that clean, but you have to make judgments.

And at the time of the President's State of the Union address, a judgment was made that that was an appropriate statement for the President to make. There was no effort or attempt on the part of the President, or anyone else in the administration, to mislead or to deceive the American people. The President was presenting what seemed to be a reasonable statement at that time -- and it didn't talk to Niger, it talked specifically about efforts to acquire uranium from nations that had it in Africa.

Subsequently, when we looked at it more thoroughly and when I think it's, oh, a week or two later, when I made my presentation to the United Nations and we really went through every single thing we knew about all of the various issues with respect to weapons of mass destruction, we did not believe that it was appropriate to use that example anymore. It was not standing the test of time. And so I didn't use it, and we haven't used it since.

But to think that somehow we went out of our way to insert this single sentence into the State of the Union address for the purpose of deceiving and misleading the American people is an overdrawn, overblown, overwrought conclusion.

This sounds pretty clear to me. And it pretty clearly goes out of its way to dispel the myth that the data was incorrect, or even known to be incorrect at the time.

Then, he said this:

SECRETARY POWELL: I think so. The definitive presentation of our intelligence case, frankly, was the presentation I made on the 5th of February. I spent an enormous amount of time with many of my colleagues and with a large part of the top leadership of the CIA, as well as a lot of the working-level analysts of the CIA, closeted in Langley at CIA headquarters for four days and three nights -- or it might be four weeks and three months -- it felt like it. And we were there well into the night, until midnight, 1:00 a.m. every morning, going over everything. We had lots and lots of information. The challenge was to get it down to that which was absolutely supportable and we were confident of.

There were a lot of items of information that I could have used if I had had three hours or three days. And there were other items of information that were pretty good, but maybe we didn't have a second, third, fourth source on, so let's not lead with that.

And the case I put down on the 5th of February, for an hour and 20 minutes, roughly, on terrorism, on weapons of mass destruction and on the human rights case -- a short section at the end -- we stand behind. And the credibility of the United States was at stake when that presentation was put forward. And I spent the afternoon waiting for the reaction -- not just your reaction, as important as that might be -- but I wanted to see what the Iraqis were going to do. I was interested to see what their response was going to be.

And I waited that afternoon and the next morning, I waited to see what their response was going to be. The first response was predictable: it's all a bunch of lies -- just as they'd been saying for 12 years, all a bunch of lies. And then I waited for, okay, hit me on something, attack some part of the presentation. Well, they're phony intercepts -- nonsense, they're real. I heard the actual -- you heard the voices. And then the only thing that came up over the next several days was a debate about one of the pictures I showed, as to whether those were chemical weapons bunkers or not. And that pretty much was it in the way of a counterattack.

One item I showed was cartoons of the mobile biological van. They were cartoons, artist's renderings, because we had never seen one of these things, but we had good sourcing on it, excellent sourcing on it. And we knew what it would look like when we found it, so we made those pictures. And I can assure you I didn't just throw those pictures up without having quite a bit of confidence in the information that I had been provided and that Director Tenet had been provided and was now supporting me in the presentation on, sitting right behind me.

And we waited. And it took a couple of months, and it took until after the war, until we found a van and another van that pretty much matched what we said it would look like. And I think that's a pretty good indication that we were not cooking the books.

And what I keep saying to people is, if that was really a hydrogen maker for a weather balloon, and I'm Saddam Hussein or the Minister of Information we all got to know and love so well, that van would have been pulled out the next orning and they would have tried to blow us out of the water as they blew up a weather balloon. They didn't, they couldn't, they never showed -- they brought other vehicles forward; they never brought that one out.

And so it stood the test of time. It stood the test of time a couple of weeks ago, when, if you'll go back to the presentation on nuclear capability and weapons, I said that they had the brainpower, I said they had the infrastructure, and they've never lost the intention, and they have hidden components of their program. I talked about the centrifuge. And I made the point then that there was a difference of opinion about the centrifuge and let's continue to study it. I didn't use the uranium at that point, because I didn't think that was sufficiently strong as evidence to present before the world. And what did we see two weeks ago? An Iraqi scientist coming forward with a bunch of diagrams and blueprints and some centrifuge parts that he dug up out of his yard.

And so I think as you let Mr. Kay and the ISG that support the team that's out there looking at this stuff continue to look, continue to interview people, continue to pore through all the documents that we have, I think the case will no longer be in doubt.

Again, pretty clearly diametrically opposed to what you're claiming.

I don't really think I need to go on. But so far, it doesn't look like you're within even a couple of parsecs of having a winner, here.

Well, folks, I was here before the war started. I read Jane's post advocating violence against anti-war protesters, and her ridiculous defense that she didn't know what a two-by-four was.

I saw the gang of usual thugs here deride ANY anti-invasion position, no matter how nuanced or butressed by clear thinking and diplomatic logic.

Particularly to nobody important: I get the sense from you that your politics is completely random, and based on instant gratification. Fine. But it seems to me that, as far as plans go, you might want to read up on Rudmann, Hart, and the 21st Century Foundation before saying Democrats don't have any and didn't have any on homeland security. They did, and they gave it to Cheney, and he ignored it.

In reality, I suspect that 99% of the rightists posting here think that ALL multilateral cooperation and/or diplomacy is "commie," unless it involves killing people and breaking shit. Adults in charge, indeed. Most of you seem to be Birchers, more or less, so why Thumper bothers is beyond me.

The first time that I disagreed with a sitting President was when Truman fired McArthur (over North Korea as it happens). For a while I thought that I was a Republican.. I believed Ike about the need for a Beirut invasion; and even his support for Trujillo but began to lose faith with his Cuba and Batista policies. By the time of the Bay of Pigs, (Kennedy implementing Dulles/Nixon policies!!) I didn’t know where to turn. Johnson’s domestic policies and effectiveness kept me from following Goldwater’s clear foreign policy vision. Nixon’s paranoia and mendacity were followed by Ford and Carter, “The Genial Incompetents”. Reagan presided over the most venial and criminal administration in this country’s long history. Bush One didn’t understand that stopping Sad Damn wasn’t going to be enough to get past Ronnie’s deficit nightmare and Bill was a sad small liar who couldn’t keep his promises to either Hillary or us.

Through all of this the party faithful have continued to trumpet the horror that would certainly engulf us if the other side ever won on any issue. The list of lying, avaricious, power-mad boss-wannabes on every side is enough to sicken anyone with the least hope of a just society.

But what the American citizenry is presently faced with is categorically different. We have an administration that has declared as its first element of policy, domestic and foreign, that everything is subordinate to the threat of terrorism. Well, England and France and Germany and Holland and Italy and on and on have suffered under the threat of terrorism for all of my life, (Hitler’s war and I are contemporaries) and they all have survived and thrived without declaring war on the world. If this administration expects us to set aside the principles upon which this nation was founded and wage peremptory war on “rogue states” then the justification had better be more real than the sinking of the Maine (Cuba then as now).

The justification for the Iraqi war was the threat that Saddam posed to the US. It was not his maltreatment of his own citizens or his neighbors. It was his WMD (our soldiers wore rubber suits in the heat in the fear that WMD were to be used). We said to the world that the threat was real and immediate and we had the proof. When the world said no, we said we’re going to war anyway. Not because Saddam was a demonstrable tyrant, but because he was a threat to both the US and the UN, one who had chemical and biological weapons and on his way to having Nukes.

That position does not permit equivocation and redefinition of the terms. That position demands clear, convincing proof. The time for that proof is now. If there is evidence then it must come forth. Blaming others, whether Britain or France or Italy will not do. Talking about how we have brought democracy to Iraq will not do. Parsing soundbites will not do. We went to war because this administration said it had the proof. Put it on the table or suffer the consequences.

Fleisher states that the President's address gave information that was believed to be accurate at the time. How, exactly, do you think this supports your case?

Finally, Tenet acknowledges that there was insufficient confidence in the yellowcake assertion to include it in the SOTU address, and that the CIA should have had it removed. They didn't do that. How, exact