November 14, 2005

• SPINS, LIES, and WEAPONS of MASS DESTRUCTION

  I'm too lazy right now to write a clever update to this Blog, so here's a comment from one of my other blogs:
  Our President took the opportunity afforded by the chance to speak at a Veteran's Day Rally to insist that he is not a liar. this politicalization of a solemn occasion irritated some (most?) of those present but I suppose he has to take whatever pulpit he can find whenever he can find it.
  The interesting thing is that while few people openly accuse him of lying about the WMDs that were supposed to be in Iraq, most Americans feel he was less than truthful about his reasons for invading Iraq and the WMD question is one of the best smokescreens to pull over the rather sordid truth of the matter.
  In the 9/11 Report, Section 10.3 (Beginning on page 351) has a pretty good summary of the thinking of the Administration at the time. Apparently the President speculated about the possibility of Iraq's participation in 9/11 but no intelligence reports indicated a Saddam- Al Qaeda link, rather there seemed to be some animosity. Never the less, at the Camp David meeting there was agreement that the three general areas of concern in the War on Terrorism were the Taliban, Al Qaeda, and Iraq and that Al Qaeda and Iraq were imminent dangers to the U.S., Iraq because of Saddam's interest in Weapons of Mass Destruction. Wolfowitz was apparently the chief proponent of War on Iraq but his ideas were shelved in favor of an invasion of Afghanistan as a direct attack on Al Qaeda.
  There was apparently some belief that Saddam was involved with 9/11 but his long argument with the UN regarding his weapons programs was apparently seen as a more believable reason for Attacking Iraq. When it became apparent that despite evidence produced (including Powell's - in hindsight, rather embarrassing - speech); the UN was not going to authorize force against Iraq, The U.S. and Britain attacked Iraq and soon toppled Saddam.
  Did Bush lie about weapons of mass destruction? He probably thought he was right but he certainly asserted as fact statements that were based on faulty or false intelligence which he made no effort to correct later. He would undoubtedly like to shift the spin on justification for the Iraq War to either ridding Iraq of a loathsome dictator, bringing peace, hope, and democracy to the Middle East, or ridding the world of an Al Qaeda or other terrorist base; but the fact remains that he used the WMD argument to sell the war to Americans and when none of consequence were found, the buck stops with him.
  The reference to a "Slam dunk" by CIA Director George Tenant probably had a double meaning: We would find those pesky WMDs and Iraq would be a pushover and a positive step in winning the War on Terror. Besides, this would take the focus off Afghanistan, where we didn't seem to have much to show for our efforts (no Osama bin Laden or other top Al qaeda people captured so far). Two years later, Afghanistan looks like the "slam dunk" in comparison with Iraq.

  • 11:31 am
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