Locked doors thwart Bush's bid to duck question

This is just a funny photo of the President trying to duck a question, but running into a door. We all need a laugh. His comeback was pretty good too: "I was trying to escape. Obviously, it didn't work."

Bush Misled on Iraqi Intelligence (NYT Editorial)

Regardless of what YOU think of the New York Times, can you pinpoint any factual or logical errors in the following Editorial?

Decoding Mr. Bush's Denials

Published: November 15, 2005

To avoid having to account for his administration's misleading statements before the war with Iraq, President Bush has tried denial, saying he did not skew the intelligence. He's tried to share the blame, claiming that Congress had the same intelligence he had, as well as President Bill Clinton. He's tried to pass the buck and blame the C.I.A. Lately, he's gone on the attack, accusing Democrats in Congress of aiding the terrorists.

Yesterday in Alaska, Mr. Bush trotted out the same tedious deflection on Iraq that he usually attempts when his back is against the wall: he claims that questioning his actions three years ago is a betrayal of the troops in battle today.

It all amounts to one energetic effort at avoidance. But like the W.M.D. reports that started the whole thing, the only problem is that none of it has been true.

Mr. Bush says everyone had the same intelligence he had - Mr. Clinton and his advisers, foreign governments, and members of Congress - and that all of them reached the same conclusions. The only part that is true is that Mr. Bush was working off the same intelligence Mr. Clinton had. But that is scary, not reassuring. The reports about Saddam Hussein's weapons were old, some more than 10 years old. Nothing was fresher than about five years, except reports that later proved to be fanciful.

Foreign intelligence services did not have full access to American intelligence. But some had dissenting opinions that were ignored or not shown to top American officials. Congress had nothing close to the president's access to intelligence. The National Intelligence Estimate presented to Congress a few days before the vote on war was sanitized to remove dissent and make conjecture seem like fact.

It's hard to imagine what Mr. Bush means when he says everyone reached the same conclusion. There was indeed a widespread belief that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons. But Mr. Clinton looked at the data and concluded that inspections and pressure were working - a view we now know was accurate. France, Russia and Germany said war was not justified. Even Britain admitted later that there had been no new evidence about Iraq, just new politics.

The administration had little company in saying that Iraq was actively trying to build a nuclear weapon. The evidence for this claim was a dubious report about an attempt in 1999 to buy uranium from Niger, later shown to be false, and the infamous aluminum tubes story. That was dismissed at the time by analysts with real expertise.

The Bush administration was also alone in making the absurd claim that Iraq was in league with Al Qaeda and somehow connected to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. That was based on two false tales. One was the supposed trip to Prague by Mohamed Atta, a report that was disputed before the war and came from an unreliable drunk. The other was that Iraq trained Qaeda members in the use of chemical and biological weapons. Before the war, the Defense Intelligence Agency concluded that this was a deliberate fabrication by an informer.

Mr. Bush has said in recent days that the first phase of the Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation on Iraq found no evidence of political pressure to change the intelligence. That is true only in the very narrow way the Republicans on the committee insisted on defining pressure: as direct pressure from senior officials to change intelligence. Instead, the Bush administration made what it wanted to hear crystal clear and kept sending reports back to be redone until it got those answers.

Richard Kerr, a former deputy director of central intelligence, said in 2003 that there was "significant pressure on the intelligence community to find evidence that supported a connection" between Iraq and Al Qaeda. The C.I.A. ombudsman told the Senate Intelligence Committee that the administration's "hammering" on Iraq intelligence was harder than he had seen in his 32 years at the agency.

Mr. Bush and other administration officials say they faithfully reported what they had read. But Vice President Dick Cheney presented the Prague meeting as a fact when even the most supportive analysts considered it highly dubious. The administration has still not acknowledged that tales of Iraq coaching Al Qaeda on chemical warfare were considered false, even at the time they were circulated.

Mr. Cheney was not alone. Remember Condoleezza Rice's infamous "mushroom cloud" comment? And Secretary of State Colin Powell in January 2003, when the rich and powerful met in Davos, Switzerland, and he said, "Why is Iraq still trying to procure uranium and the special equipment needed to transform it into material for nuclear weapons?" Mr. Powell ought to have known the report on "special equipment"' - the aluminum tubes - was false. And the uranium story was four years old.

The president and his top advisers may very well have sincerely believed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. But they did not allow the American people, or even Congress, to have the information necessary to make reasoned judgments of their own. It's obvious that the Bush administration misled Americans about Mr. Hussein's weapons and his terrorist connections. We need to know how that happened and why.

Mr. Bush said last Friday that he welcomed debate, even in a time of war, but that "it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began." We agree, but it is Mr. Bush and his team who are rewriting history.

Blogger’s Note: Another sad example of the Bush administration twisting information to “fit” the conclusion they wanted Congress and the American people to draw, censoring and censuring dissenters, failing to listen to those who possessed contrary facts. How even 44% of people can think he is doing a good job is beyond me, unless, of course, people like being misled (and there is probably evidence that this is the case – people prefer to be told what they want to hear over the truth).

The New 80/20 Rule?

Two stories bolster my arguments yesterday that (1) the Bush administration should start listening to people and, in the case of torture, denounce its use by ANYONE, and (2) that the invasion was a mistake akin to pouring water on a grease fire, causing it to spread.

First, this week about 170 malnourished Iraqi detainees, some of whom appeared to have been tortured, were found at an Interior Ministry detention center. If the CIA argues it needs to retain the use of torture, others, like the Interior Ministry of Iraq, will ride the coattails of that argument. See the story at http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq-Torture.html (link expires within a few days).

Second, Jordanian investigators report that the Iraqi woman who took part in the Amman hotel terror attacks said Monday that she had volunteered to become a suicide bomber because three of her brothers had been killed during “operations” in Iraq involving U.S. Marines. The cost of fighting the war on terrorism Bush’s way is to increase terrorism. That is ineffective leadership, just as, well, you-know-what is ineffective firefighting. See the story at http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/15/international/middleeast/15jordan.html (link expires within a few days).

To quote recent AP wire reports:

The Central Intelligence Agency recently warned that a new generation of jihadists was being trained in the Iraq war, and that these fighters could soon take their cause to other countries.
The theory of a widening jihad, with Iraq at the center, is bolstered by intelligence reports stating that Mr. Zarqawi, long opposed to the Hashemite monarchy in Jordan, had been funneling people and supplies to Jordan even before Wednesday's attacks.

Did you also notice that today the Senate voted 79 to 19 to demand regular reports from the White House on the course of the conflict and on the progress that Iraqi forces are making in securing their own country. “The bipartisan support for the measure sponsored by Senator John W. Warner, the Virginia Republican who heads the Armed Services Committee, reflected anxiety among Republicans as well as Democrats.” See the story at http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/15/politics/14cnd-congress.html (link expires within a few days).

Funny, this is the same 80:20 ratio as the latest New York Times/CBS News, which shows that 8 in 10 Americans are very or somewhat concerned that the $5 billion being spent each month on the war in Iraq is draining away money that could be used in the United States. See the story at http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/17/politics/17poll.html?ex=1132203600&en=49940844e6309c8e&ei=5070 (link expires within a few days).

Could this be the new 80/20 rule? Hmmm.

Never Listen To People Who Disagree With You

Sometimes a misguided attempt to right a wrong backfires, exacerbating the original wrong. Throwing water on a grease fire is one example. Tying a tourniquet so tight that it cuts off the blood supply to a limb is another example. Hiding from lightening under a tree – bad idea! You probably have a list of your own examples that fit the bill. The root causes of such “mistakes” nearly always boil down to lack of knowledge or experience or the rush of acting without thinking first. In some cases, a bystander warns “don’t throw water on that fire,” but it is too late. The do-gooder doesn’t hear in time or, in more egregious cases, stubbornly decides to ignore the advice. The fire spreads.

So it comes as no surprise that the ten former 9-11 Commissioners (now the 9-11 Public Disclosure Project), including five Republicans, warned this past Monday that Iraq is becoming the world’s prime terrorist training ground. Last week’s triple suicide-bombing in Amman, Jordan demonstrates the ability of terrorists in Iraq to export their deadly goods. It is believed that those terrorists had prepared in Iraq.

Iraq borders six countries: Jordan, Turkey, Iran, Syria, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Its border of 1,793 miles roughly approximates the size of the 1,900-mile border between the U.S. and Mexico, but it is much more difficult to patrol. Conceivably, it is just a matter of time before terrorists from Iraq spread into the rest of the Middle East, Europe, and even the United States. So spreads an imprudently fought fire.

Even if you don’t accept that the invasion of Iraq was akin to throwing water on a grease fire (when a well placed lid would have been preferable), there is no reason now to fan the flames further. But that is just what the Bush administration has repeatedly done and has done again by its rejection of the Senate’s proposed amendment to a military appropriations bill (passed 90-9), which states: “No individual in the custody or under the physical control of the United States Government, regardless of nationality or physical location, shall be subject to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment” – basically outlawing torture. The same administration that used legal briefs to defend its use of torture is now seeking a special torture exemption for the CIA, the same guys who supposedly “directed” the interrogations at the Abu Ghurayb Prison.

The Commissioners noted that the increasing terrorism threat from Iraq is, to some extent, connected to the “highly publicized reports of brutalization, humiliation and desecration” by the United States. The Senate’s amendment is a first step in ending these winds that only help fan the flames of Islamic fundamentalism.

Sadly, this President does not learn from his mistakes, his biggest being his inability to listen to anyone outside his insular circle of adviser-cronies. He might have gone down as a great leader had he listened to Colon Powell after 9/11, focused on Afghanistan where we knew terrorists trained, and used the goodwill we so briefly engendered from other nations, including Arab nations, to unite the world in a global fight against terrorism. But he did not, and it is unlikely he will listen to the Commissioners.

No one likes to see a President fail. But with Scooter Libby indicted, Karl Rove and Bill Frist under investigation, and Democrats defeating Republican candidates in Virginia and New Jersey, among other things, there is some satisfaction when the great stubborn do-it-my-wayer, ignoring advice not to throw water on a fire, gets a little burned himself. Such schadenfraude, however, only numbs the pain, but does not heal the disease. The disease is that this President does not listen, and as a result, the flames he fans kill innocent Iraqis by the dozens each day, kill and maim our own brave men and women working to bring peace to the Iraq, and may ultimately hit our own shores in the form of exported terrorism.

Presumably, the administration believes torture is a useful means of obtaining reliable information about possible terrorist attacks. The experts say otherwise, noting that victims of torture do talk, but they give information that is less reliable than that obtainable by other means.

But what are the chances that the Bush administration will listen to experts?

***

The Report on the Status of 9/11 Commission Recommendations (Part III) issued on November 14, 2005 is available at http://www.9-11pdp.org/press/2005-11-14_report.pdf.