If anyone has been found to be a liar regarding this whole uranium non-scandal, it is me, because I proclaimed I wasn’t going to talk about this anymore and then promptly posted 5 pieces on it. Here is one more to complete the package.
At any rate, Kevin Drum, in the comments section of this post regarding Ken Pollack’s pre-war predictions regarding the Iraqi WMD programs (and more specifically, the nuclear capabilities), states the following:
I don’t think Pollack is a liar. I think he truthfully reported the consensus of the intelligence community, which matches what Tenet said about the NIE in October. The CIA *did* think that Saddam had a large and active nuclear program.
Pollack blew it, but the real question is why the intelligence agencies blew it so badly. That story is just starting to come out.
Unfrotunately, the left does not seem willing to extend the same benefit to Bush. Regardless of the partisan shenanigans that the Donks are now engaging in (which appears to be having some serious blowback of its own), the real question is “What is wrong with our intelligence services?”
Let’s start from the top:
1.) I believe Saddam had and continued to possess weapons which placed him in material breech (including long-range missiles, chem and bio weapons, and perhaps part of a nuclear program).
2.) I can also list about 25 other reasons why I was an still am in favor of what we did in Iraq.
3.) Bush’s SOTU address with the infamous line is still not only technically accurate, but according to the Brits COMPLETELY accurate.
4.) The same people who are now in hysterics about Bush lying, even though he didn’t are the same people who all believed and agreed that Saddam had WMD. The only thing that differed was the approach to the issue. Most on the left wanted continued sanctions and inspections.
5.) No one in the House or Senate, and I mean no one, voted for the war because of the line in question. This, of course, is indisputable and undeniable. Pretending that war was not imminent after the Senate vote is merely additional evidence that Democrats and the anti-war crowd suffer from dementia.
All of that is pretty clear, and yet the Democrats are lauching into a full-fledged scandal mode, spinning their own webs of lies and deceit that are so obvious that the Daily Howler has now dedicated TWO days worth of posts pointing out the duplicity. What is going to happen because of all this?
Here are my predictions:
1.) Mucho partisan bickering at House and Senate hearings. Both parties will claim that they have been vindicated by the same testimony, not noticing the irony.
2.) Democrats, in their attempt to find something (“Please, Dear God, give us any issue to run on next year”) to attack Bush with will miss the really relevant issue, which is why are our intelligence services so f——d up? They probably won’t ask the question, because this is something that has taken a while to get to this point. God forbid they accept some accountability from their behavior during the Clinton years.
3.) Republicans, on the defensive, will blame it all on the Clintons.
4.) Tenet will survive, slightly bloodied, and Bush will remain unscathed. In fact, Bush’s numbers will probably increase (a la Clinton impeachment- the public recognizes witch hunts, and I am not sure why politicians have not figured out what clear BS detectors most people have.)
5.) Because the Democrats are in attack mode and the Republicans are in CYA mode (for no real reason), there will be NO FUNDAMENTAL CHANGES to the intelligence services. And that just really pisses me off.
Kevin Drum
“I believe Saddam had and continued to possess weapons which placed him in material breech (including long-range missiles, chem and bio weapons, and perhaps part of a nuclear program).”
In completely nonpartisan mode here, can I ask why you still believe this? To be honest, I still sort of believe it too, but at this point it seems to be based more on faith than anything else. So far, all the evidence on the ground says the WMDs never existed.
John Cole
1.) The overwhelming documentation, from multiple sources, including Iraq’s own admission, that the WMD existed.
2.) The use of chemical weapons on the Kurds.
3.) The documentation (which is massive- NEwsmax had a story about Brokaw and a former weapons inspector) and pieces of a nuclear program (albeit part of an old program) that were recently unearthed.
4.) The fact that they have found the banned weapons already, just not in any significant quantity (a chemical warhead here, an illegal missile there, etc.).
5.) The nature of the man and the regime. We are going to be hearing about atrocities and shenanigans for the next 10-20 years.
What terrifies me is the worst case scenario may have happened- these may be on the black market and in the hands of unsavories.
Greg
“Unfrotunately, the left does not seem willing to extend the same benefit to Bush.”
That’s because for many on the left, it’s not really about war, uranium, or nuclear weapons. It’s about Bush. Especially now that folks have had a little while to chew on Tony Blair’s speech for a while, expect lots of “Blair doesn’t lie, but Bush does”-type rhetoric. Logically, this sort of argument holds no water whatsoever, but it’s so appealing to those on the left that they’ll find it irresistible.