April 12, 2006

As Fred Kapln writes in Slate, the officer corps is getting restless. Take a look at the latest admission of regret in the pages of the latest edition of TIME, then ask yourself who you believe: the people who were asked to fight the war in Iraq or the selective reality of drunken, fawning partisans.

I now regret that I did not more openly challenge those who were determined to invade a country whose actions were peripheral to the real threat—al-Qaeda. … [T]he Pentagon's military leaders … with few exceptions, acted timidly when their voices urgently needed to be heard. When they knew the plan was flawed, saw intelligence distorted to justify a rationale for war, or witnessed arrogant micromanagement that at times crippled the military's effectiveness, many leaders who wore the uniform chose inaction. … It is time for senior military leaders to discard caution in expressing their views and ensure that the President hears them clearly. And that we won't be fooled again.
[Why Iraq Was a Mistake - TIME - 04-17-06]

April 12, 2006

When it came to intelligence on WMD, newly revealed information shows President Bush preferred his own version of facts and preferred leaking only intelligence that helped him dupe the American people into making the ultimate sacrifice.

On May 29, 2003, 50 days after the fall of Baghdad, President Bush proclaimed a fresh victory for his administration in Iraq: Two small trailers captured by U.S. and Kurdish troops had turned out to be long-sought mobile "biological laboratories." He declared, "We have found the weapons of mass destruction."

The claim, repeated by top administration officials for months afterward, was hailed at the time as a vindication of the decision to go to war. But even as Bush spoke, U.S. intelligence officials possessed powerful evidence that it was not true.

A secret fact-finding mission to Iraq -- not made public until now -- had already concluded that the trailers had nothing to do with biological weapons. Leaders of the Pentagon-sponsored mission transmitted their unanimous findings to Washington in a field report on May 27, 2003, two days before the president's statement.

The three-page field report and a 122-page final report three weeks later were stamped "secret" and shelved. Meanwhile, for nearly a year, administration and intelligence officials continued to publicly assert that the trailers were weapons factories.
[Lacking Biolabs, Trailers Carried Case for War - Washington Post - 04-12-06]

Why doesn't President Bush declassify the currently classified report "Final Technical Engineering Exploitation Report on Iraqi Suspected Biological Weapons-Associated Trailers?" Why does the President only chose to declassify discredited intelligence that makes his case for war in Iraq while keeping the facts and the truth classified and away from the American people?

February 10, 2006

Is this the face of a man who authorized criminal behavior in order to discredit detractors of his selective case for war in Iraq?

November 23, 2005

Conservative media pundits continue to mislead the American people in the debate over the war in Iraq, suggesting the U.S. House of Representatives voted on Rep John Murtha's resolution to redeploy U.S. forces from Iraq "at the earliest practicable date." The fact is, Republicans offered their own version (which failed 403-3) and refused to vote on Murtha's resolution.

Hannity made the claim twice on November 18 -- once during his radio show and once on Fox News' Hannity & Colmes. He was joined by Wall Street Journal OpinionJournal.com editor James Taranto, who made the same claim in his November 21 "Best of the Web" column, as Media Matters for America previously noted.

On the November 21 broadcast of The Big Story with John Gibson, Gibson interviewed New York Post columnist and retired Army Lt. Col. Ralph Peters, author of New Glory: Expanding America's Global Supremacy (Sentinel, August 2005), and asked, "Why, then, do you think Murtha's suggestion last week, voted down by the House, is causing so much trouble?" Peters responded that by "calling for an immediate withdrawal," Murtha was encouraging terrorists "to think their strategy is working."

But the House never voted on Murtha's suggestion (House Joint Resolution 73), which he announced in a press conference on November 17. Instead, the House voted on a substitute (House Resolution 571) that was introduced the following day by Hunter, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. The vote occurred after a contentious floor debate, during which Murtha described the resolution as "not what I envisioned, not what I introduced."

Murtha's resolution, which cited polling data, the cost of the war, and the rising American death toll, called for the redeployment of U.S. forces "at the earliest practicable date," the maintaining of strategic military presence in the region, and continued diplomatic efforts in Iraq. Hunter's resolution contained a single line: "Resolved, [t]hat it is the sense of the House of Representatives that the deployment of United States forces in Iraq be terminated immediately."
[Fox's Gibson and Hannity, NY Post falsely claimed that House voted on Murtha's resolution - Media Matters - 11-22-05]

November 22, 2005

Here's President Bush claiming Congress had the same intelligence that he did before making a decision to go to war.

"They also know that intelligence agencies from around the world agreed with our assessment of Saddam Hussein. They know the United Nations passed more than a dozen resolutions citing his development and possession of weapons of mass destruction. . . . That's why more than a hundred Democrats in the House and the Senate -- who had access to the same intelligence -- voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power."
[President Commemorates Veterans Day, Discusses War on Terror - Tobyhanna Army Depot - 11-11-05]

Here's the Vice President repeating the same assertion.

Some of the most irresponsible comments have come from politicians who actually voted in favor of authorizing the use of force against Saddam Hussein. These are elected officials who had access to the intelligence materials.
[Vice President's Remarks on the War on Terror - American Enterprise Institute - 11-21-05]

Here is the Washington Post proving this assertion is misleading.

In the same speech, Bush asserted that "more than 100 Democrats in the House and the Senate, who had access to the same intelligence, voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power." Giving a preview of Bush's speech, Hadley had said that "we all looked at the same intelligence."

But Bush does not share his most sensitive intelligence, such as the President's Daily Brief, with lawmakers. Also, the National Intelligence Estimate summarizing the intelligence community's views about the threat from Iraq was given to Congress just days before the vote to authorize the use of force in that country.

In addition, there were doubts within the intelligence community not included in the NIE. And even the doubts expressed in the NIE could not be used publicly by members of Congress because the classified information had not been cleared for release. For example, the NIE view that Hussein would not use weapons of mass destruction against the United States or turn them over to terrorists unless backed into a corner was cleared for public use only a day before the Senate vote.
[Asterisks Dot White House's Iraq Argument - Washington Post - 11-12-05]

And here is today's National Journal describing just one of those documents not shared by the Bush Administration as they publicly described selective intelligence as definitive justifications for war. (via Washington Monthly's Political Animal)

Ten days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President Bush was told in a highly classified briefing that the U.S. intelligence community had no evidence linking the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein to the attacks and that there was scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al Qaeda, according to government records and current and former officials with firsthand knowledge of the matter.

The information was provided to Bush on September 21, 2001 during the "President's Daily Brief," a 30- to 45-minute early-morning national security briefing. Information for PDBs has routinely been derived from electronic intercepts, human agents, and reports from foreign intelligence services, as well as more mundane sources such as news reports and public statements by foreign leaders.
[Key Bush Intelligence Briefing Kept From Hill Panel - National Journal - 11-22-05]

And here is what the American people think about their strategy (Newsweek Poll conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International. Nov. 10-11, 2005).

"Do you think the phrase 'is honest and ethical' describes George W. Bush, or not?"
						.
		Describes	Does Not	Unsure
		%	%	%
	11/10-11/05	42	50	8
	1/22-23/04	57	38	5
						.
"Do you think the phrase 'is honest and ethical' describes Dick Cheney, or not?"
						.
		Describes	Does Not	Unsure
		%	%	%
	11/10-11/05	29	55	16