Worldview: Iraq
by A Concerned Citizen
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Retired on 31 December 2007
Table of Contents
Main Items
Intelligence Fiasco
U.S. Conduct
Getting Out
2006 Articles
First Thoughts
We Fought for This?
Zarqawi Killed by US
Gross Deception on Iraq Progress?
Hawks Claim WMD Found in Iraq
Let Iraq Break Apart?
Ralph Peters on Iraqi Democracy
Senate Report Says No Link
Some Views on the Iraq War
Should We Leave?
The Reality On The Ground
Saddam's Execution
Other Articles
News Items
Progress of War (Summer 2006)
Progress of War (Fall 2006)
Progress of War (Year 2007)
Intelligence Fiasco
Introduction
Article Archive
Key Excerpts
NY Public Radio Debate
Some Virulent Politicization
Col. Wilkerson: WMD Intel was a 'Hoax'
Kwiatkowski: Intel never supported claims
Scott Ritter's Views
Gordon Prather Recounts Pre-Invasion
Articles on Feith
Moyers' Damning Documentary
George Tenet on 60 Minutes
Other Articles
Back to Iraq War Menu
Introduction (28 Jun 06): Until recently, I had tended to give the Bush administration the benefit of the doubt on the WMD fiasco, that is, on the shocking failure to find the WMD in Iraq, for which we went to war. To be precise, I had rejected the cries of 'deceiver' and 'warmonger' raised by some on the left, since one should not use such inflammatory language unless one is certain about intentions. Then there was the mantra that 'all the intelligence agencies' thought Saddam (probably) had (nuclear?) WMD, which seemed to have some basis in fact. Now I am not so sure about any of this...
No doubt one could argue that the administration 'cherry-picked' from uncertain intelligence and made its best case like a trial lawyer. On the other hand, one could argue that when in doubt about something as serious as WMD in the hands of terrorists, one should err on the side of paranoia. This issue will not be settled anytime soon, nor do I expect it to go away anytime soon. I will begin by collecting relevant articles as I come across them (even if they are old).
UPDATE (18 Jan 07): Half a year later, and this section is still far weaker than I would like it to be, given the importance of the topic. That is partly because I started late, but also because there don't seem to be that many good articles on the WMD intelligence fiasco floating around on the web. [Note added later: This statement was mistaken! See the following.] That would probably require a deeper investigation than most journalists are willing (or perhaps able) to undertake. Much punditry is rather superficial and reacts to the latest events only. I guess I'll have to read some actual books on the subject.
UPDATE (21 Jan 07): I just discovered the February 2006 confession by Col. Wilkerson, a top aide to then Secretary of State Colin Powell, that the prewar WMD evidence was a 'hoax', particularly the crucial evidence relayed by Powell to the UN Security Council prior to the invasion (scroll up a bit to the menu). Since Col. Wilkerson was such a high-level insider, as well as a lifelong Republican and a military man, this has changed my mind about the Bush administration. I can no longer give it the benefit of the doubt regarding prewar WMD intelligence. This realization is quite outrageous and shocking. I discuss it some more under the Wilkerson section.
It looks like the crazy, America-hating, Bush-hating lefties were right after all, at least on this, though perhaps not based on any solid understanding on their part! My suspicion of conservative and right-wing websites has skyrocketed. Now I'd better be careful not to start believing every thing the lefty sites say either!
Another important point: The pundits and experts suddenly all seem rather worthless, either because they were so easily deceived by the administration, or because they didn't do their homework. Even the stratospheric insider Bob Woodward was busy chumming up to the administration for many years, with two obliging books, before his recent defection to the anti-war crowd (or so I have heard). Let's not even mention the patently fanatical Bill Kristols and other Fox News robots. The more 'enlightened' Tom Friedmans, Christopher Hitchens, and many others also look like imbeciles. And dangerous ones too. (To be sure, such language should only be used when thousands die unjustifiably.) So what should we believe about Iran?
Back to Intelligence Fiasco
NOTE (7 May 07): I have posted quite a few articles from the 'radical' or 'fringe' website called Antiwar. Actually, they sound more like the mainstream, now that Iraq is a disaster and all their predictions have turned out to be true! It is the mainstream media that blundered badly, as reported recently by Bill Moyers. Anyhow, Antiwar is very useful because it scans the entire press for relevant information that exists but gets buried under all the spin. It is easy enough to bracket the political views of the authors, on those rare occasions when they appear. Note that these views are libertarian rather than leftist; we certainly are not dealing with a bunch of no-good Commies! (Though perhaps they are harsher on Israel than AIPAC would like.) So far, I consider Antiwar to be a reliable website offering a cornucopia of carefully selected information.
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Back to Intelligence Fiasco
Key Excerpts from Iraq Intel Archives [NOTE: This included a total of 218 inspections at 141 sites — including 21 sites suggested by the CIA! See here.]
At this stage, the following can be stated:
As I stated above, the IAEA will naturally continue further to scrutinize and investigate all of the above issues.
[NOTE: The invasion of Iraq was on 17 March 2003.] More to come...
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NY Public Radio Debate (23 Sep 06): The topic of prewar WMD intelligence may seem like water under the bridge, but the question of government integrity is crucial. Until recently, my general impression was that the administration did 'cherry-pick' the evidence, but that they could still be more or less forgiven, since 'everybody else' (i.e. other allied governments) also tended to believe that Saddam might be on the verge of a nuclear bomb. Recently, I have become more aware that the UN inspectors were supposedly making progress prior to the war, turning up nothing, and Bush may have jumped the gun.
But then, even if the intelligence was uncertain, could we take that chance? Especially given Saddam's history? Can we take it with Iran? Or with whomever else may be on the verge of getting nukes? Can we stop any more nations of the world from joining this club? Could we with Pakistan or India? Should we only get concerned with militant Islamic states or with other 'rogue' states like North Korea? Is Pakistan not as dangerous as any Muslim state? What are the ethics and consequences of a policy of pre-emptive invasion based on flimsy (or less than sterling) evidence?
Anyhow, here is an interesting audio debate from February 2006 on NY public radio between Christopher Hitchens and David Corn, both journalists, the former pro-war and the latter anti-war; former senator Bob Graham (D-FL), who was Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and one of the few Democratic senators to vote against giving Bush the authority to invade Iraq; and Ruth Wedgwood, professor of international law at Johns Hopkins University, member of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, and former member of the committee for the liberation of Iraq.
David Corn makes the point that right before the Iraq war, Mohammed el-Baradei, chief UN weapons inspector, who is now taken seriously by the administration on Iran, said that his inspectors were getting in and finding nothing. Then, claims Corn, vice-president Cheney raised the 'aluminum tubes' as evidence of an ongoing nuclear weapons program, which was allegedly dismissed by the concensus of nuclear experts. It now seems to me that one can argue that, despite Saddam's history, there was not enough evidence for a pre-emptive invasion, at least according to traditional notions of 'clear and present danger'. For example, in civil life you can't pull a gun on someone based on probable suspicion and a past unsavory history. For war, a reasonable person would claim that the evidence of an imminent threat must be quite solid. Then again, perhaps nuclear weapons are so dangerous that we need new rules for pre-emptive attack. A related point raised by Hitchens is that Saddam had an obligation under the terms of surrender to account for all WMD, i.e. presenting the evidence of exactly what happened to them. The UN was being stiffed, but don't we do that too when we wish? I am no worshipper of the Israel-hating UN, but we can't just try to use it when convenient for us, as we do. Another point is that key figures in the administration, or feeding the administration, were apparently itching for war against Iraq going back for many years.
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Some Virulent Politicization (7 Jan 07): I am astonished at how little the right has been chastened by the fiasco in Iraq. Just today, Family Security Matters, a conservative pro-war website with a folksy image, decided to place this old 2005 story at the top. The author, Joan Swirsky, a nurse and psychotherapist turned author, first castigates Senator Rockefeller for giving a 'heads up' in January 2002 to various Arab leaders that Bush was planning to invade Iraq, which she calls 'treason'. Other political observers think it was obvious soon after 9/11, if not sooner, that Iraq was on Bush's agenda, but no matter. In general, her vitriolic article is about how patriotic the pro-war people were (and are) and how treasonous the anti-war people are, which now includes a large majority of Americans! What got my attention was this revisionist history of the WMD debacle:
Loftus, an attorney and former Justice Department prosecutor, once held some of the highest security clearances in the world, with special access to NATO Cosmic, CIA codeword, and Top Secret Nuclear files.
As early as January 2003, Loftus said, U.S. intelligence had identified a stream of tractor-trailer trucks moving from Iraq to Syria to Lebanon, but that 'the significance of this sighting did not register on the CIA at the time'. U.S. intelligence sources, Loftus continued, 'believe the area contains extended-range Scud-based missiles and parts for chemical and biological warheads'.
In August 2003, Loftus reported that U.S. intelligence suspected they had located the WMD, but 'getting to them will be nearly impossible for the U.S. and its allies because the containers with the strategic materials ... are located in Lebanon's heavily fortified Bekaa Valley, swarming with Iranian and Syrian forces, and Hizbullah and ex-Iraqi agents.' We could invade countries forever based on hypothetical possibilities backed by doubtful evidence. That's a prescription for perpetual and ruinous war. The left may sometimes get too relaxed about security matters, but the hysterics of the right are at least as dangerous, if not much more so. We need careful, rational analysis by nonpartisan professionals — many of them. The right has disgraced itself, always shouting 'The Left! The Left! Traitors! Traitors!'. They need therapy. Anyhow, they have shot themselves in the foot bigtime with Iraq. Their credibility has vanished with a large chunk of the public. I used to believe most of what I read on their websites, thinking that at least the factual-looking parts were factual, but now I am much more cautious. McCarthyism may be a cliche, but the spirit survives. 'I have in my hand a list!' Idiots!
Oh, by the way, preventing terrorism is largely a matter of careful police and intelligence work between cooperating democracies! It stopped the Heathrow deca-jet nightmare and might have prevented 9/11. That means being respectful and friendly with friends, even the no-good French! Hawks tend to denigrate the 'soft' and painstaking intelligence approach, except when they can hijack some dubious elements of the intelligence for their grandiose war plans. A policy of global pre-emptive war is a sure path to ruinous exhaustion and could be considered a national security threat in its own right!
Back to Intelligence Fiasco
Col. Wilkerson: WMD Intel was a 'Hoax' (21 Jan 07): Colin Powell's Chief of Staff reports on the serious doubts regarding the WMD intel that the Secretary of State presented to the UN as justification for the Iraq invasion. From a very high-level insider, a Republican, and a military man. He should be a reliable critic, one would think! Note that the following is an entire documentary on PBS.
There should really be a vigorous and probing investigation of this crucial issue, even if it is history. The cheap excuse of 'there is enough blame to go around' is self-serving for the Washington elite (including the many pro-war pundits). The evidence to the Security Council was a turning-point or trigger for a disastrous war. It is perhaps too much to call it a 'war crime', though it seems like some kind of crime, if true. However, I would let off people like Wilkerson, who came clean.
Some specifics from the documentary are that (i) various 'sources' were known to be bogus by a variety of intelligence agencies (which contradicts the mantra that 'everybody thought Saddam had WMD'); (ii) that Cheney 'hijacked' the decision-making process and exerted 'undue influence' on the CIA; (iii) that CIA director Tenet was too close to the president and too willing to please him; and (iv) that the UN weapons inspector Hans Blix has said that he has investigated all the sites that concerned the Americans, prior to the war, and had turned up nothing. I would add that we have learned (again) that the politicians at the top can be dishonest and incompetent, despite the best efforts of intelligent and hard-working professionals in the mid-levels of government.
This is really all incredibly damning. It is also damning that the issue is fading away and that the vast majority of Republicans, as well as many Democrats, don't seem to care. Do we deserve to be a superpower? Are we a threat to the world as great as those we fear? Thousands have been maimed and killed based on dishonest behavior, a stable dictatorship has been plunged into ugly and predictable sectarian violence, Iran's power has been enhanced, Muslim anger has been further inflamed (which could lead to more terrorism), and the world seems a more dangerous place — all based on stupidity and dishonest, not on an honest mistake. We need to do some serious soul searching, but most Americans are too busy entertaining themselves.
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Lt. Col. Kwiatkowski: Intel never supported neocon claims (2 Mar 07): Here is another former military insider who claims that the administration propaganda leading up to the Iran invasion was cooked. The article describes Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski (ret.) as 'a veteran of the Pentagon [and National Security Agency] with firsthand experience of the administration's cherry-picking of intelligence'.
KAREN KWIATKOWSKI: Well, I worked in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and up until mid February I was in Near East South Asia, which is the office that owns the Office of Special Plans, they were our sister office. And so Iraq is one of the areas. And there's a great degree of excitement, there's a, we didn't know when we would invade Iraq, and many people thought it would be in February, late February, early March and it actually was like I think march 23 is when we actually conducted that attack on Baghdad and that kind of thing. Most people in the Pentagon, there's 23,000 people worked in the Pentagon. Most of those people were as in the dark as any of the Americans. They believed what they read in the papers, and what they read in the papers, particularly The New York Times and The Washington Post had been, for the most part, planted by The Administration. We know this now, the whole Congress knows this now, they've had a number of hearings publicly faltered, I think even the DODIG just recently faltered, Doug Feith and his whole organization for planting and providing misleading stories, many of which were later leaked on purpose to the press. A friendly press, of course, Judith Miller was not, was not hostile to the intentions of this administration. They wanted to go into Iraq, and they intended to go into Iraq. We did go into Iraq, and all that was really needed was to bring onboard the American people, and to bring onboard the Congress. But not necessarily to declare war. Congress has never been asked to declare war on Iraq. And they won't be asked to declare war on Iran even though we will conduct that war. These guys had an agenda. In fact, one of the things that I did learn as a result of having my eyes opened in that final tour in the Pentagon is that neo-conservatives, their foreign policy is very activist, you could say that's a nice way to say it, very activist, it's very oriented towards the United States as a benevolent dictator, a benevolent guiding hand for the world, particularly the Middle East. And it's very much a pro-Israel policy, and it's a policy that says, we should be able to do whatever we want to do, if we see it in our interest. Now, Americans don't see any value, most Americans, 75 percent of Americans want the troops home now. They don't see any value to having our troops in Iraq. They didn't see any value in that in 2002. But, they had a story sold to them, which was of course that Saddam Hussein somehow was involved with 9/11, had WMDs, and was a serious threat, an imminent threat, a grave threat to the United States.
JAMES HARRIS: For those people that think somehow that government officials, even though you work for the government, were complicit in this effort to move into Iraq. I want you to be clear, as a worker there, you were doing what you thought was right at the time. Is that a safe thing to say?
KAREN KWIATKOWSKI: We were doing, I'll tell ya, there's two parts of how the story is sold, how the propaganda was put forth on the American people, and how it's been put forth on them today in terms of Iran. You have political appointees in every government agency, and they switch out every time you get a new president, and that's totally normal. Usually those, the numbers increase after every president, they always get a few more. So Bush was no different. He brought in a number of political appointees: Doug Feith, certainly Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz. But also a number of political appointees at what you would call a lower level, like my level - Lieutenant Colonel and Colonel level. And they're not military officers, they're civilians. And they're brought in, and this is where the propaganda was kind of put together, this is where the so-called alternative intelligence assessments were put together by the civilian appointees of the Bush Administration. Most of which, in fact, probably all of the Pentagon shared a neo-conservative world vision, which has a particular role for us, and that included the topping of Saddam Hussein, and it includes the toppling of the leadership in Tehran. These guys are the ones doing it, they're doing it. They're putting all the propaganda, they're spreading stories, planting stuff in the media. They're doing that to people in The Pentagon, the civil, the Civil Service core in The Pentagon, which is about half of them, and the other half which are uniformed military officers serving anywhere from three to four, five years, sometimes tours in The Pentagon. We're looking at regular intel, we're looking at the stuff the CIA and the DIA, Defense Intelligence Agency produces. And that stuff never said, that stuff never said Saddam Hussein had WMDs, had a delivery system, was a threat to the United States. It never said that Saddam Hussein had anything to do with 9/11 or that Saddam Hussein worked with Al Qaeda. That intelligence never said that.
JAMES HARRIS: Did they tell you to shut up?
KAREN KWIATKOWSKI: Absolutely! [Laughs] That's a funny thing, and of course, here's how it worked. Once the Office of Special Plans was set up formally, now they were informally set up prior to the fall of 2002, but formally they became an office with office space and that whole bit. And the first act to follow that setup of the Office of Special Plans, we had a staff meeting, and our boss, Bill Ludy, who was the boss of Special Plans technically, not in reality but on paper. And he announced to us that from now on, action officers, staff officers such as myself and all my peers, at least in that office, and I presume this went all the way through the rest of policy, but we were told that when we needed to fill in data, putting it in papers that we would send up, doing our job, as we did our daily job, we were no longer to look at CIA and DIA intelligence, we were simply to call the Office of Special Plans and they would send down to us talking points, which we would incorporate verbatim no deletions, no additions, no modifications into every paper that we did. And of course, that was very unusual and all the action officers are looking at each other like, well that's interesting. We're not to look at the intelligence any more, we're simply to go to this group of political appointees and they will provide to us word for word what we should say about Iraq, about WMD and about terrorism. And this is exactly what our orders were. And there were people [Laughs] a couple of people, and I have to say, I was not one of these people who said, 'you know, I'm not gonna do that, I'm not gonna do that because there's something I don't like about it, it's incorrect in some way.' And they experimented with sending up papers that did not follow those instructions, and those papers were 100 percent of the time returned back for correction. So we weren't allowed to put out anything except what Office of Special Plans was producing for us. And that was only partially based on intelligence, and partially based on a political agenda. So this is how they did it. And I'll tell you what, civil servants and military people, we follow orders, okay. And we buy into it. And we don't suspect that our leaders are nefarious, we don't suspect that. They, they quite frankly have to go a long way to prove to us that they are nefarious. That's how it worked, and I imagine it's working much the same way there in terms of Iran.
JAMES HARRIS: Obviously you've been in the military for quite a while. Has this every happened to your knowledge in any other Pentagon, where a political appointees have the power to just control the...
KAREN KWIATKOWSKI: Sure, well sure, Vietnam is filled with examples... UPDATE (2 Mar 07): Wikipedia has this to say about her:
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Scott Ritter's Views (20 Mar 07): Scott Ritter, the former UN weapons inspector, is becoming increasingly credible as a voice on WMD intelligence and even on US foreign policy, at least in my eyes. At first, he seemed like too much of a maverick to me, and his credentials a bit dubious on more than the narrowest technical matters. However, by posting a great deal from him on my Iran page, regarding their alleged attempts to build a nuclear weapon, I have come to respect him as much as anybody else on these matters. After all, our greatest 'experts' blundered terribly on Iraq, so it is time to consider new (i.e. non establishment) voices. Ritter certainly seems to have mastered a great deal of material, and he speaks clearly and forcefully, as you can see on some of the videos. He raises powerful and disturbing questions about the integrity and competence of both major political parties, as well as the mainstream media and certain powerful lobbies such as AIPAC. See also here.
Iraq: Intelligence Archive
Robert Dreyfuss & Dave Gilson: Iraq 101
US State Dept: Security Council Resolutions Concerning Iraq
IAEA Report to UNSC in Oct 1997
Frontline: Spying on Saddam (1999)
White House: Joint Resolution to Authorize Force Against Iraq
UK Gov: UN Documents on Iraq of early March 2003
Gordon Prather recounts the pre-invasion
Wikipedia: Failed Iraqi peace initiatives
Mother Jones: Lie by Lie [example]
FAIR: Iraq and the Media: A Critical Timeline
Video: Good documentary on AIPAC also covers WMD fiasco
Scott Ritter: The Case for Iraq's Qualitative Disarmament
Justin Raimondo: The Myth of the Saddam Bomb
Justin Raimondo: Saddam meets the man fron U.N.C.L.E.
Justin Raimondo: In wartime, everyone has a hidden agenda
David Cotright: A Hard Look at Iraq Sanctions
Julian Borger: Iraq: the myth and the reality
Justin Raimondo: Our hijacked foreign policy
Robert Parry: 'F--- Saddam', Bush said. 'We're taking him out.'
Rep. Ron Paul: Inspection or Invasion in Iraq?
Scott Ritter: Is Iraq a True Threat to the US?
Justin Raimondo: The Fix is In
CNN: Defector: Iraq could have nukes by 2005
FAIR: USA Today Repeats Myths on Iraq Inspectors
Murray Polner: Sleepwalking & Silent
NYT: U.S. Says Hussein Intensifies Quest for A-Bomb Parts
Rep. Ron Paul: Questions that Won't Be Asked About Iraq
Justin Raimondo: Why this war? Oil and Israel
CNN: Iraq agrees to weapons inspections
White House: Iraq: Denial and Deception
BBC: US threat to stop Iraq inspections
Arms Control Today: Iraq: A Chronology of UN Inspections
Stephen Zunes: The Case Against a War with Iraq
White House: President Bush Outlines Iraqi Threat
George Monbiot: Inspection as Invasion
Sen. Hillary Clinton: Iraq war authorization speech
US Senate: Iraq war authorization vote (roll call)
Sen. Chris Dodd: War and peace votes
Harry Browne: Iraq: 'A War Waiting for a Pretext'
BBC: Timeline: Iraq weapons inspections
Sen. Joe Biden: Iraq war speech
Francis Fukuyama: Beyond Our Shores
CNN: IAEA: Year for Iraq inspections
CNN: Transcript of Blix's remarks
PIPA: Americans on Iraq & UN inspections (PDF)
White House: 2003 State of the Union speech
TIME: The Inspections So Far: The Blix Scorecard
Alan Bock: The Case Weakens, the Plot Thickens
Guardian: US claim dismissed by Blix
Justin Raimondo: Lies as far as the eye can see
Washington Post - ABC News Poll: US Public on Iraq
CBS: Inspectors Call U.S. Tips 'Garbage'
Reuters: UN Iraq Inspectors Say U.S. Has Not Cooperated
CNN: Transcript of ElBaradei's U.N. presentation
IAEA: The Status of Nuclear Inspections in Iraq: An Update
CSM: The impact of Bush linking 9/11 and Iraq
Meet the Press: Cheney says 'We know Saddam seeking nukes'
Seymour Hirsh: Why was Perle meeting with Adnan Khashoggi?
CBS: Weapons Inspectors Leave Iraq
White House: Presidential Letter to Congress
CBS: Poll: Americans Support War Effort
ABC: Rumsfeld pinpoints nuke location
Michael Lind: How neocons conquered Washington
Seymour Hersh: Selective Intelligence
CounterPunch: WMD: Who Said What When
WP: Some Iraq Analysts Felt Pressure From Cheney Visits
USA Today: Uranium reports doubted early on
Robert Dreyfuss: More Missing Intelligence
David Corn: WMD: Who Knew What?
Justin Raimondo: Tracing the pattern of WMD lies back to the source
Julian Borger: The spies who pushed for war
Justin Raimondo: Who lied us into war?
David Remnick: Faith-Based Intelligence
Francis Fukuyama: The Real Intelligence Failure
WP: Depiction of Threat Outgrew Supporting Evidence
Alexander Cockburn: Judy Miller's War
David Corn: The neocons' new enemy, the CIA
Kagan & Kristol: Why We Went to War
Alan Reynolds: Mystery of the Vanishing Weapons
Christopher Hitchens: Restating the Case for War
John Pilger: They Put the Lie to Their Own Propaganda
Peter Bergen: Laurie Mylroie: Neocons' favorite conspiracy theorist
Karen Kwiatkowski: In Rumsfeld's Shop
Robert Dreyfuss: The Lie Factory
Kenneth Pollack: Spies, Lies, and Weapons: What Went Wrong
Rep. Jane Harman: Looking Back to Look Forward
Kenneth Pollack: Weapons of Misperception
WP: David Kay: 'We were almost all wrong'
CNN: Ex-Iraq inspector: Prewar intelligence failure 'disturbing'
Laurie Mylroie: What Intelligence Failure in Iraq?
Gregory F. Treverton: Intelligence funhouse
Telegraph: Chalabi: 'We are heroes in error'
Bruce G. Blair: The Logic of Intelligence Failure
Robert Scheer: Bush's Lies About Iraq
Edward Kennedy: Bush's Distortions Misled Congress in Its War Vote
Richard Clarke: Against All Enemies (quotes)
Jack Shafer: Dealing With Defective Defectors
CNN: Woodward: Tenet told Bush WMD case a 'slam dunk'
John Dizard: How Ahmed Chalabi conned the neocons
Andrew Cockburn: The Truth About Ahmed Chalabi
Arnaud de Borchgrave: Chalabi's Betrayal
David Corn: Senate WMD Report Whacks CIA, Not Bush
Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq's WMD
BBC: A Huge Failure of Intelligence [more]
Washington Post: U.S. 'Almost All Wrong' on Weapons
Justin Raimondo: Purge at the CIA
Wikipedia: Senate Report of Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq
Steve Clemons: Bolton pushed Niger uranium fiasco
NewsHour: Presidential Commission Faults US Agencies
CNN: Report: Iraq intelligence 'dead wrong'
Ray McGovern: Proof Bush Fixed The Facts
Kevin Zeese: An interview with James Bamford
Arianna Huffington: Everybody Didn't Get it Wrong on WMD
McClatchy: Administration tinkers with truth in challenging critics
James Bamford: The Man Who Sold the War
David Corn: Going to War on the Word of a Nutcase?
NOW: Col. Wilkerson on WMD hoax
NY Public Radio: Were We Misled? Hitchens, Corn & others debate
Think Progress: Bush Ignored Warnings Of Iraqi Civil War
MSNBC: Iraqi diplomat gave U.S. prewar WMD details
World Magazine: What the Saddam Documents Show
Robert Scheer: Now Powell Tells Us
CSM: Bush had good reason to believe there were WMD in Iraq
Paul Pillar: Intelligence, Policy,and the War in Iraq
Kevin Woods: Saddam's Delusions
WP: Warnings on WMD 'Fabricator' Were Ignored, Ex-CIA Aide Says
David Corn: Senate Takes on Prewar WMD Controversy — Sort of
Sen. Carl Levin: Saddam Hussein was not linked with al-Qaida
David Corn: Cheney, 9/11 and the Truth about Iraq
David Corn: Sorry, Hitch - You're Wrong About Niger (+ response)
Independent: Diplomat's suppressed document lays bare the lies...
Global Security: Report on US Intelligence Prewar WMD Assessment
CBS: Report Says Pentagon Manipulated Intel
Robert Dreyfuss & Dave Gilson: Iraq 101
Craig Unger: From the Wonderful Folks Who Brought You Iraq
FAIR: Iraq and the Media: A Critical Timeline
Raimondo: Being a neocon means never having to say you're sorry
CSM: Pentagon report debunks prewar Iraq-Al Qaeda connection
WP: DOD Report: Hussein's Prewar Ties To Al-Qaeda Discounted
Carpetbagger Report: There was 'almost a patriotism police'
Alexander Cockburn: Wolfowitz's War
Justin Raimondo: In defense of George Tenet (prewar intel recap)
Gordon Prather: Tenet, Nukes, and Stinking Smut
Walter Pincus: Assessments Made in 2003 Foretold Situation in Iraq
Reuters: Told you so, U.N. Iraq arms inspectors' report says
TP: National Intel Director: Bush Admin. Manipulated Iraq Intel
Gareth Porter: Source: Israel Told US to Target Iran, Not Iraq
Sidney Blumenthal: Bush knew Saddam had no WMD
Alternet: Curveball: The Iraqi defector Bush used to sell the war
Andrew Sullivan: Torture and the WMD fiasco
YouTube: 60 Minutes on WMD and Curveball
George Will: Curveball, Swing and A Miss
Craig Unger: WMD fiasco deliberately cooked up
IAEA'S El-BARADEI TO UNSC ON 7 MAR 03
CNN, 7 Mar 03
After three months of intrusive inspections, we have to date found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapon program in Iraq.
One, there is no indication of resumed nuclear activities in those buildings that were identified through the use of satellite imagery as being reconstructed or newly erected since 1998, nor any indication of nuclear-related prohibited activities at any inspected sites.
Second, there is no indication that Iraq has attempted to import uranium since 1990.
Three, there is no indication that Iraq has attempted to import aluminum tubes for use in centrifuge enrichment. Moreover, even had Iraq pursued such a plan, it would have encountered practical difficulties in manufacturing centrifuge out of the aluminum tubes in question.
Fourth, although we are still reviewing issues related to magnets and magnet-production, there is no indication to date that Iraq imported magnets for use in centrifuge enrichment program.
CNN: 7 Mar 03: Hans Blix's report
CNN: 7 Mar 03: U.S. Secretary of State Powell's response
CNN: 7 Mar 03: Iraqi ambassador Aldouri's remarks
CNN: 7 Mar 03: French Foreign Minister Villepin's remarks
ROCKEFELLER'S TREACHERY & WMD
Joan Swirsly, Family Security Matters, 3 Dec 05
Leave it to liberals to ignore the obvious. For the past two years, international security experts like John Loftus have been saying that because the U.N. and French obstructionists delayed the United States entrance into the Iraq war for over a year, Saddam Hussein — having been forewarned by Sen. Rockefeller's solo mission to the Arab world — was busy ferreting his WMD out of Iraq.
Here we go again! In the murky world of intelligence, some 'source' says this or that, and suddenly a war is justified! The hawkish right has learned nothing about the danger of politicizing intelligence, which is easy to do because most so-called 'intelligence' is so flimsy in the first place. This or that Iraqi expatriate, or double-agent, or Challabi with a personal agenda, or whatever. And what do you say to the argument that the WMD were scurried away and hidden in Syria! How do you disprove a negative? This is always a theoretical possibility, but are we going to believe some hard-right partisan, even if he has some security clearances? Haven't we learned that intelligence is often like looking at ink-blots and seeing what you are predisposed to seeing? It takes a very careful and unbiased sifting of the tenuous evidence before one can even think of military action, and people as venomous as the author of this article — and those who support her — hardly qualify.
COL. WILKERSON: WMD INTEL WAS A 'HOAX'
NOW (on PBS), 3 Feb 06
On the third anniversary of former Secretary of State Colin Powell's landmark speech to the United Nations laying out the Bush Administration's case for the Iraq war, a high-level insider who helped write the address makes a startling claim. Powell's then Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson says that what he later found out shocked him: that much of Powell's speech was false. 'I participated in a hoax on the American people, the international community, and the United Nations Security Council', he says. NOW reports on the serious doubts that existed about the key evidence being used by the American government at the very time Powell's speech was being planned and delivered.
COMMENT: It must be stressed that this was before the invasion. This is an entirely different issue than the fact that no weapons turned up after the invasion. When 60 Minutes recently asked President Bush about the WMD, he admitted that there was an intelligence failure and that the government was looking into it, so it would not be repeated. In other words, an honest mistake. Col. Wilkerson's testimony contradicts this. Sadly, 60 Minutes dropped the ball and failed to remind Bush of allegations such as Wilkerson's. Not that it would have done much good. Bush would have said that it was just somebody's opinion.
LT. COL. KWIATKOWSKI (RET.) ON IRAQ WMD INTEL
Truthdig, audio and transcript, 27 Feb 07
JAMES HARRIS: And I always note Scott Ritter, because I spoke to him, and I couldn't believe that we didn't take the advice of people like him that were saying that there's nothing there, there's nothing. Can you describe for us a typical day, if we went in around March, we're approaching that anniversary, we went in around March of '3. What was it like in The Pentagon?
Plus ca change, plus c'est le meme! Kwiatkowski also provides an insight our presence in Iraq which hasn't been aired as often as the WMD fiasco:
However, many in Congress, and certainly in this administration agree, and this is Democrats and Republicans, like the idea that we have gone into Iraq, we have built four mega bases, they are complete. Most of the money we gave to Halliburton was for construction and completion of these bases. We have probably, of the 150,000, 160,000 troops we have in Iraq probably 110,000 of those folks are associated with one of those four mega bases. Safely ensconced behind acres and acres of concrete. To operate there indefinitely, no matter what happens in Baghdad, no matter who takes over, no matter if the country splits into three pieces or it stays one. No matter what happens, we have those mega bases, and there's many in Congress and certainly in this administration, Republican and Democrat alike that really like that. Part of the reason I think that we went into Iraq was to reestablish a stronger foothold than we had in Saudi Arabia, but also a more economical, a more flexible, in terms of who we want to hit. If you want to hit Syria, can you do it from Iraq? Of course you can. And now you can do it from bases that will support any type of airplane you want, any number of troops in barracks. I mean we can do things from Iraq. And this is what they wanted. So, yeah, we don't like being lied to. But quite frankly, many people in the Congress, and certainly this administration, when they call Iraq a success, they mean it, and this is why.
Yes, I'm beginning to suspect that a great many Democratic and Republican leaders (and their acolytes in the think tanks and media) have bought into the American imperial dream, partly for oil, partly for Israel, and partly out of sheer hubris. (Politicians tend to have big egos, you know.) It seems that the number of American bases in the world, about 700 at last count, keeps growing, never diminishes. Our tentacles are everywhere, and any public doubts are simply a puerile inconvenience to be massaged by the Powers That Be, on both sides of the aisle. Kwiatkowski's whole interview is worth reading. It gives me renewed faith in 'ordinary' Americans, or at least some of them, but not in the overall political process. (OK, she does have a Ph.D. See Wikipedia.)
Following the American Conservative and Salon articles, Kwiatkowski began to receive criticism from several conservative sources that supported President Bush's policies. Michael Rubin of the National Review argued that she had exaggerated her knowledge of the OSP's workings and claimed that she had ties to Lyndon LaRouche[6]. Their criticisms were later backed by the bipartisan Senate Select Committee on Intelligence which found that Kwiatkowski could not cite a single example to support her claims [7] (pp. 282-283). Republican U.S. Senator John Kyl criticized her in a speech on the Senate floor [8]. On a Fox News program, host John Gibson and former Republican National Committee communications director Clifford May described her as an anarchist[9]. Kwiatkowski responded, saying, among other points, that she had never supported or dealt with LaRouche [10].
Given all that has come out about the WMD intel fiasco, I don't automatically genuflect before something called the 'Bipartisan Senate Select Committee on Intelligence'. They may just be wimping out, as has been the custom of the Senate for several decades now, when it comes to war. Frankly, Kwiatkowski seems quite credible to me. To understand better the stupidity and/or duplicity of American leaders when it comes to war, read this interview with the late David Hackworth of Vietnam fame.
Lew Rockwell: Karen Kwiatkowski Archives
Q&A: Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski
Jim Lobe: Pentagon Office Home to Neo-Con Network
Karen Kwiatkowski: Our Mad Mad Mad Mad Vice President Speaks
Online Newshour: Interview with Scott Ritter (1998)
Antonia Zerbisias: CNN's Hatchet Job on Scott Ritter (2002)
TIME: Scott Ritter in His Own Words (2002)
Salon: Feature on Scott Ritter (2002)
Justin Raimondo: Target: Scott Ritter (2003)
The Nation: Ritter and Hersh: Iraq Confidential (2005)
Scott Ritter: Dems must offer a new blueprint for Iraq (2006)
Radar Magazine: Scott Ritter: Right but poor (2007)
Scott Ritter: Bill Clinton and WMD duplicity (2007)
Scott Ritter: Stop the Iran War Before It Starts (2007)
VIDEO: ROBERT SCHEER INTERVIEWS SCOTT RITTER
Truthdig, 20 Mar 07
For the record, here are some notes from this important interview, representing Ritter's views:
Hillary is a 'damned liar' when she says that her Iraq war vote was in 'good faith' and was based on misleading intelligence. For eight years, Bill Clinton undermined the weapons inspectors, in the name of a policy of regime change. Even today, the CIA 'commits' that Iraq had disarmed by the summer of 1991. The weapons inspectors reported to Clinton in 1993, at the beginning of his tenure. Nevertheless, Clinton ignored them to pursue sanctions at the UN and pass the Iraq Liberation Act ($100 million), as a policy of regime change.
Regime change began under Reagan and Bush I, since our previous ally Saddam had become an embarrassment. The 'crimes against humanity' for which Saddam was hanged were faits accomplis before Rumsfeld (under Reagan) visited Saddam in 1983 and had the famous picture taken embracing the dictator. Ritter insists that regime change is illegal, since the Senate has ratified treaties that accept the UN prohibitions against such policies. When the inspectors were expelled in 1998, it was after the US engineered a crisis by using the inspectors to spy on Iraq, to obtain intelligence that was indeed later used in the bombing that followed the expulsion.
One of the greatest problems is that the American public knows nothing about the world. Thus, they are easily led into ill-conceived wars, especially when frightened by emergencies like 9/11. Congressman Reyes, the new head of the House Intelligence Committee, did not know the difference between Sunnis and Shia!
Saddam went from ally to 'Hitler' after he invaded Kuwait. How many Americans realize the history of Iraq: that it was cobbled together by the British Empire, and that Saddam's secular Baath party had to use force to suppress tribal and sectarian violence (Sunni vs. Shia)? Our blundering invasion undid this glue, and the quick result was more than 600,000 Iraqis dead, as opposed to about 100,000 under decades of Saddam.
We can and must get out of Iraq, especially in light of our ignorance, which can only make things worse. The US military itself admits that much of the violence would not happen without our presence (says Ritter the military man). Our occupation legitimizes the 'insurgents', who can claim to be 'freedom fighters' (as happened in Vietnam).
We should not stay unless most Americans can answer this question: What is the significance of Karbala, Baghdad and Kirkuk? Answer: Karbala is the birthplace of Shiism, where the followers of Hussein (a grandson of Mohammed) were massacred by Sunnis, thus setting the stage for centuries of sectarian conflict. Baghdad is the birthplace of the strict Wahabi creed of Al Qaeda: It was sacked by the Mongols, and this was attributed to a lack of piety (including Jihad fervor). The Americans are the new Mongols! Kirkuk is an oil center where Sunnis, Shias and Kurds meet; the civil war is likely to start here. And, of course, our Iraq disaster has greatly empowered Iran. All in all, given this history, Iraq was the worse possible place to experiment with social engineering!
Some other comments from this interview on Iran's nuclear capabilities will be placed in my Iran Intelligence section (scroll down).
Google Video: Scott Ritter: Weapons of Mass Delusion (2006)
Google Video: Scott Ritter and Ray McGovern on Iraq (2006)
Scott Ritter: Calling Out Idiot America
LA Weekly: Snide, frivolous, stupid article on Ritter ... from LA!
Scott Ritter: The Final Act of Submission
Back to Intelligence Fiasco
Gordon Prather Recounts Pre-Invasion (24 Mar 07): Gordon Prather — a physicist and thus a highly intelligent person — reminds us of what happened between the IAEA, the Bush administration and Congress in those crucial months leading up to the invasion of Iraq on March 20, 2003. Those events are so important that I will take the liberty of quoting at length (see the article for some important links):
FOOLED AGAIN: CONGRESS THEN AND NOW
Gordon Prather, Antiwar, 24 Mar 07
Past and present Congresspersons from across the political spectrum insist that if they had known then, what they know now, they would never have allowed President Bush to use the conditional authority they had provided him to launch a pre-emptive war against Iraq.Of course, they should have known when they gave him that authority in October, 2002 that their basic presumption:
Iraq both poses a continuing threat to the national security of the United States and international peace and security in the Persian Gulf region and remains in material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations by, among other things, continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability, actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability, and supporting and harboring terrorist organizationswas false.
Should have known, because in the aftermath of Operation Desert Storm, the International Atomic Energy Agency Action Team on Iraq was established by UN Security Council Resolution 687 and was charged with overseeing the destruction [or removal from Iraq] of all nuclear-weapons-usable materials, components and subsystems, plus any and all related research, development, support or manufacturing facilities.
In what amounted to his final report as Director-General, Hans Blix concluded way back in 1997 that;
Most of the IAEA activities involving the destruction, removal and rendering harmless of the components of Iraq's nuclear weapons programme, which to date have been revealed and destroyed, were completed by the end of 1992.Of course, when Bush got Congress to give him that conditional authority to use force, he assured them he was committed to seeking a diplomatic solution. He got the UN Security Council to pass Resolution 1441, which required Iraq to provide the IAEA and other UN inspectors 'immediate, unimpeded, unconditional and unrestricted access' to any and all 'areas, facilities, buildings, equipment, records and means of transport', as well as 'private access' to all pertinent officials.
Consequently, IAEA Director-General was able to report to the Security Council on March 7, 2003 that
Since the resumption of inspection a little over three months ago, and particularly during the three weeks since my last ordered report to the council, the IAEA has made important progress in identifying what nuclear-related capabilities remain in Iraq and in its assessment of whether Iraq has made any effort to revive its past nuclear program during the intervening four years since inspections were brought to a halt.At this stage, the following can be stated:
One, there is no indication of resumed nuclear activities in those buildings that were identified through the use of satellite imagery as being reconstructed or newly erected since 1998, nor any indication of nuclear-related prohibited activities at any inspected sites.
Second, there is no indication that Iraq has attempted to import uranium since 1990.
Three, there is no indication that Iraq has attempted to import aluminum tubes for use in centrifuge enrichment.
Hans Blix, since 1998 the Chairman of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, gave a similar, although less conclusive, null report about Iraq's chemical, biological and ballistic missile activities.
In other words, the Congressional presumptions of October 2002 and the Cheney Cabal allegations of 2002 and 2003 about Iraq's weapons programs were all wrong! Saddam Hussein was not a threat even to his neighbors, much less to the United States.
At the very least, the case for pre-emptive invasion (an extreme measure under any circumstances) now seems very weak. Prather goes on to remind us how Congress has failed to learn its lesson: Pelosi recently scratched wording from the new Iraq bill requiring Bush to obtain Congressional approval before attacking Iran. It seems she was responding to pressure from AIPAC. There is a legitimate debate about how quickly to get out of Iraq. Even thoughtful antiwar critics may not want to yank the troops out tomorrow. (For example, we may be able to facilitate a partition of Iraq as the best means to avoid civil war.) But to fail to keep those words in was unconscionable! I cannot but agree with Pat Buchanan that it was 'capitulation' and with Justin Raimondo that is was 'betrayal'.
And to add to my shock, it has been so little reported in the mainstream press; even some of the antiwar sites seem silent, and I have been looking. This is bizarre! There should be a howl of protest. It is much more important than the stupid politics over Attorney General Gonzales that now fills the headlines. Perhaps that politics is how both parties collude to distract the public from their renewed surrender to the neocons and allied forces, like AIPAC. And I remind you again that the MSM is in on it too. Shocking!
Gordon Prather: More MSM obfuscation on prewar Iraqi WMD
Gordon Prather: Conspiracy, Collusion, War
Back to Intelligence Fiasco
Articles on Feith
Robert Scheer: Before the Invasion, There Was Feith
Robert Dreyfuss: Feith-Libby Lies Exposed
Think Progress: CIA's Pillar responds to Feith
Think Progress: Wallace Calls Out Feith For Lying On Fox News
TP: Doug Feith Responds With 'Naked Incoherence'
TP: Former CIA Official: Feith's Claims Are 'Hogwash'
Back to Intelligence Fiasco
Moyers' Damning Documentary (26 Apr 07): Bill Moyers aired this excellent documentary on public television last night, recounting in detail how the flames of war leading to the disastrous invasion of Iraq in March 2003 were fanned by the entire Washington elite, in an orgy of hubristic groupthink. Not only did the spineless Democrats roll over and play dead for the militaristic Republicans, but the supposedly 'liberal' New York Times and Washington Post were key players in the hysteria. One media hero was Knight-Ridder, which exposed the dubious nature of the WMD evidence, but strangely enough, this organization has little influence inside the beltway, despite being larger that the NYT or the WP. This proves that the American elite is a self-contained and mutually backscratching bubble, divorced from reality as well as the larger American society. Unfortunately, the elite media can still influence public opinion, at least during times of crisis, such as during the post 9/11 hysteria. A weakness in the documentary is the failure to discuss the role of AIPAC (not to be confused with the 'Jewish Lobby'). I will post excerpts of this important documentary as time permits.
John Nichols: Bill Moyers and the Fight for American Journalism
Justin Raimondo: Our Captive Media
Gordon Prather: Enabling Bush's Wars of Aggression
The War of Words: 101st Fighting Keyboarders (satire)
UPDATE (2 May 07): Here are some excerpts from the Moyers documentary. It should really be read in its entirety.
TRANSCRIPT OF BUYING THE WAR
Bill Moyers Journal, 25 Apr 07
BILL MOYERS: Four years ago this spring the Bush administration took leave of reality and plunged our country into a war so poorly planned it soon turned into a disaster. The story of how high officials misled the country has been told. But they couldn't have done it on their own; they needed a compliant press, to pass on their propaganda as news and cheer them on.Since then thousands of people have died, and many are dying to this day. Yet the story of how the media bought what the White House was selling has not been told in depth on television. As the war rages into its fifth year, we look back at those months leading up to the invasion, when our press largely surrendered its independence and skepticism to join with our government in marching to war.
[. . .]
BILL MOYERS: What I was wrestling with that night listening to you is; once we let our emotions out as journalists on the air, once we say, we'll line up with the President, can we ever really say to the country the President's out of line.
DAN RATHER: Yes. Of course you can. Of course you can. No journalist should try to be a robot and say 'They've attacked my country, they've killed thousands of people but I don't feel it.' ... And I can serve my country best by being the best journalist I can be. That's the way I can be patriotic. ... There were some people, who, I think, did a better job than others. But overall and in the main there's no question that we didn't do a good job.
[. . .]
BILL MOYERS: Walter Isaacson was then Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of CNN.
WALTER ISAACSON: And there was even almost a patriotism police which, you know, they'd be up there on the internet sort of picking anything a Christiane Amanpour, or somebody else, would say, as if it were disloyal.
BILL MOYERS: We interviewed a former reporter at CNN who had been there through that period. And this reporter said this quote, 'Everybody on staff just sort of knew not to push too hard to do stories critical of the Bush Administration.'
WALTER ISAACSON: Especially right after 9/11. Especially when the war in Afghanistan is going on. There was a real sense that you don't get that critical of a government that's leading us in war time.
[. . .]
BILL MOYERS: When American forces went after the terrorist bases in Afghanistan, network and cable news reported the civilian casualties — the patriot police came knocking.
WALTER ISAACSON: We'd put it on the air and by nature of a 24 hour TV network, it was replaying over and over again. So, you would get phone calls. You would get advertisers. You would get the Administration.
BILL MOYERS: You said pressure from advertisers?
WALTER ISAACSON: Not direct pressure from advertisers, but big people in corporations were calling up and saying, 'You're being anti-American here'.
BILL MOYERS: So Isaacson sent his staff a memo, leaked to The Washington Post: 'It seems perverse' he said, 'to focus too much on the casualties or hardship in Afghanistan.' And he ordered his reporters and anchors to balance the images of civilian devastation with reminders of September 11th. ...
BILL MOYERS: Newspapers were squeezed, too. This one in Florida told its editors: 'Do not use photos on page 1a showing civilian casualties. Our sister paper has done so and received hundreds and hundreds of threatening e-mails.'
And then there was Fox News: Whose chief executive — the veteran Republican operative and media strategist Roger Ailes — had privately urged the white house to use the harshest measures possible after 9/11...
[. . .]
DAN RATHER: I knew before 9/11 that many of the people [i.e. neocons] who came into the administration were committed to toppling Saddam Hussein. And doing it with military force if necessary. ...
JOHN KING (War Room with Wolf Blitzer, CNN, 19 Nov 01): Richard Perle? Next phase Saddam Hussein?
RICHARD PERLE: Absolutely.
WILLIAM KRISTOL (FOX News, 24 Nov 01): One person close to the debate said to me this week that it's no longer a question of if, it's a question of how we go after Saddam Hussein.
BILL MOYERS: In the weeks after 9/11 they seemed to be on every channel, gunning for Hussein.
TED KOPPEL (NIGHTLINE 11/28/01): You are probably the hawkiest of the hawks on this. Why?
JAMES WOOLSEY: Well I don't know that I accept that characterization but it's probably not too far off. I think that the Baghdad regime is a serious danger to world peace.
RICHARD PERLE (ABC, This Week, 18 Nov 01): Weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Saddam Hussein, plus his known contact with terrorists, including Al Qaeda terrorists, is simply a threat too large to continue to tolerate.
BILL MOYERS: Among their leading spokesmen were Richard Perle and James Woolsey. Both sat on the Defense Policy Board advising Donald Rumsfeld. And they used their inside status to assure the press that overthrowing Hussein would be easy.
RICHARD PERLE (CNN, 19 Nov 01): We would be seen as liberators in Iraq. ...
BILL MOYERS: Charles Krauthammer and other top columnists at The Washington Post also saw the hand of Saddam Hussein in the terrorist attacks. Jim Hoagland implicated Hussein within hours after the suicide bombers struck on 9/11. And the Post's George Will fired away on the talk shows.
[. . .]
BOB SIMON: From overseas we had a clearer view. I mean we knew things or suspected things that — perhaps the Washington press corps could not suspect. For example, the absurdity of putting up a connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda.
BILL MOYERS: Absurdity. The Washington press corps cannot question an absurdity?
BOB SIMON: Well maybe the Washington press corps based inside the beltway wasn't as aware as those of us who are based in the Middle East and who spend a lot of time in Iraq. I mean when the Washington press corps travels, it travels with the president or with the secretary of state. And -
BILL MOYERS: In a bubble. ...
BOB SIMON: Saddam as most tyrants, was a total control freak. He wanted total control of his regime. Total control of the country. And to introduce a wild card like Al Qaeda in any sense was just something he would not do. So I just didn't believe it for an instant.
[. . .]
BILL MOYERS: John Walcott Wasn't buying the official line, either. The Bureau Chief of Knight Ridder News Service [now McClatchy News], he and his reporters covered Washington for 32 newspapers spread across the country.
JOHN WALCOTT: Our readers aren't here in Washington. They aren't up in New York. They aren't the people who send other people's kids to war. They're the people who get sent to war. ... It was not clear to us why anyone was asking questions about Iraq in the wake of an attack that had Al Qaeda written all over it.
BILL MOYERS: He assigned his two top reporters to investigate the claims. Between them, Warren Strobel and Jonathan Landay, had more than 40 years experience reporting on foreign affairs and national security. They had lots of sources to call on. ... They went about their reporting the old-fashioned way, with shoe leather, tracking down and meeting with sources deep inside the intelligence community. ...
BILL MOYERS: Strobel learned that within two weeks after 9/11, senior intelligence officers were growing concerned that the Bush administration was stretching 'little bits and pieces of information' to connect Saddam Hussein to Al qaeda — with no hard evidence.
And so on. There is much more like this. The Washington political elite stampeded itself into war in an orgy of mutual patriotic and militaristic stimulation. (This 'elite' is not to be confused with serious mid-level professionals at the CIA and elsewhere.) The most prestigious pundits proved worse than worthless, in total dereliction of their duty to inform the public and to provide wisdom, restraint and skepticism. (Read how major influential newspapers like the New York Times were almost willfully blind to elementary red flags in their dubious sources. Read also how the same story from the same dubious source would pop up in different places in a deceptive appearance of mutual corroboration.) Journalistic integrity had to be supplied by some valiant outside-the-beltway professionals, who lacked influence, and who weren't getting rich and famous either, unlike the sycophantic courtier hacks on the talk shows. It was a complete moral failure on the part of the educated and responsible elite of the most powerful nation on earth. All that fancy education down the drain. (Strangely enough, people as diverse as Pat Buchanan and Ted Kennedy are the rare exceptions.) That's what happens when your ambition is more important to you than anything else. You prostitute yourself to the powers-that-be.
Justin Raimondo: The Failure of the 'Mainstream'
Eric Alterman: Sullivan's Travails
Stefan Kanfer: Sontagism (the queen of knee-jerk anti-Americanism)
Noam Chomsky: Albert Interviews Chomsky on Iraq
Robert Fisk: Being Set Up for a War on Iraq
GOP AND MEDIA REWRITE IRAQ HISTORY
Robert Parry, 15 May 07
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman and radio personality Jay Diamond are right to wonder why Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney got away with rewriting a key chapter of the Iraq War history without political reporters raising a peep.At the June 5 Republican debate, co-sponsored by CNN, Romney defended George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq in March 2003 on the grounds that Saddam Hussein refused to let United Nations weapons inspectors in to search for WMD.
If Saddam 'had opened up his country to I.A.E.A. inspectors, and they'd come in and they'd found that there were no weapons of mass destruction', the war might have been averted, the former Massachusetts governor said.
But the reality is that Hussein did open up his country through the fall and winter of 2002-03, giving Hans Blix and his U.N. inspection team free rein to check out suspected WMD sites. It was President Bush who forced the U.N. inspectors out in March 2003 so his invasion could proceed.
The answer to the media question of why the U.S. press corps didn't object to Romney's bogus account is that Washington journalists have accepted this revisionist history since Bush began lying about the facts in July 2003.
Back to Intelligence Fiasco
George Tenet on 60 Minutes (30 Apr 07): According to Bob Woodward, former CIA director George Tenet is famous for having told President Bush that the Iraq WMD case was a 'slam dunk', thus setting the stage for the Iraq invasion. As we all know, the WMD never materialized. Last night, on 60 Minutes, Tenet had a chance to clarify that infamous statement. He claimed that he meant that some particular improvements in his briefing requested by Bush were a slam dunk, not the whole issue of Iraq WMD. (Come again? Wasn't this briefing about Saddam and WMD?) Tenet seems to be saying that it was all about fixing some Powerpoint slides! I guess this just shows how muckraking journalists like Woodward can twist quotes way out of context in order to sell a book. Well, so what? Woodward was busy sucking up to Bush back when his reporting would have made a difference, as was most of the Washington press corps.
Tenet also claimed that he never thought there was a link between Saddam and Al Qaeda. That was perhaps the main reason we went to war, along with the fictitious WMD. It's good to know that someone so high-up could get that one right, not that it made any difference. It seems that this administration just didn't listen to the CIA director except when he said what they wanted to hear. Or maybe he had laryngitis at all the meetings. Also, this shows what a fool Christopher Hitchens is, who kept insisting there was such a link, and who seems to have had some influence with politically-oriented web surfers.
Tenet also relates how on September 12, 2001, he encountered Richard Perle, who was sure Iraq was a key player in the events of the previous day, and who said that now was the time to get Saddam. Apparently, Bill Kristol has denied this meeting occurred, but I find it entirely credible, especially since Kristol denies it. This proves that the plan to invade Iraq was being hatched long before 9/11, which just adds another layer of lies to the Bush-Neocon Axis of Mendacity. (See also Richard Clarke.) It was enough of a lie to claim the Saddam link after 9/11, but to be planning a pre-emptive invasion long before 9/11 sounds no different from Pearl Harbor to me. One might speak of war crimes, but let us be honest and remember that the definition of a 'war crime' often depends on who has just won the war, i.e. on raw power.
Another point was that Tenet saw no problem with 'enhanced interrogations' of Al Qaeda suspects, especially right after 9/11, when nobody knew what was coming next. We can take 'enhanced interrogations' to mean torture in some sense. (It was curious to watch Tenet implicitly affirm torture after explicitly denying it. So much politics and/or irrationality from the 'Director of Intelligence'!) It would be easy to condemn this attitude, but I'll have to admit that I could get scared too, in the heat of a crisis. Still, I doubt torture ever really works, so it would probably be best to reject it in any form and under any circumstances. And let's not forget that there are other ways of inflicting immoral suffering, such as bombing the hell out of people based on flimsy pretexts. How come we don't agonize so much over that?
CNN: Woodward: Tenet told Bush WMD case a 'slam dunk'
60 Minutes: George Tenet: At The Center Of The Storm
NPR: Tenet: No 'Serious Debate' Held over Iraq Options
TP: Tenet on Perle conversation
TP: Tenet: Cheney staffers idolized Challabi
Ray McGovern: Poor Tenet, he still doesn't get it
Juan Cole: George Tenet on the staircase with the neocons
Justin Raimondo: In defense of George Tenet
Christopher Hitchens: George Tenet's disgraceful new book
Gordon Prather: Tenet's Failures
Bob Woodward: Reaping the Whirlwind
Jeffrey Goldberg: Woodward vs. Tenet
Gordon Prather: Tenet's Greatest Sins
Philip Giraldi: George Tenet lies about his lies
Frank Rich: Is Condi Hiding the Smoking Gun?
ABC: This Week: Interview with Condoleezza Rice
CBS: Face the Nation: Rice Dismisses Tenet's Accusations
Joe Conason: Condi Rice never looks back
Back to Intelligence Fiasco
Other Articles
A devastating attack on Mr Blair's justification for military action by Carne Ross, Britain's key negotiator at the UN, has been kept under wraps until now because he was threatened with being charged with breaching the Official Secrets Act.
In the testimony revealed today Mr Ross, 40, who helped negotiate several UN security resolutions on Iraq, makes it clear that Mr Blair must have known Saddam Hussein possessed no weapons of mass destruction. He said that during his posting to the UN, 'at no time did HMG [Her Majesty's Government] assess that Iraq's WMD (or any other capability) posed a threat to the UK or its interests'.
Sen. Bob Graham: What I Knew Before the Invasion
Media Matters: Fox News military analysts
DIPLOMAT'S DOCUMENT LAYS BARE IRAQ WAR LIES
The Independent, 16 Dec 06
The Government's case for going to war in Iraq has been torn apart by the publication of previously suppressed evidence that Tony Blair lied over Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.
Robert Scheer: Libby Trial: Smoking Gun for Impeachment?
Snopes: Prewar Dems on Iraqi WMD
Christopher Ketcham: What Did Israel Know in Advance of 9/11?
Hans Blix: 'US acted like witch hunter in making case for war on Iraq'
Debra Saunders: Bush Lied is the Big Lie
Michael Scheuer: What's behind Khalid's 'confessions'
TP: Washington Post and Perle collude to spin pre-war Iraq record
IRAQ: THE WEB OF LIES
Patrick Foy, 15 May 07
In terms of strategy, 'divide and rule' is the essence of the Washington/Tel Aviv game plan to maintain Israeli paramountcy in the region. The White House project to spread 'democracy' in the Middle East, headed up by 'the neocon's neocon', Elliot Abrams, is a transparent and preposterous cover story. No one buys it. 'Divide and rule' is the actual policy, using the 'War on Terror' as a backdrop. It has been an unparalleled success so far. It has worked in Iraq, beyond expectations. It worked like a dream in Lebanon in the 1980's, and could work again at the drop of a hat. Without question, the reason behind Ehud Olmert's invasion of Lebanon last summer was to ignite a civil war. The strategy is working well in Palestine at this very moment among rival factions in Gaza and on the West Bank. The Palestinians remain under military occupation and, like the Iraqis before them, have been embargoed by Washington and the EU. They are under siege and lockdown.
David Corn: Dems wimp out on Bush and prewar Iraq intel
Paul R. Pillar: The Other Intelligence Assessments on Iraq
IRAQ: SCOWCROFT VINDICATED
CONGRESS & WHITE HOUSE SHAMED
Ralph Reiland, Antiwar, 12 June 07
Ten days before the vote in the U.S. Senate to authorize a preemptive war against Iraq, a 90-page classified version of the National Intelligence Estimate, containing numerous qualifications and dissents on Iraq's weapons capabilities, was made available to all 100 senators. It was the most comprehensive analysis by America's intelligence agencies. Only six of the senators read it.[. . .]
On Aug. 15, 2002, the morning after the White House received the CIA's words of caution, the Wall Street Journal published Don't Attack Saddam by Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser in the administrations of Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush.
Acknowledging that Saddam Hussein was 'a menace' who 'brutalizes his own people' and 'launched war on two of his neighbors', Scowcroft contended that 'an attack on Iraq at this time would seriously jeopardize, if not destroy, the global counter-terrorist campaign we have undertaken'. There was 'scant evidence to tie Saddam to terrorist organizations, and even less to the Sept. 11 attacks', argued Scowcroft.
Sidney Blumenthal: Cooking the intelligence, again
Matt Yglesias: Establishment thinktanks promote crackpot thinktanks
Ray McGovern: Greenspan Spills Beans on Oil
WP: Greenspan: Ouster of Hussein Crucial for Oil Security
Back to Intelligence Fiasco
U.S. Conduct
Iraq War: U.S. Conduct
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Allegations of Torture (5 May 06): I have tended to be skeptical of the many allegations of 'torture' of detainees in the war on terror. A few months ago, a closer reading of reports by groups such as Amnesty International seemed to indicate that the 'torture' was really just stress positions, sleep deprivation, and the like, at least at the officially sanctioned level. That's not quite what I call 'torture'. The images of Abu Ghraib were shocking, but where was the outrage at human bombs in Israeli pizza parlors? One might argue that it is unwise and unnecessary to use rough tactics to get information, as even some Israeli interrogation experts agree. Even so, I felt that the use of the word 'torture' was left-wing demagoguery. Also, I was annoyed that the Left appears to care so much more about occasional US abuses than the widespread violations of human rights on a daily basis in the Muslim world, not to mention the atrocities perpetrated by the Jihadis. Where is the sense of proportion? Rather, one gets the impression that the Left, and much of the world, prefers to focus on America's uncharacteristic excesses in order to concoct a false moral equivalency with the malignant ideology of the Jihadists, as they did with the Communists. Neverthless, the reports of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo have so hurt the American image that I would like to revisit this topic. If nothing else, we shot ourselves in the foot, something we have been doing a lot lately. For now, I will post some links to read:
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Back to U.S. Conduct
Detention in Guantanamo (19 May 06): I should say a bit about this. On the one hand, it seems reasonable to me to detain prisoners of war for the duration of the war. Is this not customary? Furthermore, terrorists are not regular soldiers with uniforms and a country, so they do not even fall under the Geneva Conventions, as I understand them. Some argue that the war against Al Qaeda could go on for a long time, but that seems like a non sequitur. Of more concern are the reports that many of the detainees were simply rounded up in Afghanistan by bounty hunters. Many may in fact be innocent, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. This would truly be a violation of any norms of decency. A few cases like this may be inevitable in a war, but if it is more than a few, then we have a serious problem to address. It may be that the Left and much of the world is much more interested in harping on Guantanamo than on Saddam's torture chambers, but it doesn't help if we give them ammunition. Furthermore, questions of legality are important, for our own sake if nothing else. I have felt an aversion to the leftist paranoia about a right-wing takeover in America, but when we combine troublesome questions regarding Guantanamo with troublesome questions regarding the NSA programs, it seems there may be some basis for feeling a bit troubled. It doesn't help that Bush and many conservatives are appealing to domestic fear rather than to reasoned argument. The greatest threat to America is if we cease to be an intelligent and principled nation.
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Massacre at Haditha (2 Jun 06): The latest outrage in the press is the massacre at Haditha in Iraq last fall. A marine vehicle was hit by a mine, and a massacre of civilians resulted. I haven't even bothered reading the details. I can only sigh and feel sympathy for both the marines and the innocent victims. Just as in Vietnam, it may be impossible to know who the enemy is, especially in the heat of the moment. Also, it seems shamelessly easy to lecture the marines so piously. How would you feel if you were hit my a mine? I think I might go berserk, regardless of my training. Such is war. [Note: Later I learned that the massacre allegedly went on for hours, from house to house. If true, that changes things considerably.] At least during the Normandy invasion, we could expect most of the French to be on our side. But these third-world insurgencies are just quicksand that only a foolish nation would jump into, unless absolutely, positively necessary. Idealistic schemes at social engineering don't quite qualify, in my opinion. (Of course, in this case we helped to make the quicksand.)
A similar situation has occurred recently in Afghanistan. The brakes on an American military truck failed, and the truck plowed into a crowd, killing people. The crowd turned violent, responding with rocks and maybe gunfire (every one is armed over there). The surrounded troops fired back in self-defense, no doubt with memories of Mogadishu on their minds. The Afghanis, who seem to have already forgotten the Taliban, are bitter at the US, and even our 'friend' Kharzai has blasted us. (Muslims never feel gratitude to non-Muslims. Their religion forbids it, but we stupidly assume that deep down they are 'just like us'.) There are many reasons not to get embroiled in the affairs of a country where the people do not like you, whether for religious, nationalistic and ethnic reasons. Having good intentions makes no difference, as any fool might surmise. Are we really 'responsible' for people who hate our presence? Do we really 'own' a country once we invade it, so that we must stay as long as ethnic and religious problems persist, forever if necessary? I don't see why. Why can't the locals be responsible for their own country? Especially those who don't like us? Are we becoming a patronizing colonial power? (If terrorist camps come back, maybe we can just bomb them from the air. Anyhow, another 9/11 could easily be planned from within the homeland. Anything done in the Afghani 'training camps' could easily be done on some rural American farm, including the stupid monkey bars.)
Allegations of Torture
Detention in Guantanamo
Massacre at Haditha
Domestic Approval of Abu Ghraib
A Deserter's Tale
Other Articles
Julian Borger: US military in torture scandal
Andrew Sullivan: Atrocities in Plain Sight
McClatchey News: Operatives say CIA exemption on torture a mistake
Vladimir Bukovsky: Torture's Long Shadow
Amnesty: Secret flights to torture and 'disappearance'
ACLU: Army documents show officials knew of detainee abuse
BBC: US denies terror suspect torture
Jeff Emanuel: Silence on Brutal Murder of American Soldiers
Diana West: Moral Superiority Doesn't Win Wars
Steven H. Miles: Medical Oaths Betrayed
Stephen Grey: Ghost Plane : The True Story of the CIA Torture Program
Alternet: CACI: Torture in Iraq, Intimidation at Home
Seymour Hersh: The General's Report
WP: Panel Ignored Evidence on Detainee
Le Figaro: Guantanamo Bay 'Represents the Courage of the West'
Le Monde: Guantanamo 'Shows Chasm between U.S. and World'
David B. Rivkin: The ACLU's Tortured Logic on Gitmo
Eugene Robinson: Closing Time at Guantanamo
Al-Watan, Qatar: Why are All Inmates at Guantanamo Muslim?
Amy Goodman: American Kangaroo Court Claims Its First Victim
Daniel Schorr: Haditha is a new cloud in the fog of war
William Kristol: We don't need hand-wringing liberalism over Haditha
Financial Times Deutschland: A German view of American troops
Georgie Anne Geyer: Ethics Training for the US Administration
Akhbar Al-Khaleej, Bahrain: American Marines are Ever-So Polite ...
Ed Koch: Foolish Western Self-Flagellation