This is going to be frustrating:
Top White House officials say they're developing a "campaign-style" strategy in response to increasing Democratic allegations that the Bush administration twisted intelligence to make its case for war.
White House aides, who agreed to speak to CNN only on the condition of anonymity, said they hoped to increase what they called their "hit back" in coming days.
The officials say they plan to repeatedly make the point -- as they did during the 2004 campaign -- that pre-war intelligence was faulty, it was not manipulated and everyone was working off the same intelligence.
They hope to arm GOP officials with more quotes by Democrats making the same pre-war claims as Republicans did about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.
It's ridiculous that we're even debating this issue. The evidence is all on the public record -- see chapter 8 of All the President's Spin ($11.20 at Amazon!). In addition, as a number of people have pointed out, the fact that Democrats thought Saddam had biological and chemical weapons is true but irrelevant. The administration not only distorted the evidence on biological and chemical weapons, but dramatically twisted it in hyping its claims about nuclear weapons and links to Al Qaeda.
Interesting related data point: you know those aluminum tubes we caught so much grief for claiming were necessarily part of a nuclear program? Guess who was telling us that?
France.
(according to Lawrence Wilkerson, who seems to carry great cache with the anti-war crowd, lately. Much more here.)
Thought that was interesting -- and perhaps indicative of the tumultuous state of prewar intelligence.
Posted by: Jon Henke | November 09, 2005 at 08:49 PM
i'd love to see proof besides republican say-so that the french spun the aluminum tubes in question.
Posted by: jami | November 09, 2005 at 11:24 PM
brendan, timelines show that republicans knew they were lying.
bush's yellowcake state of the union came months after joe wilson's trip to niger and report back to the cia that the documents were unverifiable.
condi's claim about the aluminum tubes being "pretty much only" suited for nuclear centrifuges came months after nuclear experts in our country told the cia the tubes weren't for nuclear centrifuges.
their bioweapon point man chalabi's been a convicted embezzler (to the tune of millions) for decades now. one of the "bioweapons experts" he recommended to the cia was a drunkard called "screwball." the cia didn't believe him, but you bet the bush white house repeated everything he said to the american people in the scariest terms.
they also intentionally distorted the timing of al qaeda entering iraq. sure, al qaeda's in iraq now that we've created utter chaos and hatred in iraq. but if there were al qaedans in iraq before we got there, there were fewer there than in the u.s. pre-september 11. saddam and osama mutually dislike(d?) each other.
what else... let's see... ah yes! cheney was still making a fuss about mohammed atta meeting an iraqi in czechoslavakia well after the fbi had said there were no travel or bank records to justify such a claim.
the difference between what the cia knew, what the bush white house was telling people on their propaganda outlet fox "news," and what congress was told will be fascinating, if the republicans ever start the investigation they've been stalling for two years.
but you're right, this will be frustrating. america is still too busy (or is it really stupid?) to understand this.
Posted by: jami | November 09, 2005 at 11:40 PM
Of course Democrats believed the tales of weapons of mass destruction. I believed it, too.
I believed it because of what I was told by George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell and Condi Rice.
To try to make the claim Democrats had all the same information the administration had is patently ridiculous.
Posted by: Pug | November 10, 2005 at 08:39 AM
Alternately, there's Hillary Clinton's statements
And others. I suspect that some intelligence data was distorted prior to the war. But I'm not sold on the thin gruel that has been presented so far.Well, all we've got is the word of Lawrence Wilkerson. But that's from the same speech in which he made the "cabal" comments that the anti-war crowd were touting far and wide. I assumed from his presence on approximately 95% of the Lefty blogs that you guys found him credible.
Posted by: Jon Henke | November 10, 2005 at 09:08 AM
When an Administration (any Administration, not just this one) decides on a course of action, it sells that decision to the public. In the course of the selling, there will inevitably be untruths told - both intentional and unintentional. There is no credible reason why the Bush Administration's marketing of the Iraq war would be an exception to this natural order of things. Those who would have us believe such poppycock are either brainwashers or brainwashed. In fact, it seems pretty clear to most of us that the opposite is true - that this was a slick sales job, worthy of the most unscrupulous of used-car salesmen.
Rumsfeld stated he "knew" where the WMDs were located. Bush and Rice warned of a "mushroom cloud". Cheney cagily tied 9/11 to Saddam Hussein at every turn. And on and on and on.
Posted by: LaurenceB | November 11, 2005 at 03:51 PM
Try this on Google:
Clinton Iraq 1998
Jami, I hate to ruin your fantasy but Joe Wilson actually CONFIRMED that Iraq had approached Niger in 1999 in an effort to purchase yellowcake. (see the Senate Intelligence Report) Wilson never even saw the suspected forgeries so how could he have commented on them? (The yellowcake intelligence was not based on these documents.)
The Butler report also confirms that Iraq was attempting to purchase yellowcake from sources in Africa.
The Senate Intelligence Report can be found here:
http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2004_rpt/
The Butler report can be found here:
http://www.archive2.official-documents.co.uk/document/deps/hc/hc898/898.pdf
Posted by: Charlie J | November 15, 2005 at 01:50 PM