Matthew Yglesias (September 07, 2007) - Rare Bush/Iraq Defending (Foreign Policy)

Sure, Sabri should've been taken skeptically. The problem is that he was dismissed on the grounds that his info was contradicted by ... Curveball.

Had CIA not responded to pressure by choking itself on bad intel, Sabri's info would've been regarded very differently. We could've taken him seriously, raised with him how to confirm what he said ... treated him as a potentially valuable informant, IOW.

Considering what he risked, the guy was a huge freakin' patriot, trying to save his country from ... well, LOOK what he tried to save it fromm.

Posted by Anderson | September 7, 2007 1:40 PM

Once again, the problem wasn't the war vote, which was vital for getting the weapon inspectors into Iraq and keeping them there; the problem was the President's decision to pull the inspectors out before their work was complete and evidence was mounting there were no WMDs.

The Howard Dean narrative that the war vote is what matters most has done much disservice to our political discussions.

Posted by Mark | September 7, 2007 1:42 PM

Rare Bush/Iraq Defending

Are Matthew, Megan, and Brian Beutler still at the coffee shop? Maybe Megan surreptitiously posted via Matthew's computer. Oh, wait, Megan isn't an Iraq War defender either. Never mind.

Posted by Al | September 7, 2007 1:56 PM

"Had CIA not responded to pressure by choking itself on bad intel, Sabri's info would've been regarded very differently. We could've taken him seriously, raised with him how to confirm what he said ... treated him as a potentially valuable informant, IOW"

Bush has driven you people insane.

Sabri was Saddam's Foreign Minister. It's analogous to our Secretary of State. Saddam could have allowed UN weapons inspectors in and come clean, instead he decided to bluff in order to make his many enemies guess whether or not he had WMDs. It was a stupid mistake on his part, and for that mistake he was hung to death in a squalid basement by a bunch of Shiite thugs.

Do you really believe Saddam would have considered everything Condi Rice had to say to him to be on the up and up?

Posted by Peter K. | September 7, 2007 2:09 PM

Matthew, did you read Blumenthal's report? On April 23, 2006, CBS's "60 Minutes" interviewed Tyler Drumheller, the former CIA chief of clandestine operations for Europe, who disclosed that the agency had received documentary intelligence from Naji Sabri, Saddam's foreign minister, that Saddam did not have WMD. "We continued to validate him the whole way through," said Drumheller.

We know that Bush doesn't read, but responds only to the spoken word. Could we hope that you don't acquire the same affliction? Because what else explains how you wrote this sentence: "But given the context, the fact that Sabri said Iraq had no WMD had no real probative value." The whole point was that there was documentary evidence. You know, the probative kind.

Posted by milo | September 7, 2007 2:11 PM

re: Peter K:
Do YOU regard anything that Condi says is "on the up and up' ? She, like the rest of the mafia is a total LIAR. Prison for them ALL.

Posted by M. Carey | September 7, 2007 2:15 PM

But wasn't there other evidence, other than the Iraqi Foreign Minister?

James Risen in *State of War* reported on 30 family members of Iraqi scientists who informed the CIA that Iraq had no WMD program:

http://tinyurl.com/283guj

And Drumheller said that he "continued to validate [Sabri] the whole way through" in such a way that he had "No doubt in [his] mind at all" about his conclusions.

I'd be interested to know what that validation consisted of. But whatever it was, Drumheller seems like he had a very high level of confidence.

Posted by JJ | September 7, 2007 2:17 PM

Riiiiight, Peter K ... because that's how intel works. You either believe everything your source says, or you disbelieve everything your source says.

No wonder it's such an easy job!

Posted by Anderson | September 7, 2007 2:22 PM

Matt, you're absolutely right not to let Congress off the hook. But Milo has this one nailed. The Bush Administration was receiving completely uncorroborated stories about WMD from defectors with dubious credentials, and they were receiving documentary evidence from the Iraqi foreign minister that called these reports into question. The latter set of information was corroborated by the inspectors on the ground. The former set was not.

In this setting, Bush and Cheney did not merely "play up" the WMD evidence and downplay the reports that called it into question, which would be standard-issue politician behavior. They LIED. They insisted that there was no doubt, or virtually no doubt, that Saddam had chemical and biological weapons and was actively seeking to reconstitute his nuclear program. They flat-out denied the existence of contrary information from well-placed sources. No good comes from defending Bush on this point.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | September 7, 2007 2:23 PM

RE Matthew's comment "didn't want to know too much lest it trouble their conscience as they cast votes out of political opportunism "
--------
And said opportunism has cost the lives of over 3500 of our fellow citizens and has crippled thousands more --some for life.

So how many of those who cast those votes are now running for President?

Why should we vote for them--either in the Democratic primaries or in the Nov 2008 election?

Posted by Don Williams | September 7, 2007 2:31 PM

Sure, if Sabri had gone on Iraqi national television and said there were no WMD, we would all ignore him and rightfully so.

But that's not what happened. He was meeting secretly with the CIA, ready to defect if the CIA could get his family out too- because as soon as Saddam learned about any of these conversations, he would have killed them all.

No rational person would arrange to defect into the arms of the CIA if there was a chance that later he would be found to have been lying.

Oh wait, scratch that last sentence. If you say what the Prez wants to hear, no way are they going to take away your pension. "Curveball" is probably sunning himself by a pool right now, enjoying a lifestyle, at our expense, that few of us will ever attain. We are so doomed.

Posted by serial catowner | September 7, 2007 2:32 PM

The problem with the Leftist "It was all about the WMD, and that was cooked!!" narrative they have spun for 4 years is that it isn't true.

1. There were multiple reasons. Shooting at US/UK pilots patrolling the UN "No Fly zones", Defiance of 17 UN Security Council Resolutions. Support of terrorism, including a 40,000 dollar bonus Saddam was giving for suicide bombers that killed Israeli Jews. The desire to end the US stationing of troops in Saudi Arabia to thwart another Iraqi attack - a 9/11 grievance that the US quitely conceeded was one of Bin Laden's that had enormous agreement with and resonance in the Muslim world. A strong sense after 9/11 that America could no longer "take his shit", and he was one of many threats that had to be reduced or eliminated and the military said going in and toppling him was absultely achievable. And, back then, a preponderance of the intelligensia, though many deny it like cornered rats, wrote that terrorism's defeat rested on transformation of many Arab countries from repressive despot nations to enlightened, modern ones.

2. The Lefty narrative omits that all in Congress who "saw the actual intelligence", read the full US dossier and what Jordan, Egypt, Russia, France, UK, Israel, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Turkey gave us for cleared people only to read -

All of them who read the full intel dossier - Democrats and Republicans, Vietnam Vets, 2 Vets who later served as CIA case officers (Goss and Simmons of CT) ALL voted for the AUF.

THe Lefty "Bush Lied!!" narrative omits all the other nations that were positive through multiple high-ranking sources that Saddam had WMD. What investigations in Israel, Russia, the UK, and US revealed was it was a case of Saddam lied!!!. Saddam lied to his generals and Republican Guard Colonels and High-Ranking Ba'ath Party when he assured them he had huge hidden stockpiles of Anthrax and Nerve Gas ready. They in turn, some of them, dutifully told foreign intel agents and picked up their Swiss bank account transaction numbers...

And, of course, Lefties also leave out their vaunted "UN inspector heroes" were in low repute when they completely missed that Saddam had lied after 1991 about getting rid of his weapons and UN Inspectors were finishing up paperwork giving Iraq a clean bill of health and recommend ending the UN Sanctions - when Saddams son-in-laws defected and revealed the existence of more WMD stockpiles. Thus the UN continued sanctions another 9 years.

The history books will get it right.

The Lefties constructed a narrative of lies that do not fit the facts of why a decision to go to war was enacted. That Russia and France opposed the UN sanctioning war because high officials had been bribed under Oil-For-Food. That every major intelligence agency was duped by Saddams irrational, and for him, suicidal bluff. THat the US and allies had many reasons to go to war, WMD was just one. Firing on planes was alone enough for traditional casus belli for self defense...WMD were just one reason, and unfortunately for them, the Bushies showcased it.

The history books will be very harsh on Bush for his hopeless bungling of the post-war.
But they will be similarly harsh on the rampant Lefty lies and dishonesty about international debate on why or why not Iraq had to be dealt with, the Congressional AUF.

Posted by Chris Ford | September 7, 2007 2:34 PM

And Sidney Blumenthal is just a partisan hatchetman with no moral compass except advancing the Left and himself.

If he had lived in the Soviet Union in the Red Terror, he would have been one of those "clever" NKVD functionaries working for Yagoda or Yashev or Beria preparing death lists of people he hated.

And, like those 3, eventually killed by others that learned to know him is to hate him.

Posted by Chris Ford | September 7, 2007 2:41 PM

Once again, the problem wasn't the war vote, which was vital for getting the weapon inspectors into Iraq and keeping them there; the problem was the President's decision to pull the inspectors out before their work was complete and evidence was mounting there were no WMDs.

I agree. Some people attempt to rebut this point of view by arguing that Democrats should have known that Bush's true intentions were to go to war irrespective of the vote. Maybe so, but how else was a member of Congress who believed that getting the weapons inspectors backs in was of critical importance supposed to vote?

Posted by Rich | September 7, 2007 2:43 PM

Bush knew that the US had no evidence that Saddam had WMDs. For instance, the substance-free presentation by Colin Powell. Or the reconstructed text in the SOTU address. Or the suppression of evidence regarding the aluminum tubes usefulness.

So when Rummy said "We know where they are ... " they'd gone waaaaay beyond "strongly suspecting" into insane amounts of lying.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | September 7, 2007 2:43 PM

"Saddam could have allowed UN weapons inspectors in and come clean, instead he decided to bluff in order to make his many enemies guess whether or not he had WMDs"

Peter. Um. Saddam did disarm, a fact we know because the Iraqi Survey Group never found anything. He declared that he had disarmed, which given that it turned out to be a true statement pretty much fits the definition of 'come clean'. He in fact dropped his bluff and did admit Inspectors and gave them unfettered access.

Now it is true that nobody expected that to be the outcome. Those of us opposed to the war fully expected that Saddam would continue his bluff and that the US would find at least enough scraps of his unconventional chemical and biological programs to provide plausible deniability that they (the Bushies)had actually been lying about just about everything. (Balsa wood drones and canvas side trucks, that was their proof?)

But you are clinging to an anticipated narrative that never actually came to be. The "If he had only disarmed" and the series of statements in early 2003 that "The decision to go to war has not been made" were by February known to be cruel hoaxes. The best evidence was that Saddam had disarmed and that the decision to go to war had been in place for months.

Not everything can be shoved down the Memory Hole. Saddam's blinkage turned out to be a little inconvenient. It blew a huge hole in the Bush cover story and that credibility hole can never be repaired. Bush lied, GIs died and simple denial does not make that reality go away.

Posted by Bruce Webb | September 7, 2007 2:48 PM

"All of them who read the full intel dossier..."

That's a old wingnut canard. Completely untrue:

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/11/11/iraq-intel/

Posted by JJ | September 7, 2007 2:53 PM

"Sure, if Sabri had gone on Iraqi national television and said there were no WMD, we would all ignore him and rightfully so.
But that's not what happened. He was meeting secretly with the CIA, ready to defect if the CIA could get his family out too- because as soon as Saddam learned about any of these conversations, he would have killed them all.

Or he could have been pretending to defect and feeding disinformation. Again, Saddam could have let the UN inspectors in and come clean. But alas he didn't.

"No rational person would arrange to defect into the arms of the CIA if there was a chance that later he would be found to have been lying."

Bull. He could have said he didn't realize. The Baathist regime was insane. None of them should have been trusted. I take anything the CIA says with a grain of salt. It failed America by not heading off 911. That institution is a joke. George "Slamdunk" Tenet is just trying to retroactively cover his butt.

Oh wait, scratch that last sentence. If you say what the Prez "wants to hear, no way are they going to take away your pension. "Curveball" is probably sunning himself by a pool right now, enjoying a lifestyle, at our expense, that few of us will ever attain. We are so doomed."

Curveball wound't have mattered if Saddam stopped playing games, came clean and allowed UN inspectors in. Too bad for him he didn't.

Posted by Peter K. | September 7, 2007 2:57 PM

(That is to say, they did not have access to the "full intelligence.")

Posted by JJ | September 7, 2007 2:57 PM

if Saddam stopped playing games, came clean and allowed UN inspectors in.

What?????????????????

Posted by Anderson | September 7, 2007 3:07 PM

"2. The Lefty narrative omits that all in Congress who "saw the actual intelligence", read the full US dossier and what Jordan, Egypt, Russia, France, UK, Israel, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Turkey gave us for cleared people only to read -
All of them who read the full intel dossier - Democrats and Republicans, Vietnam Vets, 2 Vets who later served as CIA case officers (Goss and Simmons of CT) ALL voted for the AUF."

Well Chris that would be fine. Of course it ignores the entire context of the current discussion which is exactly that nobody in Congress saw the full gamut of intelligence, there was no full intel dossier. Nobody apparently outside the CIA ever saw the Sabri intelligence, not even the British. Which serves to make your entire argument rubbish.

Now two former senior CIA officers have confirmed Drumheller's account to me and provided the background to the story of how the information that might have stopped the invasion of Iraq was twisted in order to justify it. They described what Tenet said to Bush about the lack of WMD, and how Bush responded, and noted that Tenet never shared Sabri's intelligence with then Secretary of State Colin Powell. According to the former officers, the intelligence was also never shared with the senior military planning the invasion, which required U.S. soldiers to receive medical shots against the ill effects of WMD and to wear protective uniforms in the desert.
Instead, said the former officials, the information was distorted in a report written to fit the preconception that Saddam did have WMD programs. That false and restructured report was passed to Richard Dearlove, chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), who briefed Prime Minister Tony Blair on it as validation of the cause for war.

No one can force you to accept Blumenthal's account. (Though equating his to an NKVD thug is pretty stupid.)You don't have to believe he actually talked with Drumheller, perhaps you can claim Drumheller is lying. But if the story is validated it means that the list of people not having access to the actual range of available intelligence information not only includes the entire Congress, but also the Secretary of State, the Prime Minister of Britain, and the CentCom Combat Commander preparing the invasion plan.

Chris it turns out that most of those 'multiple intelligence sources' turned out to be varous repackaged versions of Curveball, a person the CIA doubted. I suspect history will get it right, I am not at all as confident it will shine as positively on Bush as you assert.

Posted by Bruce Webb | September 7, 2007 3:07 PM

Curveball wound't have mattered if Saddam... allowed UN inspectors in.

How many times do we have to correct BS like this? (I suppose for quite a while, since Bush engages in it himself):

Bush himself has repeatedly insisted on one false point: that Saddam rebuffed the U.N. inspectors in 2002, that "he wouldn't let them in" and "he chose to deny inspectors."

In fact, Iraq acceded to the U.N. Security Council's demand and allowed scores of experts to conduct more than 700 inspections of potential weapons sites from Nov. 27, 2002, to March 16, 2003. Inspectors said they could finish in months. Instead, the U.S. invasion aborted that work.

Posted by JJ | September 7, 2007 3:16 PM

Peter I am going to assume that our posts crossed. Because this is simply not in accordance with the facts.

"Curveball wound't have mattered if Saddam stopped playing games, came clean and allowed UN inspectors in. Too bad for him he didn't"

Too bad for Bush he did. They could have got away clean with the lies, one bunker of deployable chemical weapons shells would have throughly swamped any rational examination of the actual threat those weapons would have represented to the United States (minimal).

There were two successive narratives in play. One before Saddam blinked "If he had only admitted Inspectors" and another after he blinked and admitted them "US Inspectors are fools and bumblers, just wait until the US Army gets there" coupled with Cheney's "we know where they are". Well sorry both of those narratives are now how we say 'inoperative'.

The UN Inspectors were finding nothing because there was nothing to find, the experience of the ISG suggests that a couple of months more Inspections would have confirmed that. Bush didn't want Saddam disarmed, he wanted Saddam out of power and dead, and the United States to have a permanent military presense in the middle east. Both he and Josh Bolten came out and admitted the latter point this week.

Repeating myths that were debunked over four years ago may help you sleep at night, I can see that joining the Reality Based Community can be kind of a jolt. But the longer you stay in denial the worse that jolt will be.

Posted by Bruce Webb | September 7, 2007 3:23 PM

Chris,

There was a litany of reasons given for invading Iraq and deposing Saddam Hussein, but the WMD argument was the the reason that provided the critical mass for justifying invading Iraq in March 2003, even though the UN inspectors had not finished their tasks. Without the WMD argument, there was no justification to launch a premptive war against Iraq, instead of continuing our containment policy against him.

Posted by eltoro | September 7, 2007 3:25 PM

The decision to go to war was made in June 2002, everything else was window-dressing.

And Chris Ford is a lying sack of shit, already engaged in falsifying historical data, as he and his ilk have done so successfully regarding Vietnam. WMD were the purported and officially stated reason for the war and there was no conclusive evidence at all - there is no reason for us to create a narrative, since it's true. Fortunately we've now got this thing called the internet, which can be used to falsify CF's claims with a simple LexisNexis search.

Posted by novakant | September 7, 2007 3:39 PM

"2. The Lefty narrative omits that all in Congress who "saw the actual intelligence", read the full US dossier and what Jordan, Egypt, Russia, France, UK, Israel, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Turkey gave us for cleared people only to read -
All of them who read the full intel dossier - Democrats and Republicans, Vietnam Vets, 2 Vets who later served as CIA case officers (Goss and Simmons of CT) ALL voted for the AUF."

Which also completely ignores that all international information was based in the last 1998 UNSCOM report - which is completely discredited because the UNSCOM team was riddled with and corrupted by the US CIA which was using it as a means to spy on Saddam - which was the impasse that eventually lead to Saddam refusing to co-operate with the UNSCOM team in 1998 and their withdrawal from the country (or are you going to repeat the wingnut canard that Saddam "threw them out"? Regardless, if the UNSCOM team was primarily a vehicle for the US to spy on Iraq, any numbers they put out and were relied on by others is highly suspect - of course they would inflate the number of WMDs remaining so as to prolong the "inspections" regime.

The whole argument of all the other countries which relied solely upon this data agreeing with us, as "proof" that it "must be true" is a very faulty and circular reasoning that is more the province of junior high school relationship drama than legitimate reasons for countries to invade one another.

Oh - and Chris - just because people don't unquestioningly swallow the propaganda that Bush, Cheney, and the neocon cabal spoonfed them, doesn't necessarily make them "lefties" - you sound quite the bit of junior high drama yourself with the name-calling.

Posted by Ethel-to-Tilly | September 7, 2007 3:45 PM

Obviously, in retrospect we know that Sabri's claims that Iraq had no WMD were completely accurate. But given the context, the fact that Sabri said Iraq had no WMD had no real probative value.

That's not true. Every effort could have been made to validate his claims (and some were, as the article state.) So yes, his statements that Iraq had WMD certainly did have probative value. It's true that Congress fell down on the job, but there's no doubt that if Bush had been interested in pursuing Sabri's claims, he could have, and probably could have verified there were no WMDs. So no, perhaps he didn't "know" Iraq had no WMDs, but he sure as hell wasn't interested in finding out for sure.

Posted by Xanthippas | September 7, 2007 4:08 PM

As far as I can tell, nobody in this thread has mentioned that Senators already had access to a reasonably independent intelligence summary, but hardly any of them deigned to read it. None of the Democratic Senators who fancy themselves Presidential material bothered to consult it. MY is correct, this Sabri "revelation" is yet another pathetic attempt at ass-covering and blame-shifting by sell-out Dems.

Posted by sglover | September 7, 2007 4:42 PM

Uhm, did any of you see the article which points out that Bush UNTIL APRIL 2006 REPEATEDLY said that he STILL believed Saddam had WMDs?

TWO YEARS after the official conclusion that there was no WMDs - a conclusion even Bush publicly acknowledged - he still PRIVATELY proclaimed that Saddam had WMDs?

If this doesn't prove Bush is a fucking total lunatic, I don't know what does. Unless of course it's just more of my theory that Bush doesn't give a shit WHAT he says to ANYBODY at any given time due to arrogance...

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | September 7, 2007 5:19 PM

No it is not about blame shifting. It is about validating the Downing Street Memo.

Intelligence was being set around a predetermined policy, when Bush said in early 2003 that the decision to go to war had not been made he was lying.

Careful observors knew that at the time, this simply confirms it.

And there really is no such thing as a "reasonably independent intelligence summary". Senators should be able to rely on a classified presentation by senior administration officials. As Biden said in the suppplied link:

SEN. JOE BIDEN (D.-DEL.): Oh, I don't think there's any moral obligation. I think the problem is, sometimes, you have to accept the assertions Presidents make. I make the assumption, when the National security Adviser tells me something, when the President tells me something, when the secretary of Defense tells me something, when the secretary of State tells me something, they're telling the truth... It shouldn't be a moral obligation that we have to doublecheck them. I did read it, and that's why I took issue from the very beginning, as you'll recall, from the very beginning, saying that what they were saying was not accurate. [I read it because] it's my job. My job is foreign policy full-time...

Do you think, then, that more senators might have voted otherwise had they [read the NIE]?

BIDEN: I think they would have voted otherwise, but they just flat trusted the administration and what they were saying. Which is a thing that hopefully is a good thing to do-trust the administration. I just wish they'd been more straightforward....

From what I see the Senators who requested the Estimate read it. The only sin committed by the others was not to assume that when the President's lips were moving that he was lying.

Really the argument here, to the extent there is a viable argument at all, is that everyone knew Bush was a liar, so Senators had a special necessity to double check what he was saying. Kind of an odd way to defend the President.

Posted by Bruce Webb | September 7, 2007 5:34 PM

In real life, a real intelligence agency has ways and means to corroborate the intelligence its receives.

The deep background here is the Sabri provided a lot of critical detail, which survive corroboration, and so, "technically", the CIA treated him like the gold he was.

"Curveball" was a drunk and a known fabricator, and nothing he said, could be corroborated, except by his interested sponsors, like Chalabi. So, "technically", Curveball was treated as extremely doubtful.

So, Bush and Cheney pretended to listen to Curveball and hid Sabri.

Now do you understand the headlines?

Posted by Bruce Wilder | September 7, 2007 5:49 PM

THat the US and allies had many reasons to go to war, WMD was just one

"the main reason we went into Iraq at the time was we thought he had weapons of mass destruction" -- President Bush, August 21, 2006

Posted by croatoan | September 7, 2007 6:03 PM

the problem was the President's decision to pull the inspectors out before their work was complete and evidence was mounting there were no WMDs

As late as March 6, 2003, President Bush was saying he would go back to the United Nations for a second resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq.

No matter what the whip count is, we're calling for the vote.[1] We want to see people stand up and say what their opinion is about Saddam Hussein and the utility of the United Nations Security Council. And so, you bet. It's time for people to show their cards, to let the world know where they stand when it comes to Saddam.[2]

Despite saying, "no matter what the whip count is, we're calling for the vote," he never actually did because it wouldn't have passed the Security Council.

On February 24, 2003, France, Germany, and Russia submitted an alternate resolution that called for beefed-up inspections with "timelines for inspections and assessment." President Bush dismissed the idea in the same March 6 press conference: "Inspection teams do not need more time, or more personnel."

After the invasion, when it was becoming obvious that Iraq didn't have any WMD, he switched gears and said we need to give the Iraq Survey Group more time: "First of all, I think it's very important for us to let the Iraq survey group do its work so we can find out the facts and compare the facts to what was thought."

1 How come the people that love Bush's tough talk don't criticize him when he doesn't back it up?

2 "Where they stand when it comes to Saddam" illustrates President Bush's personalized obsession with Saddam Hussein, which he shared with his father.

Posted by croatoan | September 7, 2007 6:10 PM

Bruce Webb/Bruce Wilder -

Those members of Congress with full intelligence clearance saw the unredacted dossier. Both Porter Goss and Rob Simmons made visits to CIA and taled to analysts about the raw data and the Israeli, Russian, UK, German, Egyptian, Saudi, Jordanian, and French conclusions.

All voted for AUF.

It was clear at the time that Saddam was sponsoring terror against Jews. He said so publicly. One reason the WMD argument came up was no Muslim nation, few Euros, and most of the non-Muslim world cared at all about Saddam paying for Jew-killing.

And Chris Ford is a lying sack of shit, already engaged in falsifying historical data, as he and his ilk have done so successfully regarding Vietnam. WMD were the purported and officially stated reason for the war and there was no conclusive evidence at all - there is no reason for us to create a narrative, since it's true. Fortunately we've now got this thing called the internet, which can be used to falsify CF's claims with a simple LexisNexis search. Posted by novakant

No need to falsify data on Vietnam, traitor, just ask any person from a Vietnamese or Cambodian refugee family what happened after the American Lefty backstab.
And the history will be far clearer with Iraq if the Left succeeds in defeating America, because the consequences of a strategic disaster will hit the West and then the Lefties that were responsible like a sledgehammer.

As for WMD being the only "purported and officially stated reason why not get your traitorous anti-American ass over to read the 2002 AUF in Iraq that Congess voted on.

We all now that your ilk hates Bush so much you are rooting for America's defeat just to get back at him...to better your political power...

I almost hope you get your wish, for the repercussions you richly deserve 5 years down the road.

The great mistake America made when weeding out the Lefties after the McGovernite betrayals of allies and domestic excesses was just unelecting the anti-Americans, but not trying to get them out of dominance of the media, universities, legal profession, NGO foundations, and government employment unions.

Next time, the anti-American bastions have to be dealt with.

Posted by Chris Ford | September 7, 2007 8:14 PM

Yeah, I agree, the US and allies had many reasons to go to war with Saddam.

Only problem is: none of them would have been acceptable to the (non-right wing or Christian/Zionist) taxpaying public whose relatives would die in that war and whose taxes would pay for a one, two, three-trillion dollar boondoggle that in the end accomplished NOTHING for the average US citizen except to make terrorism in the world worse.

Any legitimate reason to take Iraq out would be exactly the same reason to take the US or Britain out: namely, "the government is evil."

Which is exactly what Osama's been saying - leaving aside the fact that what he'd replace it with is equally "evil".

Worse, the result of the war was MORE "evil". The US ends up killing as many or more Iraqis than Saddam did, and totally destroying the country's infrastructure and economy. Saddam would have had to work very hard to accomplish that. Not even during an eight year war with Iran that he started (with US connivance) did he succeed in doing that.

Only the US succeeded in doing that.

Which makes George Bush WAY worse than Saddam in the eyes of history.

Give me a cheap dictator who knows his limits (or exceeds them enough times that he gets told his limits and decides to live with them) over somebody who will never suffer the slightest problem no matter what he does to wreck the world.

George Bush - and ANY American President who is not under the control of the US public - is FAR more dangerous than ANY tinpot dictator anywhere in the world - and that includes Russia, China, North Korea and Iran.

That's the bottom line. That's why most of the world according to polls now views George Bush and the United States as the biggest threat to peace in the world. (Israel comes in second.)

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | September 7, 2007 8:20 PM

I agree that this doesn't let Congress off the hook at all (I also felt that the story seemed to be trying to suggest that, and I have to wonder if that has anything to do with how Blumenthal is close to the Clintons), but the Blumenthal story details that the professionals in the CIA verified, as best they could, what Sabri was saying. They had wiretapped him. He had given them documentary evidence. Bush ignored their judgement, and embraced the "intelligence" coming from a guy the CIA didn't even know who said he was a nuclear scientist but was actually a taxi driver. The CIA knew that Curveball was likely untrustworthy, yet Bush chose to listen to him instead. Why bother with CIA vetting when we can depend on our awesome Prezit's ability to judge character (just like he did with Putin)?

Matt, I think you're wrong to suggest that what Bush did was reasonable. Bush knew that there was a strong possibility that there was nothing in Iraq worth invading over. It was a big deal, and he didn't care. It was a big enough deal to reevaluate the calculus for war, and he yawned. He wanted to march through Baghdad and kill Saddam Hussein. He didn't and doesn't really care about the quality of information he receives, only that his decisions are carried out.

Posted by sdhays | September 7, 2007 8:56 PM

Chris Ford writes:
2. The Lefty narrative omits that all in Congress who "saw the actual intelligence", read the full US dossier and what Jordan, Egypt, Russia, France, UK, Israel, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Turkey gave us for cleared people only to read -

All of them who read the full intel dossier - Democrats and Republicans, Vietnam Vets, 2 Vets who later served as CIA case officers (Goss and Simmons of CT) ALL voted for the AUF.
---------------------------------------------
Bullshit. Presumably the intel was only available to cleared members, i.e. members of the Select Committees on Intelligence. Of the 9 senate Democrats and 8 house Democrats on the the intelligence committees, 5 senators and 3 congressman voted AGAINST the AUF (this included the ranking members, Graham and Pelosi). All of the Republican members of both committees voted FOR the AUF.

Posted by denvike | September 7, 2007 9:44 PM

And another thing regarding the intel, I believe only the 4 ranking members (2 from each committee) were cleared to see the higher classified intel. And both of the ranking Democrats voted against the AUF. When you have a very conservative Democrat who's seen the intel, like Bob Graham, vote against the AUF, it means the intel doesn't support the case for the AUF.

Posted by denvike | September 7, 2007 10:28 PM

Rare Bush/Iraq Defending

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