Democrats & Liberals: Archives

There’s quite an article in the Washington Post today about the history of the Niger uranium claim—and how it had been struck from a October speech (at least three months before the SOTU) at the request of Tenet and the CIA. This makes a couple things clear:

1) The CIA made its position known about the Niger uranium far before the SOTU. Anyone involved with the president’s speeches—which in a tightly controlled, on-message administration like this one, would be many key decision makers—would know of the CIA’s formal objections. It would be highly unlikely that someone like, say… Powell, Rove, or Rumsfeld… found out about Niger between SOTU and a) Powell’s UN speech or b) a week ago.

2) The administration’s current case is based on only 2 things: the veracity of the “mystery” British intel and the “legal technicality” of the 16 words.

The White House must really be concerned about the “mystery” British intel that the CIA apparently hasn’t been able to see. Who *has* seen it? George Tenet’s apology claims that those 16 words should never have been included. This is not a vote of confidence from the US’s Director of Intelligence. What is Britain doing with this intel? Probably busting their humps to make sure it isn’t totally full of sh!t. The fact that they haven’t shared it with CIA probably doesn’t bode well.

If Brit intel turns out to be an Eternal Mystery, confidence in it’s veracity will drop. The WH will push the “technically correct” version of the 16 words and that is A BIG PROBLEM. Both the press and everybody who isn’t the press really hate the Legal Defense because it reeks of Intentionally Misleading. Because it *is* Intentionally Misleading.

There was an obvious need to place a nuclear threat in the SOTU—that’s the trump card and the panic button. For Condi Rice to say that it was just one fact in an arsenal of facts is again “technically true” but doesn’t admit the huge psychological threat of nuclear fear (that the administration CLEARLY understood, or why would they have pressed so hard?).

The administration is starting to incur some resentment among the mainstram press. The press feel as though they’re been fooled. Because they were, along with Congress, and the rest of us Americans. But this mess isn’t over. It’s a Big Story, we’ve been intentionally mislead, and I don’t think it’ll be over for a while.
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WP story: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48847-2003Jul12.html?nav=hptop_tb

The most interesting thing about the sixteen words is that they happened to be true.

Right, Richard. And Clinton “did not have sex with that woman” either. It was just a blowjob.

In this case, British intelligence did make the claim as you state. But the claim was bogus. Both we and they knew it was bogus. So for you to state the statement was true (while the claim was bogus) is to get lost in the world of what “is” is.

I’ll admit. I didn’t enjoy that world. Do you?

Daniel, thanks for the WP article link. And Richard, don’t you mean “technically” true? Because as you know well, the words he used were only part of the message. The CIA admits that the facts of the case were, in fact, completely unsubstantiated. But you have proved my point on why this should not be resolved on the semantics angle alone. And for that I thank you. Here’s to another fun week at Watchblog!

I mean true true, both literally and in substance. As best as British intelligence can determine, Saddam went on a shopping spree for uranium not long ago, and the CIA has some independent sources that point toward that conclusion.

Among the several leads, one forged document was found pertaining to one country, from some unknown source. That document doesn’t invalidate the rest of the intel.

The reservations the CIA had to other mentions about Saddam and uranium concerned specifics about places and quantities that weren’t in the SOU’s 16 Magic Words.

This is much ado about nothing.

Richard… you are so blinded by your fear of being proved wrong, you can’t see that you are… well… wrong.

Yes, it’s nice that CandiedRice says “it was right.”

Isn’t that revisionsit history as defined by the Liar in Thief?

Richard. No second term.

And, since Clinton’s name keeps coming up, may I remind you that the same GOP dimwits who through a fit over an act of consensual sex+lame cover up are now seeking to excuse a President for an act of treason+lame cover up?

Of course, they had practice covering up Bush I’s crimes.

richard,
you exemplify the GOP tradition of pig-headed ends-justify-the-means approach to any problem.

you already choose to believe that iraq was purchasing uranium, and you just wait for some (half-assed) intelligence that comes around to support that idea even though every other source points the opposite direction. this is the same thing that GW & friends did to get themselves in this mess in the first place. You’d think eventually they’d get the point and start looking at facts before making decisions, but that would undermine the nature of the GOP - to create whatever facts and information you need inside your corporate-funded think tanks and shady private intelligence/research agencies (i know - federal intelligence for the uranium fiasco, but not so for many others incl. cutting funding for Chinese family planning program, environmental policies, etc..) that will back the decisions that the administration has already made to meet their personal agenda.. sickening..

I suppose spending many billions of dollars that we don’t have , the loss of life and hostile “allies” is much ado about nothing.

It hardly makes a difference semantically or politically, but this is the very real situation we find ourselves in today.

I believe, and many agree with me, that the world is hardly a safer place today because we invaded Iraq (and have yet found or rid the world of Saddam or Osama).

All the so called facts or who’s to blame does not make any difference to someone who is unemployed, does not have health care when they need it, or is not safe in a public school.

This is where the Bushies have led us.

From uranium to health care, all in two easy steps.

If the rest of the country agrees, Rick, that we’re less safe now than we were before Sept. 11, President Bush will be a one-termer like his daddy and like Jimmy Carter. I personally don’t think they will, in large part because they recognize that the massive changes the President has brought about in the Middle East are moving that region in the right direction.

But we’ll see.

Thanks for pointing out those massive changes which include:

New resentment among moderate Arabs.
A dictator who has been toppled who was not connected to Osama.
Said dictator being toppled has allowed for fundamentalists (and extremists) to gain a voice in Iraq.
Terror attacks aimed at troops instead of civilians (GIs vote too).
Afghanistan is now run by warlords instead of Taliban. Al Qaeda still alive and well.
List goes on.

Richard, the statement was not correct, neither technically nor factually.

*IF*, and I stress if, the SOTU had read “The British government has *said that* it learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”, then the SOTU would have been technically correct, but effectively a lie. The best would could have said is that he had hearsay testimony. But we said that we had ‘learned’ of attempts.

But the ‘learned’ line is a flat-out lie. We have no idea what the British learned. We have yet to see their ‘mystery’ intelligence. The CIA had no intelligence of its own to put in there. Thus, the SOTU was technically a lie, and effectively a lie.

And these are not just 16 words. I remeber speaking to a friend right after the SOTU, and he was very swayed by the thought of mushroom clouds over American cities from Iraq. I don’t think he was alone in coming away with that from the SOTU and other administration statements.

But the Iraqi nuclear line is totally bogus. Even if the urnaium claims were true, there was still no danger of Iraq having had the ability to enrich the stuff. Or put together a weapon. Or deliver it to us.

This is not a tempust in a teapot. There never was any Iraq nuclear threat (since Gulf War I). But the admin. made one up, and made sure the public heard about it. Why? Because nukes are very scary, and could easily sway public opinion on the Iraq war.

That is as grave an issue as there ever can be for this little democracy of ours.

Well the Brits are standing buy it 100% now. So your liberal pal is a liar…mr tony blair? He was cleared by his parlaiment. So how is this going anywhere? I mean the statement came from them. I love how you guys like to parse words though. Funny stuff but desperate. And it shows.