That Wacky, Wacky Fred Hiatt Posted by Michael Cohen

In today's Washington Post, Fred Hiatt has a really aggravating op-ed that relies on the recent Senate Intelligence Report about the the use of pre-war intelligence to actually defend the Bush Administration and it's pre-war hyping of the threat from Iraq. As Hiatt puts it, the report makes clear that Bush did not "lie" to get us into war.

Now there is a very small kernel of truth here, as Hiatt repeatedly notes that many of the Administration's charges about Iraq's links to terrorism and WMD program were "generally substantiated by intelligence community estimates." As I've written at DA before, there was substantial reason to believe that Saddam had stockpiles of WMD. (Although it's pretty astounding that Hiatt believes  "generally substantiated" is a high enough benchmark for the decision to invade and occupy a country). But the issue is not whether Bush lied; the issue is how he and others depicted urgency of the threat . . . and on this account Hiatt knows full well that the Bush Administration exaggerated and misled the American people.

Take for example, Saddam's supposed reconstituted nuclear program, which the IAEA had long said did not exist and the Rockefeller report says there were substantial disagreements about in the intel community. Even if you buy the most charitable view about the nuclear threat from Iraq does Fred Hiatt (or anyone else for that matter) believe it was appropriate for Bush Administration officials to play up apocalyptic scenarios such as mushroom clouds over American cities? No piece of post-war investigation has ever supported these outlandish and deceptive arguments.

Or how about the Administration's constant conflation of Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda as if the two were working in cahoots when every piece of available evidence suggested otherwise? Does Hiatt think it was accidental that more than half the country thought Saddam was responsible for 9/11? Indeed as the Rockefeller report makes clear:

Statements and implications by the President and Secretary of State suggesting that Iraq and al-Qa'ida had a partnership, or that Iraq had provided al-Qa'ida with weapons training, were not substantiated by the intelligence.

Statements by the President and the Vice President indicating that Saddam Hussein was prepared to give weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups for attacks against the United States were contradicted by available intelligence information.

Yet, Hiatt has the chutzpah to argue the fault lies not with the Bush Administration for goosing the threat, but in fact is the fault of intelligence community:

But the phony "Bush lied" story line distracts from the biggest prewar failure: the fact that so much of the intelligence upon which Bush and Rockefeller and everyone else relied turned out to be tragically, catastrophically wrong.

This is Grade A BS and worst of all, Fred Hiatt knows it. Hiatt would rather constitute his defense of the Bush Administration around the legalistic issue of whether "Bush lied" while simply ignoring the serial manner in which Bush Administration cherry picked intelligence, ignored areas of disagreement in the intel community, framed the threat from Iraq in worst case possible scenarios, exaggerated the urgency of Iraq's ability to reconstitute a WMD program, made spurious and misleading arguments about Iraq's ties to terrorist groups, ignored other military steps short of invasion and occupation, played on America's fear of another September 11th type attack, cut short UN inspections before they had completed their work . . . and I could go on and on.

There is a mountain of evidence to suggest that the Bush Administration made the decision to go to war in Iraq based on reasons that had little to do with the available intelligence about its WMD program or its ties to terrorists. And unless Fred Hiatt had been living in a cave for the past five years he is well aware of this.

I'm sure Fred Hiatt, like many pre-war, advocates would like to absolve themselves of responsibility for supporting a war that went so disastrously wrong. But continuing to mislead Americans about what really went wrong and how we got into Iraq in the first place only continues the cycle of deception and yes . . . lies.

Comments

[truth]

Rockefeller is also a war criminal, do you really believe that as the Senate intelligence committee minority leader he did not know the facts. He is either criminally negligent in 4000 deaths or laughing at the saps that are not smart enough to know that there is no republican or democrat party, they are all the same. Until people hold everyone accountable this sh-t will continue.

[NYer]

"We have to defend our future from these predators of the 21st century. They feed on the free flow of information and technology. They actually take advantage of the freer movement of people, information and ideas.

And they will be all the more lethal if we allow them to build arsenals of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them. We simply cannot allow that to happen.

There is no more clear example of this threat than Saddam Hussein's Iraq. His regime threatens the safety of his people, the stability of his region and the security of all the rest of us.

* * *

"Now, let's imagine the future. What if he fails to comply, and we fail to act, or we take some ambiguous third route which gives him yet more opportunities to develop this program of weapons of mass destruction and continue to press for the release of the sanctions and continue to ignore the solemn commitments that he made?

Well, he will conclude that the international community has lost its will. He will then conclude that he can go right on and do more to rebuild an arsenal of devastating destruction.

And some day, some way, I guarantee you, he'll use the arsenal. And I think every one of you who's really worked on this for any length of time believes that, too."

President Bill Clinton, February 17, 1998
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/02/17/transcripts/clinton.iraq/

[Jim]

It appears that NYer is defending Hiatt and Bush by quoting Bill Clinton from 1998. At that time, Clinton was arguing that Saddam needed to be made to comply with international agreements made at the end of GulF War I. A major agreement was to destroy all Iraq WMD and to allow verification by UN inspectors.
In 1998, the Repub controlled congress had no interest in holding Saddam to those agreements or in supporting UN inspections.
In Oct 2002, Congress did demand Saddam comply with agreements or suffer consequences. Inspectors started back in by Dec 2002.
In March of 2003, inspectors reported finding no evidence of WMD stock piles or production and asked for a few more months extension.
Bush and company refused the inspectors request.
Bush and company ordered the UN inspectors to leave Iraq.
Bush and company choose to start Shock and Awe.

So Clinton argues to force Saddam to abide by agreements Saddam made and allow UN inspectors to continue working to ensure the WMD threat is neutralized.
Bush gets inspectors in and then refuses their request for more time and use the Oct 2002 vote to invade.
And some people argue that the two positions are equal. Not to me.

One of the great lies is the claim that EVERYBODY KNEW Saddam had WMD.
An accurate statement is the EVERYONE FEARED/WORRIED that he had WMD.
The Germans KNEW Curveball was unreliable but not Bush and Company.
The French and Canadians and Turks all refused to support Bush in Iraq. But the Germans, French and Canadians were in Afghanistan from day one. Even the Iranians helped us in Afghanistan. But they saw no rush to military action in Iraq and got the typical Repub attacks on their character and motives.

One other point about the Oct 2002 resolution is that it required Bush, by signature, to certify that Saddam had WMD and/or had direct connections to Al Qaeda and 911 and/or was not allowing UN inspectors in before Bush could invade. Bush did so sign and certify and proceeded to invade. But Bush and comapny have failed to find any substantial evidence of WMD or collaboration with Al Qaeda.
To me, they rushed to war in Iraq and short changed the war against the real Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

[NYer]

Jim said:

"One other point about the Oct 2002 resolution is that it required Bush, by signature, to certify that Saddam had WMD and/or had direct connections to Al Qaeda and 911 and/or was not allowing UN inspectors in before Bush could invade. Bush did so sign and certify and proceeded to invade. But Bush and comapny have failed to find any substantial evidence of WMD or collaboration with Al Qaeda."

Bush actually said:

"Consistent with section 3(b) of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 (Public Law 107-243), and based on information available to me, including that in the enclosed document, I determine that:

(1) reliance by the United States on further diplomatic and other peaceful means alone will neither (A) adequately protect the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq nor (B) likely lead to enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq; and

(2) acting pursuant to the Constitution and Public Law 107-243 is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001."

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030319-1.html

The text of PL 107-243 is available here:

http://www.c-span.org/resources/pdf/hjres114.pdf

[James H]

What a lot of us seem to be forgetting in writing about such things is that Bush absolutely DID lie about Iraq, and he did so REPEATEDLY. There are many, many documented instances where he is on the record stating that he hopes that a peaceful solution to Iraq's WMDs can be found, that the decision to invade has not yet been made, etc, but we now have several documented accounts from people inside his administration who said he was determined to go to war no matter what, even as he said the exact opposite ...

[nckoalagal]

THE ADMINISTRATION CLAIMS WERE NOT "LARGELY CONSISTENT WITH U.S. INTELLIGENCE AT THE TIME," THEY WERE ONLY LARGELY CONSISTENT WITH WHAT JUDY MILLER (NYT) AND HER ILK WERE PUTTING OUT.

The DOD bible, telling which nations have what weapons, is the Military Critical Technologies List (MCTL). In the late 80s and early 90s, Iraq came up dry in this document.

Moreover:
War opponents and some Congressional Democrats have pointed to a statement Powell made on Feb. 24, 2001, while meeting at Cairo's Ittihadiya Palace with Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Moussa.
Asked about the sanctions placed on Iraq, which were then under review at the Security Council, Powell said the measures were working. In fact, he added, "(Saddam Hussein) has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors."
_____________
We also had Hans Blix and the IAEA telling us there was nothing there, but they were mocked and derided. (see article below)

Powell's battle cry fails test of time
Six months after his case swung opinion toward attacking Iraq, his intelligence file looks thin.
By Charles J. Hanley
Associated Press

Sunday 10 August 2003

One evening in February, in a stifling Baghdad conference room, Iraqi bureaucrats, European envoys and foreign reporters crowded before television screens to hear the reading of an indictment.

Half a world away, in the hushed U.N. Security Council chamber in New York, U.S. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell was unleashing an avalanche of allegations, speaking of "the gravity of the threat that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction pose to the world."

Powell marshaled what were described as intercepted Iraqi conversations, reconnaissance photos of sites, defectors' accounts, and other intelligence sources.

In the United States, his intelligence file swung opinion toward war.

But in Baghdad, when the satellite broadcast ended, Lt. Gen. Amer al-Saadi, science adviser to Saddam Hussein, appeared before the audience and dismissed the U.S. case as "stunts" aimed at swaying the uninformed.

How does Powell's Feb. 5 indictment look today? He has said several times since then that he stands by it, the State Department said last week. Here is an Associated Press review of major elements, based both on what was known in February and what has been learned since:

Satellite photos. Powell presented satellite photos of industrial buildings, bunkers and trucks, and suggested they showed Iraqis moving prohibited missiles and weapons to hide them. At two sites, he said trucks were "decontamination vehicles" associated with chemical weapons.

These and other sites had undergone 500 recent inspections. Chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix had said a day earlier that his experts found no contraband and no sign that items had been moved. Nothing has been reported found since.

Addressing the Security Council a week after Powell, Blix used one photo scenario as an example and said it could be showing routine as easily as illicit activity. Inspector Jorn Siljeholm told the Associated Press on March 19 that "decontamination vehicles" that U.N. teams were led to turned out to be water or fire trucks.

Audiotapes. Powell played three audiotapes of men speaking in Arabic of a "modified vehicle," "forbidden ammo," and "the expression 'nerve agents' " - said to be intercepts of Iraqi army officers discussing concealment.

Two of the brief, anonymous tapes, otherwise not authenticated, provided little context. It couldn't be known whether the vehicle, however "modified," was even banned. A listener could only speculate about the cryptic mention of nerve agents. The third tape seemed natural, an order to inspect scrap areas for "forbidden ammo." The Iraqis had just told inspectors they would search ammunition dumps for stray, empty chemical warheads left over from years earlier. They later turned over four.

Powell's rendering of that third conversation made it more incriminating by saying an officer ordered the area "cleared out." In fact, according to the official U.S. translation, the taped voice said only that the area be "inspected."

Anthrax. Powell noted that Iraq had said it produced 8,500 liters of the biological agent anthrax before 1991, but U.N. inspectors estimated it could have made up to 25,000 liters. None, he said, has been "verifiably accounted for."

No anthrax has been reported found. The Defense Intelligence Agency, in a recently disclosed confidential report, said last September that although it believed Iraq had biological weapons, it did not know their nature, amounts or condition. Three weeks before the invasion, an Iraqi report of scientific soil sampling supported its contention that it destroyed its anthrax at a known site, the U.N. inspection agency said May 30.

Bioweapons trailers. Powell said defectors told of "biological weapons factories" on trucks and in train cars. He displayed artists' conceptions of such vehicles.

After the invasion, U.S. authorities said they found two such truck trailers, and the CIA said it concluded they were part of a bioweapons production line. But they bore no trace of biological agents, Iraqis said the equipment made hydrogen for weather balloons, and State Department intelligence rejected the CIA's conclusion.

The trailers have not been submitted for U.N. verification. No "bioweapons railcars" have been reported found.

"Four tons" of VX. Powell said Iraq produced four tons of the nerve agent VX. "A single drop of VX on the skin will kill in minutes. Four tons," he said.

Powell did not note that most of that four tons was destroyed in the 1990s under U.N. supervision. Before the invasion, the Iraqis made a "considerable effort" to prove they had destroyed the rest, doing chemical analysis of the ground where inspectors confirmed VX had been dumped, the U.N. inspection agency reported May 30.

Experts at Britain's International Institute of Strategic Studies said any pre-1991 VX most likely would have degraded anyway. No VX has been reported found since the invasion.

"Embedded" capability. "We know that Iraq has embedded key portions of its illicit chemical weapons infrastructure within its legitimate civilian industry," Powell said.

No "chemical weapons infrastructure" has been reported found. The newly disclosed Defense Intelligence Agency report of last September said there was "no reliable information" on "where Iraq has - or will - establish its chemical warfare agent-production facilities."

Chemical agent. "Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has... between 100 and 500 tons of chemical-weapons agent," Powell said.

Powell gave no basis for the assertion, and no such agents have been reported found. An unclassified CIA report in October made a similar assertion without citing concrete evidence. The Defense Intelligence Agency reported confidentially last September that there "is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons."

Chemical warheads. Powell said 122-mm chemical warheads found by U.N. inspectors in January might be the "tip of an iceberg."

The warheads were empty, which Powell did not note. Blix said June 16 that the dozen stray rocket warheads, never uncrated, were apparently "debris from the past," the 1980s. No others have been reported found.

Deployed weapons. "Saddam Hussein has chemical weapons... . And we have sources who tell us that he recently has authorized his field commanders to use them," Powell said.

No such weapons were used and none was reported found after the United States and allied military units overran Iraqi field commands and ammunition dumps.

Nuclear program. "We have no indication that Saddam Hussein has ever abandoned his nuclear weapons program," Powell said.

Chief U.N. nuclear inspector Mohamed ElBaradei told the council two weeks before the invasion, "We have to date found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear-weapons program in Iraq." On July 24, Foreign Minister Ana Palacio of Spain, a U.S. ally on Iraq, said there were "no evidences, no proof" of a nuclear-bomb program before the war. No such evidence has been reported found since the invasion.

Scuds, new missiles. Powell said "intelligence sources" indicated Iraq had a secret force of up to a few dozen prohibited Scud-type missiles. He said it also had a program to build 600-mile-range missiles, and had roofed a test facility to block the view of spy satellites.

No Scud-type missiles have been reported found. In the 1990s, U.N. inspectors had reported accounting for all but two. No program for long-range missiles has been uncovered. Powell did not note that U.N. teams were repeatedly inspecting missile facilities, including looking under that roof, and reporting no violations.

[Bob]

I am tired of hearing the claims by Bush administration apologists that 'everyone believed that Saddam had WMD. I for one did not believe it although I thought that it was possible but more importantly many UN inspectorsdid not believe it. Scott Ritter states in his book, 'Iraq Confidential' that he and many other UN inspectors had come to the conclusion in 1992 that Saddam had unilaterally destroyed most of these weapons but that he and other UN inspectors were unable to convince the first Bush administration and our CIA that this was the case. The CIA kept insisting that the inspectors look elsewhere as they refused to accept all evidence to the contrary.

Even if many still believed that Saddam had these weapons or had produced additional quantities during the 1998 - 2002 period when UN inspectors were not in the country, the fact that a new round of inspections from Dec 2002 through Feb 2003 which uncovered no trace of proscibed weapons even though 'we know exactly where they are (Donald Rumsfeld)' should have caused many to doubt what they may have once believed. In any case, whatever the level of belief might have been for others, only one President and his administration was willing to take our country into war and invade another nation.

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Even if many still believed that Saddam had these weapons or had produced additional quantities during the 1998 - 2002 period when UN inspectors were not in the country, the fact that a new round of inspections from Dec 2002 through Feb 2003 which uncovered no trace of proscibed weapons even though 'we know exactly where they are (Donald Rumsfeld)' should have caused many to doubt what they may have once believed. In any case, whatever the level of belief might have been for others, only one President and his administration was willing to take our country into war and invade another nation.

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Even if many still believed that Saddam had these weapons or had produced additional quantities during the 1998 - 2002 period when UN inspectors were not in the country, the fact that a new round of inspections from Dec 2002 through Feb 2003 which uncovered no trace of proscibed weapons even though 'we know exactly where they are (Donald Rumsfeld)' should have caused many to doubt what they may have once believed. In any case, whatever the level of belief might have been for others, only one President and his administration was willing to take our country into war and invade another nation.