QandO

February 03, 2004

The intelligence inquiry...
Posted by Jon Henke

I said I'd discuss the downsides to an intelligence inquiry in due time...and this seems as good a time as any.

First, the reasons we DO need an inquiry. The administration order...

"...directs the panel to compare intelligence findings about Iraq produced before the war with the paucity of stockpiles and weapons found by American inspection teams on the ground in Iraq."

So, will that be done? Will we analyze the facts first? Well, not necessarily. Blame-storming: full speed ahead.

Josh Marshall...

"...will it look at the administration's use of intelligence, and at the White House, the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Office of the Vice President?"

By the way, will that investigation include the Clinton administration's use of the same intelligence data and conclusions to justify a 1998 attack on Iraq?

I mean, since we're being honest and everything.

Matt Yglesias...

God -- the spin machine really is good. Suddenly over the past 48 hours every single figure on the right seems to have come to a unanimous decision that the CIA and the CIA alone is wholly to blame for the intelligence mishaps. But then why did Dick Cheney need to create an entire parallel intelligence apparatus under Doug Feith dedicated exclusively to explaining why the CIA was underestimating Iraq's WMD capacity?

CalPundit...

The hell of it is that Republicans might very well get away with blaming the CIA. After all, the CIA did screw up. They really did report that Iraq probably had both WMD stocks and active programs.

But probably wasn't good enough, and Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld quite clearly ran roughshod over the career analysts in order to provide ironclad assurances that all this stuff existed.

Just keep moving that line, Kevin, and you can shift the debate. Forget finding out why the CIA reached their conclusions...let's skip straight to blaming the people who made use of that intel data. Score!

Pandagon....

"It is imperative that the American people remain unaware of whether or not their President led them into war based on false or exaggerated claims. Such knowledge would allow for an accurate judgment of his capabilities as Commander-in-Chief and could lead to a referendum based upon his whole record and not just our upcoming trip to Mars. So for the good of our polity, the Commission's findings will not be revealed until after Americans reelect the President."

Of course, his blamestorm does not seem to include the Clinton administration...which made the same claims. Just an oversight, of course.

This is exactly why any investigation is necessarily dangerous. Not that we may find the truth, but that the investigation will become a political circus. (reference: Whitewater>>>Monica Lewinsky)

Obviously, we need to figure out what the facts are. I'll stand right there with these guys (and McQ, earlier) demanding an investigation of our intelligence methods and findings. But that comes first, and independent of the separate investigation on whether the administration oversold the intelligence we had.

Imagine an inquiry into the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster which focused on pinning blame on administrators.....before it determined what went wrong with the Space Shuttle.

Colin Powell has listed the relevant questions right now....

"how many stocks they had, if any? And if they had any, where did they go? And if they didn't have any, then why wasn't that known beforehand?"

UPDATE: Jesse from Pandagon comments....

Sigh. I was going to correct you all, but this boils down to, "Clinton Clinton Clinton. If you blame Bush because he invaded another country, what about Clinton because he didn't? Liberals hate America because they're holding the Commander-in-Chief responsible for the war he got us into. Traitors."

Let me know when you get through the Coulter/Horowitz section of the syllabus and start aping partisan rhetoric that's less hyperbolically wrong, m'kay?

In fact, your entire response is ad hominem dodging. My "Clinton" assertion was perfectly legitimate since BOTH administrations used the same language, the same intel data and the same justifications. The difference between the attacks is one of DEGREE, not of nature.

And I supported - and still support - Clintons actions in 1998. So please take your claims of "Clinton bashing" elsewhere. They don't hold water here, m'kay.

The rest of your response was a strawman, entirely. Did I call liberals traitors? Don't be an idiot. Of course I didn't. Note that I compared their motives to the Republicans in the late 90s. If I was calling liberals "traitors", then I was calling Republicans "traitors", too.

And that just wouldn't sit well with your "aping partisan rhetoric" claim, would it?

You're a smart guy. Act like it.

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