The White House Counter Attack begins Posted by: McQ
on Friday, November 11, 2005
Having been called upon for weeks to "hit back" and to counter the spin the Democrats are trying to lay on prewar intelligence and the administration, it appears the much desired, and anticipated, counter attack is beginning:
Bristling from fresh assaults on its justification for war, the White House dispatched national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley to the briefing room to issue a rebuttal to "the notion that somehow the administration manipulated prewar intelligence about Iraq." The administration's judgment on the threat posed by Iraq, he said, "represented the collective view of the intelligence community" and was "shared by Republicans and Democrats alike."
"Some of the critics today," Hadley added, "believed themselves in 2002 that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, they stated that belief, and they voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq because they believed Saddam Hussein posed a dangerous threat to the American people. For those critics to ignore their own past statements exposes the hollowness of their current attacks."
Ok, that's fairly blunt. But called for in light of what's been said on the other side about "manipulation" and "manufactured" intelligence by the likes of Harry Reid and others. No sense it trying to be dignified and using courtly speech anymore ... the gloves have long been off.
To the WaPo's credit, they include this paragraph in the story:
Successive investigations have documented the failure of U.S. intelligence agencies to correctly judge Iraq's chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs before the war, including a commission appointed by Bush that concluded that the intelligence was "dead wrong." The government relied on lying sources, fragmentary information and unwarranted analysis, the commission found, resulting in one of the "most damaging intelligence failures in American history."
That's mostly how I remember it. That's not to say there wasn't a propensity to believe the worst or to tend toward including questionable intelligence that supported war because it so well meshed with the preponderance of other evidence which we now know was wrong. But at the time it wasn't known to be wrong, which provides context to the acceptance of other intelligence we now know was wrong.
Democrats immediately took issue with Hadley's account. Within minutes of his briefing, the Senate Democratic caucus issued a statement saying the responsibility did not fall on lawmakers who voted to authorize use of force: "Some critics of how the administration misused intelligence did believe that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. What these critics object to is the hyping of the intelligence by the Bush administration."
Well, again, it's only hyping if you know the intelligence is wrong or weak. While some suspected as much, most arguably didn't. So it is difficult to make the argument that the intelligence was hyped. Obviously the administration tried to put the best face on its policy decision based on available intelligence. The fact that the intelligence was wrong doesn't then mean it was hyped.
In a separate statement earlier in the day, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) recounted the various urgent warnings about supposed Iraqi weapons delivered by Bush and his advisers in the months leading up to the March 2003 invasion—warnings that all proved overstated if not flatly wrong.
"In his march to war, President Bush exaggerated the threat to the American people," Kennedy said. "It was not subtle. It was not nuanced. It was pure, unadulterated fear-mongering, based on a devious strategy to convince the American people that Saddam's ability to provide nuclear weapons to al Qaeda justified immediate war."
Of course it would have been no such thing had we rolled in and found stockpiles of WMDs. So again, in the context under which the policy decision was made, it was hardly fear-mongering. Kennedy, like so many on the left, applies today's knowledge on yesterday's policy decision in order to tar its underpinning intelligence as 'fear-mongering'. It is a context free charge.
But this is really old news:
Hadley yesterday offered no direct critique of the prewar intelligence and instead said that at the time it was compelling evidence that also convinced the Clinton administration and other governments.
"The intelligence was clear in terms of the weapons of mass destruction," Hadley said, citing a National Intelligence Estimate provided to Bush. "The case that was brought to him, in terms of the NIE, and parts of which have been made public, was a very strong case."
Hadley noted that the presidential commission, led by retired judge Laurence H. Silberman and former senator Charles S. Robb (D-Va.), said it found no evidence that administration officials manipulated intelligence. But the panel was not allowed to examine how policymakers used the information.
And not only did Robb-Silberman find no evidence of "manipulated" or "manufactured" intelligence, neither did the Senate Intelligence Committee or the Butler Report.
But we all know that ... those of us who follow this stuff anyway. However, the collective American public hardly pays attention to this and so one can only presume that is what the Democrats are banking on as they raise again what most of those who've kept up with all of this thought was a settled point.
The question is will this end up being a smart move on their part or will it round on them and bite them in their ascot?
UPDATE:President Bush has also joined the counter-attack:
"While it's perfectly legitimate to criticize my decision or the conduct of the war, it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began," the president said.
Make no mistake, that's precisely the endeavor undertaken by the Democrats. A complete rewrite in order to give them the room to reject and distance themselves from the war by claiming they were lied too.
Of course "UberVet" had to get his two-cents into the mix:
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who ran unsuccessfully against Bush last year, quickly challenged the president's charges.
"I wish President Bush knew better than to dishonor America's veterans by playing the politics of fear and smear on Veterans Day," said Kerry, who voted in 2002 to give Bush the authority to wage war but later voted against additional funds for Iraq and Afghanistan reconstruction. Kerry argued at the time that Bush didn't have a solid plan to restore peace.
Fear and smear? Interesting words coming from Kerry and the Democrats.
Who's claiming who lied, manufactured and manipulated intelligence and led us into a war on that basis?
I see the strategy. Liberals will cheer that ChimpBush has given the story legs and they will hail each new Kennedy [DNC] statement. All of the poor reasoning, wrong conclusions and outright lies that have been passed around among the liberals on this issue will be recycled in the MSM and on the internet in a much more organized way. In the meantime, the brighter half of the electorate will be actually listening to the pronouncements from the White House, actually reading the talking points that will be offered up and critically thinking about them. When it comes time to pull the lever it will be “Sorry, Charley!” again for the lefties. They will, of course, be in shock again, because, like Captain Queeg, they will have proven with mathematical precision that the mess boys stole the strawb…No, I mean that the Bushies mis-sold the war.
Long overdue. But it is what needs to be done, again and again, and again. Util the MSM/DNC stops lieing. Every time the MSM/DNC lies it needs to be *forcefully* countered. His silence of the last several months led a lot of middle of the roaders to think he did in fact lie and twist the facts 3 years ago. *Every* MSM/DNC lie needs to be set straight. It is a lot of work but if he is afraid to work why did he want the job? who ever said being President was easy?
Bush is right—we should criticize his desisions. Other presidents—Kenedy, Eshenhower, etc.—viewed war mongering hype for the CIA and war hawks with skepticism. Bush is intellectually lazy, preferring to swallow whole the paranoid fantasies of his "loyal" advisors (Cheney, Rummy, etc.). Americans are too lazy to care.
When I saw the words "manufactured and manipulated intelligence" come out of Senator Reid’s mouth the other day, I thought .. your could make a case, a weak case, that the intelligence was manipulated by highlighting those portions that best made the case. Some might just call this brevity. But I thought that it was most curious for a US Senator of senior standing to use the word "manufactured."
So far Senator Reid has offered no proof of "manufactured intelligence." I think it is incumbent upon Senator Reid to offer evidence to this claim .. or slink away like just another 2 cent politician.
"Some of the critics today," Hadley added, "believed themselves in 2002 that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, they stated that belief, and they voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq because they believed Saddam Hussein posed a dangerous threat to the American people. For those critics to ignore their own past statements exposes the hollowness of their current attacks."
What makes you so sure that this won’t work? If now, the majority of people believe that the administration deliberately misled us into war, then why couldn’t a “we voted for it because we were misled into voting for it” work?
You can’t rightly claim that their vote wasn’t under false pretenses. Just as the American people rightly claim that their support wasn’t under false pretenses. (And I know, McQ, you’re all about majority rule.) No matter what other administrations or governments said.
Just as with computers, you can’t put in wrong information and expect to receive the right results. (Dale?)
If now, the majority of people believe that the administration deliberately misled us into war, then why couldn’t a “we voted for it because we were misled into voting for it” work?
That’s precisely what the Democrats are counting on ... that they now have sentiment enough on their side (something they didn’t have when they first trotted Joe Wilson out and tried this originally), to make fiction into fact.
It’s why I said this:
However, the collective American public hardly pays attention to this and so one can only presume that is what the Democrats are banking on as they raise again what most of those who’ve kept up with all of this thought was a settled point.
They’re banking of the now reported (and polled) majority belief to carry the lie. IOW, since the majority are now inclined, for whatever reason, to believe Bush lied, they’re hoping they’ll also be more inclined to accept and believe their rewriting of history to support the lie belief.
You can’t rightly claim that their vote wasn’t under false pretenses.
Well of course I can ... unless you’re into completely dropping the context in which the vote was made, which btw, seems to be the Dems favorite ploy now. Context? What’s that?!
All of them believed what the intel available said. Had for years. It was the same intel every other country had and believed. The fact that it was false was discovered later, so at the time it was presented, it wasn’t under "false pretenses" unless you can do what none of the commissions have been able to do: prove the intel was manipulated and manufactured in order to paint the picture it painted.
Just as with computers, you can’t put in wrong information and expect to receive the right results.
That’s right Pogue, but that also doesn’t mean that when you get the original data you can’t believe it be correct until proven wrong at a later date either. Unless you knew the origninal data was wrong. This isn’t about the data being wrong ... we all know it was. This is about the data being purposely manipulated and manufactured. That is the Democrat charge.
So the fundamental position of the Democrat party is that they’re a bunch of idiots who were so gullible as to fall so hard for lies peddled by ChimpyMcBushHalliburtonHitler that they voted for a sham war?
So far Senator Reid has offered no proof of "manufactured intelligence." I think it is incumbent upon Senator Reid to offer evidence to this claim .. or slink away like just another 2 cent politician.
As someone else pointed out just making the charges anymore is "mission accomplished".
The charges get trumpeted on page one above the fold.
The rebuttal and disproving of the charges somehow only seem to see light on page 18A between the bra and viagra ads.
To most of America, then, who never read below the headlines and rarely make it to page 18, the charges end up constituting "truth" (as in "say wasn’t he the guy charged with ....").
After weeks of the left pushing all it has on stories it’s already lost on, (And broing the crap out of everybody) Bush now gets to be seen as bringing a quiet dose of reality to the situation... and having more or less an unfettered shot at the public in the doing.... The amount of wait was uncomfortable, but it’s not without it’s tactical advantages.
Was the delay the best action? I dunno. Will it be enough? We’ll see. But you’ve got to admire the logic.
“Suggestions that the administration led us into war are “baseless attacks” from “some Democrats.” "It is deepy irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war [to liberate Iraq] began." “The stakes are too high...for politicians to throw out false charges.” “Whatever our political differences...the troops deserve to know we stand behind them...and that our nation is united”.
So, if I understand what the President is saying; the false charges are harming our war effort and aiding the enemy. Let me be the first:
basicaly none of this is important. If we succeed in establishing a pluralistic state in Iraq, and if it causes changes to neighboring states, then Bush and Blair will be hailed as visionary leaders. If it all goes south they will be seen as nitwits. Nothing anyone can do or say will change these outcomes.
This entire argument is still based on a false premise. That being that the case for the war was entirely based on Saddam possessing stockpiles of WMD. I have debated this issue on this blog before, but the fact still stands that the WMD threat posed by Saddam was real regardless of the size of his stockpile or, as it turned out, his lack thereof. On June 29, 2003, Rolf Ekeus wrote an op-ed piece in the Washington Post explaining that "This combination of researchers, engineers, know-how, precursors, batch production techniques and testing is what constituted Iraq’s chemical threat—its chemical weapon. The rather bizarre political focus on the search for rusting drums and pieces of munitions containing low-quality chemicals has tended to distort the important question of WMD in Iraq and exposed the American and British administrations to unjustified criticism..." In 2003, after several months of unsuccessfully searching for WMD stockpiles, David Kay testified to Congress as follows: ``We have discovered dozens of WMD-related program activities, and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in late 2002’’ Now we see people like Kevin Drum beginning to concede that the entire world thought that Saddam possesed WMD. Isn’t it funny how this liberal fantasy argument is panning out in exactly the same way that they have accused the Bush Administration of justifying the war. The lefties have cited sources (Joe Wilson) who we now know wern’t credible, evidence has slowly leaked out over time from invetigation after investigation that no one was pressured to lie about the intelligence etc.) and yet they are still trying to sell their case for war against Bush.
I have asked this question before, and I have not seen anyone answer it. How many underground 400,000 sq ft bunkers are there in Iraq? Then there is this question. What was in those trucks headed toward Syria seen in satellite photos?
“Fear and smear? Interesting words coming from Kerry and the Democrats. Who’s claiming who lied, manufactured and manipulated intelligence and led us into a war on that basis?”
You know, I am very sympathetic to your post. Yes, the Democrats sound like they put political gain above what is good for America. They may have crossed the line. Well, they have to do something and their initial steps may be awkward. They must find a voice that will capture moderate votes. Otherwise, the Republicans are free to pursue the policies that we complain of with no fear that they will be out on their ear. I just saw Tim on “Meet The Press” repeat what he must know is a lie [if you were watching and have had any contact outside the liberal cocoon, you saw and heard it too] about what Bush said about the purchase of materials in Africa. Oddly, [not really] he used exactly the same practiced words that other Democrats have used on this exact subject. Yes, the truth is available from sources other than the MSM. And there will always be spin. However, repeating lies that have been proven to be lies; lies that contradict and misquote statements that are available in transcripts and live video, should one care to verify them, is detestable and whoever is in charge of allowing this to continue by the Democrats ought to speak out against it. Whatever the current issues are, it upsets me that Democrats [like Tim] are willing, even if they are journalists, to peddle lies for political gain. Howard Dean is on right now declaring that the “Democrats tell the truth” over and over. Methinks that he doth protest too much. That is the biggest lie of all right now. Yes, the base eats it up and writes checks. How in the hell is a policy of lying going to get moderate votes? Yes, the Republicans claiming that the investigative groups have absolved the Bush administration are spin as well. They are not the absolute lies that the Democrats are trying to sell. There is a difference and all thinking people [otherwise know as Independents, Moderates, Swing Voters, etc. ] can see it. If the Democrats don’t clean up their act, America is in trouble.
"If the Democrats don’t clean up their act, America is in trouble."
No, the Democrats are in trouble. No party is indispensable, and the dissolution of the Democrats may well lead to a dissolution of the Republicans.
There is a liberty dividend in the offing with the end of the Dems, it should be pursued, we don’t need them healthy we need them gone.
It’s like those dams in New England they thought might burst. If the lower dam broke, the loss of pressure on the base of the front of the upstream dam might make it fail in chain reaction. The Dems are the lower dam, bust them first, and the Republicans are then more vulnerable.
If we want to be vigilant in countering the lies, let’s look at the first new lie manufactured and spread in the MSS in response to Bush’s vet day address. Put generally, "President Attacks War Critics"
It’s obvious to all of us here that the president was being critical only of those who rewrite history for political gain. Not all critics do that, but there are plenty who do.
For the large number of Americans who rely on headlines for their news, this will be what they take away from the address.
Russert lying is not the big story. The big story is that lefties don’t care! So long as the lie supports the liberal agenda, they have no objection to it. I wondered what the liberal cocoon would have to say when confronted with documented evidence of Tim’s lies. So I made a [I thought reasonable] comment that Tim had lied, included the link to the transcript, and awaited the response. One [moonbat] responded, calling me a wingnut and claiming that Tim "mis-spoke" is all; in total denial. Total silence from the other, normally loquacious commenters. How in hell such a three monkeys attitude is going to attract voters to their cause - other than those in the cocooned base -is beyond me.
