A friend had sent me a few lame articles, that were going on, and on, about this whole series of fiasco’s, all from a position of ignorance mixed with liberal amounts of bias. It’s been so long, and so convoluted, that I think people forget what the original issues are that are being argued about, or why. So here’s what’s really gone on with Valarie Plain, Joe Wilson, Scooter Libby, declassifying documents, and WMD “scandal” that never ends. This is a fact heavy point of view, which I wouldn’t say “supports the administration” as much as it just discredits the Bush-bashers and the Press for the embarrassments they failed to concisely cover.
In late 2002, the administration was soliciting support for a policy of military force to Saddam to comply with U.N. regulations once and for all, or else. And in his January 2003 State of the Union address, President George W. Bush had this rather long speech that discussed national security, 9/11, many rationale’s for attacking terrorism and ultimately going after terror-sponsoring nations like Iraq. It discussed how North Korea had lied to people and broken treaties to get the bomb, and how we must make sure that doesn’t happen again (like Saddam). How Saddam had agreed to disarm and prove that he had, yet had failed to do so (and various broken U.N. resolutions). How he had shot at our planes to eliminate fly-over monitoring, interfered with inspections, failed to live up to the terms that ended the gulf war, and how 12 years of U.N. and U.S. efforts had failed. It talked about the anthrax and botulinum toxin, sarin, mustard, and VX nerve agents, that the U.N. said Saddam had (and he hadn’t accounted for). How we had found illegal munitions used to deploy such agents. About three separate Iraqi defectors that discussed mobile biological weapons labs. About the IAEA’s views on Saddam’s advanced nuclear weapons development program. About him trying to purchase high strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production. And Bush included the following 16 words, “The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa”. And then went on to discuss how Saddam had used WMD’s in the past, and the policies of his regime (including descriptions of the torture), and of the build up in the middle east, and an ultimatum to Saddam, that he was either going to comply with the U.N. resolutions, or else. Basically that we seek peace, but U.N. laws must be followed, and because Saddam’s words and actions have successfully convinced us that he is our enemy and a threat to our nation, that we will act accordingly; he either comply with the resolutions or suffer the consequences.
You can read the entire speech transcript here: http://www.c-span.org/executive/transcript.asp?cat=current_event&code=bush_admin&year=2003
Out of all that, and few anti-Bush-Administration fanatics locked on to those 16 words, and ignored the rest. They claim that the only rationale for war was the WMD’s, which is not even close to true (Bush mentioned dozens of other reasons as well). Then they claimed that the only rationale for WMD’s was the British Intelligence report (also not true, that was a small factoid among dozens disclosed and hundreds not cited). But they made that into the story, and ignored the rest of the State of the Union, U.N. reports, other Intelligence Agencies views, all the laws Saddam was violating, and so on. They focused on that one statement as proof of bias and distortion by Bush for his agenda, and attacked. And that’s what this has all been about. This is the basis of the whole, “he lied about WMD’s” stuff.
First it wasn’t just the British. The British, American, French, Italian, and other intelligence agencies all had some evidence (mostly circumstantial and hearsay) that Iraq / Saddam had been negotiating to buy yellowcake (unprocessed Uranium-ore) from Niger. Much more when you figure in all the other WMD and terrorists sponsoring stuff. They all agreed that Saddam was seeking WMD’s, and the Uranium, but for different reasons and sources. The Italians had these documents that proved it, those later turned out to be forged, and people made a stink, “see, it was all based on a forgery”. However, as far as the Brits and Americans were concerned, those were were not considered trustworthy as of early 2002, so was not what was referred to in the 2003 State of the Union, and there’s never been any evidence that those documents were why the U.S. or British believed Saddam had tried to get the Uranium, that was only the Italians and French(?) supporting evidence. That whole mess had nothing to do with the U.S. or Brits view of the event, as it had long before been discounted. Those that brought this up, were either ignorant of the facts, or intentionally obfuscating the issue for an agenda. But the Press bought in, spun it, and the public was confused. So when you hear about the forgery scandal, see it for what it was; a scam by the anti-Bush / anti-Blair crowd to try to smear the administrations for their own agenda.
One of those smear merchants was Joseph C. Wilson (Valarie Plame’s wife), who wrote a critical op-ed in The New York Times in which he explained the nature of the documents and the government’s prior knowledge of their unreliability for use in a case for war, then implied this was why we’d gone to war. This was erroneous. The U.S. had not based the war on the falsified Italian documents, they’d based in on our own intelligence as well as the Brits. The British later had the Butler Report that did an investigation and concluded that the British intelligence was right, Saddam had sought the Uranium, and this had NOT been based on the forged documents. The U.S. had similar investigations (Senate, FBI, etc.), that all came to the same conclusions, and agreed that Wilson was wrong. Multiple people have come forward from Iraq or Niger that admit this had gone on. And in 2004, The Financial Times did a full report that concluded the same thing as everyone else; multiple European intelligence services were independently aware of possible illicit trade in uranium from Niger between 1999 and 2001 (which was not based on the forged Italian papers). Ours and British intelligence and the President was right on this issue, Joe Wilson was wrong, and either incompetent, or a liar. People forget that this whole mess was because Wilson’s statements were lies or errors to begin with. If you remember anything, it should be that Wilson was wrong, as was anyone that supported or restate this whole claim.
Another dispute in the mess, was whether with all the controls in place, if the Uranium could ever have gotten out. The New York Times revealed that memo, as some big side proof; that the U.S. knew Saddam couldn’t have got the Uranium so didn’t have WMD’s; which totally missed the point. First, this memo had been disputed by Secretary of State and Defense Intelligence as having too many holes and assumptions. But more importantly, the President had made the point that Iraq had tried to get the yellowcake; not that he actually got it. The facts are that Saddam was seeking Uranium, not whether he was able to get it. And what do you think he was planning on using that for when he didn’t have a reactor? This completely validated the Presidents point, that Saddam was seeking nuclear materials, whether he got them or not. Another psuedo-story was that the French had warned the U.S. that while it was likely that there was an attempted trade, the allegation was not yet supported with enough evidence. But that isn’t really the point either; Bush only said that the Brits believed it had happened, not that it was provable in a court of law. This side-issue was used as another distraction and diversion by the anti-U.S. crowd used to confuse the masses, and the Press played in, and the ignorant public bought it. Bush was bad (in their minds) for telling the truth about Saddam and what the world intelligence believed.
The Bush and Blair Administrations were taking serious heat because of that article (Wilson’s) and other erroneous articles about that issue at the time. Something had to be done to counter the spin and lies of the left. Bush had to declassify some parts of various documents, and let the truth free in the wild, to counter-balance the disinformation campaign against the U.S. (and Britain’s) national interests. It was futile; whatever they didn’t declassify was seen as part of the conspiracy and hiding the truth, and whatever they did declassify was also later used to attack them as leaking for political reasons. But they had to show the report which we’d based our assumptions on, to prove Wilson was wrong and why they’d believed what they had in the first place. Even if there was information that contradict it, which wasn’t declassified, it doesn’t change the facts as to why they believed what they did. However, declassifying documents to show supporting evidence for our decisions, was also used to attack the President. This started a new “scandal” from the left, that’s still going on today; who gave Bush the power to do what all Presidents before him have done, and declassify documents? And again, the Press forgot to point out that this mess was because Wilson and the anti-Bush league were selling lies, and the administration had to counter that with the truth. The Press has been very good about reporting the scandals without the context; so people hear of another scandal without knowing what or why or how — and that it was all based on the same false premises that either the U.S. lied, or that Wilson and the Press was telling the truth, when it wasn’t and was proven wrong!
Shortly after Wilson’s op-ed, in a column by Robert Novak, the identity of Wilson’s wife was revealed (undercover CIA analyst Valerie Plame). The “Plame affair” or “CIA leak scandal” ensued as a result of the unauthorized disclosure of her identity. This became another spun scandal by the anti-Bush left; “The Administration leaked the name to get back at Wilson for his honest Whistle-Blowing”. Later we learned that Novak had the name and just asked Scooter Libby something along the lines of, “I heard Wilson’s wife is in the CIA, and that’s how he got to go to Niger in the first place”, and Libby said that’s what he’d heard too. Since they didn’t know she was an agent, let alone an active covert agent, this was not a crime. For it to be a crime, Scooter needed to know she was an active CIA covert agent, which there’s never been any proof of. And Scooter didn’t leak the information, since he was asked by Novak about it, he just made the mistake of confirming it. Not to mention that Wilson is the one that called attention to himself and his wife in the first place. What Libby is getting prosecuted for, is because he lied about confirming the source, so they’re getting him on perjury, over something that wasn’t a crime to begin with. But he did make either a careless mistake, or intentional leak.
Of course then we get back to the point, which is if you’re a covert agent, you probably shouldn’t use your pull to get your husband onto a public investigation, and have him co-write stories for the New York Times (and books) which bash the current administration, at least not if you care about anonymity. So it was bad that her name was leaked, but ultimately she should be fired for incompetence and bad judgement in everything to do with Niger and her husband, and has far more culpability in bad judgement than anyone in the administration. Not to mention that the Press fails to bring home the message that Wilson’s claims were all proven wrong. Again, the bigger scandal isn’t what the administration did, but what the anti-Bush people did, and the mental gymnastics since then; but the Press has failed to call out those points.
Lastly, there was this supposed leaked document in the U.K., the Downing Street Memo. Supposedly, someone got a photocopy, which they retyped and destroyed the original, following the foundations of the Mormon religion, and then released it. The scandal is that supposedly the U.S. wasn’t just mistaken in thinking Saddam had WMD’s, but that America was intentionally spinning the WMD Intelligence to fit our ends of regime change in Iraq. Gosh, just like Churchill and FDR did in WWII, and all Presidents have done for every war since the Revolutionary War. Who would have thunk? The biggest support for this is one line which said, “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy [of WMD’s]”. The English impaired have chosen to ignore the authors intended context where “fixed around” means, “focused around” or “in regards to”, as he used in the same way in other things he’d written, and instead assume it meant “with the outcome dishonestly predetermined” — fitting the words to their agenda, instead of the authors intent. That gives amazing powers of influence to the U.S., as much of the evidence and support for the U.S. position came from evidence supplied by the U.N., the U.K., Italy, France, Germany, Iraq, Iraqi defectors, and so on. A conspiracy to control all that would of course be impossible, but that didn’t stop the British press from making mountains out of wild conspiracy theories and bad english. In the end, they concluded it was all crap; but people remember the conspiracy and not the conclusion. Especially if the Press only stresses the former.
Conclusion
The 2003 State of the Union said that Saddam was a threat, he’d failed to comply with the U.N. or previous agreements, was threatening us, and much of the world felt he both had WMD’s and was seeking more. That’s the “duh!” that should be heard around the world. Instead of accepting the truth as truth, we’ve had the Bush-bashers systematically attacking the administration for pointing out the obvious, and then they’re playing english parsing like a bunch of lawyers fighting over a soccer game they lost. Each of the arguments used are only valid to the weak-minded and have been proved false. Look at the score:
1) The President lied because the Brits were wrong — we weren’t, they weren’t.
2) The Brits/US is wrong because the info was based on the forged Italian documents — they weren’t.
3) The State of the Union was wrong, because of 16 words — the gross majority was correct, even if that one section wasn’t (but it too was accurate). The administration said it should have been left out, just because of the controversy is caused, but not because of the accuracy.
4) Joseph Wilson was right when he said Iraq hadn’t sought/got Uranium from Niger — but they had!
5) The President shouldn’t have declassified the documents and exposed the truth — but he was right to.
6) The Press/Left was clear, unbiased and correct in what they’ve said/done — most of the scandals weren’t real and proven wrong, most of the public is grossly misinformed, and the truth has been lost in the anti-Bush agendas.
7) The President/Administration was at fault for leaking Valarie Plame’s name, knowing she was a covert CIA agent — but they didn’t know, and they weren’t the source of that leak.
8) Wilson/Plame wasn’t an idiot for making a public figure out of the husband of a covert agent — but they were!
9) The Downing Street Memo mattered — it didn’t, it was irrelevant and never supported anything of historical significance anyways. At worst, it would have proved Bush was as bad as Kennedy, FDR, Lincoln, the Founding Fathers, and so on.
10) Any of this really proves the U.S. or Bush did anything wrong — it doesn’t.
I’m not a huge fan of the Republicans/Conservatives/Right-wing… that is unless you contrast them with how the Democrats/Liberals/Left-wing and Press have acted. The anti-Bush crowd has been so vapid, shallow and so incredibly wrong as to be an embarrassment to anyone with a clue on logic, reasoning or critical thinking. Which is sad, because there are many better points to be made, and real debate that should go on — but hasn’t because of this crap. And now won’t because they wasted all credibility on these non-issues, so have no political capital or credibility left for the real ones. I’d have rather had a real debate on when and under what circumstances preemptive war is justified, or real debate on when you should take out a murderous tyrant like Saddam. But that would probably conclude with support of the President on a philosophical level, so the anti-Bush crowd has focused on this crap instead.
Don’t get me wrong, you can be against the war, or Bush, or the way the administration has handled things. But using the crap mentioned above as support, would only prove that you don’t know what real support is. Is it really a crime for the President to state what our intelligence and the world’s intelligence believes? Do we really want to set that as the metric for all future Presidents (including Democrats)? Do you think parsing a State of the Union address, or leaked maybe authentic memo, to argue over the pedantics of the English language is valuable political debate or something we should waste our time with? Do you really think the President should ignore the world’s intelligence, including anti-U.S. institutions like the U.N. and France, and we should ignore all laws/sanctions and that terrorists sponsoring nations are trying to get WMD’s? Do you really think the President shouldn’t combat ignorance and lies with the truth (and declassify the real reports, instead of letting idiots misquote it)?
In the issues above, the anti-Bush crowd has proven themselves to be clueless liars that gets glorified by the media for it. But we should hold the media and those people to a higher standard. You can either value the truth of the event and support the administration (in these issues), or believe the hive-minded, politically-correct, fascists that have wasted our time on 5+ years of smear, all while offering no alternatives other than blind criticism — and ignoring the consequences of what their alternatives would have meant. Hopefully, time and distance will allow the masses to educate themselves, and more of them will align with truth and reason, over lies and the Bush-bashers views of current events. Because I don’t want to live in the left’s goose-stepping utopia of intellectual crystal-nacht; where facts don’t matter, and the truth is just fodder for the latest scandal mongers.
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http://www.factcheck.org/article222.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminum_tubes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowcake_Forgery
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downing_Street_memo
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