Marketing The War

[97silverlsc]

November 9, 2005
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_11/007530.php
MARKETING THE WAR....Ah. I see that Norman Podhoretz has an essay in Commentary purporting to show that George Bush didn't lie about Iraqi WMD before the war. His basic case is that lots of people — including some liberals — believed that Iraq had WMD, so obviously the president did nothing wrong.

Fair enough. Lots of people did believe that Iraq had WMD before the war. The problem Podhoretz doesn't bother wrestling with, however, is that after the war concluded we discovered that there were also a fair number of people who had been skeptical about Iraqi WMD. INR, for example, thought the African uranium was bogus. DIA thought our prime witness for Iraqi-al-Qaeda WMD collaboration was lying. The Air Force found the evidence on drones to be laughable. DOE didn't believe in the aluminum tubes. None of these dissents was acknowledged by the Bush administration.

Nor does Podhoretz apply himself to the entire period before the war. He stops his investigation at the end of 2002. But that's not when we went to war. We went to war in March 2003, and by that time UN inspectors had been combing Iraq for months with the help of U.S. intelligence. They found nothing, and an increasing chorus of informed minds was starting to wonder if perhaps there was nothing there. In response, President Bush and his supporters merely amped up their certainty that Saddam was hiding something.

And of course there's the nukes. As Podhoretz surely knows, the evidence for an Iraqi nuclear program was always weak, and once the inspections started the evidence rapidly fell to zero. That kind of thing is just too hard to hide. The warnings of mushroom clouds, however, continued unabated.

Unless you think that going to war is no more serious than planning a marketing campaign for a new brand of toothpaste, all of this contrary evidence should have been publicized and acknowledged along with all the evidence that went in the other direction. It wasn't. Given this, the fact that so many people believed that Saddam had an active WMD program simply doesn't perform the analytic heavy lifting that Podhoretz thinks it does.

In any case, if it's really true that the Bush administration did nothing to spin, exaggerate, or lie about WMD before the war, why are war supporters so relentlessly trying to suppress any congressional investigation into this? You'd think they'd welcome it instead. For a bunch of innocent bystanders, they sure are acting awfully guilty.

 

[Calabrio]

for example, thought the African uranium was bogus.

Not true. There is absolutely evidence that the Iraqi's were attempted to purchase yellow cake uranium from Niger. The British also stand behind this evidence. Even Joe Wilson recognizes this. They never obtained it from Niger, but they did attempt.

DIA thought our prime witness for Iraqi-al-Qaeda WMD collaboration was lying. The Air Force found the evidence on drones to be laughable

This is a lie. They didn't find it to be "laughable." The U.N. was well aware of attempts to develop drones. They build some MiG-21 drones as well as a few others. The Duelfer report confirmed this, but simply noted that progress hadn't advanced any farther than the UN was already aware.

DOE didn't believe in the aluminum tubes.

There is still debate within intelligence communities as to what these tubes could be used for. Either rockets or centerfuge. And Iraq certainly had been buying.

None of these dissents was acknowledged by the Bush administration.

Yes they were. They were all included in the Duelfer Report, and all subsequent reports that have come out since the invasion.

Nor does Podhoretz apply himself to the entire period before the war. He stops his investigation at the end of 2002. But that's not when we went to war. We went to war in March 2003, and by that time UN inspectors had been combing Iraq for months with the help of U.S. intelligence. They found nothing, and an increasing chorus of informed minds was starting to wonder if perhaps there was nothing there. In response, President Bush and his supporters merely amped up their certainty that Saddam was hiding something.

U.N. inspectors never had full access to the country. The inspections were a joke. The inspectors hotel rooms were bugged. Hussein refused to give the inspectors full access to the country. Not to mention the six month build up on the border the U.S. did attempting to convince the corrupt French and Russian governments to do the right thing, despite their financial incentives to do otherwise.

And of course there's the nukes. As Podhoretz surely knows, the evidence for an Iraqi nuclear program was always weak, and once the inspections started the evidence rapidly fell to zero. That kind of thing is just too hard to hide. The warnings of mushroom clouds, however, continued unabated.

Untrue again. First of all, we know they were building a reactor in the 80s. Fortunately for us, the Israelis destroyed.

And there was proof that a nuke weapon program was in existance. The most optomistic assessment was that it was simply on hold. The goal being to wait until France and Russia succeeded in lifting the sanctions. Once the sanctions were lifted, the program was ready to move forward at full speed.

In any case, if it's really true that the Bush administration did nothing to spin, exaggerate, or lie about WMD before the war, why are war supporters so relentlessly trying to suppress any congressional investigation into this? You'd think they'd welcome it instead. For a bunch of innocent bystanders, they sure are acting awfully guilty.

Not so. But a reluctance to give rabid, opportunistic, rabid congressmen like Harry Reid, Dick Durbin and Ted Kennedy, politicize and misrepresent reality, is certainly reasonable.

Would you like me to post the internal memos from Democrat senators with specific instructions as to how they should politicize the investigations THAT HAVE SINCE BEEN HELD?

I have a request. Could people who post articles limit them to only articles that have a real point and take a defensible position. Not just stupid red meat for brain dead Bush haters? There's nothing here of substance to even talk about.