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LOADS O' BOGOSITY
Jon Henke emails:
I assume you’ve heard about former Powell aide Lawrence Wilkerson, who recently gave a speech in which he said--inter alia--that decisions in the Bush administration were often made by a secretive “cabal” that included Cheney and Rumsfeld. Our friends on the left have been salivating over that story for a few days.
Of course, there’s a lot of other stuff from that speech that they ... um ... didn’t mention. One particular treat: you know those aluminum tubes the administration got so much crap for calling a part of Iraq’s nuclear program? Guess who told us they could only be meant for a nuclear program? France.
Hit that link for more details. In other devious foreigner news:
The Italian businessman at the centre of a furious row between France and Italy over whose intelligence service was to blame for bogus documents suggesting Saddam Hussein was seeking to buy material for nuclear bombs has admitted that he was in the pay of France ...
His admission to investigating magistrates in Rome on Friday apparently confirms suggestions that—by commissioning “Giacomo” to procure and circulate documents—France was responsible for some of the information later used by Britain and the United States to promote the case for war with Iraq.
Italian diplomats have claimed that, by disseminating bogus documents stating that Iraq was trying to buy low-grade “yellowcake” uranium from Niger, France was trying to “set up” Britain and America in the hope that when the mistake was revealed it would undermine the case for war, which it wanted to prevent.
Via American Thinker. Yet more bogus information news, from Stephen Hayes:
On June 12, 2003, when he first published a story about the matter, Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus became the second journalist to have been used by Ambassador Joseph Wilson to peddle bogus information about his February 2002 trip to Niger.
Wilson told Pincus that he had debunked Bush administration claims that Iraq had sought uranium from Niger. He was specific and apparently seemed credible. And Pincus bought it all.
And many—including some of the paper’s staff—are buying the story that the New York Times was led astray on Iraq’s WMD solely by wicked Judith Miller. Not so, points out Robert Kagan:
[T]he Times, along with The Post and other news organizations, ran many alarming stories about Iraq’s weapons programs before the election of George W. Bush. A quick search through the Times archives before 2001 produces such headlines as “Iraq Has Network of Outside Help on Arms, Experts Say"(November 1998), “U.S. Says Iraq Aided Production of Chemical Weapons in Sudan"(August 1998), “Iraq Suspected of Secret Germ War Effort” (February 2000), “Signs of Iraqi Arms Buildup Bedevil U.S. Administration” (February 2000), “Flight Tests Show Iraq Has Resumed a Missile Program” (July 2000). (A somewhat shorter list can be compiled from The Post’s archives, including a September 1998 headline: “Iraqi Work Toward A-Bomb Reported.") The Times stories were written by Barbara Crossette, Tim Weiner and Steven Lee Myers; Miller shared a byline on one ...
As we wage what the Times now calls “the continuing battle over the Bush administration’s justification for the war in Iraq,” we will have to grapple with the stubborn fact that the underlying rationale for the war was already in place when this administration arrived.
As with all the above-linked pieces, read the whole thing.
UPDATE. Perhaps you’re a simpleton, in which case this summary of Plame events may be useful.
As we wage what the Times now calls “the continuing battle over the Bush administration’s justification for the war in Iraq,” we will have to grapple with the stubborn fact that the underlying rationale for the war was already in place when this administration arrived.
No, no, no! Bush lied, people died! No blood for oil! Bush=Hitler! Bush stole the 2000 Election! Bush blew up the New Orleans levies! (...continuous stream of clichés...)
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2005 10 26 at 02:10 PM • permalinkHow is exactly does the Vice President and Defence Minister constitute a “shadowy cabal”?
Aren’t they two of the highest ranking members of the Us Government?
What’s next?
“It has been revealed that a shadowy cabal consisting of Bush, Cheney, Rice and Rumsfeld has been formulating foreign policy...”
Posted by Quentin George on 2005 10 26 at 04:27 PM • permalinkIn other news, historians have learned that American foreign and military policy in WWII were conducted by a shadowy cabal, consisting of Franklin Roosevelt, William Stimson (Secretary of the Army), Frank Knox (Secretary of the Navy), and Cordell Hull (Secretary of State). These men conspired to thwart the actions of career State Department officials like Tyler Kent to keep America out of war. They also persecuted public-spirited citizens like Colonel McCormick who dared expose their nefarious, warmongering shennaigans. They even relieved a senior Naval officer for protesting the President’s provocative deployment of US naval forces. As notable political activist Mr. George Lincoln Rockwell pointed out, in denouncing these conspirators, the Nazis and Japanese posed no threat to the USA. [/sarcasm-just in case anyone was in any doubt]
OK, Joe Richardson had a point about putting the fleet at Pearl, but the Prez is CinC. The idea that the most senior elected officials in the country, and their constitutionally appointed advisors, should not make policy, that it should be made instead by careerists in the bureaucracy in defiance of elected officials, is something the media or the Dems would never consider condoning except to poke Bush in the eye out of blind partisanship. By the way, the fact that “carrerist” is a term of approbation in the Federal bureaucracy is all you need to know to distrust most of them as policy-makers.
Posted by Michael Lonie on 2005 10 26 at 06:06 PM • permalink"Great photo of Margo in 15 years time”
Gahh! (Washes eyes in bleach.)
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2005 10 26 at 07:10 PM • permalinkYeesh! Did you have to link to that, Melanie?
But while I’m there, this is from the accompanying intro by Ed Whichever: “She’s been obsessed with the looming environmental crisis since 1972...” Normal people would have reconsidered their stance if their pet cause still hadn’t gotten out of the “looming” stage after 30+ years.
And then there’s this, completely irony-free, line: “Living amongst New Yorkers, a breed unto themselves, has enriched her view of America...”
I swear, no other group on Earth (not even Muslims) has as little self-awareness as the Left.
Re Kagan:
Clinton, Hillary, Kerry and numerous other Democrats were trumpeting the danger of Saddam and his weapons programs for years before Bush came along. Of course, as Kagan’s quote from the Post editorial notes, Clinton never had the spine to do anything about it except lob a few missiles and allocate a whole $8 million to democratic forces in Iraq, to magically stop them being killed while they plotted Saddam’s downfall. (Iraq Liberation Act, Oct. 1998)
“If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction program.”
- President Clinton, February 17, 1998“[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq’s refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs.” - Letter to President Clinton, signed by prominent Democratic Senators including Tom Daschle and John Kerry, October 1998
“We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country.” - Al Gore, September 23, 2002
“Iraq’s search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power.”
- Al Gore, September 23, 2002“In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members .. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons.”
- Sen. Hillary Clinton, October 10, 2002“Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime ... He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation ... And now he is miscalculating America’s response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction ... So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real ...” —Sen. John F. Kerry, January 23. 2003
Posted by arrowhead ripper on 2005 10 26 at 10:02 PM • permalinkNow, now KK, that comment could be construed as being “infantile and oafish.”
Laugh out loud funny, though. Good one.
Posted by Pedro the Ignorant on 2005 10 26 at 11:27 PM • permalinkUntil no stockpiles were found, the issue was never about the existence of WMD but how we should deal with Saddam given that they did exist.
It was one of the peaceniks’ big arguments that if he was attacked he would use these weapons.
Convenient amnesia is now an article of faith. What many believed before Bush arrived on the scene has now become his lie.
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I guess April Glaspie and Judith MIller would have a lot to say to each other.