Plame's Lame Game

[KevinTheOmnivore]

I apologize for my delay. I wanted to wait until I had time to attempt a thoughtful response......

Originally Posted by Preechr

Nobody is in a position to argue this stuff from a factual standpoint yet. WMD "stockpiles" have yet to be found, but there has clearly not been enough time to find them, either. SOME WMD stuff has been found, yet not enough to lead to any "stockpiles" or even to indicate clearly whether they exist. I said that discussion is beneath us both because I figured neither one of us would want to argue today from a position that could so easily be proven absolutely wrong tomorrow. I don't like making myself look like an idiot, and I assumed you don't either.

Right, but I have to disagree with your "agree to disagree" stance on the matter. I don't think that's where it stands, because the burden of proof rests now on those who pushed for the war, not those who opposed it. You'll have to redirect me to some links about WMD that have been found, because frankly, the only thing I can recall hearing about during the war were the missiles that exceeded firing range. This is worth mentioning, but hardly worth going to war over. I don't want to get too much into Syria and Niger in this thread, but as for "mysterious trucks" and shells with mustard gas, I could quite easily respond with the argument that there most certainly are terrorists with horrible weapons in Iraq.....now. The borders have been swung wide open, and while I don't doubt that Saddam Hussein was an evil man, I'd hold anything found in those borders now as suspect.

As for Wilson's lie, I think I covered that above. It was a lie. Wilson went to great lengths to convice us it was not a lie:

...and I find it hilarious that he's been caught in it. Note the part where he addresses his comments to anyone that thinks she had ANYTHING to do with his trip. Keep in mind, I'd be as delighted to see Cheney or Rumsfeld caught in such an obvious lie. I don't like liars and I love to see them get busted.

I think it's unfortunate and at the same time amusing though to see Joe Wilson take the spotlight following the intelligence committee's reports. The report also reads:

(U) Conclusion 16. The language in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate that "Iraq also began vigorously trying to procure uranium ore and yellowcake" overstated what the Intelligence Community knew about Iraq's possible procurement attempts.

Again, we'll get to yellow cake elsewhere, but my main concern is the fact that Joe Wilson's exaggerations have been turned into lies that vindicated the POTUS and validate the war in Iraq, which the committee hearings DO NOT do. There's a good reason why it has been guys like Ed Gillespie rather than the Bush administration themselves touting this big, bad Joe Wilson lie. That reason is that these committee hearings look horrible for Bush, and they also look horrible primarily for our intelligence capabilities.

Was the lie important? No more important than Valerie Plame's "outing" by Novak. The law in question was written to protect operatives, not consultants. Plame's work for the CIA has always been very well known. To get all up in arms about it being mentioned is simply ridiculous to anyone that isn't willing to let ridiculous stand in the way of some good, old fashioned Bush-hatin'.

No, no, no....now this is unfair. If Sandy Berger warrants a congressional investigation, I'd say so does this. Keep in mind, the Wilson Niger reports (as you well know) came at a time of numerous faulty claims of WMD discoveries, most of which are outlined and denounced in the intelligence committee findings.

Let me be clear: It is my feeling that the Democrats have been committing suicide for four years now with this whole Bush-Hate thing. I see it as entirely counter-productive and senseless. It makes the whole party look terribly immature and childish, and it allows Rush Limbaugh to whitewash anything Team Bush© might actually do in the service of evil as "just more of that ol' Bush-Hate from the wacky left." I'm not saying I believe Bush is evil, just that I want to know if he starts showing those signs... When all I get is hyperbole and nonsense over EVERY single issue that MIGHT grow wings, I stop paying attention.

Again, I think you're taking this a bit out of its context. I understand where you're coming from-- searching for objective truth in a sea of partisanship, etc. etc., but this Bush hate did come from somewhere, and it wasn't necessarily the bitch whipped DNC or DLC.

It's not like Joe Wilson and Michael Moore have been two lone-wolves in the criticism of Bush. You see it in the testimonies of Richard Clarke, as well as the findings of the 9/11 committee. The last round of criticism stems from the intelligence committee, but it goes back well before the war started, with the criticism of former UN weaons inspector Scott Ritter. Many reliable sources were, and have questioned this war.

And it's a two-sided coin. You're right, the country is incredibly polarized at the moment. But just as much as folks like Moore want to tear down Bush, others onthe Right look for any shred of mustard gas or "mysterious trucks" to ensure that this entire war wasn't erronious. You see it in both committee reports-- our intelligence gathering capabilities are weak, and in the case of Iraq, they were flawed. But why? Were we kidding ourselves about how good we are? Was this all George Tenet's fault? Leave it to a Clinton guy to fuck up the country, right?

But clearly, as we well know, the desire to invade Iraq was there prior to 9/11. You can't deny that it had already been a neo-conservative agenda. Throughout the intelligence committee's report, you see a general theme that our intelligence gathering related to Iraq was like tunnel vision.

To quote a quote from the report, " "In discussions with the Committee about his experience running the Iraq Survey Group, Dr. David Kay suggested that the 1C's mind set before Operation Iraqi Freedom concerning Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs was a train that seemed "to always be going in the same direction.""

To add to that:

"The presumption that Iraq had active WMD programs was so strong that formalized IC mechanisms established to challenge assumptions and "group think," such as "red teams," "devil's advocacy," and other types of alternative or competitive analysis, were not utilized. The Committee found no evidence that IC analysts, collectors, or managers made any effort to question the fundamental assumptions that Iraq had active and expanded WMD programs, nor did they give serious consideration to other possible explanations for Iraq's failure to satisfy its WMD accounting discrepancies, other than that it was hiding and preserving WMD.

"In fact, numerous interviews with intelligence analysts and documents provided to the Committee indicate that analysts and collectors assumed that sources who denied the existence or continuation of WMD programs and stocks were either lying or not knowledgeable about Iraq's programs, while those sources who reported ongoing WMD activities were seen as having provided valuable information."

"None of the guidance given to human intelligence collectors suggested that collection be focused on determining whether Iraq had WMD. Instead, the requirements assumed that Iraq had WMD, and focused on uncovering those activities and collecting against the extent of Iraq's WMD production and the locations of hidden stocks of weapons."

This isn't coming from merely the fringe, preech, this is the intelligence committee. Where did this push to find WMD in Iraq come from? Was it merely coming from the intelligence agencies themselves? I highly doubt it. As I said previously, we know that Iraqi liberation or invasion (pick your preference) was a predesigned goal of this administration.

So, I guess my point is that turning this into merely dirty tactics from the "Anybody but Bush" camp is wrong. There are very obvious reasons to be critical of this call to arms, and it's not just because Michael Moore or Joe Wilson said so.