Plot or Blunder?

Several commentators are wondering why the CIA sent a non-operative like Joseph Wilson to Africa in order to verify the British report of possible illicit yellowcake sales to Saddam Hussein. Why would the CIA send someone over whom they had no control on such a sensitive trip? And why would they send a man whose relationship to one of their "secret operatives" was so close that any public disclosures from the man could endanger that operative?

Glenn Reynolds:

Assuming that Valerie Plame was some sort of genuinely covert operative -- something that's not actually quite clear from the [Libby] indictment -- the chain of events looks pretty damning: Wilson was sent to Africa on an investigative mission regarding nuclear weapons, but never asked to sign any sort of secrecy agreement(!). Wilson returns, reports, then publishes an oped in the New York Times (!!) about his mission. This pretty much ensures that people will start asking why he was sent, which leads to the fact that his wife arranged it. Once Wilson's oped appeared, Plame's covert status was in serious danger. Yet nobody seemed to care.

Cliff Kincaid:

In my recent special report on this matter, former prosecutor Joseph diGenova called the Wilson mission a CIA "covert operation" against Bush. Like the Novak column, a [New York Times reporter Judith] Miller story about this matter could have raised questions about the purpose of the trip and who was behind it. But if Miller had done such a story for the Times, the impact could have been enormous. After all, the Times was the chosen vessel for Wilson to write his column claiming there was no Iraq uranium deal with Niger.

Miller could have revealed that Wilson was recommended for the mission by his own wife, a CIA employee. His wife's role was critically important because a truly undercover CIA operative would not recommend her husband for an overseas trip and then expect to maintain her "secret" identity as he proceeded to write an article for the New York Times and become a public spectacle because of it. Her role in the trip means that she was not undercover in any real sense of the word.

(All emphasis mine.)

Also note that, following his trip to Africa, Mr. Wilson was debriefed in his home by two CIA personnel with his wife present. Additionally, he never filed any kind of written report.

Anyone who has done anything remotely governmental knows that such missions nearly always require some sort of hardcopy report. But, since Mr. Wilson was not one of their assets, they couldn’t make him write a report, which brings us back around to the original question: why him? Surely, the CIA has people versed in the geopolitics of Central Africa, who could be expected to file a timely report and who could be expected to have the usual CIA-required amount of discretion; unless the CIA actually wanted Mr. Wilson to talk.

However, I’m not usually inclined to be this conspiracy-minded and I don’t think that the Plame/CIA “leak” is one. I think that it’s merely a case of human laziness and short-sightedness on the CIA’s part: instead of looking for an Africa expert among their own ranks, they have one dropped in their proverbial laps by one of their WMD analysts (Plame). They assume that a retired ambassador like Mr. Wilson will understand the value of secure information. It never occurs to them that he might be an attention-seeking narcissist who will blab his (self-)importance all over the media and, therefore, invite questions as to how he got the job in the first place.

And, to point out the obvious, it’s not as if it was the first time that the CIA got something wrong. “Slam-dunk!”

(Thanks to reader Steve)

Comments

[justin]

Why would the CIA send someone over whom they had no control on such a sensitive trip? And why would they send a man whose relationship to one of their "secret operatives" was so close that any public disclosures from the man could endanger that operative?

Well, Wilson was perfectly qualified to make the trip--he was a former ambassador to Niger (and had foreign service experience in Baghdad). I think what happened is relatively clear. Wilson started publicly contradicting the Bush administration's claims at an embarrasing time for the administration, and they wanted to discredit him by saying he was sent to Niger on the suggestion of his wife. Whether Wilson is a liar or narcisist or whatever is irrelevant, the only question should be whether a law was broken when Plame's identity was revealed--it is not OK to break the law to smear even a liar. Apparently, no law was broken.

Also, even though Wilson may not exactly be credible, let's not forget that Bush's pre-war assertions turned out mostly to be BS, and I hope the Republican party (end Democrats who supported the war) eventually pay a price for being incredibly wrong. But, I'm sure I'll get lots of responses about how the war was a good idea, that it had nothing to do with WMDs, that everyone thought there were WMDs, and that it is going exactly to plan anyway ;-)

[Tully]

Let's not forget that those pre-war assertions came from CIA-vetted and originated intel. And yes, it is relevant when trying to figure out what actually happened that Wilson was lying. As the Senate committee put it:

"The former Ambassador, either by design or through ignorance, gave the American people and, for that matter, the world a version of events that was inaccurate, unsubstantiated, and misleading."

No, CIA employees should not be exposed out of malice. But bringing the facts to light in the face of (to be kind) an inaccurate public charge isn't malice. It's self-defense. When Wilson went public with his circus act, Plame's employment and how Wilson got the assignement became quite relevant. And there is no doubt that Wilson knew what he was publishing and proclaiming was "inaccurate, unsubstantiated, and misleading". Given the facts, design seems to have quite a lead on ignorance. The question is, did the design stop with Wilson?

We don't know why he was turned loose without the usual forms being followed. Neither of the choices are good ones as far as the CIA is concerned. Sloppiness/incompetence, or malicious intent to shuffle off blame and/or damage the administration. No matter which you choose, it looks bad for the CIA.

[justin]

No, CIA employees should not be exposed out of malice. But bringing the facts to light in the face of (to be kind) an inaccurate public charge isn't malice. It's self-defense. When Wilson went public with his circus act, Plame's employment and how Wilson got the assignement became quite relevant. And there is no doubt that Wilson knew what he was publishing and proclaiming was "inaccurate, unsubstantiated, and misleading".

I would hope that the President wouldn't feel the need to engage in this type of "self defense".

And lets' not forget the real story--Wilson may be full of BS and a glory-hog, but the truth is there is very little if any evidence to support the claim that Iraqis were actively seeking uranium in Africa, and are basically a couple of conversations where Iraqi officials were discussing business ties with Niger and may have hinted at future uranium purchases.

[Tully]

Self-defense occurs as called for, by definition. Unless you're suggesting that an administration has some kind of duty to never respond to falsehoods. That they should simply relax and enjoy it for decorum's sake, rather than ever responding with factual debunking.

...the truth is there is very little if any evidence to support the claim that Iraqis were actively seeking uranium in Africa...

Unless you have access to a whole bunch of intel sources the rest of us don't you're flat-put wrong, Justin. The reports of Iraq seeking yellowcake from several African nations are numerous, and come from several different nation's intel services. I suggest you read that SSIC report, and the Butler Commission report. Saddam HAD some ore. He wanted more. He went shopping. As far as we know, he didn't succeed in acquiring, but he definitely went shopping. Unless your sources are better than U.S., British, French, and Israeli intelligence, you're mistaken. They may not share their raw intel with you, but their respective governments have vouched that it's there. And the "Sixteen Words" didn't say Saddam had succeeded, they said he had tried.

I note that about the only exports from Niger are livestock and uranium ore. Iraq already had plenty of goats.

[justin]

OK, if there is some secret intelligence that I'm not aware of, well, I guess I can't argue with that. But, as far as I can tell, it's only the British that are claiming that have documents that they aren't disclosing. Is there something I'm missing? Who is claiming there is all of this secret evidence? Why exactly does it have to remain a secret? I'm sorry, I'm just not that gullible?

[justin]

OK, if there is some secret intelligence that I'm not aware of, well, I guess I can't argue with that. But, as far as I can tell, it's only the British that are claiming that have documents that they aren't disclosing. Is there something I'm missing? Who is claiming there is all of this secret evidence? Why exactly does it have to remain a secret? I'm sorry, I'm just not that gullible.

[wayne]

The really amazing thing that I just can't get a handle on in the whole "Bush lied" screed is the part where Clinton has repeatedly made the same exact points as Bush made about Iraq's prewar WMD's and actions.

Boffo Bill even used this info as justification for half-hearted attacks on Saddamn and wrote directives calling for the removal of Saddamn from office.

The Europeons still assert their intel on Saddamn's quest for WMD's was correct and I just finished Gertz's book Betrayal on how our so-called allies helped Saddamn to rearm and break the sanctions.

He also talks about how Russian Speznats troops were brought to Iraq to move the most incriminating evidence to warehouses in Syria. I do not understand why not only will the media talk about this info(they hate Bush so this is no mystery), but no one from the Bush Administration will publically confirm it nor do anything to refute all of the BS charges that are slowly starting to turn the public seriously against Bush.

Why won't Bush defend himself?

It is obvious that a large part of the CIA, the FBI, and the State Department have been actively trying to destroy Bush. WHy doesn't he fight back? Why doesn't he go thru and gut these organizations and demote or fire everyone (like Plame) who is involved with partisan politics.

Why is it everything the adminstration does plays into the lies of the left and they don't even lower themselves to attempt to change public opinion? It's as if we children can't understand and are too young to be explained to.

Why doesn't Bush trust us with the all of the truths even the ones that might embarass certain coutries that have no problem embarassing us?

There is so much more about Al Qaeda and their actions and their connections to Iraq and other Middle Eastern governments that we have not been told. This is especially true about what was done against us here at home before AND AFTER 911 that no one wants to talk about and because of this the people only hear the words "Bush lied and people died". Oh, and some traitorous, lying, leftist, CIA whore and her husband conspired to bring down the President.

[justin]

It is obvious that a large part of the CIA, the FBI, and the State Department have been actively trying to destroy Bush. WHy doesn't he fight back? Why doesn't he go thru and gut these organizations and demote or fire everyone (like Plame) who is involved with partisan politics.

Dude, don't you think you're a little paranoid?

[Steve]

Sixteen words: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

Above is the statement and the British still stand by that and notice that it doesn't say Niger. From what I've read the reason for this is that there is evidence of Iraq's involvement in this sameway as in Niger in more than one location in Africa.

I'll agree with Tully on the "self defense" idea. The reason why I say this is that the real crime seems to be a premeditated attempt to use the CIA for political purposes. And that was originally the accusation made against the Bush administration. The vindictiveness is not in the adminstration's self-defense but in the premeditated collusion between the CIA and New York Times to make Valerie Plame's outing the issue and divert attention and critism away from the CIA itself.

It was a squeeze play put on the Bush administration because newspapers do operate with the feeling that thay are at liberty to lie. The reason newpapers operate under the assumption is because there doesn't seem to be any real permanent consequences to them if they should fool around a little bit (times may be changing). Nicholas Kristof wrote an article that purposely lied about Joe Wilson's trip to Niger originating with Cheney's office. This lie put the New York Times and the CIA together in a win-win situation. The Bush adminstration, in the mind of the behind the scene players, is trapped like a chess piece that is double covered in its possible moves by a Bishop and a Knight. Lets call the Bishop Wilson's original article concerning the yellowcake story and the Knight the follow up bogus assertion in another New York Times story by Nicholas Kristof later.

From the vantage point of these anti-Bush administration manipulators they would seem to have the administration locked up, or in a pinch, on this otherwise petty issue. Except for one thing and that is if the truth gets out to people as to the real nature of this set-up, which does appear to be happening. It is a little more of a sophisticated operation than Rathergate. But given the kinds of people I can imagine that are behind this I would say that it is something out of a playbook that may resemble something that has been used in other countries with some success before. Soros and his guys have been around the world a bit and their affiliations are at least more with the poor discredited United Nations than with the United States. Whether their personal allegiances are ultimately beyond the United Nations and with some other entity is another interesting question.

I don't think it is relevent whether or not Joe Wilson was technically qualified (which I kind of doubt). There would seem to be so many better choices that were either CIA or at least didn't have a "covert" wife. The reason why it is not important that Joe is techincally qualified is because the people who chose him weren't choosing him for this reason in the first place. All along, and from the start, he was selected for the future New York Times article he was to write.

I think Valerie Plame's poltical affiliation is important to consider but most of all her contribution to George Soros' 527 called America Coming Together. That organization started up on July 17, 2003 and she was able to hear of it and make a significant contribution. I've become a little wiser to how somethings are being done and orchestrated in this country. This is especially true in the last 13 years.

As far as "petty issue" is concerned it is actually interesting in that if this story concerning yellowcake in Africa is false (which it isn't) it really doesn't change the situation with respect to tghe whole issue of Iraq that much. But if the intelligence on Iraq's seeking unranium in Africa is true that is very important. The issue's importance is shaped in this asymetric way in the same way that Saddam was a real, and potentially growing more so, asymetric threat. And also because of the overwhelming evidence against the regime since 1991 makes this just one more of many reasons for confronting Saddam one last time.

You can see the scheme with a careful reading of the whole Kincaid article along with other considerations that have accumulated concerning the CIA in the last several years.

[justin]

Steve said:

All along, and from the start, he was selected for the future New York Times article he was to write.

Steve, that's just crazy. Any evidence? I also find it both funny and disturbing that you were able to somehow put Soros into this debate too. From what I've been reading, we're reaching a scary point in American politics when critics of the President are considered "enemies", and of course, they must be partisan because they dare to criticize the President (I'm not defending Wilson, who I do agree has problems with getting his story straight to say the least).

[Steve]

It really isn't "crazy". It isn't in the minds of the people in this country who either play or observe this game of politics.

For someone to suddenly behave as though their opponent must have to act as though we were born yesterday or else be accused of being "crazy" is an old psychological ploy within these types of debate related games we are having.

I wasn't born yesterday and I've read and been exposed to these kinds of things a lot lately. Afterall, a large portion on the blogsphere is covering just those kinds of things all the time.

[justin]

I don't know, I think the idea that there is some sort of plot within the CIA to undermine the President, without any actual evidence, is a little crazy. That's not to say that the CIA and President haven't been, and aren't often, at odds, and maybe that's what you are saying, but that is an everyday fact of government agencies. But, what I'm hearing from you, is that the CIA is somehow trying to bring down the President? Am I getting that correct? That's a pretty damn serious charge, and for me to believe that, I need actual evidence, rather than some rantings on various conservative websites.

[baldilocks]

For the record, Justin, I don't believe it either; simply because Wilson is too sloppy a liar. Who would get such a person to do such dirty work?

[Tully]

The State Dept. has long been filled with stalwart career bureaucrats who hate elected officals telling them their business and continually try to end-run them to push their own preferred agenda. That's nothing new at all. FDR complained of it in the 1930's, and it's the reason he fired Joe Kennedy Sr. as the Ambassador to Great Britain. No President has been immune, unless he just agreed to leave State alone to run the show. I don't know how much that applies to the CIA. IF (and I really do mean if, as it's pure-D speculation without supporting evidence other than the circumstantially vague) the CIA was attempting to interfere in domestic politics for whatever reason, then some folks there should be slapped down hard. And nasty.

It could have been deliberate undermining. It's far more likely to have been straight CYA blamestorming--it wasn't the Bush admin that developed that bad WMD intel over much more than a decade. But it could have just been sloppiness and incompetence, which was already present in Plame's particular department or no CYA would have been needed. Assuming a top-level anti-admin agency conspiracy would be a real stretch without much better evidence. Assuming anti-admin elements in assorted departments and sub-groups planting blame-avoidance booby traps is no stretch at all.

The only folks you can say for sure were pushing an agenda from that end were Joe and (presumably) Valerie Wilson.

[baldilocks]

it wasn't the Bush admin that developed that bad WMD intel over much more than a decade.

Noted in the "slam dunk" link.

[Tully]

Sometimes you have to repeat things a lot. ;-)

I don't buy the "agency conspiracy" rant either. I have high evidence requirements for such things. But I've been in RealPolitik a long time, and I know that nothing is simple in even a small governmental structure. Being the top (elected) dog does NOT mean that you're in control of the structure.

[Eric]

There's an underlying assumption here that the CIA is always some kind of ultra-precise operation. Like from a movie. I guess the root of conspiracy theory is a belief in the supposed conspirators' extraordinary mastery of events.

This affair sounds to me like a simple tasking to do some fact-checking on some docs. Not a major deal in the larger picture. It got passed down the chain until it reached Plame's office without a whole lot of guidance. A simple mission was put together and Joe Wilson was sent. My guess is that an actual CIA operative wasn't sent because it simply wasn't that kind of mission with that kind of priority. Wilson was convenient. Not everything in the intel world reaches the level of secret squirrel.

Then, things went screwy and the reason it got so messy was because a limited fact-checking mission was turned into a PR mess that went way beyond the actual mission.

Wilson's accusations have been discredited. Bush's people would be fine now except they did what many government officials have been doing for as long as I remember - leak sensitive or classified info to the press. Government officials shouldn't be revealing classified info, regardless of the subject. Period. Just on that level, the CIA has a right to be angry. They finally found a culprit to punish. It's a long-held peeve for the intel community that people who ought to know better are so cavalier with information intel types guard with their lives.

If all government officials learn an object lesson about InfoSec from this mess, that'd be just fine.

[baldilocks]

There's an underlying assumption here that the CIA is always some kind of ultra-precise operation.

After 21 years working for the gov't, it ain't my underlying assumption. ;-)

:acronym alert:
I think it's yet another CIA SNAFU and now all involved are in CYA mode. And, historically speaking, once the butt-covering starts, it's hard to put the brakes on it. Pride, you know.

[Steve]

I've read the book by David Bossie, author of "Intelligence Failure: How Clinton's National Security Policy Set the Stage for 9/11" and that book gave me insights into the CIA that I had previously read hints about. What I got from that book is not something other people who were to read it would neccessarily see. I look for certain clues that maybe even the author is unaware that he is giving away or possibly wouldn't interest him due to what is important about the story of his book to him. So, it is not as though I went into the book stone cold about certain things that were going on in the country in the 1990s or since the 1920s for that matter. Just about everything I know goes into my understanding of a book and the book then fills in that picture all the more.

I've read that it is unprecedented for individuals while still employed in the CIA, like Michael Scheuer, to write books in an election year such as the one that he wrote. There was at least 2 of these books. Its not just the writing of the book but it is what I've heard him say since also that has also got me to thinking about matters.

I make of these various things what I will and in a world such as the one I've witnessed and come to know since 1993, and especially since 2001, what I make of things I consider to be a lot less farfetched than many of the things I see other people I disagree with seriously intellectually entertain almost daily. Lets face it, we've (Baldolocks included) have witnessed so many peculiarities, and these things are reported on almost weekly. Those things I can compared to what I may be letting on as to what it is I am thinking. I'll say this that there are so many other people who have thought and said much worse and remain viable in the eyes of many in this world or in this country.

If I think that it is just possible that some people at the CIA and the New York Times are in collusion with each other I can say that and I, of course, don't mean to imply that I am 100 percent sure of that either but it is possible enough in my mind to make it easy to say or openly speculate to others. It wouldn't shock me given what I feel I know and have come to get a feeling about over the years.

I don't know what all of you know and you'll also have to understand that you do not know everything I know. But I do read people all the time making assertions about things and no one asks them to prove it. It is thought that they are giving an opinion based upon so many things they have come to know and that seems acceptable for the purposes of sharing thoughts. Even the most outrageous things I've heard people say I don't ask them to prove it because not very much of what any of us says comes accompanied with a 20 page term paper in support of it. If I feel it is outrageous I file it mentally under that but at the same time it could be useful later in either identifying others with these same opinions or in using maybe a few useful words of information from what they've said. It all sounds complicated but I think I am describing what we all do in a matter of seconds when we read or hear from others. I think some of you guys are reacting the way you are because you think I am always thinking of the poem interpretation. I'm not always looking for further clues to back up that one poem issue but it does sort of pendulum back and forth in importance in my mind in a given month.
--------------------
As for this statement by Justin:

I hope the Republican party (end Democrats who supported the war) eventually pay a price for being incredibly wrong.
-
I don't know why people keep saying this. If this is thought to be a way to console ourselves about those who've died in this war I don't see the value in it. It seems to be possibly an odd psychological reaction and maybe meets some emotional need concering the casualties in an offbeat way.

When I feel bad about the casualties both Amercian and Iraqi (which does happen) I just feel real bad. But talking like the above sentence doesn't seem to relieve anything for me.

Other than that it seems to be repeated just because it is a social phenomenon like so many others like it.

We weren't so wrong about WMD and we may not know enough to know that we were so definitively wrong as people keep claiming. Now, if this is a thing we are suppose to say because it is thought by some people that to mention Syria (or possibly Iran and others) is going to cause people to want to go into Syria I think that is wrong. No one wants to go further into Syria but we should be honest with ourselves and each other.

This attitude being communicated that there is absolutely no basis for the war in Iraq and it is all discredited given what we know now is a much more extreme and distorted position than if someone were to say they thought that since the start of the Iraq war evidence has increased for the need to have started this process when we did and follow through and remove this regime.

But if you are implying by saying "price" that there should be an international criminal court proceeding against members of the House of Representatives or the executive branch of the United States then that is another matter. It is fair to mention that because I've heard it suggested. If there is the idea that people ought to get together to hound them out of office I totally disagree again.

This is a democracy and these representatives won there respective elections and they took a look at everything concerning the past, present and possible futures with repect to Iraq and they voted as they are required to. You are free to disagree but you are not free to circumvent that October 2002 democratic process based on your own limited knowledge and your opinions that are based on it. That would be serving the interests of the undemocratic and murderous Baathist regime and doing as they would like to do if they could.

Justin you, or maybe rather some others I'm thinking of, seem to be implying that people who voted in the House of Representatives that October day have to answer to an undemocratic corrupt UN sponsored international court for their decision when they voted. No one has any basis to be prosecutorial in that way. This prosecutorial point of view is toward people because the House didn't vote the way they wanted them to. Those of us who accept the vote's outcome have no plans to prosecute those we disagree with concerning Iraq. That would be even imagining that Saddam was left in by House vote and it resulted in thousands more civilian deaths by about now. These ICC prosecution minded people never seem to also understand that their oppponents might have better reason to feel the need to complaint of being attacked for speaking out. There just seems to be a lack on the "left" of the understanding that their opponents may use the same words in a compaint about the "left" too.

Sort of along these lines:

http://www.frontpagemagazine.com/
Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=19919

[DarkStar]

Consider this: no one has said that the source for the WMD information is not the same source.

[Eric]

Steve:

I don't discount a conspiracy on some level - obviously, at least Wilson projects much ill will. My opinion is that this affair doesn't reach the level of a highly organized 'op' premeditated at a high level. It's just too messy at a basic level. The only thing that makes it work in terms of attacking the Bush admin is Libby's leaking of classified info - a no-go in and of itself, but all too common in our government. If it wasn't for Libby, the spotlight would be on Wilson for being careless (like others, I believe Plame would have been 'outed' due to the NYT op/ed, anyway) and incompetent, self-important, exaggerative and vindictive.

I see a bureaucracy, lack of institutional discipline and a good deal of iconoclastism (is that a word?) in the CIA. One decidedly non-intel ambassador - a politician! - got a simple job that didn't merit a high-level CIA operative and he made a much bigger deal, and PR mess, of what he found out.

The political climate at the time was at a fever pitch for all sides, and while one would expect intel people to stay above politics, I guess that's too much to expect of diplomats who get overly excited by simple CIA tasks.

With the political and PR mess added in, the affair has taken on a life of its own. I agree with Baldilocks: it's CYA time, because if the public spotlight was taken off Bush's crew and moved onto the CIA and Wilson, I believe the CIA and Wilson would look less conspiratorial than incompetent in this matter.

[Tully]

Frankly it has the look of conspiracy mostly because Wilson's visit was tasked from the same section that FUBAR'd much of the WMD intel in the first place--Plame's section. And because of the lack of the normal confidentiality/non-disclosure agreements, and Wilson's subsequent misuse and misrepresentation of his knowledge.

Given the nature of the mission, an ex-ambassador with the right connections and acquaintances was not an unreasonable choice to make the inquiries. It wasn't going to be "field" work, it was going to be discrete inquiries of those in the Niger government who would certainly know if any sales agreement had actually been struck. And Wilson knew those people from his years in Africa. The French were running those mining companies, but for obvious reasons we weren't asking (or at least not trusting) the French. They were already suspected of being "on the take" in Oil-For-Food and were known to be selling conventional arms to Saddam in violation of the sanctions. (BTW, Wilson was never ambassador to Niger, he was Ambassador to Gabon.)

But I don't see any reason that the "mission" was needed in the first place, when the inquiries of the then-current Niger ambassador would be just as good. There was no obvious reason to suppose that Wilson would be able to learn any more than the current ambassador, as indeed he did not. It looks very much like a bone thrown to a colleague (Plame) on the agency budget. That favor turned around and bit 'em.

[justin]

Steve--by "price" I meant at the polls, not in some sort of court.

[Eric]

Justin:

I agree there should be a shake-up of the international and domestic intel processes that made the wrong - let's call them - intel guesstimates about Iraq. On one hand, guesstimating is the nature of Intel work. On the other hand, in a post-9/11 environment, *active* "actionable" intelligence must be of higher quality than the *passive* "file" intelligence of the pre-9/11 environment.

The realistic accusation regarding intel isn't that the Bush admin knew the truth and lied, it's that our intel community didn't know for certain but the admin acted decisively, anyway.

Just as important, the larger international political regimens that mashed with the intel processes to lead to such poor intel-reach into Iraq also need to be reformed. It's a different world and we can't afford the 90s and even Cold War standards and approaches.

That said, the run-up to OIF is not nearly as black and white as you make it out to be.

1. The opposition to OIF isn't as loud in the military as some would make it out to be (Powell Doctrine, anyone?) because for years (at least when I was in), it was pretty much accepted that going back to Iraq was a matter of 'when' not 'if'. Not because we wanted war, but because we were paying attention. With the UN and US ratcheting up all other punitive measures, including active military actions, and speaking in 'zero tolerance' language while Saddam resisted with 'zero sum' non-compliance, and the mission essentially falling apart, something had to give. When, not if.

2. Look over the Iraq Liberation Act and Op Desert Fox of 1998, when Clinton technically declared war on Iraq after Iraq had "failed its final chance" (but we just bombed, as was the style of war at the time), and Clinton's presidential support of OIF in 2003. The Bush admin takes the heat, which comes with the job, but most of the case and precedent for war against Iraq was inherited. Even Bush's speeches read like he plagiarized from Clinton's Iraq speeches. * This is not a slam on Clinton - he inherited Iraq, too.

3. In terms of nuclear capability, the assertion is of Saddam *seeking* to restore his nuke program. That his intent was to eventually restore his military capability, including his WMD programs, is NOT in dispute. How realistically close he was to doing so, especially in light of the unregulated A.Q. Khan global nuclear trade network, IS in dispute. That there were 'diplomatic' communications by Iraq with terrorist groups who viewed the US as a common enemy is NOT in dispute. The functional relationship between them IS in dispute. (IMO, the rapid formation of the Baathist-terrorist alliance in OIF suggests that there was some level of pre-existing functional relationship.) Basically, on these issues, we were uncertain about known enemies where we could not afford to be uncertain.

4. Unlike Clinton for Op Desert Fox, Bush actually went through 'proper' UN channels for OIF. Which is to say, whatever our case for war, the ACTUAL trigger for war was not American rhetoric. American rhetoric worked as far as reinvigorating the military punitive option for the UN resolutions. The ACTUAL trigger for D-Day was Iraq's non-compliance with the UN resolutions. Remember, the controversy in the so-called "rush to war" was not false accusation of Iraq, but that the inspections weren't allowed more time to play out before D-Day. I happen to think that's a fair criticism because, if you look at the UN resolutions, it was fairly well impossible for Saddam to comply with the resolutions and stay in power. Inevitably, Saddam would have failed. We would have been better off politically if the UN had been forced to collectively admit that - YES - Saddam had failed his (2nd) final chance. As is, the UN was not forced to do so. At the time, I reluctantly supported the timing of the invasion due to logistics, weather and self-doubts about our 'regular' Army in OIF (I predicted 3,000-10,000 American dead in the 'major combat' phase). In 20/20 hindsight, I do believe now that Bush made the call for OIF's D-Day too soon.

4a. The WMD stocks in question during the run-up to OIF weren't nuclear stockpiles, but the same unaccounted for bio-chem stocks that Iraq was supposed to have, and could have, accounted for 12 years earlier. Bio-chem weapons can be proliferated to terrorists just as well as nuclear weapons, and Saddam to this day has not accounted for them. (Did he secretly destroy it all without proper accounting? If so, why?) Remember, Iraq wasn't in a state of 'innocent until proven guilty' in 2002/2003 - Iraq was already in a state of guilt. Furthermore, Iraq was solely responsible for proving its innocence by fulfilling a strict set of conditions. Certainly by 1998 and Op Desert Fox, let alone 2003, we had reached the point of zero tolerance with Saddam's non-compliance, and it was Iraq's responsibility to meet those conditions. It was the inspectors job to verify, not play detective. But, as we know, Saddam is a zero sum actor, and he chose to play the same old game in 2003. Even without finding the WMD stocks, it is NOT in dispute that Iraq was guilty of numerous violations, including military violations, of UN resolutions. It is NOT in dispute that his intent to rebuild his military remained, and his plan was to wait us out.

5. This is a personal reason as a liberal, but it is appalling to me that so many self-defined liberals would side with the realists who, in opposing OIF, characterize the alternative, ie, the pre-OIF containment mission, as a good thing.

Realists like the alternative to OIF not because it was actually ending the Saddam threat, improved the US image, contained an exit strategy or helped the Iraqi people. Realists liked it because it kept Iraq "deterred and contained". What about the morality cost, the humane cost or the provocative political cost of the pre-OIF mission? Realists don't care about that, and they don't pretend to. Liberals do care, or we used to say we did.

So yes, as a "war of choice", there were alternatives to OIF. Realists don't hide their preference for the perpetual containment mission. What about anti-OIF liberals? The alternatives were, A) indefinitely perpetuating the pre-OIF mission - also the chief provocative cause of regional enmity towards the US, or B) restoring favorable relations with Saddam. The fantasy alternative C) would be Saddam fully complying with the UN resolutions of his own volition and thereby letting the UN and US off the hook - unrealistic, because to do so would have destroyed his government (way worse than what happened to the USSR). Those were our choices, and ALL of them were ugly. Within the choice of invasion>regime-change>nation-building, I think the war and post-war could have been begun and conducted better. However, when liberals oppose OIF, I hope they critically evaluate the alternatives to OIF and their consequences.

In many ways, a *fundamental* opposition to OIF is a rejection of American (Wilson, FDR, JFK) liberalism, and liberals need to be very careful about short-sighted opposition to this war.

[wayne]

I owe you a correction: it was Bill Gertz's book "Treachery" that describes in detail the mountain of evidence that goes anyone's assertion that there weren't WMD's in Iraq. OOOOppppsss. Monday, no beer over the weekend and not any where near enough coffee.

[Steve]

I may go over to the library today and search on Proquest to find all the mentions of CIA leaks in the last 25 years. And compare them with the amount of prosecution Libby is receiving, the amount of media attention, and the relative severity of the incident to national security.

I do believe that if this administration was democrat and the current situation we see in this case sat just as it does now only with the political affiliations in reverse the media would be having a howling fit. They would be into Operation Blowtorch mode right now. I could just imagine the 60 Minutes and Nightline programs and the stories on the evening news. At the end of all that the whole case would be thrown out and this exoneration would have been used in a sling-shot effect by the media to give this hypothetical democrat president a never ending boost while they (the MSM news) prostrated before him.

Given what I know about groups like Code Pink, and others of the Soros funded ilk, I hope it is not significant that Valerie Plame's contribution was to an organization that was officially established on Iraq's old independence day of July 17. In the case of A.C.T. it was in 2003, the year of Saddam's, and the Socialist Baathists, removal.

[Tully]

Don't forget that Wilson was already out there preaching the anti-war gospel as a leftist speaker and writer while claiming to be "apolitical," long before the July 2003 op/ed in the NYT. Wilson was front and center in the anti-war effort from early on. He was the "respectable" face of the doves, and for a while it seemed like he was everywhere arguing that the Bush admin actually had a different agenda for an invasion than they claimed--all while agreeing that Saddam DID have WMD's.

"I remain of the view that we will find biological and chemical weapons and we may well find something that indicates that Saddam's regime maintained an interest in nuclear weapons - not surprising if you live in a part of the world where you do have a nuclear armed country, enemy of yours, that's just a country away from yours." --Joseph Wilson, June 14, 2003

Note the date. Over a year after his Niger visit, one month before his NYT op/ed, Joe Wilson as a dove was affirming the WMD argument and hinting at an ongoing Saddam "interest" in nuclear weapons. Wilson had by that point spent most of a year preaching against invading Iraq from various anti-administration podiums. And he was married to one of the CIA "experts" on Saddam's WMD's.

Amazing how his story changed. Now, how could we ever doubt Joe Wilson?

[justin]

Eric,

I think your arguments are compelling, and one of the big things that gave me pause in my opposition to OIF was the continued effects of sanctions on Iraqis (in addition to the possibility of Saddam getting atomic weapons, which turned out to be total crock).

I could post a long response, but we already made the decision to go to war, and I think now that we are there the "liberal" and humanitarian thing to do is to finish the job, although I'm not sure what finishing the job actually means (democracy? sort of democracy? total peace? low grade civil war but not too bad? etc.) The short version of my response is that, like a lot of liberal ideas, invading an ethnically diverse country and installing a democracy sounds good in theory, but in practice is very hard and unprecedented in human history, and the risks were that things could end up worse were and are great. If we could invade Sudan, North Korea and every other nasy place on the planet and install democracies, that would be great. But unfortunately, it's not that easy.

Ironically, or counter-intuitively, I would have been more in favor of invading Iraq pre-9/11. After 9/11, I was and still am in favor of fighting the people who actually invaded us, which wasn't really Iraq.

In any event, as I think I've argued before, if the administration had not constantly hyped the immediate threat that iraq posed (mushroom clouds, connections to 9/11 etc.), we could have dealt with Saddam in other ways if our goal was just to overthrow him and end the sanctions.

Steve said:

I do believe that if this administration was democrat and the current situation we see in this case sat just as it does now only with the political affiliations in reverse the media would be having a howling fit. They would be into Operation Blowtorch mode right now. I could just imagine the 60 Minutes and Nightline programs and the stories on the evening news.

Mmmh, if only there was some minor scandal during the Clinton administration that we could compare this with to see how the media would have responded (sarcasm alert). You can't be serious Steve. Did you read the NYT during the 90s? They were one of the biggest pushers of the Whitewater "scandal" and the followup. Did you watch the news? The media pounded Clinton for years.

Tully, I'm not going to defend Wilson, who I think turned out to be a blowhard, but he is a minor ex-ambassador. Don't lose sight of the bigger picture, which was that Iraq was not in fact trying to obtain uranium from Niger, and hadn't really attempted to, or at least there is no evidence for that. Shouldn't you be a little po'd at our President for being reckless with facts? If you have evidence that the Niger connection was/is true, let's see it. Otherwise, do you really care that much about Wilson? He's not really the story here, or am I missing something?

[justin]

Harry Reid is my new favorite Senator:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/01/politics/01cnd-congress.html?hp&ex=1130907600&en=c27b6cc33531ec2e&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[dick]

Justin,

Why do you as well as all the other libs keep pushing the Niger link? The statement Bush made was that Saddam was trying to buy yellowcake in AFRICA, not in NIGER specifically. That is what the Brits has said all along as have the other major intel countries yet all we hear from the libs is Niger. Niger does not equal Africa.

[justin]

Dick,

Powell and Tenant both told the Senate Foreign Relations Commmittee that Saddam had attemtpted to buy Uranium from Niger (in September 2002), and the claim was made in a State Department Report in December 2002.

[Tully]

It's on the record that Iraq made approaches in 1999 that both the Niger prime minister and the Niger minister of mines interpreted as approaches to purchase yellowcake. It's also on the record that they approached the Republic of the Congo and several potential Somalian sources around the same time. Joe Wilson personally confirmed the Niger approach with the respective ministers. All of those places, I note, are in Africa. Justin, how many damn times does that need to be vouched for by the people he was trying to buy from, by the US Senate, by the CIA, by British and Israeli and French intellignece before you can accept it? Do they need to Fedex you the field ops that investigated it so they can personally brief you before you'll leave that river in Egypt?

Nope, they didn't Fedex 'em to me either. But I've actually read the unredacted portions of the National Intelligence Estimate, the bi-partisan Senate Select Committee Report, and the Butler Commission Report, and they all back that up. Unless you have some very highly placed and credible sources in the intel community, Justin, all you're doing is looking dumb.

In any case, the uranium reference in the NIE of 2002 was not considered key to Iraq nuke-seeking arguments. The only people that consider it key to anything are rabid lefties salivating for the blood of Bush. Iraq already had over 500 tons of yellowcake, as well as whatever material they managed to recover and conceal from the wreck of the Osirik plant that the Israelis blew up. And nuclear material from the old USSR has been rumored to be floating around for purchase for quite a while. Indeed, some has been seized in sting operations from would-be sellers. More yellowcake was a side issue, not a main issue. Unless, of course, it's all you have and you're obsessed.

[justin]

Tully, if your "on the record" evidence is satisfactory for you to believe that there was any potential nuclear threat from Iraq, then there is nothing I can say to that. I think the lack of evidence after being actually in Iraq for a couple of years should tell you something--more at least than vague "Niger prime minister and the Niger minister of mines interpreted as approaches to purchase yellowcake" claims.

If you have read unredacted documents that contain this evidence, then you are obviously correct. I hope, however, that since you are an anonymous person commenting on the internet, that I take your assertion with a grain of salt.

[Tully]

It tells me that you're denser than uranium, Justin, AND possessed of 20/20 psychic hindsight. You must be Superman!

But Dean Esmay said it better:

Having been part of those debates when they were happening, I am utterly appalled at people I used to think of as intelligent and well-informed who keep repeating falsehood after falsehood after falsehood. And I am utterly exhausted with having to, at least once a month or so, go back and rehash the same arguments because some people are not honest enough, diligent enough, or caring enough to go back and look at the historical record and just be honest about it.

I find having to rehash it all about as pleasant and satisfying as chewing on aluminum foil. It's not disagreement I can't stand, it's the constant repetition of falsehoods that makes me want to scream.

I said that I had read the unredacted (aka "public") portions of the appropriate reports. You could do it too. All you have to do is look them up. There's this thing called "The Internet," you see. All you actually have to do is try. Apparently that's a bridge too far.

[justin]

Sorry--I misunderstood your post. I've read the unredacted portions as well and I don't really see the evidence you are speaking about. Some allegations of vague contacts hardly constitutes a nuclear threat, being that we've been in Iraq for more than two years and haven't found ANY evidence that Iraq was actively pursuing a nuclear program. And, the pre-war "evidence" based on aluminum tubes and forged documents were pretty easily dismissed as well.

So, do you have any evidence that Iraq was pursuing a nuclear program, or actively trying to buy uranium, or whatever the current talking point is?

[Tully]

QED.

Denser. Than. Uranium.

[justin]

Tully, I guess the answer is no, and that you actually don't have any evidence. Maybe you should go back to bashing Wilson some more.

[Steve]

Justin said:

in addition to the possibility of Saddam getting atomic weapons, which turned out to be total crock).

"Total" is what he said and in a world like this does anybody have any business using words like "total"? This type of language indicates a hardened mindset that may be exactly what brought us 911. Lack of imagination, inability to connect the dots, inability to think outside the box, common sense, overall view and world context that we live in. Justin and many others got me wondering if the planes on 911 should not be so much thought of as having been launched by Al Qaeda, but rather, vacuum sucked into the buildings by having the likes of too many justins in the CIA.

This total denial by justin that there is any possibility that Saddam was involved in 911 is also not honest or credible. It is not the way anybody has any business talking about Iraq whether it be a nuclear weapons program, the obtaining of a nuclear device, all other WMD issues, or terrorist connections.

Good quote from Dean Esmay by Tully, it says it well. There are some people that it seems like everyday you have to begin all over again as though nothing has been said before.

Maybe its just the way I luckily got into this subject. I had a slight, or mild, interest in the Israeli and Palestinian conflict since maybe 1998 or 1999. I did not get on the Internet until the late fall of 2003 and at the time I didn't have the slightest desire to debate. I just printed off article after article from the library's access to Proquest newspaper articles and went home and read and read. I got a few books and read those. I got articles off of Global Security or Institute for Science and International Security and just quietly read while the Internet must have been raging with debate I was unaware of. It wasn't until fall of 2004 that I got my own computer and it wasn't until March of 2005 I discovered debate sites and contributed to them. I believe that I was lucky in this because I just simply got a good grounding first on several factors that are related to Saddam's regime from several angles and spent very little time in nearly pure opinion pieces. The kind that just pontificate grandly with words about unilateralism, hegemony, hubris and so forth.

Tully said: It tells me that you're denser than uranium, Justin

With people like justin you first have to wonder if they are being honest with you and themselves. You can not truly determine that but you have to make a guess and the degree that you choose determines one's approach to him. Secondly, you wonder just what his mind is capable of because afterall some people are good at somethings but just have no abilities in other areas where they are blind or unable to visualize a situation and understand its various potentials. I am not saying that I am all that good at it and I hope, and I am sure, that there are plenty of people at the CIA and other agencies in the world that are better than me at it. But it would also appear that with many people who might be thought of as intelligent I wouldn't let them anywhere near real authority on national security issues. I literally have 95% of the paper I have ever printed off concerning Iraq, M.E., Al Qaeda, related issues. I have read about 85% of that and its quite a load now and I would like to set justin down and make him read through it all. It would take months. I'd be curious what the results would be. I think justin's problems, Tully, is that justin may have spent too much of his time right away on debate and those fluffy and tart opinion piece related articles and using those in debate. Now he subconsciously feels that he is too far invested in it to give it up. Also, since he is just one person with no authority and responsibility like the rest of us he feels at liberty to play with this world like it is all so much play-dough. I am sure that hypothetically there are certain jobs that he could be put into tomorrow in Homeland Security and given dossiers to read and responsibilty to exercise that would sober him right up quick about any future with a Saddam in the picture. Especially a Saddam left to his own after the United States was forced to leave the Gulf militarily after 911 due to Al Qaeda threats and events in the countries that hosted us.

I also stand by my earlier assessment of the MSM news media and their current reaction in regards to this Valerie Wilson and New York Times and CIA story. There were just too many things not reported on in the 1990s concerning the Clintons as well as the fact that if Bill Clinton were a Republican he would've been hounded out of office by the press as he should have been by March of 1998 but at least by October 1998. The multiple IRS audits of women bringing suit (as well as organizations and journalists like Bill O'Reilly) and the threats against them would have just slam dunked a Republican president out of office in a big hurry. The news media would have still been snifling over themselves to this day in that case.

Very interesting article:

http://www.frontpagemagazine.com/
Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=19960

[baldilocks]

Justin,

Tully has pointed you to the SSCI and the Butler Commission Reports. He answer your question in the affirmative. Please stop trying to pretend as though he hasn't.

[Steve]

I've read the New York Times article about Harry Reid and the senate and I am not impressed. Harry Reid is a little like Byrd or Hollings. He is classified among those people that will and can't ever be expected to understand. It is also a stunt with a purpose that was only meant to impress certain people of the voting public like justin. Apparently it worked. Another moved cooked up by other more powerful unelected forces behind the scenes in the demnocratic party who use Reid like a rag doll.

[baldilocks]

Steve,

There's a post for the senate shutdown.

[Justin]

Tully has pointed you to the SSCI and the Butler Commission Reports. He answer your question in the affirmative. Please stop trying to pretend as though he hasn't.

Well, I've read those reports and I fail to see the "evidence". And Steve, Tully etc., I'll put it this way, I'm not a foreign policy analyst, and I generally think the MSM eventually gets stories correct, so until I see a story or article in the MSM or a respected foreign policy journal, I'm not going to be convinced that Saddam was going to develop nukes in the near term, or was trying to, or that there was a serious 9/11 or al Quada connection to Saddam, or that there were actually chemical weapons that went missing.

Sorry for dragging this debate on past the point of usefullness--I think we both see each other as naive and unwilling to accept facts and reality.

[Steve]

Yeah, I do sometimes wish in a devious sort of way to have Saddam and Sons and their fedayeen and Zarqawi's Ansar al-Islam and Salman Pak and Abu Nidal and Abul Abbas and oil-for-food (East Star Trading Co. and Babel & Wael) and the black market revenue and everything that left the country prior to the war, and direct flights in from countries, and China building Tiger Song, and money to suicide bomber's families in Israel and Taha Yassin Ramadan and The Arab Liberation Front, and Abdul Rahman Yassin, and Ahmed Hikmat Shakir, free trade zone Belarus'was working on invloving Syria Libya & Iraq, Libya still would be as it was, and so so much more all back in Iraq and to let the situation play out. It would be interesting to watch the revenues from the cheapest to extract oil wells that carry the second largest oil reserves in a world of rising prices be used in a situation like that one over time.

It would be interesting to see how France, Germany, Russia, and China would've rearmed Saddam according to the agreements they had made. The Kurds, the Shia, the women and children, the prisoners too. I wonder what New York or Washinton D.C. might expect to receive. Or for that matter London, Cairo, or Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, etc. You might say "so what" about any one of those places but those events could disrupt balances and would require action. Saddam was seriously (seriously) talking like Kuwait was his own and was sending people in to Kuwait terrorize that country. In November of 2001 Iraqi men were found and arrested trying to enter Kuwait illegally with explosives and drugs. It would be kind of interesting to watch that oil revenue be used by Saddam's regime I suppose. Then the rest of the GCC states would then behave in what manner? What would Iran then do? Would Jordan still be a country given Saddam's intelligence agencies influence there? Maybe Jund Al-Shams would have finally pulled off the big one in Amman, Jordan that would have sent the city up in a chemical cloud. Maybe there could be more Iraqi-Abu Sayyaf and Mark Wayne Jackson events, more oil-for-food money for Abigail Litle deaths, and of course Lawrence Foley's death.

It is somewhat true that I am like anyone else in that I do not have to take an interest in these things I suppose. I used to be pretty detached I would say of myself all in all. I am always like anyone else a seperate individual with decisions to make about how I invest my cares. And that occasionally takes a fork-in-the road decision to care all over again. I am debating what to do or to think if there should be a next time in New York and/or Washington D.C. It is not so much a matter of liking or disliking terrorism against those cities in this possible tack I could take. Or the idea of America or identifying myself as an American too. I realize in many people's mind an American is someone else if they are talking of something bad the country did in history. And conversely an American is someone like themselves if they are refering to something they consider good in Amercican history. It is just that it is a matter in some basic way as to whether I should care and identify myself one way or another over an event of terrorism, or, in relation to anyone's subsequent words after such an event about America and/or Americans. I am pretty good at keeping my mind entertained without the slightest concern that anyone is talking about me, or a supposed country they imagine someone else has when they talk in all the ways they do about such subjects. I actually have bookmarked a few websites that explain and appear to possibly will help a person leave this country. I have thought of leaving this one for about a decade. To tell you the truth I don't really like the country all-in-all and in so many ways. Don't try and guess what that means because it is so many different things. From the vantage point of another country I wonder what all the U.S. casualties in a war with Saddam (or his Son's regime) in 2009 would look and feel like?

I got a fortune cookie about 2 months ago and I dwell on it sometimes wondering if there is something it is trying to tell me. Now understand that I am taking it litely and with a grain of salt but I think about it a little. Notice the plural for "realizations". It reads:

You will come to realizations in your life that change you forever.

To just play along with it, what could that mean?

Shoud I stick with what I am doing baldilocks, or drop it?

[Steve]

I said: In November of 2001 Iraqi men were found and arrested trying to enter Kuwait illegally with explosives and drugs.

Don't think that is the evidence that Saddam still had plans for taking Kuwait again. Tariq Aziz said as much and Kuwait complained about it. It so happened that while Tariq was speaking like that events like the one described above happened. It was quite and issue at the time and it was taken to the United Nations. I have to say that because some people seem to have the ability to read things in a peculiar way as though it is all and that I am saying that is all there is.

And yes justin I do consider you "naive" about Saddam and Son's dangerousness in this world and all this world's context.

[Tully]

The problem, Justin, is that we know now that much of the intel was wrong, but you are insisting that the current admin be blamed for it being wrong, and that blame for it must be placed on the Bush admin. You also keep "raising the bar" to standards well beyond the facts--demanding that an active nuclear program have been found to justify pre-war claims that nuclear material was even sought. (You seem to be doing it in order to conflate the subject off of Smokin' Joe Wilson and his public lies, a truly dishonest and pedestrian debate trick to change the subject when you're getting your butt whooped on, but vat der heck, let's pound that nail a bit.)

It wasn't the Bush admin that developed all those many years of faulty intel, and much of it was not faulty at all, but the result of the practice of "worst-casing" GOOD intel to cover the bases. (When erring, err on the side of caution.) Every foreign and domestic intel service going back well over a decade believed the same things, and much of the bad intel was due to the aggressive bluffing actions of Saddam himself. He bluffed everyone--and got called. So let's ask the President about his reasoning.

"Heavy as they are, the costs of action must be weighed against the price of inaction. If Saddam defies the world and we fail to respond, we will face a far greater threat in the future. Saddam will strike again at his neighbors; he will make war on his own people. And mark my words, he will develop weapons of mass destruction. He will deploy them, and he will use them."

Yep, the President said that. It must be his fault. Oops, that was President Clinton in 1998, wasn't it? Let's try again.

"In the next century, the community of nations may see more and more the very kind of threat Iraq poses now -- a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction ready to use them or provide them to terrorists, drug traffickers or organized criminals who travel the world among us unnoticed.

If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow by the knowledge that they can act with impunity, even in the face of a clear message from the United Nations Security Council and clear evidence of a weapons of mass destruction program."

Oops, sorry--President Clinton again. Let's give it another try.

"His regime threatens the safety of his people, the stability of his region, and the security of all the rest of us.

What if he fails to comply, and we fail to act, or we take some ambiguous third route which gives him yet more opportunities to develop this program of weapons of mass destruction and continue to press for the release of the sanctions and continue to ignore the solemn commitments that he made?

Well, he will conclude that the international community has lost its will. He will then conclude that he can go right on and do more to rebuild an arsenal of devastating destruction.

And some day, some way, I guarantee you, he'll use the arsenal."

Darnit, I keep channeling the wrong President...maybe I should switch to National Security Advisors...

"Imagine the consequences if Saddam fails to comply and we fail to act. Saddam will be emboldened, believing the international community has lost its will. He will rebuild his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. And some day, some way, I am certain, he will use that arsenal again, as he has ten times since 1983."

That was Sandy Berger. I keep getting the wrong administration here for some reason...maybe we should try one of those UN guys.

"The recent inspection find in the private home of a scientist of a box of some 3,000 pages of documents, much of it relating to the laser enrichment of uranium support a concern that has long existed that documents might be distributed to the homes of private individuals. ...we cannot help but think that the case might not be isolated and that such placements of documents is deliberate to make discovery difficult and to seek to shield documents by placing them in private homes."

That one was Chief UN Weapons Inspector Hans Blix. I haven't even gotten to Democratic Congresscritters yet. That could go on forever, without ever getting to the Bush years.

[QED, Brother Esmay]

[justin]

Tully,

I didn't realize that you've conceded that we know the intel was wrong. In any event, your argument is one that war supporters love to use--that Clinton, Berger, even John Kerry said similar things about Iraq.

The big difference, however, is that when the war started we were starting to find out the truth (in 1998, there were no weapons inspectors, and we had to go on very old intelligence). By 2003, Saddam had surprisingly let in the inspectors (if he expelled them again, I would have leaned much more towards supporting war), and we were beginning to learn that there may be, in fact, no weapons. Blix was blasted and criticized from the start by neocons like Richard Perle, and was never given a chance to do his job (Blix also accuses Bush of not really caring about weapons inspections and using them as a pretext for war).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,935251,00.html

So those of us against the war were asking for more time to let the inspectors do their job and to try to build a better coalition if we were going to war, and supporters said that we couldn't wait because the danger was too great and had to be dealt with now. It turns out Saddam was pathetically weak, with no WMDs. Bush took a big gamble on old intelligence and he was wrong, and I think he should have known better and had the opportunity to gather better intelligence, but chose not to.

As for "raising the bar" in the debate--I'll give you that I've been doing that, but that is only to head off the vague assertions that Saddam was interested as some unspecified point in the future of reconstituting a nuclear program as proof that Saddam was trying to put together a nuclear program, and that we should therefore invade.

[Steve]

Very good Tully but Bill Clinton's speech at the Pentagon should be seen in more context. The last meaningful inspections of Iraq happened in fall of 1997 and it was in November of 1997 that New York City had drills to simulate a WMD attack on the city.

But besides all that there is this that you are probably already familiar with.
---------------------
From the Weekly Standard July 18, 2005 -

"To gain the knowledge of the message from bin Laden and to convey to his envoy an oral message from us to bin Laden, the Saudi opposition leader, about the future of our relationship with him, and to achieve a direct meeting with him."

Internal Iraqi Intelligence memo describing the goal of meetings with an al Qaeda envoy, February 19, 1998

By all accounts, the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda intensified in 1998. The Iraqis were growing more obdurate in their confrontation with the U.N. weapons inspectors, at times simply refusing to grant access to suspected weapons sites. The United States was losing patience--both with Iraq and with U.N. fecklessness. Al Qaeda, meanwhile, had found a home in Afghanistan and was turning out terrorists from its camps by the thousands.

On February 3, 1998, Ayman al Zawahiri, bin Laden's Egyptian deputy, came to Baghdad for meetings with Iraqi leaders. The visit came as Islamic radicals gathered once again in the Iraqi capital for another installation of Hussein's Popular Islamic Conferences. Iraqi vice president Taha Yasin Ramadan welcomed them on February 9 with the language of jihad:

The Islamic nation's ulema, advocates and preachers, are called upon to carry out a jihad that God wants them to carry out through honest words in order to expose the U.S. and Zionist regimes to the world peoples, to explain facts, and to say what is right and to call for it. This is their religious duty. The Muslim ulema are called upon before Almighty God to act among the Muslim ranks to confront the infidel U.S. moves and to raise their voices against the U.S.-Zionist evil.

We do not have reporting on when, exactly, Zawahiri left Baghdad. But we do know from an interrogation of a senior Iraqi Intelligence official that he did not leave empty-handed. As first reported in U.S. News & World Report, the Iraqi regime gave Zawahiri $300,000 during or shortly after his trip to Baghdad.

On February 17, 1998, Bill Clinton traveled the short distance from the White House to the Pentagon to prepare the nation for a confrontation with Iraq. The symbolism was obvious, the rhetoric belligerent. Clinton explained why "meeting the threat posed by Saddam Hussein is important to our security in the new era we are entering." He warned about the threats from the "predators of the 21st century," rogue states working with terrorist groups. "There is no more clear example of this threat than Saddam Hussein's Iraq." War seemed imminent.

Two days later, on February 19, the Iraqi Intelligence Service finalized plans to bring a "trusted confidant" of bin Laden's to Baghdad in early March. The revelation came in documents discovered after the Iraq war by journalists Mitch Potter of the Toronto Star and Inigo Gilmore of the Sunday Telegraph. The U.S. intelligence community is now in possession of these documents and has assessed that they are authentic. The documents--a series of communiqués between Iraqi Intelligence divisions--provide another window into the relationship between the former Iraqi regime and al Qaeda. The following comes from the Telegraph's translations of the documents.

The envoy is a trusted confidant and known by them. According to the above mediation we request official permission to call Khartoum station to facilitate the travel arrangements for the above-mentioned person to Iraq. And that our body carry all the travel and hotel expenses inside Iraq to gain the knowledge of the message from bin Laden and to convey to his envoy an oral message from us to bin Laden, the Saudi opposition leader, about the future of our relationship with him, and to achieve a direct meeting with him.

A note at the bottom of the page from the director of one IIS division recommends approving the request, noting, "we may find in this envoy a way to maintain contacts with bin Laden."

Four days later, on February 23, final approval is granted. "The permission of Mr. Deputy Director of Intelligence has been gained on 21 February for this operation, to secure a reservation for one of the intelligence services guests for one week in one of the first class hotels," the Al Mansour Melia hotel in Baghdad.

That same day, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri, joined by leaders of four additional Islamic terrorist groups, announced the formation of the World Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders, soon to become better known as al Qaeda. The grievances in the fatwa focused on Iraq. The terrorist leaders decried the presence of U.S. troops on the Arabian Peninsula. They protested the "great devastation inflicted on the Iraqi people by the crusader-Zionist alliance." They cited American support for Israel and surmised that the United States sought to distract world attention from the killing of Muslims in Jerusalem. To support this claim, the fatwa turned once again to Iraq: "The best proof of this is their eagerness to destroy Iraq, the strongest neighboring Arab state."

The fatwa declared: "The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies--civilians and military--is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it."

The al Qaeda envoy to Iraq arrived in Baghdad on March 5, 1998. Notes in the margins of the Iraqi Intelligence memos indicate that Mohammed F. Mohammed stayed for more than two weeks in Room 414 of the Al Mansour Melia Hotel as the guest of Iraqi Intelligence. After extending his trip by one week, bin Laden's emissary departed on March 16.

Adding to the intrigue, the 9/11 Commission reported that "[i]n March 1998, after bin Laden's public fatwa against the United States, two al Qaeda members reportedly went to Iraq to meet with Iraqi intelligence." Were there two separate al Qaeda trips to Iraq in March 1998? It's possible that the IIS documents and the 9/11 Commission report refer to the same meeting. But the Iraqi Intelligence documents refer to one al Qaeda envoy, the 9/11 Commission report mentions two--raising the possibility that two separate meetings took place.
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"The consistent stream of intelligence at that time said it wasn't just al Shifa. There were three different [chemical weapons] structures in the Sudan. There was the hiring of Iraqis. There was no question that the Iraqis were there."

Interview with John Gannon, former chairman of the CIA's National Intelligence Council, October 25, 2004

OPEN SOURCE REPORTING suggests the relationship continued throughout the spring and summer of 1998. William Safire of the New York Times and Yossef Bodansky, former director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, have both reported the presence of an al Qaeda delegation at a birthday celebration for Saddam Hussein in April 1998.

In a speech at the U.S. Naval Academy on May 22, 1998, President Clinton warned that our enemies "may deploy compact and relatively cheap weapons of mass destruction--not just nuclear, but also chemical or biological, to use disease as a weapon of war. Sometimes the terrorists and criminals act alone. But increasingly, they are interconnected, and sometimes supported by hostile countries." Hostile countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan, and Sudan.

Although Osama bin Laden left Sudan in 1996, many al Qaeda operatives stayed behind. According to testimony from several al Qaeda terrorists now in U.S. custody, al Qaeda operatives worked closely with Sudanese intelligence. Sudanese intelligence provided security for al Qaeda camps and safehouses. These agents intervened when local Sudanese authorities arrested al Qaeda members for exploding bombs at an al Qaeda farm, securing the release of the detained terrorists. Jamal al Fadl, an al Qaeda terrorist who later cooperated with U.S. prosecutors, testified that he was ordered by Sudanese intelligence to assassinate a political rival to Hassan al-Turabi. Even after bin Laden's departure, al Qaeda and Sudanese intelligence were virtually indistinguishable.

Shortly after Clinton's speech, the CIA produced an assessment of WMD proliferation that covered the first half of 1998. "Sudan," it said, "has been developing the capability to produce chemical weapons for many years. In this pursuit, Sudan obtained help from other countries, principally Iraq. Given its history in developing CW and its close relationship with Iraq, Sudan may be interested in a BW program as well." CIA assessments through 2002 included similar analyses.

In July 1998, according to the 9/11 Commission report, "an Iraqi delegation traveled to Afghanistan to meet first with the Taliban and then with bin Laden." Referring to the March and July meetings between Iraq and al Qaeda, the Commission noted that "sources reported that one, or perhaps both, of these meetings was apparently arranged through bin Laden's Egyptian deputy, Zawahiri, who had ties of his own to the Iraqis." In a maddening omission, the report does not elaborate on the "ties" between al Qaeda's No. 2 and the Iraqi regime.
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Trouble was clearly brewing. On July 29, the CIA's Counterterrorism Center (CTC) warned of "possible Chemical, Biological, Radiological, or Nuclear (CBRN) attack by UBL [Osama bin Laden]." But when the attack came, it was by conventional means: On August 7, al Qaeda terrorists struck the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224--including 12 Americans--and injuring more than 4,000. Almost immediately, the CIA assigned responsibility to terrorists affiliated with Osama bin Laden.

The U.S. response came two weeks later, on August 20, striking two targets. The first of these, al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, was uncontroversial. The second target--the al Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Sudan--almost immediately gave rise to great controversy.

In justifying the strike on al Shifa, the Clinton administration pointed to several pieces of evidence: a soil sample indicating the presence of a precursor for VX nerve gas of Iraqi provenance; the presence of Iraqi chemical weapons experts at the plant; the long history of Iraq-Sudanese collaboration on chemical weapons; and telephone intercepts between senior Shifa officials and Emad Al Ani, the father of Iraq's chemical weapons program.

The press treated these claims with great skepticism. But Clinton administration officials and many intelligence analysts would continue to defend the intelligence surrounding al Shifa for years. In a January 23, 1999, article in the Washington Post, National Security Council counterterrorism director Richard Clarke defended the president's choice of target and said that "intelligence exists linking bin Laden to al Shifa's current and past operators, the Iraqi nerve gas experts and the National Islamic Front in Sudan." In an email he sent on November 4, 1998, to National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, Clarke concluded that the presence of Iraqi chemical experts in Sudan was "probably a direct result of the Iraq-Al Qaeda agreement."

President Clinton's secretary of defense, William Cohen, continued to defend the decision to strike al Shifa before the 9/11 Commission last year. Cohen explained that there were "multiple, reinforcing elements of information ranging from links that the organization that built the facility [al Shifa] had both with bin Laden and with the leadership of the Iraqi chemical weapons program."

In an interview with THE WEEKLY STANDARD last fall, 9/11 Commission co-chairman Thomas Kean said: "Top officials--Bill Clinton, Sandy Berger, and others--told us with absolute certainty that there were chemical weapons of mass destruction at that factory, and that's why we sent missiles." Kean added: "We still can't say for certain that the chemicals were there. If they're right and there was stuff there, then it had to come from Iraq. They're the ones who had the stuff, who had this technology."

In fact, the Iraqis were openly involved with the al Shifa facility. Sudanese foreign minister Osman Ismail was in Baghdad when the plant was attacked. He told reporters the facility was nothing more than a pharmaceutical factory. As proof he pointed to the existence of a contract awarded to al Shifa through the U.N. Oil-for-Food program. But the contract raised questions even then. In the eight months between the signing of the $199,000 contract and the U.S. strikes on al Shifa, no goods were delivered. With the benefit of hindsight, we now understand that Saddam Hussein manipulated the Oil-for-Food program to reward friends and business partners willing to help him circumvent U.N. sanctions and rebuild his weapons programs. U.S. counterterrorism officials tell The Weekly Standard that relatively few Oil-for-Food contracts went to Sudanese companies, and that the contract with al Shifa stands out as troubling.

There was reporting about an Iraqi presence at a number of facilities in Sudan. The Clinton administration chose al Shifa for destruction largely because it was outside of Khartoum and was thus unlikely to result in a large number of casualties. There were several other potential targets. "The consistent stream of intelligence at that time said it wasn't just al Shifa," says John Gannon, who was chairman of the National Intelligence Council at the time. "There were three different [chemical weapons] structures in the Sudan. There was the hiring of Iraqis. There was no question that the Iraqis were there."

As for the August 1998 Iraq-al Qaeda plots against the U.S. and British embassies in Pakistan, revealed in the Guantanamo Summary of Evidence obtained by the AP, we are left with more questions than answers. Has the detainee's story been corroborated? Were the attacks in Pakistan what the CIA's counterterrorism center warned about on July 29? Were they to have been carried out in tandem with the August 7, 1998, al Qaeda embassy bombings? Were they intended as a rejoinder to the U.S. strikes on al Shifa? A Pentagon spokesman says the government's policy against discussing detainees prevents him from providing any answers. Other Bush administration and intelligence officials contacted by The Weekly Standard either did not know about the detainee or refused to discuss the case.

On August 27, 1998, Iraq's Babel newspaper, published by Uday Hussein, labeled Osama bin Laden an "Arab and Islamic hero."

[Steve]

Below is a quote from Bill Clinton in May of 1998 that I got from the post above:

President Clinton warned that our enemies "may deploy compact and relatively cheap weapons of mass destruction--not just nuclear, but also chemical or biological, to use disease as a weapon of war. Sometimes the terrorists and criminals act alone. But increasingly, they are interconnected, and sometimes supported by hostile countries." Hostile countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan, and Sudan.
----------------
It is interesting to note that the report from the Carribean security offcer that Libya had hired someone to use planes for terrorist attacks against the United States was in the summer of 1998. That is at the exact time that Abu Nidal was on the move to Baghdad from Libya via Tehran. Salman Pak is where Abu Nidal had trained the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood of Aleppo Syria in the past. Aleppo is where the defendents in Spain's 911 trials were from and where the Unted States was allowed access into Syria after 911. Salman Pak was a jihadist training camp with the fuselage of a Boeing 707 stolen from Kuwait by Saddam when he invaded Kuwait in August of 1990. It was in Salman Pak that Kuwaiti prisoners were held underground (still thought to be alive in November 2001) and it was the stolen ID of a Kuwaiti citizen that was used by Ramzi Yousef to leave the country under the name Abdul Basit Karim. That ID had information reportedly put on it by the Kuwaiti government but at a time when there was no Kuwaiti government because it was occupied by Iraq.

Ramzi Yousef was part of Operation Bojinka that included Khalid Sheik Mohammed. It was after Operation Bojinka was broken up that the United Nations sent people to inspect Salman Pak. But more importantly Ahmed Hikmat Shakir, who was captured shortly after 911, was found to have had documents linking him to relatives of the same Baluchi brother World Trade Center and Bojinka plotters. Ahmed Hikmat Shakir was the Iraqi operative that worked temporarily at the airport in Kuala Lumpur that escorted future hijackers to a meeting there with senior Al Qaeda memebers who were plotting the USS Cole bombing and the World Trade Center attack. They met in the residence of Yazid Sufaat who was supposedly Zacharias' employer and also Yazid had some connection to the unfinished CBW facility being built in Kandahar, Afghnaistan.

Ahmed Hikmat Shakir was sprung from Amman, Jordan by the pleadings of top officials in the Iraqi government along with Amnesty International's help.

[Steve]

Below is a quote from Bill Clinton in May of 1998 that I got from the post above:

President Clinton warned that our enemies "may deploy compact and relatively cheap weapons of mass destruction--not just nuclear, but also chemical or biological, to use disease as a weapon of war. Sometimes the terrorists and criminals act alone. But increasingly, they are interconnected, and sometimes supported by hostile countries." Hostile countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan, and Sudan.
----------------
It is interesting to note that the report from the Carribean security offcer that Libya had hired someone to use planes for terrorist attacks against the United States was in the summer of 1998. That is at the exact time that Abu Nidal was on the move to Baghdad via Tehran. Salman Pak is where Abu Nidal had trained the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood of Aleppo Syria in the past. Aleppo is where the defendents in Spain's 911 trials were from and where the Unted States was allowed access into Syria after 911. Salman Pak was a jihadist training camp with the fuselage of a Boeing 707 stolen from Kuwait by Saddam when he invaded Kuwait in August of 1990. It was in Salman Pak that Kuwaiti prisoners were held underground (still thought to be alive in November 2001) and it was the stolen ID of a Kuwaiti citizen that was used by Ramzi Yousef to leave the country under the name Abdul Basit Karim. That ID had information reportedly put on it by the Kuwaiti government but at a time when there was no Kuwaiti government because it was occupied by Iraq.

Ramzi Yousef was part of Operation Bojinka that included Khalid Sheik Mohammed. It was after Operation Bojinka was broken up that the United Nations sent people to inspect Salman Pak. But more importantly Ahmed Hikmat Shakir, who was captured shortly after 911, was found to have had documents linking him to relatives of same Baluchi World Trade Center and Bojinka plotter. Ahmed Hikmat Shakir was the Iraqi operative that worked temporarily at the airport in Kuala Lumpur that escorted future hijackers to a meeting there with senior Al Qaeda memebers who were plotting the USS Cole bombing and the World Trade Center attack. They met in the residence of Yazid Sufaat who was supposedly Zacharias' employer and also Yazid had some connection to the unfinished CBW facility being built in Kandahar, Afghnaistan.

The family of Ziad Jarrah had a long history of connections to the Abu Nidal group. The Abu Nidal group had long recruited Muslim students in German universities. Abu Nidal organization is a no-joke kind of terror outfit. Its big time.

Ahmed Hikmat Shakir was arrested and held in Amman, Jordan shortly after 911 and was released back to Baghdad by the pleadings of top people within the Iraqi government and with the help of Amnesty International.

[Steve]

Sorry, I do not know what happened again. It gave me an error and I thought it therefore hadn't got posted. I added these words below to it and sent it again.

The family of Ziad Jarrah had a long history of connections to the Abu Nidal group. The Abu Nidal group had long recruited Muslim students in German universities. Abu Nidal organization is a no-joke kind of terror outfit. Its big time.