Interesting reading

[Peter_Puget]

Egg Chips & Beans

 

Edited to avoid confusion.

Edited November 9, 2005 by Peter_Puget

[Stonehead]

Aw shit, I thought this was about the group. Check it!!!

 

You are fast!!

[mattp]

I gotta say, Podhoretz is a brilliant writer, PP. That essay is likely to be effective propaganda for those who haven’t been paying attention or who desperately want to believe that their President hasn’t lied to them or that there is a good reason we are involved in Iraq.

 

First of all, the facts. He does a good job of trying to say the President told the truth because he believed his lies, but the fact is Bush and his advisors definitely knew they were delivering the message that there was an imminent threat even if they carefully worded things in a way that they could mostly deny that fact later, but I have to say “mostly.” Condoleeza Rice cannot deny that she claimed we might see a mushroom cloud over Manhattan and Scott Ridder said, just before the war, that they could be weeks away from having three nuclear weapons if they got the material. When the press reported an imminent threat, at no time did Rumsfeld or somebody call a press conference and clear up any confusion – quite to the contrary.

 

Podhoretz also tries to deny that they had reason to question their own statements about the existence of WMD’s. He does a good job of cherry-picking a few examples of where some Clinton analyst or even a French one agreed there was a worry, but BushCo definitely knew their intelligence about the existence of weapons of mass destruction was shaky at best and largely relied upon CHaliabi and a couple of his buddies. That is why they engaged in the Bushco-Judith Miller-talk show shell game whereby they would send Miller information to be published in the New York Times and then they'd have people talking to the press to say "see: even the liberal leaning New York Times believes he poses this serious threat." Podhortez is playing this same shell game over again, when he spends a quarter of his essay quoting legislators and others who got their information from the Administration, or from Judith Miller's newspaper articles. Im afraid his smear agains Wilson is disingenuous, too: others have tried to argue that Joseph Wilson has lied about what he concluded after going to Africa, but there is nobody in any position of vulnerability on this point who is standing up to do so. And where is the comprehensive Congressional investigation into the intelligence failures leading up to the war? We haven’t seen it because the majority party doesn’t want us to see it.

 

He also effectively confuses things when he argues that our European allies believed Saddam had WMD’s. While they had no way to dispute our intelligence and may have sought to be diplomatic or may even have believed that Saddam could have had a biological weapons program, the fact is that the Europeans were nearly united in arguing that we could wait while the U.N. inspectors continued their work. Bush and Rumsfeld didn’t want to wait, because they feared a final U.N. report would undermine their rush to war. Remember: it was NOT Saddam who pulled the inspectors out; it was the U.S.

 

And then let’s turn to the conclusion. Podhoretz tells us that the war was good policy because what we really went there in order to establish a beach-head for democracy in the Middle East and to make the world a safer place for America as a result. He concludes we are winning. The first point, if true, belies the whole thesis of his essay: if we went in there to establish a democracy while our President told us he was going in because Iraq posed a threat that required fast action, he lied about why we were going to war. As to the success of our effort? I don’t know what newspapers Podheurtz has been reading but they are not the same ones I read. We shall see if this Iraq venture ends up successful or not.

 

A challenge for you, PP:

Rather than drop a right wing link and then decline to actually discuss your argumen or do any research, how about actually trying to engage in some debate or discussion? It took me all of a half hour to read that article and write this impression of it, over a cup of morning coffee. I'm sure you can find the time to do the same.

[Jim]

Touche to master link maker!

[Peter_Puget]

A challenge for you, PP:

Rather than drop a right wing link and then decline to actually discuss your argumen or do any research, how about actually trying to engage in some debate or discussion? It took me all of a half hour to read that article and write this impression of it, over a cup of morning coffee. I'm sure you can find the time to do the same.

 

I make a post titled "Interesting reading" consisting of a link to an article by a wrtiter that by your own admission is brilliant. From that you conclude that I have "declined to discuss my argument" or "do any research." Your post by the was the first one to address the content of the linked article. How can I "refuse" before a comment is even made?!?!?!?

 

I simply offered a link to an article that is interesting and well written. I thought others may be intersted in reading it. I made no argument. My "research" was reading the article and concluding that others might find it interesting. I ask that those reading your post consider how the lack of logic in your "challenge" to me might reflect on the validity of your statements above.

 

Matt - I recall your bringing up the mushroom cloud over Manhatten several times before. Here is a quote from you from last week:

 

The plain fact is, they said that we might see a mushroom cloud over Manhattan before any U.N. inspectors could do their work.

 

Here is my reply:

 

Let's see the actual quote and context in which it was said (written?) and see just how this quote fits in with both our scenarios.

 

The thread is here.

 

Note that in that thread I presented arguements and some supporting documentation. You called my arguement nonsense and then later agreed it was arguable. But at no point did you do more than spout the party line. I tried to engage you as evidenced by my quote above. You never replied.

 

Cheers,

PP

[Peter_Puget]

By the way, the link I posted here is even more interesting!

[mattp]

PP:

 

You are right, I couldn’t predict with certainty this morning that you would not follow up with any real discussion this time. However, youir past record is consistent: post a link or excerpt from some right wing blog, and then follow up with a few jabs here and there without putting any real effort into a real response. I am challenging you to try something new: researching your points and putting together a cogent argument. It took me about a half hour to read and draft my immediate impression of that Podheretz article. It is really not that hard. By the way, this reply took me ten minutes. I gotta get some work done today, though, so you have plenty of time to reply on your own terms as I may not be ready to quickly reply to your next reply so you can reply to mine...

 

As to your question about the mushroom cloud: Do you have Google on your computer? Type “mushroom” and “Iraq.” You will quickly find this:

 

President Bush, October 7, 2002:

America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof -- the smoking gun -- that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.

 

White House press release

 

Condoleezza Rice, September 8, 2002

The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.

 

CNN

 

 

I believe I could do some further research and find where others echoed these words. But a quick “hit” I got listed the following: Read them and then argue how anybody could draw the impression from these statements, in context or not, that there was no immediacy to the threat?

 

"The dictator of Iraq and his weapons of mass destruction are a threat to the security of free nations."

• President Bush, 3/16/03

"This is about imminent threat."

• White House spokesman Scott McClellan, 2/10/03

Iraq is "a serious threat to our country, to our friends and to our allies."

• Vice President Dick Cheney, 1/31/03

Iraq poses "terrible threats to the civilized world."

• Vice President Dick Cheney, 1/30/03

Iraq "threatens the United States of America."

• Vice President Cheney, 1/30/03

Iraq poses a serious and mounting threat to our country. His regime has the design for a nuclear weapon, was working on several different methods of enriching uranium, and recently was discovered seeking significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

• Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 1/29/03

"Well, of course he is.”

• White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett responding to the question “is Saddam an imminent threat to U.S. interests, either in that part of the world or to Americans right here at home?”, 1/26/03

"Saddam Hussein possesses chemical and biological weapons. Iraq poses a threat to the security of our people and to the stability of the world that is distinct from any other. It's a danger to its neighbors, to the United States, to the Middle East and to the international peace and stability. It's a danger we cannot ignore. Iraq and North Korea are both repressive dictatorships to be sure and both pose threats. But Iraq is unique. In both word and deed, Iraq has demonstrated that it is seeking the means to strike the United States and our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction."

• Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 1/20/03

"The Iraqi regime is a threat to any American. ... Iraq is a threat, a real threat."

• President Bush, 1/3/03

"The world is also uniting to answer the unique and urgent threat posed by Iraq whose dictator has already used weapons of mass destruction to kill thousands."

• President Bush, 11/23/02

"I would look you in the eye and I would say, go back before September 11 and ask yourself this question: Was the attack that took place on September 11 an imminent threat the month before or two months before or three months before or six months before? When did the attack on September 11 become an imminent threat? Now, transport yourself forward a year, two years or a week or a month...So the question is, when is it such an immediate threat that you must do something?"

• Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 11/14/02

"Saddam Hussein is a threat to America."

• President Bush, 11/3/02

"I see a significant threat to the security of the United States in Iraq."

• President Bush, 11/1/02

"There is real threat, in my judgment, a real and dangerous threat to American in Iraq in the form of Saddam Hussein."

• President Bush, 10/28/02

"The Iraqi regime is a serious and growing threat to peace."

• President Bush, 10/16/02

"There are many dangers in the world, the threat from Iraq stands alone because it gathers the most serious dangers of our age in one place. Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists."

• President Bush, 10/7/02

"The Iraqi regime is a threat of unique urgency."

• President Bush, 10/2/02

"There's a grave threat in Iraq. There just is."

• President Bush, 10/2/02

"This man poses a much graver threat than anybody could have possibly imagined."

• President Bush, 9/26/02

"No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq."

• Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 9/19/02

"Some have argued that the nuclear threat from Iraq is not imminent - that Saddam is at least 5-7 years away from having nuclear weapons. I would not be so certain. And we should be just as concerned about the immediate threat from biological weapons. Iraq has these weapons."

• Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 9/18/02

 

web page

[olyclimber]

[Stonehead]

I like short statements. So here.

 

Podhoretz is a noted neoconservative. Enuf said?

 

The thing I do want to point out is how do we get from point A to point B? In other words, how do we establish democracies in the Middle East? Or more importantly, should we strive to push for revolutionary changes in the current regimes? Will these actions tend to stabilize the Middle East or cause destablization? Are these actions in our best national interests or are these actions for the likely benefit of a regional player?

 

It's all well and good that writers pen their thoughts on paper but the proposed regime changes are easier said than done. Could your noble cause be utopian without taking into account current realities?

[Stonehead]

BTW, here's a link that counters what the shills who support Bush are saying. So, who has a better perception of what is really going on?

[sexual_chocolate]

MattP, you know his style, so why do you engage? I think he's simply egging you on, without any intention of revealing any of his own arguments (I don't think he really has any), which doesn't make for a serious discussion!

 

Thanks for the rope, BTW!

[sexual_chocolate]

Plus, the neocon position is stated (by Grover Nordquist and others) as one that endorses misrepresentation as a standard for realization of policy objectives.

 

If you have an ideological movement that endorses deceit, then most assuredly you cannot trust anything they say, which is the position this administration has gotten itself into with more and more of the American public.

[chucK]

Peter,

Thanks for that link. The rehash of democrats talking up the danger of Saddam Hussein is compelling. Perhaps this is why some Dems (like Hillary) are still sticking the their positions that they would still have authorized the war. I can tell you that I didn't think that Saddam was a direct threat to us, or that he was in cahoots with Al Qaeda, but I was totally surpised by the complete lack of WMD's. It must be said that I was only getting the administrations side of the argument.

 

Though your article is compelling, it does seem to contain some misinformation, or, at least, stuff that contradicts or misconstrues things that I have read from what I view are reliable sources. Thus, it makes me wonder about the other "facts" that Podhertz presents.

 

Here are some parts of the article that I find hinky:

 

1. He implies that congressional comissions have cleared the administration of misusing the intel. That is not the case, AFAIK. From what I've read, the intial congressional investigations focused on the intelligence, and deferred on how the WH used it until later (i.e. "after the election"). The part of the investigation that was supposed to look into how the WH used the intelligence is currently "ongoing". The committee is, I think, 5 Repubs, 4 Dems, so dissenting voices have been powerless, and there are allegations that Roberts(?) the committee chair, has been dragging his feet and refusing to subpoena documents. That whole "secret session stunt" by Harry Reid was to focus the country on the lack of work that committee has done, and give the minority dems on that committee some say by shining the light on the lack of investigation for the currently distrustful American populace.

 

2. Your article follows the same talking points about how much Joseph Wilson is a liar. Classic GOP misdirection. I read the Joseph Wilson op-ed and he does NOT claim that Cheney sent him. May be that Wilson does stretch the truth, I don't know, but the claim that he lied about who sent him in his initial op-ed is a lie in itself, and defaming Wilson doesn't really get at the point of whether GWB lied any more than place doubt in one critic out of many.

 

3. The part using the quote of Fitzgerald about the trial not being about the war, "contradicting" Harry Reid saying it is about the war is completely ludicrous. Reid's point is merely that he feels the real meat of all this is the way we were led into war. He is saying some may focus only on the indictment (which Fitzgerald is doing since that's his job), but that others should realize that this whole thing is bigger than perjury. He is not at all contradicted by Fitzgerald as they are really talking about two different, but related things. This part of Podhertz argument is illogical and probably intentionally misleading.

 

4. How does Podhertz, I wonder, reconcile the statements from the administration claiming that they would do everything they could to peacefully resolve their differences with Saddam with the myriad of reports that indicate that invading Iraq was on the agenda even before 9/11?

 

 

Matt,

Are you sure it was Scott Ritter said that stuff about Saddam being able to build a bomb? I remember him (former weapons inspector) as being an almost lone voice before the war proclaiming that he was positive Saddam had no nuclear weaponry.

[Jim]

It's stunning how the neocons are running for cover and now trying to spin their way out of this. Chickenhawks all of them. They don't even have the backbone to defend their policies honestly. The facts clearly show, now as they did two years ago, that they did this under false pretense.

 

The tragedy is that the mainstream media played the lapdog then and is only mildly critical now. The mantra of this administration is "power at all costs".

[Peter_Puget]

The danger of Google is that you might not actually read what you have searched for. I would also add that spewing forth a bunch of google results is neither real research or argumentation. For example what you were trying to defend was this statement:

The plain fact is, they said that we might see a mushroom cloud over Manhattan before any U.N. inspectors could do their work.

 

You wrote this as evidence that the administration was arguing that the threat was imminent. Now it is clear your reference does not directly support this assertion but I will agree there might be some ambiguity with the timeline. Let’s see what else the President said in that very speech.

 

here is no easy or risk-free course of action. Some have argued we should wait -- and that's an option. In my view, it's the riskiest of all options, because the longer we wait, the stronger and bolder Saddam Hussein will become. We could wait and hope that Saddam does not give weapons to terrorists, or develop a nuclear weapon to blackmail the world. But I'm convinced that is a hope against all evidence. As Americans, we want peace -- we work and sacrifice for peace. But there can be no peace if our security depends on the will and whims of a ruthless and aggressive dictator. I'm not willing to stake one American life on trusting Saddam Hussein.

Failure to act would embolden other tyrants, allow terrorists access to new weapons and new resources, and make blackmail a permanent feature of world events. The United Nations would betray the purpose of its founding, and prove irrelevant to the problems of our time. And through its inaction, the United States would resign itself to a future of fear.

 

It is clear that the president is saying that Iraq did not have nuclear capabilities at the time of the speech.

 

Here is another quote from the same speech:

 

Many people have asked how close Saddam Hussein is to developing a nuclear weapon. Well, we don't know exactly, and that's the problem. Before the Gulf War, the best intelligence indicated that Iraq was eight to ten years away from developing a nuclear weapon. After the war, international inspectors learned that the regime has been much closer -- the regime in Iraq would likely have possessed a nuclear weapon no later than 1993. The inspectors discovered that Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a workable nuclear weapon, and was pursuing several different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb.

Before being barred from Iraq in 1998, the International Atomic Energy Agency dismantled extensive nuclear weapons-related facilities, including three uranium enrichment sites. That same year, information from a high-ranking Iraqi nuclear engineer who had defected revealed that despite his public promises, Saddam Hussein had ordered his nuclear program to continue.

The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Saddam Hussein has held numerous meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists, a group he calls his "nuclear mujahideen" -- his nuclear holy warriors. Satellite photographs reveal that Iraq is rebuilding facilities at sites that have been part of its nuclear program in the past. Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.

If the Iraqi regime is able to produce, buy, or steal an amount of highly enriched uranium a little larger than a single softball, it could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year. And if we allow that to happen, a terrible line would be crossed. Saddam Hussein would be in a position to blackmail anyone who opposes his aggression. He would be in a position to dominate the Middle East. He would be in a position to threaten America. And Saddam Hussein would be in a position to pass nuclear technology to terrorists.

 

Here we have an guess that after Saddam produces, buys or steals a certain amount of uranium he would be able to produce a nuclear weapon an less than a year. Bush is clearly saying that the threat is not imminent but due to uncertainty we should act now both to deal with the problem and to intimidate others from pursuing the same course of action. This speech supports my claim and not yours.

 

I looked at your Rice quote but alas it was a quote taken from an interview given months earlier. Remember what I asked for => "Let's see the actual quote and context in which it was said (written?) and see just how this quote fits in with both our scenarios."

 

Clearly the context in which something was said is critical to understanding its meaning. In your first quote it was possible to understand the context and realize how you were misrepresenting the quote. In the second it is not.

 

Now let's move on to your long series of quotes. Again I note not context is given. I will agree that the whitehouse spokesman did use the "I" word several times not in agreement with the administrations position. I would add that most of your quotes do not use the "I" word and would tend to support my position.

 

The adminitstration had a whole slew of reasons why they wanted to invade Iraq. Fear of an imminent attack wasn't one of them.

 

As I pointed out before, the adminstration was trying to create a new norm in international law. This new norm was based on acting before the threat was imminent. The error you make in pressing your arguement is two fold. 1) it is simply not in accordance with the facts and 2) it tries to make the administration appear to be lying and in doing so misses the truly revolutionary change in international law that they were trying to make. A corrupt administration is always a danger no matter what the official policy may be but a bad policy is a danger with a good administration as well.

[catbirdseat]

From what I've read, Bush had enough people telling him about possible chemical and biological weapons that one could give him the benefit of the doubt and say no lie there. But, those types of WMDs couldn't by themselves tip the balance in favor of war. For that, nukes were needed. There was even less certainty about Saddam's nuclear activities. Bush needed one shred of evidence to convince the public, because the aluminum tubes, by themselves weren't pursuasive. Hence, the manufactured document about the Yellow Cake uranium. There is your lie. The lashing out at Wilson was further evidence. That was the fatal mistake.

 

The problem with Bush's style of take-no-prisoners politics is that when you play that way, people just are not predisposed to give you the benefit of the doubt when you screw up.

[mattp]

Peter-

You continue to - what was KK's phrase about confusing and obfiscating? In all of your vast research, have you found any indication that Bush and Rumsfeld and their boys EVER told us that we could calm down and wait a little longer because the threat wasn't imminent? No. Their entire effort was to portray the situation as "urgent" and requiring a sooner rather than later invasion. They clearly said, over and over again, that we couldn't wait.

 

They could have said "hey folks, he is a bad guy but we've got him surrounded, and he can't fly in either the north or the south, and we have time to see if something other than military invasion RIGHT NOW will work but we are going to have to go in sooner or later so it might as well be RIGHT NOW. They didn't say that. They said his threat, including the threat of a nuclear attack against our home state, was so urgent that they couldn't wait.

 

You can slice and dice their speeches and find how Bush at one point said it might take a year for Saddam to build a weapon, but that was not at all the picture they painted. Your duck is getting old here.

[Dru]

Bush never said "nuclear" He said "nuke-yu-lar".

[cj001f]

Your duck is getting old here.

And Bush's goose is getting cooked.

[catbirdseat]

Bush never said "nuclear" He said "nuke-yu-lar".

I stand corrected.

[chucK]

Your duck is getting old here.

And Bush's goose is getting cooked.

 

Check out this link!

more recent Foxnews poll

 

Down to 36%! Funny that they don't have a snazzy graphic for this more recent result.

[cj001f]

Funny that they don't have a snazzy graphic for this more recent result.

Even more interesting is that the older, better numbers are the only ones that showed up in my search.

[chucK]

I feel a terror alert coming on...

[Peter_Puget]

Peter-

You continue to - what was KK's phrase about confusing and obfiscating? In all of your vast research, have you found any indication that Bush and Rumsfeld and their boys EVER told us that we could calm down and wait a little longer because the threat wasn't imminent? No. Their entire effort was to portray the situation as "urgent" and requiring a sooner rather than later invasion. They clearly said, over and over again, that we couldn't wait.

 

They could have said "hey folks, he is a bad guy but we've got him surrounded, and he can't fly in either the north or the south, and we have time to see if something other than military invasion RIGHT NOW will work but we are going to have to go in sooner or later so it might as well be RIGHT NOW. They didn't say that. They said his threat, including the threat of a nuclear attack against our home state, was so urgent that they couldn't wait.

 

You can slice and dice their speeches and find how Bush at one point said it might take a year for Saddam to build a weapon, [/color] but that was not at all the picture they painted. Your duck is getting old here.

 

I do find it odd that by showing several pargraphs of a speech you referenced to buttress your position, I am accussed of "slicing and dicing."

 

No ducking here. I responded directly and showed the evidence that I felt supported me. To say I ducked is certainly to misrepresent the facts.

 

Here is a quote from the speech you linked to that is also in my previous post:

 

here is no easy or risk-free course of action. Some have argued we should wait -- and that's an option. In my view, it's the riskiest of all options, because the longer we wait, the stronger and bolder Saddam Hussein will become. ....{edit}.... But there can be no peace if our security depends on the will and whims of a ruthless and aggressive dictator. I'm not willing to stake one American life on trusting Saddam Hussein.

Failure to act would embolden other tyrants, allow terrorists access to new weapons .....

[cj001f]

PP said: