Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Olbermann on Bush

Keith Olbermann has been good lately. He has found his voice, a kind of classic style of speaking that reminds you of the old voice of civilization that you used to hear, back when leaders were leaders and a man's opinion was something he had thought all the way through.

Just a few words from HERE:
“In the 1920’s a failed Austrian painter published a book in which he explained his intention to build an Aryan super-state in Germany and take revenge on Europe and eradicate the Jews,” President Bush said today, “the world ignored Hitler’s words, and paid a terrible price.”

Whatever the true nature of al Qaeda and other international terrorist threats, to ceaselessly compare them to the Nazi State of Germany serves only to embolden them.

More over, Mr. Bush, you are accomplishing in part what Osama Bin Laden and others seek—a fearful American populace, easily manipulated, and willing to throw away any measure of restraint, any loyalty to our own ideals and freedoms, for the comforting illusion of safety.

It thus becomes necessary to remind the President that his administration’s recent Nazi “kick” is an awful and cynical thing.

And it becomes necessary to reach back into our history, for yet another quote, from yet another time and to ask it of Mr. Bush:

“Have you no sense of decency, sir?”

25 Comments:

Blogger Orin Ryssman said...

Jim writes, as it would seem, wishing for a return of the "good old days"...

Keith Olbermann has been good lately.

I remember Keith Olbermann back when I lived in Southern California, and he was on the NBC tv affiliate (KNBC) reporting on sports. Since I did follow sports then or now, I took little notice of him...

Now that he is "branching out" or rather deversifying into political commentary I have taken notice of him. He strikes me as a something akin to a water boy for Team Angry Left...

He has found his voice, a kind of classic style of speaking that reminds you of the old voice of civilization that you used to hear, back when leaders were leaders and a man's opinion was something he had thought all the way through.

When were leaders leaders, Jim? When Clinton was President? Kennedy? Truman? Come now, don't be shy...

With all of that said, I do agree that to compare al Qaeda to the Nazis' may not be the most accurate. It might be more accurate to label al Qaeda a wanna be totalitarian ideology quite different than the two that came before it (those being Soviet Marxism-Leninism and German National Socialism as expressed by Hitler) in that it this time the totalitarian impulse is religious, not secular.

The other difference, one which makes it more dangerous than the Soviet or German totalitarianism, is that al Qaeda is State-less, or rather supra national. This gives al Qaeda the advantage of setting up shop in any place either sympathetic to their religious goals (sharia, that is, religious law enforced by civil authority in the name of Islam) or too politically weak to repeal (cf. what looks to be modern day Somalia).

Olbermann, the new voice of civilization opines,

Whatever the true nature of al Qaeda and other international terrorist threats, to ceaselessly compare them to the Nazi State of Germany serves only to embolden them.

"Whatever the true nature of al Qaeda"??? Whatever in the world is a comment like THAT??? That is one extraordinary bit or moral agnosticism that could only be spoken by someone wanting to be considered an elite opinion shaper. And how does it "embolden them"? Anyone...anyone?

Again, Olbermann,

More over, Mr. Bush, you are accomplishing in part what Osama Bin Laden and others seek—a fearful American populace, easily manipulated, and willing to throw away any measure of restraint, any loyalty to our own ideals and freedoms, for the comforting illusion of safety.

And what might those "ideals and freedoms" be? Really now...when I talk to my teenage daughters on my cell phone I do not live in fear that that the NSA might just be listening in on my conversation, rather I pity the tedium of the routine they must go thru, looking for that literal "needle in a haystack". What about when I go to the library?...do I live in fear that my reading habits are being tracked by Big Brother? Guess again...I have a couple of close contacts (friends) that work in the profession, and they are more alert than ever to defending and maintaining our freedom to read what we like. The independent moral conscience and rear guard actions will assure Americans that they are truly free in what they choose to read.

Finally, mercifully, Olbermann finishes,

“Have you no sense of decency, sir?”

Wow...now that was really original. (sarcasm mode off) Olbermann at once unmasks himself as a crusader in the same way as those old anti-anti-Communists, that is, those that defined themselves by their opposition to those willing to fight the attempted advances of Communism.

Talk about a fight...anti-Communists fought a 40+ year war, albeit Cold War, but a war nonetheless. Even some in the Democratic Party not under the influence of the New Left, heros like Henry "Scoop" Jackson, understood and supported the fight.

Where are they all now?

September 06, 2006 4:20 AM  
Anonymous David S. Fishback said...

In response to Oren, I suggest that there is a fundamental difference between arguments over HOW to deal with the threat posed by Al Qaeda and its ilk and WHETHER to deal with the threat.

The Administration asserts or seeks to create the impression that leaders in the Democratic Party disagree with the Administration about WHETHER to deal with the threat; that is why Bush, et al. invoke the Munich spectre.

But it seems to me that the truth is that there is no disagreement over whether to deal with the threat. For example, there was justifiable unanimity among the leadership of both parties that action had to be taken in Afghanistan after 9/11 against Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

The substance of the national debate right now is over course in Iraq is best for our national interest, given the blunders in deciding to go to war there and the subsequent blunders in carrying out that war. More and more Americans have concluded (correctly, in my view)that the Administration's judgment has been grossly deficient. This, naturally, scares the heck out of the Administration.

So Bush et. al. seek to turn away from that subject or pretend their judgment is not part of the problem. Their political experience teaches them that the best way to do that is to go on the attack. Their political tactic is to go directly at their opposition's strength and twist the perception of the facts -- witness the Swift Boaters for Truth campaign that painted war hero John Kerry as a sniveling liar (or callous murderer) in the theater of war. They are trying the same kind of tactic again on the entire Democratic Party.

Getting back to the substance, however, Rumsfeld himself admitted that we had a problem in that in Iraq we might be creating more terrorists than we are killing. The Administration seems to understand (or at least sometimes seems to understand) that our large "footprint" in Iraq creates a problem for us in the War on Terror. Should we try to "solve" the problem by bringing in even more soldiers, as proposed by John McCain; by "staying the course" as asserted by President Bush (Ken Mehlman's "adjust to win" theme seems to have been dropped); by concentrating the minds and efforts of the Iraqi government by setting some dates by which American troops will begin to leave, as proposed by many Democrats and now by Republican Congressman Shays; or by immediately redeploying "over the horizon," as proposed by Congressman Murtha? None of these is a guaranteed effective approach. We have a choice between dicey alternatives. Unfortunately, the crew that exhibited the bad judgment to get us into this mess will be calling the shots until January 20, 2009.

When the Administration chose to invade Iraq, it shifted from a justifiable War on Terror to a strategy to transform the Middle East. It seems never to have occurred to them that that strategy might be doomed to failure. So now we have an additional front in the War on Terror.

HOW we deal with this mess is the most important issue facing the nation. The Administration's effort to turn it into a "debate" about WHETHER to deal with it -- when there is no disagreement about that -- is dispicable.

September 06, 2006 7:09 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"HOW we deal with this mess is the most important issue facing the nation. The Administration's effort to turn it into a "debate" about WHETHER to deal with it -- when there is no disagreement about that -- is dispicable."

The Democrats idea of how to "deal" with it is cut our losses and run. They exploit the fears of Americans rather than provide leadership and seek, as always, a short-term patch over a long-term problem. Al Quaeda is only one manifestation of larger problem where terror is a new weapon against civilization. Hussein used it by supporting suicide bombers in Israel. Whether Democrats favor a time table or immediate withdrawal, the point is the goal can be forsaken if it costs too much. The responsible Dems like Lieberman and Hillary are being attacked. The whole line about how we're just creating more terrorists is nothing but appeasement, similar to Chamberlain's idea about Poland. Our goal in Iraq was noble and justified. The people of Iraq want freedom. To desert the cause because of resistance from terrorists is cowardly.

September 06, 2006 2:24 PM  
Blogger Orin Ryssman said...

David writes,

In response to Oren, I suggest that there is a fundamental difference between arguments over HOW to deal with the threat posed by Al Qaeda and its ilk and WHETHER to deal with the threat.

"Oren"? Who is that? LOL. That is the sometime jewish variation on my name, which btw, I received in honor of a deceased relative that was not jewish (mormon, actually).

Yes, I would agree.

Democrats had an opportunity for 8 years TO DO something...heck, anything about the gathering storm. Looking back now it is clear that al Qaeda did everything but send the US an engraved notice about 9/11.

Doing the bidding (albeit unintentionally) of Iran by removing Saddam Hussein from power appears now to have perhaps been not the best way drain the cesspool of force and violence that is a common way of life in the Middle East, but now that we are there the only question to be answered is this: do we want to win or lose. It appears that the Democrats, but most esp the Angry Left, wants the US to lose because then they can defeat Bush in a way they were unable to do in two presidential elections. Frankly, I don't envy the position the Democratic Party is in at the moment. They could choose principle over power, present a united front to this country and the world, but that would take a political that is big spirited...and the Democratic Party is anything but...

David ends,

HOW we deal with this mess is the most important issue facing the nation. The Administration's effort to turn it into a "debate" about WHETHER to deal with it -- when there is no disagreement about that -- is dispicable.

It is only dispicable because because you do not like or approve of the political party or person in power.

You know what?...I hope the Democrats sweep the House and the Senate, and then in 2 years take the White House. And then when the US gets attacked once again, only this time on a scale that makes us pine for 9/11,then I would like to see what the party in power does.

The Democrats: Let's go arrest them! What a joke...

September 06, 2006 6:06 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You guys are making a lot of nothing did you not hear All Gore said the sky is falling. don't you get it? The sky is falling! Is Keith Olberman going to stop it from falling? No! Run away! Run away! RUN AWAY!!!

September 06, 2006 8:51 PM  
Anonymous David S. Fishback said...

Oren writes:

"Democrats had an opportunity for 8 years TO DO something...heck, anything about the gathering storm. Looking back now it is clear that al Qaeda did everything but send the US an engraved notice about 9/11."

Well, the fact is that the Clinton Administration did try, unfortunately unsuccessfully, to do something about Al Qaeda. You may recall that Clinton told Bush that the biggest foreign policy problem he was going to face would be Al Qaeda. Sadly, Bush and his people chose to ignore that warning, even to the point of ignoring the now infamous August 6 national security memo which warned about possible Al Qaeda use of planes as weapons to crash into buildings.

Orin does not envy the Democratic Party's situation. I agree. I also do not envy the Republican Party's situation. Bush's disastrous decision to invade Iraq -- and then the further decision to do it on the cheap -- has created a more dangerous situation in which now all alternatives are bad alternatives.

September 06, 2006 11:41 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

On Sunday and Monday, ABC will be airing a mini-series detailing all the opportunities the Clinton administration blew in stopping Al-quaeda. Democrats are revving up a propaganda campaign to counter the facts but screenwriter Cyrus Nowrasteh says the movie illustrates "the frequent opportunities the administration had in the '90s to stop bin Laden in his tracks -- but lacked the will to do so."

September 07, 2006 9:19 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

TTF should be dancing a jig. There are plans to teach some facts to public school students:

"ABC has enlisted the education and children's entertainment company Scholastic, Inc. to send 100,000 letters to high school teachers, urging them to show students "The Path to 9/11"."

"The Path to 9/11" will show the voters, right before the election, how the Clinton administration allowed al-Quaeda to grow into a viable terrorist threat.

September 07, 2006 9:32 AM  
Anonymous David S. Fishback said...

I think it worthwhile to check out this UPI story before jumping to conclusions. I certainly would expect ABC to hype it as much as possible – that is what they are in business to do. But to the extent it creates inaccurate impressions, there is certainly cause for concern.

In any event, please note the last paragraph of the article:

"The film does paint a rather unflattering portrait of the incoming Bush administration -- showing how they demoted White House counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke, and failed to act against al-Qaida even after their responsibility for the November 2000 attack on the USS Cole became clear.
"'The difference is, the stuff they show the Bush administration doing actually happened,' said Jay Carson, a spokesman for former President Clinton."

I hope the show has a scene with the August 6 warning memorandum that President Bush blew off.


http://www.upi.com/inc/view.php?StoryID=20060905-111623-5746r

Security & Terrorism -
Analysis: Sept. 11 miniseries under fire
By SHAUN WATERMAN
UPI Homeland and National Security Editor
WASHINGTON, Sept. 6 (UPI) -- An upcoming TV mini-series about the origins of the Sept. 11 plot is provoking angry complaints from Democrats about the portrayal of the Clinton administration's response to terrorism.
"The Path to 9/11," a five-hour dramatization laying out the history of the Sept. 11 plot from the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, will be aired over two nights on the anniversary of the attack next week by ABC Television.
The movie is billed as a dramatization based on the report of the U.S. commission that investigated the events of Sept. 11 and circumstances leading up to it. According to a disclaimer shown at the beginning of each episode, it "has composite and representative characters and incidents, and time compressions have been used for dramatic purposes."
But a portion of the film showing an aborted effort to capture al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden before the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa has aroused the ire of some of the officials portrayed.
A statement from Samuel "Sandy" Berger, who was national security adviser to President Bill Clinton at the time, calls the scenes involving him "complete fabrications."
And Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., called on ABC to show disclaimers throughout each episode, not just at the beginning. "ABC has a responsibility to make clear that this film is not a documentary, and does not represent an official account of the facts surrounding the Sept. 11 attacks," she said.
In one scene, CIA operatives working with Ahmed Shah Masud, the charismatic Afghan mujahedin leader who fought al-Qaida and their Taliban sponsors, are assembled on a hillside above bin Laden's residence at Tarnak Farms. "It's perfect for us," says "Kirk," a composite character representing several of the CIA operatives and analysts involved in the hunt for the terrorist leader.
But the team is forced to abort the mission when Berger hangs up on them in the middle of a conference call, after telling them he cannot give the go ahead for the action.
"I don't have that authority," he says.
"Are there any men in Washington," Masud asks Kirk afterwards in the film, "or are they all cowards?"
"The incidents depicted did not happen," said Berger in the statement. "They are not contained in the Sept. 11 Commission report, which is the most authoritative review of the events before and after the attack."
Indeed, the commission's report -- although it reveals the Clinton White House was concerned about the possible repercussions of a failed capture effort -- says that it was CIA Director George Tenet who nixed the capture plan, which would never have involved U.S. personnel in the assault, and which was canceled before being put into operation.
Officials from both the White House and the CIA have characterized the back-and-forth about the plan as a breakdown of communications. The White House believed that they were authorizing the killing of bin Laden, but those at the CIA charged with carrying out the operation itself saw their authority limited to a capture operation that might result in his death.
"There were shouting matches" between senior officials about the plan, said one senior member of the Sept. 11 commission staff who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is now working in a sensitive government position. However, the staffer said, the scene at Tarnak Farms "didn't happen, and frankly it's silly."
But former GOP Governor Thomas Kean of New Jersey, the chairman of the Sept. 11 commission and a consultant to the production, defended the film, saying it showed "a colossal failure of government.
"If you portray that accurately," he added, "people from both (the Clinton and Bush) administrations will complain."
"I would say it's balanced," Kean said.
The film does paint a rather unflattering portrait of the incoming Bush administration -- showing how they demoted White House counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke, and failed to act against al-Qaida even after their responsibility for the November 2000 attack on the USS Cole became clear.
"The difference is, the stuff they show the Bush administration doing actually happened," said Jay Carson, a spokesman for former President Clinton.

September 07, 2006 11:30 AM  
Anonymous My Pet Goat said...

Bush's reaction to the attacks was swift and heroic.

September 07, 2006 12:04 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Let's remember that for 6 years of the Clinton administration, beginning in 1994, the GOP controlled the House of Representatives which is the body of our government that appropriates funds. Without funding, nothing much gets done.

I wonder if the new backpack policy means that Scholastic, Inc. can staff a table to hand out their fiction at Back to School night.

We've had countless comments from Anons telling us that watching movies is a waste of time. Now that the right wing talking points include selling this movie, they're all gung ho for it. Flip flop!

September 07, 2006 12:17 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"I hope the show has a scene with the August 6 warning memorandum that President Bush blew off."

Any idea how many of these type of warnings come through the White House? What's the definition of "blew off"? How many did Clinton "blow off"? (don't take any easy joke opportunities here)

Interesting that now the Democrat line is that the White House keeps over-reacting to terrorist threats now but their rear view mirror take is that he didn't react strongly enough back then.

Here's the next-to-last line in the UPI story, a pretty credible source saying the film depiction is fair:

"But former GOP Governor Thomas Kean of New Jersey, the chairman of the Sept. 11 commission... defended the film, saying it showed "a colossal failure of government.

"If you portray that accurately," he added, "people from both (the Clinton and Bush) administrations will complain."

"I would say it's balanced," Kean said."

Doesn't seem to suport the revisionist Fishback view of a virtuous Clinton/incompetent Bush dichotomy.

September 07, 2006 12:37 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Let's remember that for 6 years of the Clinton administration, beginning in 1994, the GOP controlled the House of Representatives which is the body of our government that appropriates funds. Without funding, nothing much gets done."

Also remember that the balanced budget that Clintonites regularly gloat about was forced on them by this Gingrich revolution.

There was plenty of money for espionage operations. The problems with America's intelligence community stem from restrictions placed on them in the Democratically controlled 70s.

"I wonder if the new backpack policy means that Scholastic, Inc. can staff a table to hand out their fiction at Back to School night."

Interesting how far MCPS will go to keep kids from hearing about a bible study group and how judges keep slapping the school board down. Shouldn't someone realize at some point that the MCPS board doesn't support the U.S. Constitution?

"We've had countless comments from Anons telling us that watching movies is a waste of time. Now that the right wing talking points include selling this movie, they're all gung ho for it. Flip flop!"

What a revealingly pathetic comment! But I guess there's not a lot else you can say. The Clinton administration's incompetence will be exposed.

September 07, 2006 12:48 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

How much do you hold the Clinton White House responsible for failing to prevent 9/11?

A lot 59%

Very little or not at all 24%

Somewhat 16%

September 07, 2006 3:12 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oh great -- a debate about a made for TV movie, a fictionalized dramatization. I bet if the very conservative Cyrus Nowrasteh had written that Reagan movie, we'd all have seen it on the public airwaves.

The real story today was buried back on page 11.

"Panel Set to Release Just Part of Report On Run-Up to War
Full Disclosure May Come Post-Election

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 7, 2006; Page A11

A long-awaited Senate analysis comparing the Bush administration's public statements about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein with the evidence senior officials reviewed in private remains mired in partisan recrimination and will not be released before the November elections, key senators said yesterday.

Instead, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence will vote today to declassify two less controversial chapters of the panel's report, on the use of intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war, for release as early as Friday. One chapter has concluded that Iraqi exiles in the Iraqi National Congress, who were subsidized by the U.S. government, tried to influence the views of intelligence officers analyzing Hussein's efforts to create weapons of mass destruction.

"It is clear to me, at least, that the INC information provided to the Department of Defense was misleading, that the government spent unnecessary amounts of money supporting that group, and all of that helped create bogus reasons to go to war," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), a member of the intelligence committee.

Under pressure from Democrats, Republicans on the committee agreed in February 2004 to write a report on the use of prewar intelligence, but the effort has languished amid partisan feuding. Last year, angry Democrats briefly shut down the Senate to protest the pace of the investigation.

After nearly three years, the heart of the report remains incomplete. Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) said Democrats produced 511 administration statements to be analyzed, a virtually impossible task. At this point, the section is 800 pages long, accompanied by 40,000 documents, and is nowhere near ready for release, he said.

But with midterm elections two months away, two of five chapters are about to be released. The first examines what, if any, information provided by Iraqi exiles was used in official intelligence estimates. The second compares prewar estimates of Iraq's alleged chemical, biological and nuclear programs with the findings of U.S. weapons hunters, who wrapped up their work empty-handed in December 2004..."


They've had 3 years to analyze 511 public statements and they're not done yet? How pathetic can you get?

If Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Pat Roberts thinks that analyzing 511 public statements is a "virtually impossible task" maybe he should step aside and let someone capable handle it.

Aunt Bea

September 07, 2006 9:06 PM  
Blogger Dana Beyer, M.D. said...

The reason little was done about al Queda during the 1990s was because of little something called the Republican Congress. As you might recall, that Congress, along with Ken Starr, believed that its crusade against Bill Clinton's sex life superceded all of this nation's important business. They were very successful in their techniques of distraction, which continue today with missing white girl cable news, celebrity gossip 24 hours a day, and the CRC's crusade against sex.

Congratulations, guys. You should be proud.

September 07, 2006 11:45 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

ABC to Alter Show on Pre-9/11 Run-Up

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 8, 2006; Page A02

ABC plans to make minor changes to its docudrama on the run-up to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in response to heated complaints from former Clinton administration officials that a number of scenes are fabricated, a network executive said yesterday.

Thomas H. Kean, the Republican who chaired the 9/11 commission and is a co-executive producer of the film, said in an interview that he recently asked for changes that would address complaints raised by the former aides to President Bill Clinton and that ABC is considering his request.

"These are people of integrity," Kean said of the filmmakers. "I know there are some scenes where words are put in characters' mouths. But the whole thing is true to the spirit of 9/11."

The ABC executive said the "adjustments and refinements" are "intended to make clearer that it was general indecisiveness" by federal officials that left the country vulnerable to terrorist attacks, "not any one individual." The executive, who requested anonymity because the network is making only written comments, said small revisions have been underway for weeks.

The network's move came as the children's publishing company Scholastic deleted from its Web site materials about "The Path to 9/11," developed in partnership with ABC, that were being offered to 25,000 high school teachers. "We determined that the materials did not meet our high standards for dealing with controversial issues," Chairman Dick Robinson said....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/07/AR2006090701454.html

September 08, 2006 7:35 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"The reason little was done about al Queda during the 1990s was because of little something called the Republican Congress. As you might recall, that Congress, along with Ken Starr, believed that its crusade against Bill Clinton's sex life superceded all of this nation's important business."

Wow! The doctor has now got a rationale for every failing of the Clinton administration. Kind of like global warming, Monica is an all-purpose explanation for any problem. Do you the Republicans also get credit for any good things that happened? Is TTF endorsing Clinton's behavior with interns? Or is it the kind of trivial matter that Americans should have just ignored? Was it as significant as the pubic hair in Clarence Thomas' coke can?

Liberal hypocrisy is reliably amusing.

September 08, 2006 9:30 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Can we get you to just admit something here?: 9/11 was more a failure of the intelligence community than either Bush or Clinton. The reason our intelligence community became inept is the real issue It happened over a period of years and is probably due, more than anything, to the restrictions put on CIA activities during the 70s. Suicidally, we hamper the activities of our intelligence community more than any other civilized country.

September 08, 2006 9:36 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Jim stated "Whatever the true nature of al Qaeda and other international terrorist threats, to ceaselessly compare them to the Nazi State of Germany serves only to embolden them."

To which Orin replied "how does it "embolden them"?Anyone...anyone?"

Are you serious? Do you really not know what the fact that the Nazis killed 6 million Jews means to radical Islamic types like al Qaeda?

Try this: The fact that the Nazi regime was a Jew-killing machine emboldens al Qaeda types to try to outdo what the Nazis did and is fodder for their recruitment efforts. This comparison of the Nazis to al Qaeda ranks right up there with Bush's early blunder, referring to a America's response to 9/11 as a "crusade." That decision by Bush also emboldened the terrorists and aided their recruitment efforts.

Tom

September 09, 2006 10:48 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Here's what I'm willing to admit. Invading Iraq was more a failure of the Bush Administration than of the intelligence community.

The BIpartisan Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released two chapters of their three years in the making report. The Washington Post reports today:

A declassified report released yesterday by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence revealed that U.S. intelligence analysts were strongly disputing the alleged links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda while senior Bush administration officials were publicly asserting those links to justify invading Iraq.

Far from aligning himself with al-Qaeda and Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Hussein repeatedly rebuffed al-Qaeda's overtures and tried to capture Zarqawi, the report said...

As recently as Aug. 21, Bush suggested a link between Hussein and Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, who was killed by U.S. forces this summer. But a CIA assessment in October 2005 concluded that Hussein's government "did not have a relationship, harbor, or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi and his associates," according to the report...

Democrats and Republicans agree that analysts and politicians of all political stripes were wrong about the prewar assessments of Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. But the committee report indicates that intelligence analysts were substantially right about Hussein's lack of operational links to al-Qaeda...efforts to link Iraq to al-Qaeda were willfully misleading.

In a classified January 2003 report, for instance, the CIA concluded that Hussein "viewed Islamic extremists operating inside Iraq as a threat." But one day after that conclusion was published, Levin noted, Vice President Cheney said the Iraqi government "aids and protects terrorists, including members of al-Qaeda."

Intelligence reports in June, July and September 2002 all cast doubts on a reported meeting in Prague between Iraqi intelligence agents and Sept. 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta. Yet, in a Sept. 8, 2002, appearance on NBC's "Meet The Press," Cheney said the CIA considered the reports on the meeting credible, Levin said.

In February 2002, the Defense Intelligence Agency concluded that "Iraq is unlikely to have provided bin Laden any useful [chemical and biological weapons] knowledge or assistance." A year later, Bush said: "Iraq has also provided al-Qaeda with chemical and biological weapons training."


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/08/AR2006090800777.html

September 09, 2006 1:09 PM  
Anonymous PasserBy said...

So, Anon, do you have any thoughts about why they wanted to attack Iraq instead of catching those who attacked us?

Wierd thing about this "war" we're in: we don't know who the enemy is, we don't know what mission we're trying to accomplish, and we don't know how we'll know when it's over.

PB

September 09, 2006 1:17 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"So, Anon, do you have any thoughts about why they wanted to attack Iraq instead of catching those who attacked us?"

Hussein invaded two of his neighbors, using WMD in the battles. One of them asked for our assistance. backed by the world community, we gave it to them. AT the conclusion of hostilities, he signed a peace treaty where we allowed him to stay in power provided he meet certain conditions. After over a decade of his violating those conditions and threatening our troops, we decided to enforce the treaty. Aside from defending U.N. resolutions, he committed atrocities against humanity, further justifying action against him.

"Wierd thing about this "war" we're in: we don't know who the enemy is, we don't know what mission we're trying to accomplish, and we don't know how we'll know when it's over."

I can think of many ways we will eventually know it's over.

September 09, 2006 3:01 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

PasserBy said...
So, Anon, do you have any thoughts about why they wanted to attack Iraq instead of catching those who attacked us?

Wierd thing about this "war" we're in: we don't know who the enemy is, we don't know what mission we're trying to accomplish, and we don't know how we'll know when it's over.

PB

I know all these things and so do a lot of other people. the americans serving in the military in Iraq know exactly what is going on. If the media left the green zone they might know to. they may some day write about it but I am not holding my breath.

September 14, 2006 1:40 PM  
Anonymous TTFreud said...

"I can think of many ways"

"I know all these things"


Hmmmm. Very interesting. How long have you had these thoughts?

Do you plan to share the things you "know" and "can think of," or are you just going to keep them inside your head?

September 16, 2006 11:41 AM  

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