Henninger repeated false claim that Robb-Silberman report cleared Bush of "moral crime" of misleading on Iraq WMD
SUMMARY: The Wall Street Journal's Daniel Henninger repeated the false claim that the Robb-Silverman commission exonerated the Bush administration from the charge that it had misled the public about evidence of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. In fact, the commission did not even consider the question.
In his March 3 Wall Street Journal opinion column, deputy editorial page editor Daniel Henninger asserted, "nothing has been more destructive to Washington's current ability to function than the belief that 'Bush lied' about WMD" in Iraq, then claimed that the notion "was refuted by the Robb-Silberman Commission." In fact, the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction -- co-chaired by former Sen. Charles Robb (D-VA) and Republican attorney and former judge Laurence H. Silberman -- did not investigate whether President Bush or members of his administration misled the public about Iraq intelligence. Nor, for that matter, has any other governmental entity to date. Rather, as Media Matters for America has previously noted (here and here), the Robb-Silberman Commission concluded that "[t]he Intelligence Community did not make or change any analytic judgments in response to political pressure" in the buildup to the Iraq war, though even that conclusion has been disputed by some senior intelligence officials.
Henninger's assertion that the Robb-Silberman Commission exonerated Bush of the charge that he "'lied' about WMD" is false. In its March 2005 report to President Bush, the commission noted: "[W]e were not authorized to investigate how policymakers used the intelligence assessments they received from the Intelligence Community." Indeed, Bush's February 6, 2004, executive order establishing the commission limited the scope of its investigation to the production of intelligence:
[T]he Commission shall specifically examine the Intelligence Community's intelligence prior to the initiation of Operation Iraqi Freedom and compare it with the findings of the Iraq Survey Group and other relevant agencies or organizations concerning the capabilities, intentions, and activities of Iraq relating to the design, development, manufacture, acquisition, possession, proliferation, transfer, testing, potential or threatened use, or use of Weapons of Mass Destruction and related means of delivery.
Similarly, the first phase of the Senate Intelligence Committee's 2004 Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq determined that intelligence assessments were not tainted by political "pressure." But the committee postponed until after the 2004 presidential election analysis of whether the Bush administration misused that intelligence, pledging to include it in the second -- as yet uncompleted -- phase of the report.
As Media Matters has previously noted, even the conclusion of these two reports that analysts received no "pressure" in gathering intelligence has been disputed by some senior intelligence officials, including W. Patrick Lang, the former chief of the Middle East office of the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and Richard Kerr, a onetime acting CIA director who led an internal investigation of the CIA's failure to correctly assess Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities.
the commission "was not authorized" to look at the evidence of manipulation. the senate committee set aside the question of manipulation for the long-promised second and undone phase of it's investigation. but we all know the "facts were being fixed around the policy". kind of like a burgalry suspect claiming i'm innocent, while the police were denied the evidence of security cameras, eyewitnesses, and the gun found on his person.
Does Henninger KNOW he is lying? Is his claim of "exoneration" of Bush a deliberate intent to deceive?
Yes he does, and yes it is.
"Opinion" informed by LIES is instead intentional propaganda. Know this man for what he is; a shill for tyranny, dispicable, untrustworthy, and devoid of integrity.
First, they are taking the word of a former Iraqi general relating 2nd or 3rd hand reports that "Saddam shipped his WMD to Syria," even though outside of this general's story, there is *NO* evidence of it.
Now we have this ditwit kissing up to the Coward-In-Chief, saying "Oh, The Most Holy Bush would NE-VER lie!"
Guess what. Bush is a confirmed liar, going back to his college days, when he would blatantly lie to his professor. He lied in his "autobiography," he lied about how many times he was busted for drunk driving, he lied about his Texas Air National Guard Service, he lied about spying on US citizens, and he lied about Katrina.
Add to that the blatant corruption in the White House and Hose and Senate GOP, and it's no wonder Rove is falling back on his "fear and smear" tactics.
First, they are taking the word of a former Iraqi general relating 2nd or 3rd hand reports that "Saddam shipped his WMD to Syria," even though outside of this general's story, there is *NO* evidence of it.
And those 2nd and 3rd-hand accounts he's peddling are from "sources" he refuses to name. Meanwhile, Bush's own hand-picked weapons inspectors--with full access to all sites, documents, scientists, everything--concluded that Iraq had no WMDs, had destroyed both the weapons and the capability to produce any over a decade ago, and had no plans to get back into the WMD business at any point in the forseeable future (the official conclusions of the Duelfer team, stripped of all unconscionable Bush-friendly wishful thinking)
You know this guy is counting on the dupes believing it. Pure lies. Or just call it what it is...another conservative talking point.
"editor Daniel Henninger asserted, "nothing has been more destructive to Washington's current ability to function than the belief that 'Bush lied' about WMD" in Iraq,"
Maybe, oh maybe, the current inability to function stems from "Washington's" own incompetence? Do we not have an insular administration more concerned with rewarding its own instead of actually leading the nation? WSJ shills for big business, the main benefactors of Bush world. Of course Henninger would like the whole 'WMD/Bush lied' to be swept under the rug, but he will have to pray for public amnesia on a massive scale.
"editor Daniel Henninger asserted, "nothing has been more destructive to Washington's current ability to function than the belief that 'Bush lied' about WMD" in Iraq,"
Maybe, oh maybe, the current inability to function stems from "Washington's" own incompetence?
Henninger's complaint is idiotic in the first place. If lying about Iraq impairs the administration's ability to function, the correct solution would have been not to lie about it in the first place, or, barring that, to come clean about it now. The latter course will never be pursued, because it would lead to a push for impeachment that would probably be too strong for the administration-rubber-stamp in congress to resist
Since it is a provable FACT that the dimson DID lie about WMDs the best he could rationally assert is the FACT that Bush lied about WMDs is what is destructive to Washingtons ability to function. Yet as usual the rightwing never wants to blame those that CAUSED a problem only those that EXPOSE the problem.
As Media Matters has previously noted , even the conclusion of these two reports that analysts received no "pressure" in gathering intelligence has been disputed by some senior intelligence officials, including W. Patrick Lang, the former chief of the Middle East office of the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and Richard Kerr, a onetime acting CIA director who led an internal investigation of the CIA's failure to correctly assess Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities.
We also have the real-time comments of dozens of intel professionals, as reported extensively (though as quietly as possible) in the press in the lead-up to war. The "climate of conformity" outlined by the Robb-Silbermann commission didn't just spontaneously appear--it was the result of daily relentless pressure applied to the intel community by the war-hawks in the administration to produce the desired end. The group set up through the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans, among other things, was an overt effort to undermine the work of the professional intel community, and was overtly described as such, to Seymour Hersh, by the administration officials involved in it. An advisor to Willaim Luti, who oversaw the OSP, defiantly told Seymour Hersh, in 2003, "I did a job when the intelligence community wasn’t doing theirs. We recognized the fact that they hadn’t done the analysis. We were providing information to Wolfowitz that he hadn’t seen before." Another Pentagon advisor who worked for OSP perfectly summed up the mindset behind the operation when he asserted --cue Twilight Zone theme-- that the CIA "was out to disprove linkage between Iraq and terrorism. That’s what drove them." (These comments are extremely relevant now, because it has subsequently been denied by the administration that this group was doing exactly what the people involved are here describing having done.) A representative item from the press during the buildup to war, just to give the flavor of the reporting on these matters:
"Senior Bush administration officials are pressuring CIA analysts to tailor their assessments of the Iraqi threat to help build a case against Saddam Hussein, intelligence and congressional sources said.
"In what sources described as an escalating 'war,' top officials at the Pentagon and elsewhere have bombarded CIA analysts with criticism and calls for revisions on such key questions as whether Iraq has ties to the Al Qaeda terrorist network, sources said.
"The sources stressed that CIA analysts--who are supposed to be impartial--are fighting to resist the pressure. But they said analysts are increasingly resentful of what they perceive as efforts to contaminate the intelligence process.
"'Analysts feel more politicized and more pushed than many of them can ever remember,' said an intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"'The guys at the Pentagon shriek on issues such as the link between Iraq and Al Qaeda. There has been a lot of pressure to write on this constantly, and to not let it drop.'
"The pressure has intensified in the weeks leading up to this week's debate in Congress on a resolution granting President Bush permission to pursue a military invasion of Iraq.
...
"...intelligence sources say the pressure on CIA analysts has been unrelenting in recent months, much of it coming from Iraq hawks including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and his top deputy, Paul D. Wolfowitz.
"CIA officials who brief Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz on Iraq routinely return to the agency with a long list of complaints and demands for new analysis or shifts in emphasis, sources said.
"There is a lot of unhappiness with the analysis," usually because it is seen as not hard-line enough, one intelligence official said.
"Another government official said CIA briefers 'are constantly sent back by the senior people at Defense and other places to get more, get more, get more to make their case.'"
--"CIA Feels Heat on Iraq Data", Los Angeles Times, Oct. 11, 200
Fine summary. It is good that some folks are remembering and regurgitating the details in the midst of an amazing avalanche of propaganda aimed at burying the truth in the all-too-correct view that a sufficient portion of our population is reflected by Animal Farm's Boxer, where fiction displaces history in the collective memory.
Wonder why we don't hear anything about part II hearings? After all, the Repub's were so incensed that the Dems went into a closed session meeting to compel the commencement of Part II because it was going to be taken care of just the following week ... and it was so important to the Dems that it warranted the bravery of going into closed session ... so what is going on now?
Yeah, where IS that Phase 2 report, anyway? The 'thugs were SO bent out of shape that Reid DARED to do something they hadn't thought of, called it a "stunt" if you'll recall because they were going to "release it in a couple of weeks anyway". That was HOW long ago? Pat Robertson continues to squash it, apparently- how totally unexpected.
Where the HELL is Reid on this NOW? One wonders, given the total lack of ANY sort of followup, if it WASN'T just a stunt.
Feingold for Minority Leader! Reid, you're IN THE WAY and are nothing but an anchor- STEP DOWN.
doesn't read "Intelligence, Policy, and the War in Iraq" by Paul R. Pillar in Foreign Affairs
[link to www.foreignaffairs.org]
That would really spoil his day!
Is the term "moral crime" used to imply that this would not be a crime in the eyes of the law? That would be a false claim. Giving false information to Congress or withholding material information from Congress, including using "any trick, scheme, or device" (like sneaky wording about what the "British have learned") would be a crime under 18 U.S.C. 1001. This is the law under which Caspar Weinbreger was indicted (but pardoned by Bush, Sr.). This is also one of the laws Scooter Libby is charged with violating (as it also applies to lying to investigators). Martha Stewart certainly knows now what this law can do to you. Each lie can land you in prison for five years.
It has been established that perjury, even in a private matter, is an impeachable offense. Clearly it is impeachable to lie to Congress and thus undermine the Constitution by usurping the ability of Congress to carry out its duty to provide checks and balances. This is a serious High Crime, not just a "moral crime."
Is the term "moral crime" used to imply that this would not be a crime in the eyes of the law? That would be a false claim. Giving false information to Congress or withholding material information from Congress, including using "any trick, scheme, or device" (like sneaky wording about what the "British have learned") would be a crime under 18 U.S.C. 1001.
Sort of like sending congress 15 different assessments of those infamous Iraqi aluminum tubes, in the lead-up to the vote on the war, all saying the tubes were intended for nuclear centrifuge work, and all of them omitting the detailed refutation of that allegation by the Department of Energy, the administration's ackowledged experts on nuclear matters. Probably not prosecutable, though it's crystal clear what they were up to
..."As we discuss in detail in the body of our report, analysts universally asserted that in no instance did political pressure cause them to skew or alter any of their analytical judgments. We conclude that it was the paucity of intelligence and poor analytical tradecraft, rather than political pressure, that produced the inaccurate pre-war intelligence assessments."
Quoted directly from the afore mentioned Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction.
So, I guess that Sen. Robb and Mr. Silverman are really the ones lying about WMD's.
seems that in nov 2001, chris hodges of the new york times and chris buchanan of pbs frontline were taken to a beirut hotel room to meet with lt. general jamal al ghurairy, a defector from saddam's army. he told them that there were camps in iraq where terrorists were being trained to attack the u.s. the meeting was arranged by the ahmed chalabi and the iraqi national congress, the heroes of the neocon movement. bill clinton was actually criticized in the 2000 gop platform for holding chalabi and the iraqi national congress at arm's length, something to do with chalabi's bank fraud conviction, i guess. seems that mother jones has dug up the fact that the real general never left iraq and the other guy was just a low level soldier. whodda thunk it?
on the 2000 gop platform. under the heading "the middle east and persian gulf", the platform says "the [clinton] administration has used an arsenal of dilatory tactics to block any serious support to the iraqi national congress...". the fact is that clinton did not trust chalabi, who headed the inc, and it turns out that they were a source of much misinformation in the months leading up to the iraqi invasion. chalabi was a particular favorite of all the project for a new american century neocons. and chalabi gloated after the invasion that it didn't matter if the info was false, because the removal of saddam was the ultimate goal. meanwhile we will be a long time picking up the pieces of this debacle.
So, I guess that Sen. Robb and Mr. Silverman are really the ones lying about WMD's.
The pressure placed, by the war-hawks, upon the intelligence community to shape its work product in order to make it conform to the often outlandish public statements of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc. was unrelenting. Asking people to admit they folded under the pressure--IOW, didn't live up to the standards of their profession--then, when no one openly takes them up on this, concluding they did not, in fact, fold points to one of the, shall we say, limitations of the Robb-Silbermann report, and says nothing about what actually occured in the lead-up to war.
To keep the record straight on its activities, the commission was established to provide political cover for the Bush gang while helping to head off any substantive investigation, a goal it largely accomplished. The commissioners were all handpicked Establishment people. Only one had any intel experience at all, and, out of its 60 staffers, only one had any experience in dealing with proliferation issues. To avoid any chance that they may conduct a real investigation, they disallowed subpoena power, and were given an excruciatingly narrow mandate which specifically excluded the matter of how those in the administration used the information they were given, thus eliminating the only relevant point of holding such an investigation. They did manage to collect a good deal of important information--unofortunately, they made proper use of almost none of it