After conceding media's soft treatment of Bush in lead-up to war, Liasson still giving Bush a pass
SUMMARY: On Fox News Sunday, Mara Liasson asserted that "there are plenty of aspects of the media that have blamed President Bush every step of the way for every misstep," but gave no examples to support her claim. She then falsely suggested that the press was not to blame for its treatment of Bush on Iraq, since everyone thought Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. But she made no mention of mounting evidence that the Bush administration had reason to know that its claims about Saddam Hussein were false.
In a discussion of the media's treatment of the Clinton and Bush presidencies, National Public Radio senior political correspondent Mara Liasson asserted, on the September 24 edition of Fox News Sunday, that "there are plenty of aspects of the media that have blamed President Bush every step of the way for every misstep." But she gave no examples of the "plenty of aspects of the media" she claims have blamed Bush "for every misstep." Then, despite conceding that the media "gave" Bush "a pass" in their prewar coverage -- a concession that appears to contradict her unsupported assertion about "plenty" of media -- she excused the media for that "pass," suggesting that everyone -- even Democrats -- thought that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. But in excusing the media, she then demonstrated the kind of "pass" she was excusing: Entirely missing from her assessment was any acknowledgment of the mounting evidence that, as Media Matters for America has noted, Bush administration officials and Bush himself had reason to know that their claims about Saddam's possession of weapons of mass destruction -- as well as their suggestions of links between Saddam and the September 11, 2001, attacks -- were false.
Nuclear reconstitution
In an October 7, 2002, speech, Bush claimed: "Evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program." On the March 16, 2003, broadcast of NBC's Meet the Press, Vice President Dick Cheney said of Saddam Hussein: "And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." (Cheney later said he "misspoke" and had intended to say "weapons capability" rather than "weapons.")
Though the administration did not say so, the State Department's own Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) disputed the claim -- advanced by the majority of intelligence agencies in an October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) -- that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program.
As Media Matters has noted, Tyler Drumheller -- a 26-year CIA veteran who served as chief of the agency's European operations during the lead-up to the Iraq war -- said on the April 23 broadcast of CBS' 60 Minutes that, by the fall of 2002, the CIA had recruited an Iraqi official in the "inner circle of Saddam Hussein" to provide intelligence on Saddam's weapons programs. Drumheller said that the Bush administration "stopped being interested in the intelligence" when the CIA reported that the Iraqi official -- whom 60 Minutes identified as then-foreign minister Naji Sabri -- revealed that Iraq "had no active weapons of mass destruction program."
Aluminum tubes
As Media Matters and others have noted, then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and then-National Security adviser Condoleezza Rice made false statements at key points that helped advance the Bush administration's campaign to sell the war to the American people and to international allies.
On February 5, 2003, Powell delivered an address to the United Nations Security Council that, given Powell's stature at home and abroad, proved critical to Bush's campaign, but that contained key falsehoods, including that Saddam was developing a nuclear weapons program. In his speech to the U.N., Powell said: "Saddam Hussein is determined to get his hands on a nuclear bomb. He is so determined that he has made repeated covert attempts to acquire high-specification aluminum tubes from 11 different countries, even after inspections resumed." But as Media Matters documented, two separate government inquiries determined that there was little cause to believe the aluminum tubes were intended for use in uranium-enrichment centrifuges.
Further, in The New York Times' investigation of the intelligence regarding Iraq's purchase of aluminum tubes, the paper reported on October 3, 2004, that Rice had misrepresented the state of intelligence on the tubes. Prior to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the White House and parts of the intelligence community had promoted the purchase as crucial evidence that Saddam had restarted his nuclear weapons program:
The tubes were "only really suited for nuclear weapons programs," Condoleezza Rice, the president's national security adviser, explained on CNN on Sept. 8, 2002. "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."
But almost a year before, Ms. Rice's staff had been told that the government's foremost nuclear experts seriously doubted that the tubes were for nuclear weapons, according to four officials at the Central Intelligence Agency and two senior administration officials, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity. The experts, at the Energy Department, believed the tubes were likely intended for small artillery rockets.
Link between Saddam and 9-11
As Media Matters has repeatedly noted (here, here, and here), in the lead-up to the Iraq war, Bush claimed there was a connection between Saddam and the attacks on 9-11, often generally, and specifically, in a letter to Congress at the start of the war. In fact, as Media Matters noted, the Senate Intelligence Committee, on September 8, released a postwar report on Iraq's weapons programs and its purported links to terrorism that thoroughly debunked the claim that there existed a connection between the government of Saddam, Al Qaeda, and 9-11. The report broadly concluded that "Saddam Hussein was distrustful of al-Qa'ida and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from al-Qa'ida to provide material or operational support," and that "[n]o postwar information indicates that Iraq intended to use al-Qa'ida or any other terrorist group to strike the United States homeland before or during Operation Iraqi Freedom." The report further noted that prewar intelligence showed that no connection between Saddam and 9-11 existed. From the report: "Postwar information supports prewar Intelligence Community assessments that there was no credible information that Iraq was complicit in or had foreknowledge of the September 11 attacks or any other al-Qa'ida strikes."
From the September 24 edition of Fox Broadcasting Co.'s Fox News Sunday:
LIASSON: That is the subject of probably the most intensely polarized debate in America right now. Does the media -- was the media as tough on Clinton or as tough on Bush as they were on Clinton? Did the Bush administration get a pass? I mean, that is a huge debate. I don't think you can talk about the media as a whole. I think there are plenty of aspects of the media that have blamed President Bush every step of the way for every misstep, and certainly, the country has come to a kind of consensus about the war in Iraq. It's a kind of a split one, but the war in Iraq is very unpopular. I think the president has, over time, come in for a lot of criticism -- whether, you know -- presidents always feel they're mistreated by the press worse than any other president. So, it's hard to --
JUAN WILLIAMS (NPR senior correspondent and Fox News analyst): But walk-up to this war and the weapons of mass destruction?
LIASSON: On that one, he certainly did.
WILLIAMS: No, come on! The press gave him a pass.
LIASSON: You know what? At that time, Democrats and people all over the world thought that Iraq did have weapons of mass destruction. We learned later that wasn't the case.
saddam had wmd, particularly after the u.n. inspectors were readmitted, were going everywhere, including the sites we gave them, and finding nothing. it's that two month period before the invasion that bush, who said we had to invade because saddam "wouldn't let the inspectors in", and all the right wingers, have developed total amnesia about. if the press was truly interested in criticizing bush, they also would have been all over the downing street memo, which proved the british thought bush was hyping the threat prior to the invasion. it was headlines in england, met with silence here.
I can tell at least one country that didn't buy Bush lies : France. Our own neocons urged our gouvernment to explain why we did'nt follow the US in attacking Iraq, and we got plenty of public officials explaining "diplomatically" that "there were no proof" that Saddam had or was activelly seeking WMD's and that we should let the UN and IAIE inspectors search for that proof. By the way, our intelligence services warned the US government about the insurgency risks : we had a 150+ years of mideast colonies and got through enough anti-occupation wars (even our own agains the nazis) to feel confident about the consequences we foresaw. A LOT of right wing warmongers should apologize to France, too, about this issue.
For the fact that 75 % of the Iraqi Sunnis support the insurgency. That translates to 3,750,000 people. (BBC)
For the fact that the different agencies reporting for the National Intelligence Estimate have come to the conclusion that terrorism has increased worldwide since 9/11 mostly as a direct result of our invading Iraq. (NY Times)
For the fact that as many civilians die per month (3000) in Iraq as died in the US on 9/11.
For the fact that torture is at an all time high today in Iraq. Even greater than when Saddam Hussein was in power.
Staying the course is not a plan.
Maybe the plan is to stay the course, and then it will someday be future administration's problem. Then, try as we may to clean up George's mess, it will get much worse before it gets better. Then the right will say; 'See, we told you. Democrats have no workable plan. Just look how they botched up the redeployment in Iraq.'
Does anyone else think it was standard proceedure, even when he was as young as two, that Mom would always send someone else to clean up Georgies messes for him?
She said :"There are plenty of aspects of the media that have blamed President Bush every step of the way for every misstep." Really??????????
Then she says LIE number 1 everyone -- even Democrats -- thought that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction Really????????????????
I know lots of people who were saying Bushie was lying and there were no WMD back in March 0f 2003 , yet they were attacked and ridiculed as being anti American.
FAUX loves to twist, turn and lie.
For certain Right-Wing pundits to apologize to Scott Ritter and Sean Penn. Of course, I realize that Hell will freeze over first.
With your right wing posts. HA HA
Remember in March of 2003 how MSNBC changed their entire schedule because they feared that Phil Donahue was too liberal and anti war? FOX at that time was drowning the American people in patriotism and trying to equate 9/11 and the illegal invasion of Iraq with protecting America.
That whole time period makes me sick.
I look at it as how no one in Nazi Germany stood up to the Nazis as they started destroying Jewish culture.
No, make that the Press CAVED under the PRESSURE of the skillfully done campaign by Rove & co. that pretty much suggested that to QUESTION the Commander-in-Chief AFTER 9/11 made one a SUSPECTED traitor.
I remember thinking as Bush began ISSUING ultimatums to Saddam, WHERE is the MSM? Why aren't they ASKING how Bush could be talking INVASION & WAR when the U.N. Inspectors were still searching for WMD?
So NOW some in the Media are FINALLY hounding Bush for ANSWERS....too little, too late.
Mara Liasson is OBVIOUSLY suffering from SELECTIVE memory.
The media are not real, fair, or unbias media. They are controlled or outright owned by the new NAZI party of america and do almost always exactly what propaganda is supposed to do,fool stupid people. NO one with half a brain believes a word that comes out of EL DIABLOCO, they are truly LIARS,MURDERERS,THEIVES,TRAITORS,etc,etc Or the media/ propaganda machine that supports the NEO-FASCIST war criminals/criminal cabal.... History will not be kind to these MONSTERS FROM AMERICA, and KARMA will prevail !!
It bother sme every time I hear that argument...
Yes, Saddam had possessed chemical and biological weapons and it was assumed by many that he still had them. But there was no credible evidence that Saddam possessed nuclear weapons or was in the process of acquiring them.
The asumption of Iraq's weaponry was certainly reasonable in terms of keeping an eye on him and maintaining pressure on him to comply with United Nations' weapons inspectors. However, and this a big "however" IMO, unless Iraq had specifically threatened the USA, going to war on the basis of an ASSUMPTION of Iraq's weaponry was dumb, imprudent and dangerous.
According to many reports and several well researched books on the subject (including the recent book "Hubris" by Michael Isikoff and David Korn) the Bush administration, or more particularly, Dick Cheney and the necons such as Paul Wolfowitz, came into the administration with the intent of removing Saddam from power, The Iraq war was pre-ordained.. 9/11 simply provided the cover.
With respect to WMD, there wasn't a failure of intelligence, per se. It was as though if there was one questionable piece of evidence that supported Bush's call to war and a hundred pieces of evidence that refuted it BuSh and Cheney pushed the one questionable piece of evidence as though it was undisputed fact. Multiply that scenario by whatever factor you want and that's what you find Bush and Cheney did with the so-called "evidence" of Saddam's WMD. Bush and Cheney elected to ignore and disregard the analyses of many, may career intelligence analysts in several intelligence branches who refuted what Bush and Cheny said was the case against Saddam. To now blame it on an intelligence failure is disengenuous at best.
In politics truth is a relative concept... all politicians, of whatever party affiliation, bend the truth to suit themselves. Howver, the only reason voters don't lose complete trust is because there is assumed to be an invisible line that even politicians wouldn't cross... for example, lying to start a war in which Americans will be killed.
I'm sure Bush and Cheney don't think they "lied". They think they just made creative use of evidence. Hwever, in light of the seriousness of the matter and the number of people killed in this fiasco I think they they stepped over the linewith their creativity.
when they started to get questioned about it, they change their reason for going to war to "Unseat an evil dictator, and spread democracy. It was never about JUST weapon of mass distruction."
My answer--it was ONLY about WMD--PERIOD. They change the rules as though it is truely a game, and they provide the umpires. Meanwhile, there are idiots following them over a cliff because they happen to be from the same political party.
The problem is, we're all going over that cliff with them.
The UN Weapons Inspectors told the world and the Bush Administration in January, February and March of 2003 that they had checked all the most likely spots for WMD's and were continuing to check them, and they had found nothing. They told the Bushies that they had virtually unlimited access to any and all hiding places, and free and unfettered access to all the Iraqi scientists who could have been involved in WMD development and manufacture, and all the evidence led them to believe that there were no WMD's.
Bush could have been almost certain when he invaded that there were no WMD's. The reason he could not wait until the UN Weapons Inspectors finished their country-wide survey for WMD's is because the threat of WMD's was the only way that the US public would support an invasion of Iraq. We supported the invasion of Afghanistan to implement regime change because that seemed like a worthy venture. It would not have been supported by the American people had he asked us to support regime change in Iraq, so he could not afford to wait until it was perfectly clear that there were no WMD's.
For Liasson to try to provide cover for Bush's flawed invasion in March of 2003 by saying that in 2002 most people thought that Saddam had WMD's is clearly an attempt to carry the water of the rightwingers. How sad that a journalist for NPR would do that.
I take exception when I hear those that would legitimize the Afghanistan invasion which is to a certain degree, legitimate on the surface given the ostensible Bin Laden attack on America. One must consider the timeframe first of all. What was it, three weeks after 9/11 or was it three months? Not enough time, my friends, to mount an assault on that scale. The military professionals would tell you that the planning would take six to twelve months at a minimum to execute a mobilization of that massive scale. The Cons had their eye on the trans-Afghan pipeline and Iraq oil reserves long before 2001, as has been well documented in a variety of literature and leaked documents to date. They seemed to have their guns in place in a very short time. As a Canadian, I am saddened to see our electorate being sucked in to sending there sons and daughters to die in Afghanistan in order to pursue the Cons' unholy agenda, thanks in large part to our own newly acquired right-wing religious zealot of a federal leader who seems only too eager to please Bushco, thereby raising Canada's profile as 'enemies' of the Muslim world.
You've got the resources: Find out when Mara Liasson said 'Bush lied to us; there were no WMD's"
If ever.
They want to have it both ways: cheer on the war as it's being prosecuted--then say, "oh we were against it' afterwards, assuming no one will remember.
Where was Mara's 'we were wrong' moment?
If any?
What would you expect her to say? She has a career future to think about, and must join the other flacks who show up on the White House Boombox with their fair and (un)balanced noise.
A couple of days ago a real ultra-Right neocon rogues gallery was on display during late afternoon on the Bret Hume Report: Chuckie Krauthammer, Freddie Barnes, and Billy Kristol, delighting the pathetic, slack-jawed Dupes sitting mesmerized in front of the teevee, soon to be whipped into a frenzy of flag-waving and Bible-thumping in the precincts of Dupedom South.
is to keep himself, George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Don Rumsfeld out of prison. There is no question that they lied to get us into Iraq. A case could be made that they are guilty of war crimes. They must hold onto the majority in Congress AT ALL COSTS. Look for widespread voter fraud in the November elections, as well as brutal character assassinations in the individual races. The flying monkeys on talk radio and cable "news" will puke out one big continous lie between now and November to help them stay in power.
Hide and watch. It'll be like a slow motion car wreck; sickening but mesmerizing.
Sean Hannity has already said the November elections are worth fighting and dying for.
Iraq kept saying they had no weapons. I remember reading in the papers that the Iraqi Ambassadors were at the U.N. saying they had none. Bush and company kept going "You gonna believe Them!". Lots of people, countrys, and leaders were saying they didn't think there were any there. thats why Bushco were in such a rush to get in there.
Democrats read news for democrats, republicans read news for republicans. No wonder there's a divide. These guys surveyed the front pages around the country and compared coverage of the news about the finding that Iraq war fuels terror. Very interesting in the differences based on the market
[link to www.miserywatch.com]
I think you missed the real story in the Sept 24 Fox News Story with Liasson, Williams, Brit Hume, Fred Barnes, and Chris Wallace. Closing the session, Brit Hume, in a fit of anger, stated baldly that "torture has been defined" and that "there is no torture" and that that issue should be "put to bed".
Liasson and Williams preserved their Fox salaries by keeping their mouths firmly shut after that outburst. They refrained from asking Hume about his personal experience with waterboarding, or whether freezing someone to hypothermia, or making them stand for 40 hours, or splitting their eardrums with loud noise might cause them to lose some dignity.
Knowing that by Pentagon admission 22 Iraqis have died during "interrogation," Liasson and Williams were too cowardly to ask, "Exactly what do those 22 dead people mean, Brit??" You would have thought their NPR salaries would have given Maura and Juan enough security to show some backbone.
Naw.
JLyon, I can go you one better. As soon as the words came out of his mouth during his 2002 State of the Union address, I knew the Fibber-in-Chief was lying. I remember thinking, " What the f**k is he talking about ?!". Inspectors had seized and disposed of Saddam's chemical, biological, and conventional ordinance LONG before then and the Israeli air force took out Iraq's nuclear facilities before Rove talked King George into running for governor of Texas. So when they say "everyone believed" they must not mean me.