Russert challenged Democrats -- but not McCain -- about 2002 Iraq intel "caveats"
On the May 13 "Meet the Candidates" edition of NBC's Meet the Press, host Tim Russert asked Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (AZ), "In hindsight, was it a good idea to go into Iraq?" but did not challenge McCain's reply that the invasion of Iraq "was certainly justified" because "[e]very intelligence agency in the world, not just U.S., believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction." Yet on two separate "Meet the Candidates" editions of Meet the Press, Russert did challenge former Sen. John Edwards (D-NC) and Sen. Joseph Biden (D-DE) for their 2002 votes giving President Bush the authority to use military force in Iraq, citing the "caveats" in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) concerning the purported existence of an Iraqi nuclear weapons program. The NIE was made available to all members of Congress before the vote, according to The Washington Post. Russert did not challenge McCain with either a general question about the contrary evidence in the NIE or a question about the basis for his explicit assertion one day before the war resolution vote that "[t]o wait for Saddam Hussein to threaten imminent attack against America would be to acquiesce to his development of nuclear weapons."
In addition, during the interview, McCain made the much-disputed assertion that if the United States withdraws from Iraq, "these people will try to follow us home," which Russert also did not challenge.
Russert later cited a report about the current National Intelligence Estimate: " 'It couches glimmers of optimism in deep uncertainty about whether the Iraqi leaders will be able to transcend sectarian interests, fight against extremists, establish effective national institutions and end rampant corruption.' " McCain replied, "Yes, and these same intelligence agencies gave us some very bad intelligence about four years ago, as well, as you might -- as you might recall."
On October 10, 2002, McCain gave a speech on the Senate floor arguing in favor of voting to authorize military action against Iraq. McCain stated:
The President has spoken clearly of the threat Saddam Hussein's regime poses to America and the world today -- even though Iraq today clearly does not meet the Byrd amendment's standard of threatening imminent, sudden, and direct attack upon the United States of our Armed Forces. To wait for Saddam Hussein to threaten imminent attack against America would be to acquiesce to his development of nuclear weapons, to ignore his record of aggression against his neighbors, and to disregard his continuing threats to destroy Israel.
Failure now to make the choice to remove Saddam Hussein from power will leave us with choices later, when Saddam's inevitable acquisition of nuclear weapons will make it much more dangerous to defend our friends and interests in the region. It will permit Saddam to control much of the region, and to wield its resources in ways that can only weaken America's position. It will put Israel's very survival at risk, with moral consequences no American can welcome.
Failure to end the danger posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq makes it more likely that the interaction we believe to have occurred between members of al-Qaida and Saddam's regime may increasingly take the form of active cooperation to target the United States.
McCain had made similar remarks in another floor speech the day before. He claimed that Saddam "continues to attempt to acquire a nuclear weapon," which he called a "well-known fact[]." McCain added: "[E]ach day that goes by he becomes more dangerous, his capabilities become better, and, in the case of nuclear weapons, it is not a question of whether, it is a question of when."
Yet Russert did not challenge any of McCain's comments on prewar intelligence on Iraq, in stark contrast with his discussion of the same topic with Edwards and Biden. In those interviews, Russert mentioned the "caveats" in the October 2002 NIE in which the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) dissented from the intelligence community's majority judgment that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. On the February 4 edition of Meet the Press, Russert challenged Edwards on his vote to authorize military force against Iraq, noting that "the [October 2002] National Intelligence Estimate that was given to you, and now made public, had some real caveats." Russert then quoted from a conclusion reached by the INR in the 2002 NIE: "The activities we have detected do not add up to a compelling case that Iraq is currently pursuing what [the INR] would consider to be an integrated and comprehensive approach to acquire nuclear weapons." The INR added that it "[l]ack[ed] persuasive evidence that Baghdad has launched a coherent effort to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program."
Similarly, on the April 29 edition of Meet the Press, Russert asked Biden regarding the prewar intelligence: "How could you, as a U.S. senator, be so wrong?" Russert said that "there are a lot of caveats put on the level of intelligence about the aluminum tubes and everything. General Zinni ... said when he heard the discussion about the weapons of mass destruction that Saddam had, he said, 'I've never heard that' in any of the briefings he had as head of the Central Command."
Russert also allowed McCain to claim that withdrawing troops from Iraq would be different from the United States' exit from Vietnam because "these people will try to follow us home":
McCAIN: This is a very, very difficult situation, but the consequences of failure, in my view, are unlike the Vietnam War, where we could leave and come home when it was over, that these people will try to follow us home. And the region will erupt to a point where we may have to come back, or we will be combating what is now, to a large degree, Al Qaeda, although certainly other -- many other factors of sectarian violence, in the region.
Russert did not mention that according to an April 6 McClatchy Newspapers article, "[m]ilitary and diplomatic analysts" say that a similar claim Bush has repeatedly made about the Iraq war -- that "this is a war in which, if we were to leave before the job is done, the enemy would follow us here" -- "exaggerate[s] the threat that the enemy forces in Iraq pose to the U.S. mainland." The article continued: "U.S. military, intelligence and diplomatic experts in Bush's own government say the violence in Iraq is primarily a struggle for power between Shiite and Sunni Muslim Iraqis seeking to dominate their society, not a crusade by radical Sunni jihadists bent on carrying the battle to the United States." Additionally, according to a March 18 Washington Post article, "U.S. intelligence officials and outside experts" have said that Al Qaeda in Iraq "poses little danger to the security of the U.S. homeland." Moreover, a recent report from National Public Radio's All Things Considered cited a number of experts challenging the Bush administration's claim.
From the May 13 edition of NBC's Meet the Press:
McCAIN: The consequences of failure, Tim, are that there would be chaos in the region. There's 3 -- 2 million Sunni in Baghdad. The Iranians would continue to increase their influence, the Saudis would have to help the Sunni, the Kurds would want independence; the Turks will never stand for it. Some people say partition. You'd have to partition bedrooms in Baghdad because Sunni and Shia are married.
This is a very, very difficult situation, but the consequences of failure, in my view, are unlike the Vietnam War, where we could leave and come home when it was over, that these people will try to follow us home. And the region will erupt to a point where we may have to come back, or we will be combating what is now, to a large degree, Al Qaeda, although certainly other -- many other factors of sectarian violence, in the region.
RUSSERT: In hindsight, was it a good idea to go into Iraq?
McCAIN: You know, in hindsight, if we had exploited the initial success, which was shock and awe, and we succeeded, and we had done the right things after that, all of us would be applauding what we did. We didn't. It was terribly mismanaged. It was -- I went over there very shortly after the initial victory and came back convinced that we didn't have enough troops on the ground, we were making the wrong decisions, and that [then-Defense] Secretary [Donald] Rumsfeld was badly mismanaging the conflict. And I spoke about it and complained for years.
So, if we had succeeded and done the right thing after the initial military success, then all of us would be very happy that one of the most terrible, cruel dictators in history was removed from power. Now, because of our failures, obviously, we have paid a very heavy price in American blood and treasure and great sacrifice.
RUSSERT: So it was a good idea to go in?
McCAIN: I think at the time, given the information we had. Every intelligence agency in the world, not just U.S., believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. He had acquired and used them before. There's no doubt that he was going to acquire and use them if he could. The sanctions were breaking down. The Oil for Food scandal was in the billions of dollars. And, of course, at the time, given the information we had -- hindsight is 20/20. If we'd have known we were going to experience the failures we experienced, obviously, it would give us all pause. At the information and the knowledge and the situation at the time, I think that it was certainly justified.
RUSSERT: The Pentagon's quarterly report, the director of the CIA, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, all have said that sectarian violence is the problem. In fact, the -- General [Michael] Maples said that Al Qaeda accounts for only a small fraction of the insurgent violence.
[...]
RUSSERT: And the American people are saying, "Why are we shedding our blood and they're taking vacations as a parliament?" They don't have independent soldiers and battalions up and running. Our National Intelligence Estimate "outlines an increasingly perilous situation in which the United States has little control, strong possibility of further deterioration, according to sources familiar with the document.
"It couches glimmers of optimism in deep uncertainty about whether the Iraqi leaders will be able to transcend sectarian interests, fight against extremists, establish effective national institutions and end rampant corruption."
That's our own intelligence agency --
McCAIN: Yes.
RUSSERT: -- four years out.
McCAIN: Yes, and these same intelligence agencies gave us some very bad intelligence about four years ago, as well, as you might -- as you might recall. But the fact is, this is long, hard difficult.
And we talk about these present challenges that we face. We don't talk a lot about what happens if we fail, and I think that that's got to be part of any national discussion that we have. And the consequences of failure are chaos, genocide, and when you -- when -- and I'm sure you will ask this at some point, "What's plan B?" My question to those who say, "Let's set a date for withdrawal" -- "What's your plan B?" And the fact is, if we spent time on plan A, we -- and give it a chance to succeed, I think would be a useful way of spending our time.
RUSSERT: But under your plan, you're strongly suggesting we're going to be there for the next 10 years at least in order to secure and stabilize that country.
From the April 29 edition of Meet the Press:
RUSSERT: But when you read the National Intelligence Estimate, which has now been released, there are a lot of caveats put on the level of intelligence about the aluminum tubes and everything.
BIDEN: Absolutely.
RUSSERT: General [Anthony] Zinni, who's been on this program a few weeks ago, said when he heard the discussion about the weapons of mass destruction that Saddam had, he said, "I've never heard that" in any of the briefings he had as head of the Central Command. How could you, as a U.S. senator, be so wrong?
BIDEN: I wasn't wrong. I was on your show when you asked me about aluminum tubes, and I said, "They're for artillery. I don't believe they're for cascading."
RUSSERT: But you said Saddam was a threat, that he had to be --
BIDEN: He was a threat.
From the February 4 edition of Meet the Press:
RUSSERT: At that time, however, that Senator [Edward] Kennedy [D-MA] is saying, "This is not an imminent threat." General Zinni, who led the military in that region, said, "This is the wrong war."
EDWARDS: Uh-huh.
RUSSERT: General [Brent] Scowcroft, former President Bush's national security adviser, and the National Intelligence Estimate that was given to you, and now made public, had some real caveats, and this is one of them: "The activities we have detected do not add up to a compelling case that Iraq is currently pursuing what the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research would consider to be an integrated and comprehensive approach to acquire nuclear weapons." Do you remember seeing that?
EDWARDS: I did see it. I mean, I think it was -- there were serious questions about whether -- again, we're looking back. Now, we know none of this was true. But, at the time, there were serious questions about any effort to obtain nuclear weapons, which is what that statement just was. All of us believed there was no question that he had chemical and biological weapons, and there was at least some scattered evidence that he was making an effort to get nuclear weapons.
RUSSERT: But it seems as if, as a member of the Intelligence Committee, you just got it dead wrong and that you even ignored some caveats and ignored people who were urging caution.
I am actually glad to see Russert stick it to any politicians who did not adequately question the intelligence before the war. However, only going after the stupid, lazy Democrats (who were cowed into supporting the IWR) is deceptive by the omission of questioning the war-lusting Republicans, who supported it as well.
And in the case of McCain, continue to support it wholeheartedly.
PLEASE STAND BY...
After the McCain response ending with "...I think that it was certainly justified.", Timmeh time-warped to such a completely different and totally unrelated topic that I thought that there'd either been a technical glitch or I'd suffered a brain fart.
Timmy, true to form.
I don't understand why our media doesn't call them on the facts which proved the intelligence to be false.
We had bad intelligence that everyone relied upon. Then we had actual facts that Bush ignored in order to invade Iraq. Why doesn't he get called on that? Why does everyone concentrate on the bad intelligence that fooled everyone? Everyone didn't invade. Bush invaded with the facts on the ground that disproved that intelligence!
The "bad intel" line is just their way of constantly saying "not our fault". The entire world knew Cheney and Evil Inc. were lying their psychopathic arses off, our corporate media acting as their echo chamber. To point out that lie would expose their own complicity in promoting a war crime against peace....so it's blame the "intel" and not the lies.
But what can we really expect from a corporate media that fills our airwaves with shows devoted to the fine art of back-stabbing, aka the "reality" shows. Not only are the "journalists" that they employ total lunatics that cheerfully cheerlead the bombing of innocent children, but the "entertainment" they produce is all meant to instill the "corporate" values of selfishness, greed, and sociopathy into our population.
All Evil Empires decline into total moral decay. We're witnessing that here in the USA.
I think you have a valid point. It does appear that the intel did not support the argument for war. I think some members of Congress had to know this and were simply too cowardly or war-mongering to say something and if they didn't know, they were derelict in their duty.
Other countries reviewed the intelligence supplied to Congress and publicly did not believe it was sufficient at all to support the Bush Administration's position on Iraq -- despite how Condi and the President spin it that "we were all wrong". That is simply not true.
How did Cheney get the Clinton administration to lie about Saddam's WMD for eight full years?
I know it may be too much to ask, but can you please be specific? Please use legitimate quotes and links, so your argument can be considered in full context.
Here you go:
http://www.retroactiveimpeachment.com/Iraqquotes.html
The information the Clinton Administration was mostly accurate at the time. Unfortunately, the Bush Administration relied on much of the old Clinton Era data that was with the passage of time not as accurate largely due to the action of the Clinton Administration in the 1998 Desert Fox bombing campaign and the effects of over a decade of UN inspectors/sanctions, which Clinton also supported.
That is why Clinton was truthful during his administration and the Bush administration...not so much.
The Bush Administration appears to have put enormous pressure on analysts to present favorable data, which does not appear to have happened under the Clinton Administration.
Any statements made by Clinton Officials during the Bush Administration appears to have been tainted by access to Bush's PDB's which the The Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction called "even more misleading" and "more alarmist and less nuanced than the NIE."
Although I believe Clinton did get some things wrong about Iraq and he definitely looks foolish now to some degree for backing up President Bush on his follies, Clinton was the much more honest broker of the two (by light years) regarding the issue of Iraq.
That admin made it's own lies up.
The NIE was made available to all members of Congress before the vote, according to The Washington Post. The Post story, however, leaves out many critical points about the saga of that Iraq NIE which entirely change the complexion of all of this, including Russert's questioning of those in congress. An NIE is supposed to be a consensus view of the intel community, but the administration, as it publicly based its case for war on "intelligence," hadn't even bothered to assemble one. That, in itself, is a HUGE scandal. An NIE would have been the first step, if intel was driving the policy. Instead, the Iraq NIE was assembled as an afterthought, over a year after the war policy had been decided upon, and was only assembled at all because congress insisted upon it. Instead of a genuine effort at consensus, the Iraq NIE became a propaganda show. The final product was a sloppy mess, slapped together in only days, and reflected the results of the administration's year + campaign of browbeating the intel community into shaping its product to serve the needs of the pre-determined war policy. It was a catalog of guesses, maybes, and half-truths, wherein any information that didn't support the war policy--including HUGE, obvious gaping holes in the war-hawks' central thesis--was relegated to footnotes and other "caveats." Media Matters is quite correct to put that word in quotes, in the context of the NIE. This was made rather obvious by, among other examples, the now-infamous phony claims about an Iraq/Niger uranium deal. The CIA actually endorsed that nonsense in the NIE, then, less than a week later, with, as everyone involved agrees, no new information having been developed, was calling the White House, writing off the allegation as baseless, and recommending that it be left out of a presidential speech. At any rate--and in the context of this story, this is very important--this absudly distorted NIE was sent to congress in the wee hours of the morning, only hours before the debates on the use-of-force resolution was to commence. Only a very few members were ever allowed to see it, and they weren't allowed the presence of any staff, or to take any notes, or to quote from anything they read, rendering the whole silly charade even more pointless. Dana Priest, in the Washington Post story referenced by Media Matters, chides members of congress for failing to examine the NIE, but leaves out this critical fact about the timing. From the Priest article, it sounds as though members of congress were simply being lazy and didn't bother to look at the information, when, in fact, there was virtually no time between the delivery of the NIE and the beginning of the debate. The executive summary of the NIE's conclusions, examined by more members than the document proper, was even more distorted in favor of the war policy than the original document--most of those huge gaping holes relegated to "caveats" in the original were eliminated entirely in the summary. Russert also left all of this on the cutting-room floor when questioning Biden and Edwards, and Russert's assertion, to Edwards, that the NIE " was given to you" is flatly false.
I want to challenge the statement that "we all had the same intelligence." The intelligence was not gathered by independent agencies and most of the intelligence that was available to most countries was provided to them by the US. The important point is that even if the counries had the same intelligence, it was only the US that wanted to go to war. Please recall that the US originally wanted the UN to approve a resolution to go to war, but the US pulled back its proposal when it saw that it would fail in the General Asembly.
These responses they give are almost 'reflex' by now, the tired responses of "You saw the same intelligence we did" (a response given by the Bush administration), and of course "Every intelligence agency in the world etc." (given here, by Sen. McCain).
You saw the same intelligence we did
This one ignores the big elephant sitting practically in your lap, and takes you for an idiot: The Bush administration, and the Intelligence Agencies they more than administer, they 'control' (to their own private political ends), they didn't "see" the intelligence, they COLLECTED it!
That's the whole point: It's Congress that "saw" that intelligence (but had no hand in collecting it), and it's the Bush administration that COLLECTED that intelligence... FALSIFIED that intelligence, again for reasons of advancing their own private and political purposes.
And I don't need to hear that that's 'mere speculation', because everybody knows that that's what's truly wrong, even dangerous, about the present state of our various Intelligence Agencies: That the information those Agencies report is corrupted 'politically', is skewed way from truth and toward persuasion... in this case, to persuade the American People and their Congress that Iraq was a National Security threat to the U.S., when it was not.
Again, when coming from the Bush administration, "You saw the same intelligence we did" is an insult to your intelligence... they COLLECTED that intelligence, and then skewed it to their own political ends, and then presented it to the American People and their Congress.
True.
As for "Every intelligence agency in the world etc.":
Says who?
Iran says their Intelligence had that assessment? Syria's? Turkey's?
How about the saudis?
My point here is, that the nations of this world have no sane reason whatsoever to make public any Intelligence they possess, about Iraq or anything else, or about the methods they may have used to find out that Intelligence... and you can be danged sure that any nation that may have believed in WMDs etc., had as their source the Intelligence Agencies of the U.S....
The first of these tired and 'reflex' responses cited here, insults you by way of having the source of a lie, the liar himself, say to you that you heard the same thing he did, the same lie he heard... when in fact he thinks you're so dumb that haven't noticed he's the one who told you the lie! It's not what they "saw", it's what they COLLECTED and told the American People and their Congress!
As for the second of the two tired excuses, the one Mr. McCain repeats here: All it does is really claim that everybody else believed the lies that the Bush administration told about Iraq, that's all... it says nothing about what the Intelligence Agencies of the other nations of the world truly believed... there's no sane reason whatsoever, those other nations would devulge their Intelligence publicly, and their methods of knowing that Intelligence.
"Again, when coming from the Bush administration, "You saw the same intelligence we did" is an insult to your intelligence... they COLLECTED that intelligence, and then skewed it to their own political ends, and then presented it to the American People and their Congress."
You don't collect intelligence. You collect information, which is then analyzed and disseminated as intelligence.
Lots of problems with this post. First, all NIE's have contradictory information. However, policymakers have to go with the most likely scenarios. In 2002 and 2003, the prepondance of intelligence in this country and others was that Saddam had WMD. That had been the case for over a decade. The Clinton administration left office in January 2001 still claiming that Iraq had WMD and there was no intelligence gathered between 2001 and March 2003 to show that Saddam absolutely did not have WMD.
As far as Russert giving McCain a break, gimme a break. Russert allowed Biden to repeat the lie that Cheney said Iraq had "reconstituted nuclear weapons." In fact, Cheney said on Russerts own program that Iraq had a "reconstituted nuclear weapons PROGRAM." Hint to Biden: In order to have had reconstituted nuclear weapons, you first had to have had nuclear weapons.
Russert is a huge liberal and his bias is on display on a weekly basis. For MMFA to suggest that Russert cut McCain some slack only damages what little credibility MMFA has left.
I find it interesting how you lamely frame the debate:
"there was no intelligence gathered between 2001 and March 2003 to show that Saddam absolutely did not have WMD." --kevin
How precisely to you gather evidence that something doesn't exist? That is a new one.
Ask George Tenet.
He's asking you. You're the one making that "argument."
Yet another example of an attempt to reframe/shift the debate. Why don't you backup your own argument? Haven't you thought it through or do you simply parrot an interpretation of George Tenet's remarks to do your thinking for you?
Has George Tenet somehow transcended beyond the reach of conventional logic and reason?
"In 2002 and 2003, the prepondance of intelligence in this country and others was that Saddam had WMD. That had been the case for over a decade." --kevin
Prove it. Other countries like Russia, Germany and France had substantial disagreements with our use of WMD intelligence:
Germany disagreed with our use of "curveball" to make the case for Iraqi mobile biological labs.
Russian President Putin said this:
The French had this to say about WMD agreement with Washington:
It seems your apparent belief in universal agreement on prewar WMD intelligence is simply a myth. I think you have been listening to Condi and the President a little too faithfully.
You're lying. I never said there was universal agreement that Iraq had WMD.
As far as German intelligence, Kenneth Pollack noted the following in "The Threatening Storm":
"The German intelligence service, using methods it won't divulge, estimated in 2001 that Iraq was three to six years from having a nuclear weapon." (p. 175)
Sorry, I indeed misrepresented your argument.
Of course some countries had areas of agreement, that is true for much intelligence. So any such claim is rhetorically worthless.
Condi and the President have gone much further than your ineffectual claim when they say "we were all wrong". That is a blatant lie, so consider my post aimed at that.
I believe the Russians and French preferred to look the other way concerning intelligence that indicated Iraq had WMD. France, for example, openly violated the sanctions regime against Iraq in 2000. This was an early sign that sanctions regime and containment were falling apart.
Your post seems largely speculative and useless without legitimate links and or details to back them up.
If you just want to engage in baseless speculation, that is fine. I have no real interest in it.
It's not baseless. The Clinton administration actually issued a press release that criticized France for violating the sanctions regime. http://www.usembassy.it/file2000_09/alia/a0092210.htm
Okay. That is only part of your argument. France arguably violated the sanctions. However, you fail to effectively demonstrate how that means the French (and the Russians) refused to believe (mostly untrue) US intelligence because of their financial stake in Iraq. Why do you refuse to entertain the seemingly more simple idea that France and Russia did not believe the US case because it was not compelling? (Especially with the current knowledge that most of it was indeed false?)
I think you are just parroting old arguments that fail to hold up in hindsight.
"Why do you refuse to entertain the seemingly more simple idea that France and Russia did not believe the US case because it was not compelling?"
Your question is based on a false premise. The French and Russians also believed Saddam had WMD.
Yes, but not at all in the same way or to the same degree the US did. Hence the questioning of the American case for war. The supposed false premise you claim I have is moot.
"I believe the Russians and French preferred to look the other way concerning intelligence that indicated Iraq had WMD." --kevin
Interesting you might speculate that considering there didn't turn out to be any significant quantities of WMD in reality. Are you sure that is a good explanation?
I think your explanation merely echoes the lies conservatives told themselves to rationalize why others didn't agree about the case for war.
Gee, I am beginning to like this speculation game. Pretty fun.
He's improving. I think internet scrutiny is having an effect on him and his team.
RUSSERT ALWAYS GIVE DEMOCRATS A HARD TIME AND KISSES UP TO REPUBLICANS. BUT BIDEN WAS TIME ENOUGH FOR HIM. I EMAIL BIDEN AND TOLD HIM WHAT A GOOD JOB HE DID ON RUSSERT.