Bush should display his anger at intelligence failure

Hill News ^ | 10/13/03 | Dick Morris

[areafiftyone]

The interim CIA report by investigator David Kay on weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq is inconclusive as to whether Saddam Hussein was planning to rebuild his arsenal, but it is quite clear that the imminent, massive buildup for such weaponry, upon which the invasion of Iraq was predicated, had not, in fact, happened.

Barring some discovery of massive relocation of such weapons to Syria, it is clear that the claims of President Bush, Secretary of State Colin Powell and British Prime Minister Tony Blair about the ubiquity of such weapons were not accurate.

That does not mean that they lied. It does not even mean that they were lied to by intelligence analysts. But it does mean, at the least, that shoddy, sloppy, slipshod intelligence unintentionally misled these leaders into misleading us about the reasons to attack Iraq.

It was, obviously, the right decision. The mass graves, Saddam’s prior use of poison gas, the Iraqi dictator’s designs on his neighbors and his financial support for Hamas suicide squads all made clear that Bush Sr. made the wrong decision in letting this tyrant stay in power in 1991. Ever since then, it has been clear — and it has been American policy — that we should encourage his ouster. Even with the ongoing loss of American and British lives, the removal of this dangerous man before he could become even more deadly and threatening was worth the cost.

But all of that leaves a basic question: Who screwed up?

If Bush did not lie to the American people (as I believe he did not) when he said there were WMDs in Iraq that posed an imminent threat to the United States, then he should be very, very angry at having been misled by our intelligence community into thinking that there were.

I should think he would want to know why our vaunted and well-funded intelligence apparatus was tragically wrong for the second time in as many years. Its failure to anticipate Sept. 11, coupled with its wrong-headed analysis of Iraqi WMD capabilities, raises serious questions not of veracity or bad intentions but of competence and skill.

In light of the Kay Report’s interim conclusions, Bush has a choice: Will he be part of the prosecution or part of the defense? Will he lead the pack to examine why the CIA, the National Security Agency and the other intelligence agencies made this huge mistake, or will he make it appear that he is part of the problem, covering their tracks, excusing their errors and opposing the necessary housecleaning. He can be seen as the perpetrator of an intelligence fraud at worst, a bad mistake at best or as the victim that he probably is. The issue will be either did he mislead us or did they mislead him?

The question is not whether Iraq was worth invading or Saddam worth deposing or whether Bush lied to us or his intelligence experts lied to him. The issue is who misjudged Iraqi WMD progress, how they were so wrong, why they made the mistake, and when they began to lose touch with what was actually happening in and around Baghdad.

Answering these questions is not only necessary to correct the obvious shortcomings in the intelligence community. It also pre-empts the more serious questions many Americans may come to ask if Bush doesn’t shape the debate. If the president seems to accept the incompetence demonstrated in the Kay Report’s interim conclusions without appropriate outrage and without taking steps to find out what happened, suspicions will build that he is part of a deliberate cover-up and either was then or is now lying to us.

Bush needs desperately to get ahead of the curve of this debate and shape the question as one of incompetence among intelligence analysts rather than one of intentional misrepresentation on their part or his. He needs to provide a vent for the public anger at being misled and to show evidence that he shares their anger.

He needs to be the victim-in-chief of this intelligence failure so he does not become the perpetrator-in-chief of an intelligence fraud.

[areafiftyone]

Another liberal moron who only read the first page of Kay's report. Kay was on tv and said he was surprised that the congresscritters only read page one and reported that as the whole report.

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[finnman69]

Dick, Bush never said there was an imminent threat. He said there were ongoing weapons programs that if allowed to develop to the point where they were a htreat, the threat would be imminent and too late.

[truthingod]

WMD?-who cares?-the media only cares about things like this.All I hear is about the unfortunate deaths of troops serving in Iraq. Yet, one thing is always overlooked-that today, Hussein is not able to torture at will. His evil sons are not able to continue to rule by terror or fear. They are gone. Sometimes, things happen by chance in history that won't make sense until much later. This may be one of those times. So we went into Iras looking for weapons of mass destruction-we found them--2 brothers and soon their father and all their evil host!

[jimkress]

Bush should display his anger at intelligence failure

Why? The democRATs always act stupid. Why should Bush get angry at their intelligence failure?

[dirtboy]

The interim CIA report by investigator David Kay on weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq is inconclusive as to whether Saddam Hussein was planning to rebuild his arsenal, but it is quite clear that the imminent, massive buildup for such weaponry, upon which the invasion of Iraq was predicated, had not, in fact, happened.

The imminence front strikes again.

[tbpiper]

Tony Snow nailed Sen Jay Rockefeller on that very point this weekend, even played the video for him. Rockefeller's reply was Bush, by his words implied that the threat was imminent. The truth does not matter to a liberal.

[dirtboy]

Dick, Bush never said there was an imminent threat. He said there were ongoing weapons programs that if allowed to develop to the point where they were a htreat, the threat would be imminent and too late.

I'm calling this phenomenon the Imminence Front - the widespread, calculated effort to claim that Bush stated the threat from Saddam was imminent, when Bush actually argued that we should not wait for the threat to be imminent.

[finnman69]

It's not a phenomenon, it's a RAT talking point. A dumb one as they all agreed Saddam's WMD programs were a threat and they are all on record saying as much.

[arasina]

The Imminence Front. I like it. And the Libs are parsing and twisting as many of President Bush's statements as possible in order to perpetuate their lies.

I wonder which Democrat candidate Dick Morris is currently negotiating with to be campaign adviser?

[InterceptPoint]

Dick, Bush never said there was an imminent threat.

I think you are wrong about that.

According to lessons that we all learned in Clinton 101, a lie repeated often enough becomes the truth. This lie certainly passed that threshold long ago and has now become the truth.

[Miss Marple]

Very interesting. Morris knows better, of course.

I am amazed at this effort for its sheer audacity. As Tony Snow showed yesterday, should any of these clymers be called on their "imminence" comments, they retreat quite quickly.

I think that we need to start calling them on it more. Mr. Morris needs a few e-mails.

[Quicksilver]

Dick Morris is always interesting, but he needs to question the accuracy of his inteligence. He was totally wrong about California, he should be angry about his inteligence sources. In fact, it strikes me that he's been wrong more often than right. But he is always interesting.

[pawdoggie]

The one thing that our intelligence agencies don't need right now is a phoney show of anger which results in mass firings (sh*t really does roll down hill), "starting all over from square one" (i.e. fixing stuff that aint broke) and further demoralization of a lot of hard working people. In the last thirty years our intelligence agencies have been subjected to "downsizing", hamstrung by garbage legislation and executive orders designed to "protect civil liberties" and "preserve human rights" (e.g. "don't hire any human rights violators as operatives/informants"), and subject to all manner of verbal and written abuse for not being able to anticipate events that only the Lord and His Prophets could have predicted. Some of the most important steps that President Bush took in the wake of 9-11 were the steps he did not take: firing guys like (Democrat appointee) Tenet and Mueller or members of their respective staffs. It said loud and clear: "I'm far more interested in destroying terrorism than I am in attaching blame to others".

Yes the intelligence community has been making a tough transition from a Cold-War era over-reliance on "technical means" (e.g. Signal and Communications Intelligence, aircraft and satellite imagery/photographic Intelligence) back to a more balanced approach that includes Human Intelligence (e.g. "on the ground" agents, even unsavory character-type agents). That does not mean, however, that our spies are "the Gang that Can't Shoot Straight". It means that, as always, the real or imagined "intelligence failures" will always get more press play than secret successes.

[jinxtigr]

He'd better continue to defend the intelligence people- he himself and (more so) his cabinet, people like Rove and Wolfovitz, were demanding that they come up with something that looked like WMDs. You can't be mad at people for coming up with stuff because you told them to. They wanted intelligence about WMDs and threats and they got just what they demanded.
Also, outing CIA operatives is very bad form if you're trying to support your intelligence services. I suspect that one wasn't actually Bush- it would be some of the guys behind the scenes, most likely Rove. It's possible he consulted Bush about this, but it's also possible that he just went ahead and blew the lady's cover without asking anybody else, because he thought it was political hardball and that he'd get away with it.
Call me old-fashioned but when it comes to our people in the CIA and all, I think we have a duty to let them do their jobs. I would be very disappointed in Bush if he does NOT stand by our people. Blaming them for all this is no good.

[ChadGore]

Bush got it right in Iraq, and American lives were spared because of it. Bush has *nothing* to second guess, nothing to apologise for, nothing to alter or change.