TESTING TWO LEADERS: 1. Tony Blair, Vindicated 2. George Bush, in Denial

New York Times ^ | January 29, 2004 | Editorial

[OESY]

TESTING TWO LEADERS: Tony Blair, Vindicated

Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain has given an impressive demonstration of how good governance can also be smart politics. Yesterday, an independent judicial inquiry fully exonerated his administration, refuting charges that it knowingly manipulated intelligence about Iraqi weapons and that it compounded the pressures that led a government scientist, Dr. David Kelly, to kill himself.

The independent inquiry, led by a senior judge, Lord Hutton, was commissioned promptly after Mr. Kelly's suicide and Mr. Blair gave it full cooperation. Its report leaves him substantially vindicated, even though the reporting of British intelligence agencies on Iraq now appears to have been disastrously inaccurate. Lord Hutton also found that the BBC committed grave journalistic and management errors in broadcasting charges last spring that the government had deliberately embellished intelligence findings to strengthen its case for war. Dr. Kelly was later identified as a source for that report, which has since been discredited.

The Hutton inquiry further found that the contents of the Iraq dossier that Mr. Blair made public in September 2002 were fully consistent with the information available to British intelligence agencies at that time and that no claims then known to be false or unreliable were included. It concluded that the government's role in making Dr. Kelly's name public was, in most respects, reasonable and responsible. After the Hutton report was made public, the BBC apologized for some of its reporting and its chairman, Gavyn Davies, resigned.

The Hutton report was Chapter 2 in one of the most politically perilous weeks of Mr. Blair's almost seven years as prime minister. On Tuesday, he barely contained a revolt among Labor members of Parliament over his plan for sharply increasing the share of university costs British students must pay and letting some schools charge more than others. Mr. Blair scheduled that vote one day ahead of the Hutton report in the hope of swaying the maximum number of Labor rebels to his side. That ploy proved successful, showing once again that Mr. Blair is the most tactically deft leader the Labor Party has ever had. He has won two successive general-election landslides and prevailed in every major parliamentary test.

Mr. Blair should not let this week's victories blind him to the fact that the British public is still uneasy about the tense occupation of Iraq, troubled by his uncritical support of inept American diplomacy before the war and concerned with the broader intelligence failures that brought a vast overestimation of Iraq's unconventional weapons threat. Establishing that the British government did not lie is not the same as showing that it proceeded wisely or even competently in this area. Further investigation is needed to answer those questions.

Much of the Labor Party remains restive over Mr. Blair's relentless assault on traditional party positions like taxpayer financed educational equality. While he still clearly commands the loyalty of most Labor parliamentarians, his hold over the party's rank and file has been badly strained. Winning back that support will require more than brilliant tactics. More carefully grounded policies will also be needed.

* * *

TESTING TWO LEADERS: George Bush, in Denial

While Tony Blair was cooperating with a British investigation into his handling of the lead-up to the Iraqi invasion, the Bush White House continued to follow its strategy of spin and evade. Because Mr. Blair was compelled to take the risk that objective investigators would find that he had acted honorably and honestly, Britain is now able to move on to the next logical step — finding out why its intelligence was so completely wrong. Americans, however, are still stuck in stage one. President Bush needs to move things forward by starting — or allowing Congress to start — an independent investigation that goes beyond the British inquiry and looks into all aspects of the apparent intelligence failures on Iraq.

Mr. Bush, whose aides had been plotting a war against Iraq practically since Inauguration Day, has dodged questions about why the American intelligence about Iraq was just as wrong as Britain's intelligence. Vice President Dick Cheney continues to make outsized claims about Iraq's prewar weapons programs, and the administration's allies continue to grasp at straws. It was painful yesterday morning to watch John Warner, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, trying to drag some positive nuggets from David Kay, the former chief weapons inspector. After Dr. Kay said he had found no evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and concluded that none would be found, Mr. Warner pounced on the idea that Dr. Kay said he had accounted for "only" 85 percent of Iraq's military programs. So that, Mr. Warner said triumphantly, leaves 15 percent. Yes, and in a few months it will be 10 percent, and months after that 5 percent, and the answers will almost certainly be the same: Iraq destroyed its weapons and weapons programs long ago under the pressure of the same United Nations inspectors that Mr. Bush and his aides vilified in the months leading up to the war. American intelligence was wrong in concluding that weapons existed, and that robust programs to develop more were continuing.

Dr. Kay has repeatedly told the administration just that. It has responded by trying to edit the rhetoric. Rather than addressing the alarming failures of American intelligence, Mr. Bush and his aides have gone from talking about weapons to talking about weapons programs, and then, in the State of the Union address, "weapons of mass destruction-related program activities." It is time to stop refining the spin and make a serious attempt to find out where and how American intelligence went wrong. The public also needs to know, as authoritatively as possible, whether the administration made ambiguous intelligence seem certain for political reasons or, worse, whether analysts were pressured to exaggerate their intelligence.

It is easy to understand, tactically, why Mr. Bush is reluctant to do that in an election year. No matter how he and his aides try to change the subject to how tyrannical Saddam Hussein was, it was the presence of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons in Iraq that Mr. Bush gave as his justification for rushing into a war without real international backing. Dr. Kay said yesterday that he had seen no evidence of politically twisted intelligence reporting before the war. But he put it well when he said that "it's important to acknowledge failure." Only an independent panel can be trusted at this point to find out what went wrong in Iraq and give the public some hope that another big intelligence failure can be prevented in the future.

[OESY]

The Times shouldn't fret. Voters will vindicate Bush. Instead the Times should worry about it's own brand of highly partisan reporting. Its selective use of facts and unsupported allegations to mislead the public should not stand without the severest condemnation. Below are two particularly outrageously false statements:


1. "Mr. Blair should not let this week's victories blind him to the fact that the British public is still uneasy about the tense occupation of Iraq, troubled by his uncritical support of inept American diplomacy before the war and concerned with the broader intelligence failures that brought a vast overestimation of Iraq's unconventional weapons threat."

2. "....And the answers will almost certainly be the same: Iraq destroyed its weapons and weapons programs long ago under the pressure of the same United Nations inspectors that Mr. Bush and his aides vilified in the months leading up to the war. American intelligence was wrong in concluding that weapons existed, and that robust programs to develop more were continuing."


The Times is itself in denial that "inept" American diplomacy achieved a unanimous 15:0 vote in the UN Security Council to take serious measures against Saddam if he did not comply with UN resolutions.
The Times also conveniently forgets or disregards the stunning and unexpected success of the Bush administration when it achieved near unanimous support in Congress to take whatever actions were necessary to protect the American people. If the Times was not so blinded by its leftist ideology, it would recognize that Dr. Kay testified that in many ways US intelligence underestimated the dangers Iraq posed to the US as rogue scientists sought to sell their WMD secrets. Al Qaeda operatives were willing buyers.

Meanwhile, the Times continues to lead Democrat candidates in insisting that France, a country that was receiving huge payoffs from Saddam and could hardly be impartial, should have been given a veto over US actions. At least the Times acknowledges that Dr. Kay found "no evidence of politically twisted intelligence" i.e., manipulation to justify issuing Saddam an ultimatum to step down or be removed. However valuable lessons learned from an investigation would be, such an exercise would run the risk that Democrat senators like Rockefeller, Levin, Kennedy and Kerry will attempt to use such an investigation not to strengthen our national defense but to serve their own narrow political self-interests.

It would appear the American public stands ready to ratify in November actions taken by the Bush administrations after eight years of neglect, and military and intelligence downsizing, under the prior administration. The Times deserves only contempt.

[Cicero]

Drip, drip, drip. If people hear something said often enough, they may begin to believe it.

The Times and the other liberal media are pushing the envelope very hard, right out to the limits. With lying stories and editorials like this, they risk losing their credibility in the minds of sensible readers. Obviously Pinch Sulzberger has decided that he would rather risk wrecking the reputation of the NY Times than let Bush win the election.

At some point, things will break and the Times will go down the tubes, losing its position is the most important news source and opinion leader in America. Unfortunately, most of its readers are probably happy to read editorials like this. But maybe a few will begin to wake up to what's going on.

[Lysander]

Voters will vindicate Bush.

The ones in the real denial.

[Principled]

Oh and there's that pesky memo indicating that the Democrats intend to use whatever they can find with regard to Iraq against President Bush politically - irrespective of the facts discovered.

How could they ignore such a tactic? Ignore what's best for the US and go after the president??? C'mon NYT.

NYT: "All the liberal editorials that's fit to print"

[ReaganRevolution]

Drip, drip, drip. If people hear something said often enough, they may begin to believe it.

I agree with you on the drip, drip, drip effect. It is a dangerous thing to let this continue without the administration admitting that something is seriously wrong with our intelligence gathering abilities. The American people will and can understand but pushing it aside and ignoring it can make you a one term president.

[70times7]

While I didn't see the whole thing, I did see David Kay answering the questions of both Senators McCain and Kennedy. He seemed unpointed, yet direct and unevasive in stating that this was an intelligence problem rather than an administration problem. I had the “pleasure” of (urp) witnessing Kennedy's long-winded politicized "question" to Kay that was clearly designed to indict Bush. Kay refuted it handily.

Now we have this writer who doesn't seem to have even seen the hearing. The NYT is unbiased - yeah, right. Auntie Pinko over on DU does a better job of presenting balanced analysis than this Clymer.

[CasearianDaoist]

With lying stories and editorials like this, they risk losing their credibility in the minds of sensible readers.

While I do not know about the rest of the country, here in New York City, where the Times is very much thought of as a local paper, "sensible people" stopped reading it about two years ago. The Times is no longer writing for those audiences, they could care less. Locally they are entirely aimed at the various Liberal groups about town (Limo Libs, Artsy Fartsy libs, Yupppie libs, etc>) But really what it is aimed at is in fact not readers but the AP, TV and radio echo chamber that repeats ad infinitum anything that the Gray Lady puts out.

And it is effective - Do not kid yourself, Their lies keep coming back in even the most casual conversation. If the can tip then vote even by 10% They have done their job. Besides, they can control the terms of the debate.

If you add to the mix the Boston globe and the International Herald Tribune then the Times has a very powerful propaganda machine.

As an aside, Europeans look apon the NYT and the IHT has the primary and "legitimate window" into America as far as printed media goes. It is no wonder that they have the opinions of America that they do.

Pinch stopped caring about the broader reputation of the Times years ago, if he did care he would not have hired Raines in the first place and would not have put up with his nonsense for so long. BTW, Raines was canned because of internal politics, not for the damage he did to the "Newspaper of Record."

BTW, I have not one but three acquaintances whose doctors have told them to stop reading the New York Times as doing so is bad for their blood pressure - I kid you not.

[OldFriend]

The facts never get in the way of NYT reporting and/or editorializing.

[LisaFab]

When Kay was on Hardball last night, Matthews closed the interview saying, "You're the kind of guest I hate, you're smarter than me."

Duh Chrissie! Kay blew away his every attempt at getting him to diss the Prez.

[Only1choice____Freedom]

When Kay was on Hardball last night, Matthews closed the interview saying, "You're the kind of guest I hate, you're smarter than me."

Doesn't take much does it?

[blackdog]

Wow are liberals and anti war morons being set up for the biggest haymaker punch in history. They are sticking their jaw so far out there, just so confident they've done something so special for themselves.

Well, somebody stand by with a facial reconstruction surgeon, because when Bush delivers the blow, they'll need to repair that bloody mess which used to be smugness grande'.

[blackdog]

Something tells me that the list of 270 which just happened to be released the same day as Kay's words is causing another war. Those global power brokers and their little toadies who are on that list are playing hardball. They've got every angle on taking Bush down with them if he continues to expose them.

The closer they get to being arrested and put on trial, the more flak the Bush Administration can expect from editorial boards, heads of state, the US State Department, Commerce, The World Bank, and an endless list of similar profiteers.

[Godfollow]

"Americans, however, are still stuck in stage one. President Bush needs to move things forward by starting — or allowing Congress to start — an independent investigation that goes beyond the British inquiry and looks into all aspects of the apparent intelligence failures on Iraq."

One major difference, however... we are in a high profile election year.

With the Clintons doing all to get their man or woman into an electable position, and other democrats willing to unabashedly go along with the lie that Bush lied to the country, it is reasonable for the Bush administration to hold their cards close to the chest.

No one can convince the administration and its supporters that an investigation would be fair. In fact, one Senate committee investigation was shut down last year because memos were discovered showing how the Democrats were going to use the investigation to politically hammer the President, no objectivity there.

With the Democrats, politics isn't just being the loyal opposition, it is poison with which to murder your opponent, and if he should die, all the better.

Bush is no dummy, he'll wait till after the election before allowing the anal exam, sorry...

[George W. Bush]

Weird premise for an article, especially considering the source.

The old Gray Whore loves to get in on this one, seeing that it is a PM vs. media free-for-all where the anti-war BBC lost the fight the a Third Way pol.

NYT is just sickening.

[blackdog]

Countries sold WMD's to Iraq. We know this. It's just a matter of how many world leaders Bush would stomach taking out bringing the evidence forward.

We did not go to war in Iraq to find WMD's. We may have been told that, sure. It may have been a side benefit much like the American civil war and slavery(by Lincoln's own admission).

We went to war in Iraq to kick some worry into Islamic countries who were coddifying terrorists who had proven to have gone beyond our concern, but had launched attacks on our soil. That cannot be tollerated.

[OXENinFLA]

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/01/20040127-3.html

PRESIDENT KWASNIEWSKI: May I add one thing?

PRESIDENT BUSH: Sure, please.

PRESIDENT KWASNIEWSKI: Because it might be interesting for American journalists. Many months before Iraqi action, I met predecessor of Hans Blix in Warsaw. I invited him to my palace, and we discussed about mass destruction weapons, Iraq and everything. And he told me very important thing, that Saddam has these weapons or is ready to produce these weapons. Because to have such impression that he has mass destruction weapons is a part of his doctrine to keep own power in Iraq and to be strong in the region.

So I think that it's very difficult today to judge how it was when he had -- when he decided to continue this project of mass destruction weapons. But that was information of predecessor of Mr. Blix in Warsaw, that absolutely Iraq is ready to produce if it's necessary, to keep the power of -- and the dictatorship of Saddam and to play such important role in the region.

[Godfollow]

amen to that bro...

[OESY]

Excerpted from BEST OF THE WEB TODAY, January 29, 2004:

"Earlier in the week a New York Times editor "sexed up" the paper's coverage of Kay, leading the paper to publish this embarrassing correction Tuesday:

"'Because of an editing error, a front-page article yesterday about David A. Kay, the C.I.A.'s former weapons inspector, misstated his view of whether the agency's analysts had been pressured by the Bush administration to tailor their prewar intelligence reports about Iraq's weapons programs to conform to a White House political agenda. Mr. Kay said he believed that there was no such pressure, not that there was. (His view was correctly reflected in a quotation that followed the error.)'"

[George W. Bush]

Okay. I don't worry much over anything the NYT prints. They're so desperate for readers they've started a lame national TV advertising campaign. A bad sign, given their past eminence.