Posted on 06/19/2005 5:42:19 AM PDT by Marauder
Repeatedly, those contending that President Bush lied us into the war in Iraq have had to face contrary evidence, stacks and stacks of it, and how have they handled this refutation of their fantasies? By ignoring it.
But give them something all but irrelevant to the argument, some itsy, bitsy thing that they can misinterpret as demonstrating the rightness of their view, and notice how some of them behave. Why, they say, the final proof is here at last.
I speak of the so-called Downing Street memo, the disclosed minutes of a meeting in 2002 between British Prime Minister Tony Blair and others in his government on the subject of a possible war in Iraq, then still eight months in the distance.
To anti-Bush critics such as Mark Danner, a magazine journalist and college professor writing in The New York Review of Books, the document is one more "revelation" in the weapons-of-mass-destruction "scandal" that ought to lead to judicial proceedings against top officials, to sentences handed down against them, and to punishment.
He talks in an article in another edition of the magazine about the memo "establishing" a number of points, when in fact it establishes absolutely nothing. In summing up observations by the head of British foreign intelligence, for instance, the document does not cite any specific sources and is more than a little vague.
The intelligence official, just returned from Washington, is paraphrased as saying that "military action was now seen as inevitable" and that Bush wanted Saddam Hussein's removal. Danner believes this means Bush "had decided to invade and occupy Iraq" months before the start of the war, and that evil resides in the fact. But as columnist Michael Kinsley has noted, the document contains "no claim of even fourth-hand knowledge that (Bush) had actually declared the intention."
It is quite possible, of course, that even at that stage, Bush had concluded that a war might well be necessary, and for good reason. Saddam was hostile to the United States, had maintained associations with terrorists, was reckless, was the murderer of tens of thousands of people and, as all the best intelligence agencies in the world reported, had weapons of mass destruction on hand. After 9/11, the height of irresponsibility would have been to think that the long-stated U.S. policy of getting this man out of power should merit no more than a shrug of the shoulders.
What's ludicrous is the position of some Bush critics that the administration somehow fabricated the intelligence reports on weapons, or outright lied about them. That's conspiracy theorizing of fanatical reach. A muddy line in the Downing Street memo has been taken to suggest the administration was contriving the case for war, but even if it was clear that the line meant that — and it isn't — the memo would hardly override the certainty that the bulk of the information getting to Bush was to the effect that the weapons existed.
While we now know that this information was faulty and that there were some concerns expressed about it within the intelligence community, it wasn't just the intelligence reports that the administration had to go on. The United States gave Saddam a chance to prove the intelligence wrong. All he had to do was cooperate fully with U.N. inspectors, and he would have been off the hook. For some reason that is known only to him, he didn't, and the signal was that he still had something to hide, that all those intelligence reports were on target.
Although no weapons of mass destruction have been found, by the way, investigators have discovered that Saddam maintained programs that could have manufactured biological and chemical weapons quickly, that he had plans to reconstitute his nuclear-weapons program and that he was busily bribing officials in such places as France, Russia and China so that he could get out from under inhibiting sanctions.
There are solid arguments against this war, and I respect those who make them, but there is also an extreme element that seems to have dominated much of the anti-war rhetoric — one of its illogical suppositions being that Bush would have told a lie that was sure to be found out.
In the end, such rhetoric does little service to either the anti-war cause or the reasoned discourse on which democracy depends.
Mr. Ambrose can be contacted via e-mail at speaktojay@aol.com.
And the comments from LGF are illuminating, too:
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
Yes, another forged memo in an attempt to destroy George W Bush.
I think the left was so dismayed at the public affection for Ronald Reagan despite their attempts to destroy his credibility that they feel they must up-the-ante with Bush, else they will have to deal with another great legacy years from now.
I disagree with your statement only to the extent that it implies that the moonbats now have, or have ever had, good sense.
I learned the first time I heard Conyers speak that it would be best to ignore him. I grew up believing that if a man speaks in public and is always wrong, he proves nothing beyond his own stupidity.
Call me bitter, but I'm so ashamed and tired of these so-called "fellow Americans."
Truer words were never spake :)
I say, bully, old chap. Ethical standards in journalism have all but disappeared, as shown by Rather, Jayson Blair, and really any left-leaning looney out there that calls himself a columnist, reporter, or journalist.
Who was the Boston Globe dude that was fired for plagiarism, and could it have happened to a more deserving fellow?
You're not the only one.
I never thought that I would hold such contempt for other "Americans" as I do now.
Oh cripes. We had to suffer through the 9-11 commission, much good they did anybody. I think another round of hearings might put me in danger of being bored to death.
I read one of the memos and they discussed the possibility of coalition troops taking casualties from chemical attacks. That proves they honestly believed Saddam had WMD. What's the issue here?
Of course the memos are now discovered to be C-BS'd up.
And "Impeach W" Kerry is going to admit this fraud WHEN?
Don't hold your breath, Ed.
Have any of you heard the latest "article" that the left is touting?
I just read a portion of it, but cannot believe we would not have heard one peep about a "bombing campaign" before the start of the war if this had really happened.
If anyone has info for me, I need to debunk this on a politics message board I frequent (but really should STOP FREQUENTING, I know) They are calling this a high crime and an impeachable offense, of course.
"September 2002--a month before Congress had voted to give President Bush the authority he used to invade Iraq, two months before the United Nations brought the matter to a vote and more than six months before "shock and awe" officially began...." the US embarked on a massive bombing campaign, "including US F-15 Strike Eagles and Royal Air Force Tornado ground-attack planes. They dropped precision-guided munitions on Saddam Hussein's major western air-defense facility, clearing the path for Special Forces helicopters that lay in wait in Jordan.....The Pentagon's goal was clear: Destroy Iraq's ability to resist. This was war. "
The significance: of "....new information that has come out in response to the Downing Street memo reveals that, by this time, the war was already a foregone conclusion and attacks were no less than the undeclared beginning of the invasion of Iraq. "
Not yet- I'll keep my eyes peeled.
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