Posted on 07/14/2003 8:59:22 PM PDT by Utah Girl
On the ground floor of the White House is the Map Room, so-called because it was here that Franklin Roosevelt used to get his briefings on the progress of World War II. Over the mantel is the last map FDR saw before his death. It shows American, British, and Soviet troops racing toward Berlin. It also shows a frightening concentration of German forces in the Nazis’ last redoubt, the mountains of Bavaria.
We now know of course that this last redoubt did not exist. American intelligence had been deceived. And it’s possible that policymakers also deceived themselves. Roosevelt, for reasons of his own, wanted to let the Russians have the honor – and suffer the losses – of an assault on Berlin. The belief in the last redoubt was a very useful belief: It justified FDR’s wish to avoid joining the battle for Berlin.
Intelligence is a very uncertain business. And there’s no doubt that consumers of intelligence tend to be quicker to accept uncertain information that confirms their prejudices than uncertain information that calls those prejudices into question. Since consumers of intelligence are usually prejudiced in favor of doing little, most of the time they prefer intelligence that errs on the side of minimizing dangers.
9/11 changed the way American officials looked at the world. So when they got reports that Iraq was seeking to buy uranium in Niger, you can understand why they took the information seriously. That information has since turned out to be false – and its falsity has generated a major political controversy, as bitter-end opponents of this president and the war on terror try to exploit the administration’s error.
The controversy turns on the fact that some in the CIA doubted the story from the start. Their warnings were apparently disregarded, that is assuming that they were adequately communicated in the first place. Why? One reason may be that the CIA’s warnings on Iraq matters had lost some of their credibility in the 1990s. The agency was regarded by many in the Bush administration as reflexively and implacably hostile to any activist policy in Iraq. Those skeptics had come to believe that the agency was slanting its information on Iraq in order to maneuver the administration into supporting the agency’s own soft-line policies.
So when the Bush administration got skeptical news on the Niger uranium matter, it would not be surprising if mid-level policymakers mentally filed it under the heading “more of the same from the CIA,” filed it, and discounted it. The tendency was redoubled by the origin of the Niger-debunking report: Joseph C. Wilson. For more about him, see Clifford May's important post in last week's NRO. The result was the strange formulation in the State of the Union speech, in which the Niger story was cited – but attributed to British intelligence.
The story is an embarrassment for all concerned. But it no more undercuts the case for the Iraq war than FDR’s mistake in 1945 retroactively discredited the case for World War II. The United States did not overthrow Saddam Hussein because he was buying uranium in Niger. It overthrow him because he was a threat to the United States, to his neighbors, to his own people, and to the peace of a crucial region of the globe. All of that is just as true as it was on the day the President delivered his speech containing the errant 16 words – and the war is just as right and justified today as it was then.
Yes, and for some reason you feel that unless someone (e.g. President Bush) does things your way, he is not a man of integrity.
Hate to tell you this, but that kind of comes across as a "Barbara Streisand" kind of attitude.
I know that 1994 seems like eons ago, but the GOP DID win both houses in that election because they ran on conservative values, not pandering. If the GOP wishes to run on pandering, voters will tend to vote for the Dems, because if they want pandering the Dems are much better at it.
Now THAT'S being cruel...
A tax cut is a spending bill????? LOL That sounds more Democratic than Republican.
As to the Dept. of Education Bill, what in particular in the Dept. of Education would you reduce or eliminate so that spending could be reduced?
Well, you knew it was a hot button for him, so why whine about it?
I do understand that some compromise is necessary within the GOP to hold it together. But Bush has gone way beyond that with his pandering and spending. He has completely gutted the fiscal conservatism that the GOP established last decade.
Integrity and principle coupled together, should yield conservative results for someone claiming to be a conservative.
He spends more money than democrats, and openly advocates socialist legislation.
Hmmmm...
Prescription drugs for needy elderly? I'd prefer to see private charities take care of that, but they aren't.
Nevertheless, no one should be surprised that Bush promoted a prescription drug plan. That was part of his campaign platform.
Isn't an argument supposed to propose an alternative? I'm at #115, and I haven't seen squat.
Mainly because he abandoned any attempt at reforming Medicare and containing costs.
Unless you believe in the magic money fairy (and perhaps you do if this conversation is any indication) tax cuts for people who don't pay taxes is actually an expenditure.
Even people who are really bad at math can grasp that one.
Uh, which one? The tax credit that is still languishing in Congress?
Sorry, but a congress full of republicans who act like democrats is of no use to me.
The GOP changes since 1994 can't be laid at the President's feet. It needs to be laid where it belongs. At the feet of the Repubican Senators who, for some unknown reason, do not realize that Tom Daschle is no longer in charge.
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