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.
I cannot claim the title of "harpy" yet. But just wait....
Now, don't forget, he'a a GOP Conservative.
"Petulant" is for the young. I am an OLD biddy, really, really old. Almost 60, you know. I've already gone through one cane & shawl set & I'm working on another. <p."Dishonest," of course, is timeless.
Amazing. You just can't drop it after whining that I can't, so I'll chime back in. You were the one who first questioned my honesty, so don't whine about that issue being raised. You seem to think that folks can't go back and review the posting sequence to see who is full of crap, do you?
Guess where you fall?
And what... I'm not allowed to say I was called petulant and dishonest... Now, you have the right to censor what I post.
LOL!
BullShit.. Plain and simple. You can sit there all day and type such crap, and hope there are people out here that don't read the bills and laws coming out of DC. But it isn't so. While I will give credit to the GOP when and where it has a set of gonads and stands up to Un-Constitutional actions. I can also say that for the Democrats. For in each party (and all walks of life, if one is to be honest) there are good and bad. But to sit back and say One Party is better then the other does not and I will repeat that, does not, take in account that BOTH parties have turn their back to the Constitution and America's founding ideas. And yes, I do know that the GOP, has a "somewhat" better record..but not by much lately.
And to say that we need a larger GOP force to overcome the Democrats is also a lie. They have that % on thier side and what have they done with it? Not much to overcome the assnine laws written by both parties. I'm still waiting to see a roll back on any or all Un-Constitutional Gun Laws...oh wait.. BUSH stood for extending one, if it reaches his desk! (what a cop out, why couldn't he have a set of gonads and stand against this Un-Constitutional action?) What we need is Americans in leadership that care for America FIRST AND FOREMOST, not a damm political party!
Agreed. But since that isn't happening, what is your solution?
Hmmm - I used "bullcrap." Pretty vulgar to you, I guess. Meanwhile, the other poster in this exchange says I am not being honest - while admitting that he was deliberately distorting my position.
Nice company you keep.
Until you can disprove this fact, agitating for conservative third parties aids the election of a democrat.
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