I was one of the "I can't believe I'm for the war" liberals. In large part because, while I didn't buy into the Bush administration's claims of an Al Qaeda connection to Saddam Hussein, I did assume that the wise and temperate statesmen in the administration surely had classified material about Iraq's weapons. Gee, what about Collin Powell's presentation to the UN? All those photos? As I said to someone during the run-up to the war, "Just because Bush says something, it doesn't automatically mean it's not true."
Turns out that, well, yes, it does mean just that. Rumsfeld has ordered an investigation into obvious intelligence failures as US arms investigators are preparing to leave Iraq without any evidence of the thousands of liters of anthrax, the tons of chemical agents, etc., Powell said were there. But was it an intelligence failure at all? Wasn't the CIA complaining earlier this year that the Pentagon was puffing up its estimates? And didn't Rumsfeld repeatedly tell the CIA to go back (I was never sure where they were to go back to? Prague?) and keep digging until they found an Al Qaeda connection to Iraq. And shouldn't Rumsfeld have ordered this investitation into the contradictory intelligence before the war?
That just would not be the Bush administration way. And now the hawks are focusing their laser-like, single-minded attention on Axis II.
Maureen Dowd's column in yesterday's NYTimes puts it this way: "The Iraq WMD's and ties to Al Qaeda were merely Macguffins, as Alfred Hitchcock called devices that drove the plot but were otherwise inconsequential...Far from being chagrined about the little problem of having no casus belli, and no plan for smoothly delivering Pax Americana to Iraq and Afghanistan, the hawks are hawking the next regime change. If Iraq was not harboring Al Qaeda and going nuclear, then certainly Iran is...The Taliban and Al Qaeda are resurgent; Afghanistan and Iraq are a mess; the vice police are back arresting women in Afghanistan and looters are tearing up archeological sites in Iraq; Saddam and Osama are still wanted, dead or alive. Yet the MacGuffin has moved on."
Credibility is a problem for this adminstration. It's always been a problem for Tom "the Exterminator" DeLay. Josh Micah Marshall is practically Texas Legislature Central for what should be a bigger scandal than the lack of press coverage has thus far made it appear. Read down to find a transcript from Meet the Press which indicates the level of disintrestedness. Did Whitewater burn the press out, or does the Ruling Party simply get a free pass these days? Imagine if Clinton had flown in a navy jet because "he wanted to see what it was like," as Ari put it recently.
"If you can't get up for that, I don't know what will do it. I don't think we want to be on all the classic TV shows with Roger, so let's try to beat them." Red Sox centerfielder, Johnny Damon on facing the Yankees' Roger Clemens this afternoon, as Clemens tries to win his 300th game against the team he came up with.
That's if the weather gods permit the game to be played today. The rain is coming down pretty hard at the moment.
Turns out that, well, yes, it does mean just that. Rumsfeld has ordered an investigation into obvious intelligence failures as US arms investigators are preparing to leave Iraq without any evidence of the thousands of liters of anthrax, the tons of chemical agents, etc., Powell said were there. But was it an intelligence failure at all? Wasn't the CIA complaining earlier this year that the Pentagon was puffing up its estimates? And didn't Rumsfeld repeatedly tell the CIA to go back (I was never sure where they were to go back to? Prague?) and keep digging until they found an Al Qaeda connection to Iraq. And shouldn't Rumsfeld have ordered this investitation into the contradictory intelligence before the war?
That just would not be the Bush administration way. And now the hawks are focusing their laser-like, single-minded attention on Axis II.
Maureen Dowd's column in yesterday's NYTimes puts it this way: "The Iraq WMD's and ties to Al Qaeda were merely Macguffins, as Alfred Hitchcock called devices that drove the plot but were otherwise inconsequential...Far from being chagrined about the little problem of having no casus belli, and no plan for smoothly delivering Pax Americana to Iraq and Afghanistan, the hawks are hawking the next regime change. If Iraq was not harboring Al Qaeda and going nuclear, then certainly Iran is...The Taliban and Al Qaeda are resurgent; Afghanistan and Iraq are a mess; the vice police are back arresting women in Afghanistan and looters are tearing up archeological sites in Iraq; Saddam and Osama are still wanted, dead or alive. Yet the MacGuffin has moved on."
Credibility is a problem for this adminstration. It's always been a problem for Tom "the Exterminator" DeLay. Josh Micah Marshall is practically Texas Legislature Central for what should be a bigger scandal than the lack of press coverage has thus far made it appear. Read down to find a transcript from Meet the Press which indicates the level of disintrestedness. Did Whitewater burn the press out, or does the Ruling Party simply get a free pass these days? Imagine if Clinton had flown in a navy jet because "he wanted to see what it was like," as Ari put it recently.
"If you can't get up for that, I don't know what will do it. I don't think we want to be on all the classic TV shows with Roger, so let's try to beat them." Red Sox centerfielder, Johnny Damon on facing the Yankees' Roger Clemens this afternoon, as Clemens tries to win his 300th game against the team he came up with.
That's if the weather gods permit the game to be played today. The rain is coming down pretty hard at the moment.
posted by John at 10:31 AM
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