A Collective Contempt for Fact

When describing Neo-Cons after she resigned in protest from the Air Force, leaving a position close to the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans, where the Iraq War was planned - Lt. Col Karen Kwaitkowski described them thusly...

the pressure of the intelligence community to conform, the rejection of it when it failed to produce intelligence suitable for supporting the "Iraq is an imminent threat to the United States" agenda, and the amazing things I was hearing in both Bush and Cheney speeches told me that not only do neoconservatives hold a theory based on ideas not embraced by the American mainstream, but they also have a collective contempt for fact.

Today we see just how true that statement is as both Condoleeza Rice and Dick Cheney choose to reject and/or ignore the findings of the New Senate Intelligence Report that there were No Links Betweeen Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.

In an interview she gave to CSU Pomona Lt. Col Kwaitkowski talked openly about how the Iraq War began from her position working in Doug Feith's organization.

The normal process of using intelligence to develop policy, just wasn't followed. Among the group of policy makers who were particularly interested in - not just Iraq Police - but ensuring that this invasion of Iraq happened. I mean, it was very much a policy agenda.

I joined the office in May 2002, and it became clear to me the decision to invade Iraq, to topple Saddam Hussein - and it's unclear exactly what afterwards - that decision had already been made by the policy makers. And it was simply a matter of pushing the decision forward through the system. That's not quite the same as having a system that informs policy makers with accurate intelligence and measured analysis in order for them to say "What should we do now?"

They kinda knew what the "Should do", but they were intent on pushing it through - so information was used, intelligence was - I'm going to use the word "Manipulated", I believe it was manipulated. "Cherry-Picked" is a term I've used and others have used, to describe how bits of information about the threat that Iraq posed - about the relationship of Iraq with terrorist groups - the whole array of things we were told about Iraq. If you get down to the intelligence, if you look at the intelligence - it wasn't saying that. It wasn't saying that under Bill Clinton, it wasn't saying that under George Bush.

George Bush is right when he says "Bill Clinton had the same information". Well, yes he did. His assessment was that Iraq was not a threat to the United States, and that was a correct decision.

15 Months after that interview we know how the Senate Intelligence Report indicating exactly what Kwaitkowski has been saying since she left the Pentagon.

Iraq had no WMD's and no connection to Al Qaeda.

Somehow Condi and Dicky just can't seem to bring themselves to see it that way.

Today on Fox News Sunday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice repeated the false assertion that Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda had a relationship before the 2003 invasion, despite the recent Senate Intelligence Report that found U.S. intelligence analysts strongly dispute that claim.

Rice tried to pin the blame on then CIA Director George Tenet, saying he said, “there were ties going on between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein’s regime going back for a decade.” But in July, Tenet told the Senate Intelligence Committee that “the White House pressured him and that he agreed to back up the administration’s case for war despite his own agents’ doubts about the intelligence it was based on.”

Rice also tried to dismiss the Senate report as being after-the fact, stating, "Now, are we learning more now that we have access to people like Saddam Hussein's intelligence services? Of course." But as Wallace pointed out, a Defense Intelligence Agency report from Feb. 2002 -- before the U.S. invasion -- also concluded that Iraq and Al Qaeda had no relationship: "Iraq is unlikely to have provided bin Laden any useful CB, that's chemical or biological, knowledge or assistance." Rice said she did not remember seeing that report.

Seems to me it would be the job of the National Security Advisor to be aware of such a report - before we went to WAR. A similar conclusion - that Hussein would not use weapons of mass destruction against the United States or turn them over to terrorists unless backed into a corner - was also included as part of the National Intelligence Estimate requested and provided to Congress just days before the votes were cast on the Iraq War Resolution.

Of course that view was not included in the executive summary or in the unclassified versions of the report - but it was there.

From the New York Times November 2005

The administration had little company in saying that Iraq was actively trying to build a nuclear weapon. The evidence for this claim was a dubious report about an attempt in 1999 to buy uranium from Niger, later shown to be false, and the infamous aluminum tubes story. That was dismissed at the time by analysts with real expertise.

The Bush administration was also alone in making the absurd claim that Iraq was in league with Al Qaeda and somehow connected to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. That was based on two false tales. One was the supposed trip to Prague by Mohamed Atta, a report that was disputed before the war and came from an unreliable drunk. The other was that Iraq trained Qaeda members in the use of chemical and biological weapons. Before the war, the Defense Intelligence Agency concluded that this was a deliberate fabrication by an informer.

So why in the hell is Condi still trying to squirm out of this one? She's like a kid who just stole some candy, got caught and is now trying to claim someone else put the candy in her purse. Whose she trying to kid?

And Cheney is just as bad.

On Friday, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a report that concluded there was no relationship between Saddam Hussein and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. According to the report, "a CIA assessment in October 2005 concluded that Hussein's government `did not have a relationship, harbor, or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi and his associates.'" In fact, Hussein tried to capture Zarqawi.

This morning on Meet the Press, Cheney repeatedly cited Zarqawi as the link between pre-war Iraq and al-Qaeda. When Tim Russert mentioned the Senate Intelligence Committee report, Cheney said he "hadn't seen it."

"The Link" is he? Did the dog eat your homework Dickey? Maybe you shouldn't have had Whittington hold it for you.

Look, we all know what's going on here - these people are attempting to justify the unjustifiable.

Saddam wasn't a threat. If anything he was a bulwark against the spread of Islamic Extremism in his region. When Bush decided to begin to War, we had UN inspectors on the ground confirming what we know now - that Saddam Hussein destroyed his Chemical Weapons Stockpiles after the first Gulf War, had ended his Nuclear Program and had no links to allies in Al Qaeda.

Iraqi Defector General Hussein Kamel told the IEAE and UNSCOM this before he was killed in 1996.

Until now, Gen. Hussein Kamel, who was killed shortly after returning to Iraq in 1996, was best known for his role in exposing Iraq's deceptions about how far its pre-Gulf War biological weapons programs had advanced. But Newsweek's John Barry-- who has covered Iraqi weapons inspections for more than a decade-- obtained the transcript of Kamel's 1995 debriefing by officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the U.N. inspections team known as UNSCOM.

Inspectors were told "that after the Gulf War, Iraq destroyed all its chemical and biological weapons stocks and the missiles to deliver them," Barry wrote. All that remained were "hidden blueprints, computer disks, microfiches" and production molds. The weapons were destroyed secretly, in order to hide their existence from inspectors, in the hopes of someday resuming production after inspections had finished. The CIA and MI6 were told the same story, Barry reported, and "a military aide who defected with Kamel... backed Kamel's assertions about the destruction of WMD stocks."

This is why CIA and U.S. has found since found nothing of Hussein former chemical weapons stockpiles but discarded and depleted remains buried in the desert.

If we simply let the inspectors do their job - they would have eventually discovered the truth of Kamel's confession. It would have exposed the fact that Saddam was defenseless. He had last used his chemical weapons to put down the Kurdish rebellion following the first Gulf War -- but if it became known and understood that these weapons were long gone, could he have been able to hold back a new rebellion and Civil War the likes of which we are now smack dab in the middle of?

This could've been Saddam's fate - brought down interally by the same insurgency which has killed so many of our own soldiers. There are some indications that Saddam wasn't captured by U.S. Forced - that the Kurds got to him first and turned him over to us.

Why are we there again?

Oh yeah... "They have a collective contempt for fact".

And reality it would appear.

Vyan