Well, the fix, as they say, is in.
Here's the executive order the president just signed authorizing his commission which he "established for the purpose of advising the President in the discharge of his constitutional authority under Article II of the Constitution to conduct foreign relations, protect national security, and command the Armed Forces of the United States, in order to ensure the most effective counter-proliferation capabilities of the United States and response to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the ongoing threat of terrorist activity."
The commission doesn't appear to have any subpoena power, only the right to "full and complete access to information relevant to its mission as described in section 2 of this order."
If I read this right -- and needless to say I'm no lawyer, notwithstanding that summer in grad school I wasted prepping for the LSAT -- what's 'relevant' is at the discretion of the department heads of the various executive branch agencies.
And if you read the "mission" as defined in the order it seems narrowly framed as looking at pre-war CIA analyses (actually the whole Intelligence Community) and how they stack up against what Kay's guys found on the ground after the war.
Anything the White House did with those CIA analyses, any fisticuffs between the Veep's office and the CIA, anything stovepiped through Doug Feith's operation at the Pentagon, anything that made its way from Chalabi's mumbo-jumbocrats to the the president's speechwriters -- that's all beyond their brief.
--Josh Marshall
Some folks had difficulty downloading the CIA letter to Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) about the Plame investigation which we posted on Wednesday. There was, it seems, a glitch in the PDF document which made it hard to open on some people's machines. We've now uploaded a fresh copy.
--Josh Marshall
Okay, some mixed thoughts on the Iraq <$NoAd$>Commission roster.
On the one hand, the president has some reputable Dems down on the list. But Democrats who had much of any experience of Washington in the 1990s aren't going to be overly impressed with its being headed up by Judge Laurence H. Silberman, who was one of the key operators in the right-wing onslaught against Bill Clinton.
Start with this article by Jonathan Broder in Salon in 1998, from which we excerpt the two lead grafs ...
The roster of combatants in the brawl between Kenneth Starr and President Clinton has now expanded to include a conservative federal judge and friend of Starr who has stunned even battle-weary Washington insiders with his intemperate attack on Clinton and Attorney General Janet Reno.As part of the federal appellate panel that refused to hear the administration's arguments to prevent Secret Service agents from testifying last week, U.S. Judge Laurence H. Silberman wrote a scathing opinion that accused Reno of acting not on behalf of the U.S. government, but in the personal interests of President Clinton. Then, using language seldom seen in the federal judiciary, Silberman questioned whether Clinton himself, by allowing his aides to attack Starr, was "declaring war on the United States."
And then proceed from there to this interview with David Brock, who discusses Silberman's involvement -- while a sitting federal judge -- in much of Brock's anti-Clinton shenanigans from the early and mid-1990s. Again, a brief excerpt ...
Yes he was a sitting judge. For example, they reviewed in draft the galleys of that book. And so it certainly went beyond a reporter-source relationship. And coming out of that, Judge Silberman became a mentor to me and was someone who I relied on, as well as Ricky, for political advice while I was at the American Spectator pursuing a lot of the anti-Clinton stories. When Ricky Silberman left the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, she founded, or was one of the co-founders, of the Independent Women's Forum -- it was actually her idea. And it was actually Ricky Silberman's idea to approach Ken Starr to file that friend-of-the-court brief in the Paula Jones case. And Ricky knew the Jones case was simply payback for the Anita Hill affair. She thought, wouldn't it be delicious that Clinton would now be accused of sexual improprieties in the same way that Clarence Thomas had been? Judge Silberman played an absolutely key role at a critical juncture.
More on the roster to follow.
--Josh Marshall
"President Bush," reads the lede of this new AP story, "asked Congress to eliminate an $8.2 million research program on how to decontaminate buildings attacked by toxins — the same day a poison-laced letter shuttered Senate offices."
Oops.
And just when the president was on such a roll.
--Josh Marshall
A tough time kicking the 9/11 habit?
We join this morning's gaggle already in <$NoAd$>session ...
QUESTION: Director Tenet also said that part of the problem he was having was they had gaps in the intelligence, they had gaps in what they knew about Iraq, and for that reason he feared surprises. MR. McCLELLAN: That he feared what?QUESTION: He feared surprises from Iraq. In other words, the unpredictability of the intel, itself, created that threat. Did the President share that view, as well?
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, one, I think that Dr. Kay and Director Tenet and others have pointed out the need for the Iraqi Survey Group to complete its work, that there is a lot of work still to do. We are learning more, but it's important that they do as thorough a job as possible, and gather as many facts as possible so that they can draw as complete a picture as possible. Then we can -- and the President has made it very clear -- then we can have as complete a picture as possible so that we can compare what we are learning on the ground with what we knew before the war. But we already know that what we have learned on the ground since the war only reconfirms what we knew before the war, that Iraq was a gathering threat and that the decision that the President of the United States made was the right decision.QUESTION: -- prove that? What do you mean?
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I think Dr. Kay has pointed out in his testimony, Helen, that it was possibly more dangerous than we thought.
QUESTION: All these countries that do have nuclear weapons, they're not a threat at all? But the intent, and you're a mind-reader as to what was going to happen? It wouldn't hold up in court.
MR. McCLELLAN: Helen, I know that you do not feel that we are safer because we removed Saddam Hussein from power. I think most people believe the world is safer and better because we removed Saddam Hussein from power.
QUESTION: A lot of people are dead, thousands.
MR. McCLELLAN: And the President remembers those who lost their lives on September 11th. That taught us that we are living in a different --
QUESTION: They had nothing to do with September 11th, the Iraqis.
MR. McCLELLAN: Oh, I beg to differ. September 11th taught us that we are living in a dangerous new world. September 11th --
QUESTION: So you attack somebody who is innocent?
MR. McCLELLAN: September 11th taught us that we must confront gathering threats before it's too late. September 11th changed the equation. And this President -- and this President's highest responsibility is protecting the American people. And he will not wait and rely on the good intentions of Saddam Hussein, given his history, to confront that threat. Saddam Hussein had the choice, and Saddam Hussein continued to defy the international community.[The following comes later in the Q&A]
QUESTION: I guess what I'm asking here is how long has the United States known of the nuclear weapons fire sale being run out of Pakistan and --
MR. McCLELLAN: Terry, like I said, there's a lot of -- there are a number of success stories in the intelligence community that often go unseen or unreported or are not reported until quite some time after the fact. You heard from Director Tenet --
QUESTION: Well, tell us.
MR. McCLELLAN: -- you heard from Director Tenet, in terms of what he said on Pakistan. And you've seen, by the actions of the government of Pakistan, that they are committed to stopping proliferation.QUESTION: It just raises a question. The United States went to war against a leader that we said had these weapons, turned out not to. We're confronting North Korea over what we think are their weapons. Libya is an issue. And, yet, on Pakistan, it sounds as if we've known for a while that they were running this black market on nuclear weapons and haven't done anything.
MR. McCLELLAN: Terry, I don't think it raises the question you are asking. I think it shows that we're confronting threats around the world in a number of different ways. And weapons of mass destruction and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is a high priority for this administration. That's one reason why the President is going to be announcing this commission, to do a broad assessment of our intelligence capabilities related to weapons of mass destruction.
But Iraq, remember -- we pointed out -- was unique, given Saddam Hussein's history and given the events of September 11th.
The tragedy of addiction ...
--Josh Marshall
A few follow-up points on yesterday's UPI story on possible Plame-related indictments in Dick Cheney's office.
The first thing to notice is that, as near as I can tell, the story has not been picked up by any other news organization. Moreover, from the rough read one gets from Google News, the UPI Story only seems to have run on the website of only one news organization.
Several other news organizations have been and continue to sit on this story -- though why, for good reasons or not good reasons, I'm not sure.
Yesterday I talked with an emissary from neoconland who pushed back heavily on the story, at least as regards John Hannah. No mention of Libby. But Hannah, this person insisted, is simply not a target of the investigation.
Let me add another point. There are lots of people I know (of many political persuasions) who aren't surprised Libby would be involved in this and won't be shedding a tear if he gets brought down by it. But they feel the opposite on both counts about Hannah.
None of this means Hannah is or isn't in the clear. I'm just trying to give you a feel for the reaction to the mention of his name as a potential target of this investigation.
Another topic to keep an eye on: just why did John Ashcroft get out of the way of this investigation when he did? There's a story there.
--Josh Marshall
Sistani dodged a bullet today. And so did we.
According to this late report from Reuters: "Iraq's most powerful Shi'ite cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has survived an assassination bid when gunmen opened fire on his entourage in the sacred streets of Najaf."
The key players and factions are jockeying for position, awaiting our departure.
--Josh Marshall
There's been plenty of chatter over recent days that some indictments were coming down the pike in the Plame matter. <$NoAd$> Now UPI's Richard Sale seems to have the goods.
This from a story just out ...
Federal law enforcement officials said that they have developed hard evidence of possible criminal misconduct by two employees of Vice President Dick Cheney's office related to the unlawful exposure of a CIA officer's identity last year.The investigation, which is continuing, could lead to indictments, a Justice Department official said.
According to these sources, John Hannah and Cheney's chief of staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby were the two Cheney employees.
"We believe that Hannah was the major player in this," one federal law enforcement officer said.
Calls to the vice president's office were not returned. Hannah and Libby did not return calls.
The strategy of the FBI is to make clear to Hannah "that he faces a real possibility of doing jail time," as a way to pressure him to name superiors, one federal law enforcement official said.
This is, to put it mildly, awfully big news if it bears out.
We're sitting on some other key developments in the case which we're hoping to post late this afternoon or this evening.
--Josh Marshall
I'm tied up for most of the rest of the afternoon taking care of some editorial responsibilities. But take a good look at Kevin Drum's discussion of the "torn document" upon which hangs President Bush's case on the Air National Guard matter. Believe me, you'll want to see this.
--Josh Marshall
Now for a bit more on the Plame matter.
We've known for some time that the CIA nudged the Department of Justice to look into the Plame matter for some time before an investigation was finally launched in late September of last year.
Now we have a few more details.
On September 30th of last year Rep. John Conyers, Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee sent a letter to the CIA requesting a description of what contacts the Agency had had with Justice about the Plame matter prior to the commencement of the investigation.
Then last Friday, January 30th, the CIA responded in a letter we've just added to the TPM Document Collection.
According to the letter the CIA first contacted Justice by phone on July 24th, 2003. They followed up on July 30th, 2003 with a letter advising them of a possible violation of criminal law and informing them that they had opened their own investigation.
The folks at the CIA seem not to have gotten an altogether satisfactory response to the July 30th letter because they again sent the letter, by fax, on September 5th, 2003.
Then on September 16, 2003 they contacted Justice yet again to inform them that they (i.e., CIA) had completed their investigation. They provided a memo summarizing their findings and requested that the FBI begin a criminal investigation of the matter.
Finally on September 29th, Justice notified the CIA that they had in fact begun an investigation.
Why did it take so long? Why did the CIA have to press so hard?
See the letter for yourself.
Much more on this to come.
--Josh Marshall
We're trying to make our way through all the various versions of the Bush-Air National Guard story and come to some conclusions about which theories and explanations are credible and which are not.
We'll report back when we find out more. But for the moment, here's some more information to add to the mix.
Phil Carter is a former Army officer, who's spent some time in the Guard. And he has a blog. Today Phil has a detailed post explaining what a number of readers told me yesterday: namely, that even if President Bush's attendence records have gotten lost, torn up, or even spontaneously combusted, his service during the time in question should be verifiable through one or more other records.
Those include payment records, IRS records documenting withholdings from those payments, and retirement 'points' earned for attendence.
One or more of these records should allow the president to clear this matter up.
Phil has more details. Definitely take a look.
--Josh Marshall
Plenty of Joe-mentum, just all in the wrong direction.
A few other thoughts.
I've been mulling for several days why President Bush suddenly seems so wobbly both in the polls and also with those who have heretofore remained steadfastly loyal. I discuss what I came up with in my new column in Wednesday's edition of The Hill. A quick hint: Immigration reform, Mars mission, prescription drug shenanigans -- they've taken a toll.
Also take a look at Jonathan Alter's new piece on Kerry's onslaught on the military service issue. I've gotten a number of emails over the last few days from Republicans asking, with a genuine disbelief and incomprehension, how it is that the questions about President Bush's military service record are coming up now after they were 'dealt with' in 2000.
As Spencer Ackerman discusses ably in this piece in the new New Republic, they weren't really dealt with at all. Or rather, the national media never really got to the bottom of what happened. Certainly they didn't devote even a fraction of the attention to it that was lavished on Bill Clinton's awkward history with the selective service in 1992 and 1996.
But there is something different here. And the difference is that the Democrats have decided to go on the offensive -- and this is a version of preemption that Dems may, and should, warm to. After Clark had some stumbles with the issue, Kerry has been hitting it for a couple weeks. And the recent round of coverage on it would never have emerged had Terry McAullife not forced it into the news cycle over the weekend.
Perhaps it takes a vet like Kerry to fix on the importance of maintaining the initiative at all times. Now, let's see if he remembers about unity of command.
And one more point about the president's military service. I'm told that pay records -- for which the records are apparently much better kept -- might be able to settle the matter of what President Bush was doing during his sojourn in Alabama. We'll get into that more later.
--Josh Marshall
A few thoughts on the Bush AWOL issue.
Ed Gillespie, RNC Chairman, accused DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe of leveling a "demonstrably false and malicious charge that would be slanderous under any ordinary circumstance" when he accused the president of going AWOL while he was serving in the Air National Guard in the early 1970s. The charges made McAuliffe into the "John Wilkes Booth of character assassination" in Gillespie's words.
Now, interestingly, today's Washington Post says that administration officials are telling reporters that "former senator Bob Kerrey, a Nebraska Democrat who is president of the New School University, [is] the sort of nonpartisan statesman they are seeking" for the new Iraqi WMD commission.
But those officials may need to rethink their praise for the other Senator Kerrey since back in November 2000 he told the Boston Globe that then-candidate Bush "need[ed] to explain where he was when he was supposed to be fulfilling his military obligation. If he is elected president, how will he be able to deal as commander in chief with someone who goes AWOL, when he did the same thing?"
Presumably, Gillespie will confer with his colleagues at the White House and work that one out.
Does that mean that Kerrey is out for the commission? Or maybe that McAuliffe is now eligible? Who knows?
In any case, back to the president's record from back in the day.
In an excellent sum-up piece in The New Republic this week Spencer Ackerman summarizes the key period of delinquency ...
Less than two years after finishing his initial pilot's training, Bush was offered a job in Alabama with the 1972 Senate campaign of former U.S. Postmaster General Winton Blount. Bush asked Guard officials in May of that year if he could fulfill his continuing duty obligations by serving with a mail squadron based in Montgomery, but they turned him down, noting the unit's lax drilling schedule. Bush left Texas anyway--with his Guard responsibilities unresolved--joining the campaign in Alabama that month. In August, he failed to take his annual flight physical, which meant losing his flight status. A month later, he requested and received permission to perform his fall Guard duty with the 187th Tactical Recon Group in Montgomery before returning to Houston's Ellington Air Force Base after the election. But he apparently never showed up: The Globe investigation found that Ellington had no record of Bush performing service in Alabama. In fact, the 187th's commander--Bush's commander--William Turnipseed told the paper, "Had he reported in, I would have had some recall, and I do not. I had been in Texas, done my flight training there. If we had had a first lieutenant from Texas, I would have remembered." His memory was corroborated by Bush's discharge papers, which showed neither any service in Alabama nor any training by Lieutenant Bush at all after May 1972.Bush was supposed to return to Houston after Blount's losing race. But, by May 1973, his commanding officers in Texas noticed that they could not write his annual performance evaluation for the simple reason that Bush wasn't there. "Lt. Bush has not been observed at this unit during the period of this report"--May 1, 1972, to April 30, 1973--his evaluation reads. This was a serious charge: Delinquent guardsmen could be inducted into the Army ...
Now, over the course of the day I've gotten a number of letters from current and former members of the Guard in various states who've told me that this was the standard policy. One tells me that he himself processed one deliquent guardsman on to active duty and on to Vietnam.
Now, these are just e-mails over the transom. In themselves, they don't settle the issue. But clearly many guys who were lucky enough to get a slot in the Guard, but screwed up once they were there, found themselves shipped off to Vietnam. (That appears to have been the prescribed punishment -- though we're trying to track down if there were any relevant emendations -- for those who "failed to serve satisfactorily" in the Guard under Executive Order 10984 of 1961.)
A lot of those guys must be out there -- at least the ones who weren't killed during their service. A lot of the commanding officers who blew the whistle on them must be out there too. It would be interesting to do some reporting and find some guys who didn't get cut any slack and got shipped off. Seems like a national news organization could shed some light on that question with a little reporting.
--Josh Marshall
When I look at the federal investigation being launched into the Janet Jackson boob incident, I realize what I like about this administration: they believe in accountability.
And speaking of accountability, the signs from the president's 'independent' inquiry aren't looking too good either.
According to this article on the front page of today's Post (I've started reading the paper paper again) the president seems inclined to take full advantage of his self-appointed power to appoint all the members of the commission (safe Dems, Republican ringers and militant Iraq hawks). And while there's no mention that the panel will be given any brief to look at White House's use of intelligence data, it will be instructed to look at CIA's intelligence shortcomings on Iran, North Korea, Libya and India -- perhaps they'll take another look at that whole Pearl Harbor thing too.
When we actually eyeball the executive order I fully expect we'll see it contains instructions to get to the bottom of why Joe Wilson has been making so many press appearances.
This commission may not quite fail the laugh test. But, boy, is it lousy with giggles. When do some of the press bigs call out this Potemkin Panel for the joke that it seems likely to be?
--Josh Marshall
If these exit poll numbers from politicalwire.com hold up, John Kerry is set to have some smashing victories tonight. But John Edwards may have some life left in him after all.
--Josh Marshall
Why didn't this get reported more widely? And is it related to what happened yesterday on the Hill?
From a January 9th report from CBS and the AP ...
The FBI on Thursday offered a reward of up to $100,000 for information leading to an arrest of anyone responsible for leaving a package containing the deadly poison ricin at a post office in October.A letter inside the package said the author could make much more ricin and will "start dumping" large quantities of the poison if new federal trucking rules went in effect, according to information released by the FBI and other federal agencies Thursday.
The letter, which was found at a post office in South Carolina, was signed "fallen angel" and the sender identified himself as "a fleet owner of a tanker company."
--Josh Marshall
A nice little detail about the quality of the numbers in the new budget.
This from Knight Ridder ...
Noticeably absent from next year's [budget] request is money for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. White House budget director Joshua Bolten estimated that another $50 billion would be needed to cover those costs next year. The White House expects to cover the war costs with supplemental funds after next fall's elections.
And why isn't that fifty billion included in the deficit number?
--Josh Marshall
Finally the Democrats start getting a sense of how this works. After various Democratic candidates and their surrogates have pressed the issue of the president's blowing off his military service in the early 1970s, The Washington Post puts together a piece reviewing what we know about the president's time in the Texas Air National Guard.
The Post piece bends over backwards to give plenty of benefits of the doubt. But it makes clear that the president jumped to the head of the line to get into the Guard because of political connections. And then, after he'd been given a comparatively easy way to get out of getting shot at or killed in Vietnam, he proceeded to blow off his service for substantial periods of time while in the Guard.
The Post points out that there is no definitive proof of Bush's non-attendance. But there is an utter lack of any documentation for his showing up for service and the officer he was supposed to report to during the key period in question continues to insist that he never laid eyes on him.
In the president's defense are a) the president's word, b) the memory of some friends who say "they recalled Bush leaving for Guard duty on occasion", and c) the fact that the aforementioned officer, when contacted yesterday by the Post, couldn't specifically remember how often he was on the base at the time.
I strongly recommend reading the article because there are various ins-and-outs that I've just summarized here. And the details are important. But the long and the short of it is that all the strong evidence points to the conclusion that the president blew off a lot of his service in the Guard, while there's enough flimsy and self-serving evidence to believe that he might have actually been there if you really, really, really want to believe he did.
A couple weeks shy of turning thirty-five myself, I'm old enough to understand that the president was pretty much a kid when at least some of this stuff happened -- 22 when he signed up. But if the president is going to run this campaign covering himself in martial glory then this stuff is more than fair game -- especially if he's not coming clean about it.
And the probable Democratic nominee was a kid too -- and he took a different path.
--Josh Marshall
Sometimes you're left zigging when word comes down from <$NoAd$> headquarters that it's time to zag.
Here's a clip from the liner notes of Bush vs. the Beltway: How the CIA and the State Department Tried to Stop the War on Terror by Laurie Mylroie, chief ideologist and intel maven of the Iraq hawks ...
Combining important new research with an insider's grasp of Beltway politics, Mylroie describes how the CIA and the State Department have systematically discredited critical intelligence about Saddam's regime, including indisputable evidence of its possession of weapons of mass destruction. She reveals how major elements of the case against Iraq -- including information about possible links to al Qaeda and evidence of potential Iraqi involvement in the fall 2001 anthrax attacks -- were prematurely dismissed by these agencies for cynical reasons.
The Agency made them do it? Let's get our stories straight, shall we?
--Josh Marshall
David Brooks' column in tomorrow's Times has a more nuanced and literary version of the 'CIA sold the president a bill of goods' line.
What we need, says Brooks, isn't less nudging and hammering from politicians, but more. Game-theory, bureaucratic thinking, and hyper-rationalism aren't the answer to the nimble, quick-on-its-feet, lickety-split irrationalism and nihilist violence of the early 21st century terrorist threat.
There's probably a lot of truth in that (though if you read histories of the early CIA you'll see that quite a number of the luminaries were, shall we say, more than a bit in touch with the irrational.)
But I don't know how Brooks gets past the fact that these politicians were pushing for conclusions (and putting them in the president's speeches) three or four times more erroneous than those offered up by the latter-day Von Neumanns at Langley.
And, after reading his column, I don't think Brooks does either.
--Josh Marshall
This afternoon I received in the mail a new book I'm eager to dive into --- Friendly Fire: The Near-Death of the Transatlantic Alliance by Elizabeth Pond. It's a short study of the near breakdown of the Atlantic alliance in the last three years.
--Josh Marshall
A question. Going back over the last decade, name me the Democratic president, presidential nominee, or primary frontrunner whom my friend Mickey Kaus has not diagnosed with a ‘character problem’?
--Josh Marshall
A pearl. Lapidary. As Churchill might have said, hypocrisy wrapped in mendacity, bundled up in ridiculousness. A true gem. Richard Perle tells the Times that the CIA did indeed sell the president a bill of goods. “The president is a consumer of intelligence, not a producer of it," Perle told the Times. "I have long thought our intelligence in the gulf has been woefully inadequate."
Right. Perle has long been a staunch critic of the CIA. His argument was that they understated the scope of Saddam’s WMD programs, naively discounted his ties to terrorist organizations and had an overly pessimistic vision of post-war Iraq.
In other words, if the CIA is all wet, Perle is all wet squared. Or probably even cubed.
The skeptical voices in the Intelligence Community --- the ones who are now vindicated in spades --- were the objects of his greatest derision. And his solution was to give even more credence to the unreliable defector testimony which played such a key role in our bamboozlement.
--Josh Marshall
We shouldn't be surprised that the president has now decided to "sign an executive order creating an investigation of intelligence failures in Iraq" or that he's apparently mandated that it not report its finding until after the November election.
But what comes under its purview? "White House sources," tell CBS that "the commission will have full access to materials they need."
But can we get a bit more specificity on that? Will it just look at the collection and analysis of intelligence? And just at the CIA and other intelligence agencies? Or will it look at the administration's use of intelligence, and at the White House, the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Office of the Vice President?
--Josh Marshall
I confess: I'm just too gullible.
This morning Post columnist James Hoagland endorses the 'CIA sold the president a bill of goods' defense. Hoagland is willing to concede that the president may have "inflated" the "flawed intelligence that [his] spy bosses and senior aides provided."
But still, he writes, "Credulity, not chicanery, would be the plea, your honor."
As I said, or rather as Hoagland says, the Agency sold the president a bill of goods.
Now, here I am at my favorite cafe, laptop on my knees, latte at the ready, trying to make sense of the world. And this all throws me, because Hoagland spent the last two years telling me that the president and his top aides had to bully the Agency and the rest of the career types in the Intelligence Community and the national security establishment into getting religion on the Iraq threat.
And now I hear it's just the opposite?
For instance, take Hoagland's October 20th, 2002 column ("CIA's New Old Iraq File"). That's where he said that the Agency's record of underestimating the Iraqi threat was so dire that "it is no surprise that Bush has until now relied little on the Langley agency for his information on Iraq. There is simply no way to reconcile what the CIA has said on the record and in leaks with the positions Bush has taken on Iraq."
The column -- which I really recommend you read -- describes how the president and his aides had bullied the analysts at the CIA into finally admitting what a threat Saddam posed. "As President Bush's determination to overthrow the Iraqi dictator has become evident to all, a cultural change has come over the world's most expensive intelligence agency: Some analysts out at Langley are now willing to evaluate incriminating evidence against the Iraqis and call it just that."
A cultural change, indeed.
In that column, and in the ones that followed, Hoagland praised the President's now-notorious October 7th Cincinnati speech as the kind of goods on Saddam that could be wrung from the Intelligence Community when the president asserted sufficient 'leadership.'
So, for instance, a couple weeks later on November 3rd, Hoagland asked where the president got his info about Saddam's ties to al Qaida in the Cincinnati speech? "Sez who?," asked Hoagland, "The answer: Sez the CIA, when pressed to the mat." (Itals added.)
Like so much else in this up-is-down, black-is-white world the president and his backers want us to live in, this new defense doesn't even hold up against the google test. And somehow I imagine that the folks on the inside have access to more evidence and examples than I'm able to track down with my wifi-enabled laptop and a nexis account.
Late Update: And, of course, there's more. This from Hoagland's October 10th, 2002 column ...
A sea change has occurred in official Washington since the president decided last summer that he would soon have to be ready to go to war against Iraq. Public attempts by officials to bury or explain away menacing information about Iraq have largely dried up or gone underground, although the CIA fights a rear-guard action. Now information and intelligence are marshaled to make the case, rather than deflect it.This is, broadly speaking, political use of information -- no more and no less so than was the previous phase of denial and obfuscation. Bush mobilized facts on Monday to mobilize the nation for a challenge that is no less dangerous for being "largely familiar," as the New York Times labeled Bush's arguments in Tuesday editions.
The State Department and the CIA, institutionally wary and dismissive of the extensive intelligence about Saddam Hussein and his crimes provided by the dissidents of the Iraqi National Congress, had to listen Monday night to the president recite a dossier full of Iraqi National Congress information and insights that have filtered down over the years through the media, the government and academia to the skillful and alert speechwriters on Bush's staff.
Ahh, yes. The INC and the president's speechwriters. Why do we need intelligence agencies when we've got these guys?
The Hoagland archive, truly the gift that keeps on giving, and giving, and giving ...
--Josh Marshall
We're really happy to report our highest traffic month yet. For January 2004: 2,192,404 page views, 1,632,034 visits and 411,239 individual visitors. A very sincere thanks, as always, for being visitors to, and readers of, the site.
--Josh Marshall
Look at this. 117 reformist members of the Iranian parliament have now submitted their resignations over the deepening electoral exclusion crisis. Could this really be coming to a head?
--Josh Marshall
