re: Bush Press Sec Ari Fleischer tries to "call out Iraq war Myths". Believe him or not?

quote:

---

All of the evidence, including the 50,000 documents we procured after the war from the Iraqi state apparatus, shows that Iraq's weapons programs ended in 1991.

---

But the failing new york times?

quote:

---

I know that he's sorely missed by the remaining old guard there, for obvious reasons. While Americans don't always connect the dots between the ISIS problem and 2003, Iraqis certainly do. Unfortunately that problem just further skewed the scales of power there. US intervention didn't help that much either.

---

Again, it all stems, in my view, of misunderstanding the post-colonial psyche. The reason why ISIS has some underlying fascination is, in part, due to the desire by Arabs as a whole to avoid being dominated again by a foreign power, which even now includes powers like Turkey and Iran, who have been the dominant powers in the region. That mindset actually dominates China's, India's and Pakistan's foreign policy mindsets as well.

quote:

---

I'll never understand why it's taking them so long to figure this out. Lots of internal, competing pressures I guess.

Their strengthening ties to the gulf states is a tinderbox, but I don't think it's enough to stop Iranian ops, so it's just gonna make it worse.

---

The Gulf Arab states don't want a direct confrontation, and they don't have engaged enough populations who are deeply interested in serving the state. Israel's partnerships with the Gulf would provide economic opportunities, but it isn't sufficient to deal with the Iranians. That's not to mention the Palestinian situation, as without the Palestinian buffer, they do not have strategic depth, as they would be hemmed in further. They are in an untenable position, in my view.

More and more it's becoming clear that Turkey has its own designs that sort of represent a third way between the two poles. They are strong enough to withstand Israeli and Saudi pressure, they have a decent enough relationship with Iran, but their regional interests are as explicitly Neo-Ottoman as they've ever been. Hopefully a balance of power can develop in the region, which should be enough to ensure short-term peace.

WMD's were moved to Syria before the invasion.

quote:

---

No shite. Saddam had every incentive to have people think he had weapons of mass destruction, because generally having WMD's would dissuade an invasion. Why people didn't stop and think that perhaps everything was too convenient, even though French and British intelligence found and reported to the US that there was no active weapons program of WMDs? We came to the conclusion very early after the war, after the Iraqi Survey Group's report, that there was no evidence that Iraq had produced or stockpiled weapons of mass destruction since 1991, when sanctions were imposed.

---

French and British intelligence were also telling us that he still had them. The whole yellow-cake uranium stuff came from British intelligence IIRC.

quote:

---

Also we didn't care in 1979, 1986, 1988

---

That was during the Iran-Iraq war and we were busy destroying communism. Reagan and GHWB ignored the middle east and the rise of radical islamists completely during that time frame.

quote:

---

1991 when he used chemical weapons.

---

We imposed a no-fly zone and massive economic sanctions of Iraq after the 1991 so obviously we did care in 1991.

quote:

---

Why did we have to invade in 2003?

---

The world changed on 9/11/01 and the US intelligence community and the GWB administration became to proactive in trying to prevent another 9/11. Saddam was stupid enough to violate the ceasefire agreement and UN Security Council resolutions by kicking out the UN inspectors at a time when the US was far too trigger happy.

quote:

---

They wanted to believe what they wanted to believe.

---

Welcome to basic human psychology.

quote:

---

They should be criticized for their myopia, not forgiven.

---

Who said anything about forgiving them? Nobody is saving that the GWB administration should be forgiven.

quote:

---

There were plenty of people against the war. I was one of them. I was so vocal one of my high school teacher's assigned me a project justifying the invasion, so I could "learn the other side."

---

So vocal = close minded. Glad to see that you have not changed.

quote:

---

We weren't prepared for what an invasion meant. We were specially unprepared for the project of rebuilding,

---

Unless you had top-secret access and were involved in the prewar strategy sessions, which I am assuming as a high school student you were not it is impossible to say one way or another. All you are doing is monday morning quaterbacking to say see I was right.

The Pentagon was prepared to use the Iraqi military under new leadership of course to prevent an insurgency and the original head of the CPA Jay Garner wanted to keep Iraqi the mid-level of the government together until elections could be held within 90 days. The Bush administration gave into pressure from the Shia leaders and replaced Garner with Bremer and the now infamous CPA order #1. It is impossible to say, but the original plan would have worked much better.

quote:

---

I think Fleischer was being dishonest. He didn't mention that the French debunked the administration's yellowcake theory in the summer of 2002. Nor did he mention that Cheney went on TV afterwards, in 2003, and said that Iraq had an active nuclear weapons program. He did this multiple times after the summer of 2002, through multiple outlets, such as Rush (where his direct words were “What’s happening, of course, is we’re getting additional information that, in fact, Hussein is reconstituting his biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons programs" which was a lie) and Meet the Press.

There's a vast difference for being mistaken and apologizing for that mistake, and being dishonest, which allows you to obviate any need to take the blame. Fleischer is doing the latter here, in my view. No one should stand for more lies from the establishment that effectively destroyed the ME (through repeated ill-fated interventions) and Europe (through the refugee crisis, as the refugee resettlement programs had been broken since the Balkan Wars).

What has the fallout been for these administration officials? Very little, in my view. They were catastrophically wrong, openly dishonest, and still refuse to take responsibility. Fleischer, of course, can defend himself all he likes, but he should be truthful. His narrative here doesn't represent the reality of what happened. It's designed to avoid taking responsibility.

---

Did you read his tweets and the bipartisan report that was linked in his tweets? Nowhere in his tweets does he say that the administration is not at fault or try to blame anyone. He does not mention it because he is not trying to duck the blame, but GWB took responsibility for the yellow cake claims in '03 and GWB took responsibility for all of the intelligence failures in '05.

The only thing that he is trying to do is remind people that the "Bush lied; people died." stuff was a lie and political talking point. Trying to set the record straight =/= ducking responsibility.

quote:

---

French and British intelligence were also telling us that he still had them. The whole yellow-cake uranium stuff came from British intelligence IIRC.

---

No. In the summer of 2002, French counter-terrorism chief, Alain Chouet, sent six agents to Niger to follow a uraniam production lead. The French agents came back empty-handed, and indeed, they came back with evidence that the evidence that the Americans had, from an informant named Rocco Martino, was also a forgery. Chouet went on the record with the LA Times with his belief that this particular lead was bullshite.

In addition, the British thought the informant, named Curveball, was fabricating his backstory and they thought this in 2001, before 9/11. Their intel reports, dated to March of 2002, says that they had no evidence that Saddam had any biological weapons production facilities.

quote:

---

That was during the Iran-Iraq war and we were busy destroying communism. Reagan and GHWB ignored the middle east and the rise of radical islamists completely during that time frame.

---

You mean, busy supporting the Iraqis by selling them weapons, providing them with intel, and looking the other way when Saddam gassed Iranians? A March 1984 memo shows that the CIA knew about the Iraqi's using chemical weapons, and also made no mention to stopping these attacks.

Again, why did we not care then?

Also the Americans have never ignored the ME, not in the post-war era. There were regions which captured the popular imagination, saying that Reagan was too busy is not a reflection of the facts on the ground.

quote:

---

We imposed a no-fly zone and massive economic sanctions of Iraq after the 1991 so obviously we did care in 1991.

---

We didn't care in 1988 when he killed 10,000 Kurds. How dare he attack the Kuwaitis though. That was the final straw.

quote:

---

So vocal = close minded.

---

I was right then and I'm right now. It's not as if the preponderance of evidence isn't on my side. It is. I'm always open to changing my mind due to the evidence on hand.

quote:

---

Unless you had top-secret access and were involved in the prewar strategy sessions, which I am assuming as a high school student you were not it is impossible to say one way or another. All you are doing is monday morning quaterbacking to say see I was right.

---

Bush's leadership didn't inspire me, and the more I read about the region, the less confident I was. Let's not pretend there wasn't a robust anti-war movement in this country, an anti-war movement that was treated with major contempt for some reason. In this instance, the anti-war group was right.

Also it sounds like you are suggesting I shouldn't criticize the administration, by virtue of hind-sight. They were the ones at fault, and they are blamed appropriately.

quote:

---

The Pentagon was prepared to use the Iraqi military under new leadership of course to prevent an insurgency and the original head of the CPA Jay Garner wanted to keep Iraqi the mid-level of the government together until elections could be held within 90 days. The Bush administration gave into pressure from the Shia leaders and replaced Garner with Bremer and the now infamous CPA order #1. It is impossible to say, but the original plan would have worked much better.

---

Debaathification was the real issue for me, as well as not understanding the nature of Shia politics. Sistani refused to meet with the Americans, which meant that whatever the US did, a large portion of the population wouldn't see them as legitimate. I don't think there is anything they could have done to win Sistani over, or even get an audience with him, but had they secured his favor, the Shia political landscape may have been more controllable.

quote:

---

The only thing that he is trying to do is remind people that the "Bush lied; people died." stuff was a lie and political talking point. Trying to set the record straight =/= ducking responsibility.

---

If he wants to correct the record on that stupid point, I guess that's fine. His conclusion that Saddam had duped the intelligence agencies doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Hans Blix describes the issues well in his book. What was at issue was not Saddam's weapons programs, but Saddam himself. As long as Saddam was there, no amount of inspections would satisfy America. Saddam had complied with investigations, but he didn't trust that the inspectors weren't intelligence operatives for other countries. There was enough evidence on hand to call into question their own conclusions in 2002, but that was ignored. In addition, the administration had a pattern of lying, with around 500 noted instances, that what they say now means very little. I don't care to protect Bush's honor, or Fleischer's, given the way they actually behaved.

quote:

---

No. In the summer of 2002, French counter-terrorism chief, Alain Chouet, sent six agents to Niger to follow a uraniam production lead. The French agents came back empty-handed, and indeed, they came back with evidence that the evidence that the Americans had, from an informant named Rocco Martino, was also a forgery. Chouet went on the record with the LA Times with his belief that this particular lead was bullshite.

In addition, the British thought the informant, named Curveball, was fabricating his backstory and they thought this in 2001, before 9/11. Their intel reports, dated to March of 2002, says that they had no evidence that Saddam had any biological weapons production facilities.

---

1. Links to any of this. I tried google and could not find anything.

2. He had chemical weapons precursors and he had petrochemical plants. It does not take much turn a fertilizer plant into a chemical plant.

quote:

---

You mean, busy supporting the Iraqis by selling them weapons, providing them with intel, and looking the other way when Saddam gassed Iranians? A March 1984 memo shows that the CIA knew about the Iraqi's using chemical weapons, and also made no mention to stopping these attacks. Again, why did we not care then?

---

Because we were more concerned with the USSR and Saddam was killing Iranians.

quote:

---

I was right then and I'm right now. It's not as if the preponderance of evidence isn't on my side. It is. I'm always open to changing my mind due to the evidence on hand.

---

You say that you are open minded but your post say otherwise.

quote:

---

Bush's leadership didn't inspire me, and the more I read about the region, the less confident I was. Let's not pretend there wasn't a robust anti-war movement in this country, an anti-war movement that was treated with major contempt for some reason. In this instance, the anti-war group was right. Also it sounds like you are suggesting I shouldn't criticize the administration, by virtue of hind-sight. They were the ones at fault, and they are blamed appropriately.

---

You completely missed the point of my argument. My argument has to do with this line in one of your previous posts.

quote:

---

honestly can't believe that Fleischer has the audacity to defend himself, Bush, or his administration,

---

I cannot believe you think that someone trying to debunk a political talking point is audacity and your holier than though see I was right attitude that your posts portray.

quote:

---

1. Links to any of this. I tried google and could not find anything.

---

The Alain Chouet tidbit is from the book "Going to War" by Russ Hoyle.

The bit about Curveball is from an LA Times article, as well as a couple of other books I had. Here's the LA Times article. LINK

quote:

---

You completely missed the point of my argument.

---

I was just explaining part of my reasons for being anti-war, outside of committed pacifism.

quote:

---

I cannot believe you think that someone trying to debunk a political talking point is audacity and your holier than though see I was right attitude that your posts portray.

---

Focusing on the political talking point obviates the issue. First, it comes down to whether people believe the administration was simply mistaken about the intel or knew the truth about the intel, yet still decided to invade anyway. The preponderance of evidence supports the latter, and the "we were doing this in good faith" representation by Fleischer is another lie to obfuscate their own responsibility. If you believe the administration was honestly mistaken, I can see how that talking point might be especially brutish. I believe the administration was convinced of the invasion well before any intel, and therefore, what they wanted was something that confirmed their beliefs. Hence why Fleischer's hollow protestations ring hollow for me, and his conclusion that the administration was "duped" is made even more dishonest.

I didn't say you tried or succeeded, but you definitely wanted to be clear that Saddam did not lie to the world, nor did you fail to mention his reasons for not trusting the inspectors. It had a very "can you blame him?" vibe.

I don't think you're pro-saddam by the way, but my post was not wrong as stated.

I also don't think precedent for decades old inaction is a great justification in and of itself for continued inaction.

quote:

---

I was just explaining part of my reasons for being anti-war,

---

Exactly. You are pumping yourself up.

quote:

---

Focusing on the political talking point obviates the issue. First, it comes down to whether people believe the administration was simply mistaken about the intel or knew the truth about the intel, yet still decided to invade anyway. The preponderance of evidence supports the latter, and the "we were doing this in good faith" representation by Fleischer is another lie to obfuscate their own responsibility. If you believe the administration was honestly mistaken, I can see how that talking point might be especially brutish. I believe the administration was convinced of the invasion well before any intel, and therefore, what they wanted was something that confirmed their beliefs. Hence why Fleischer's hollow protestations ring hollow for me, and his conclusion that the administration was "duped" is made even more dishonest.

---

1. You have to get through the political bullshite first. Thanks to the media and democrats talking points, most young people believe the bullshite "Bush lied, people died."

2. Nothing in life is black and white. Every major decision in history has been made by people believing the evidence that they want to believe. That is basic human psychology.

3. IMO you are oversimplifying the issue. The war being based on faulty intel does not equal them being duped, and explaining the intelligence failures is not trying to duck the blame.

4. Thanks for the LAT link.

quote:

---

More and more it's becoming clear that Turkey has its own designs that sort of represent a third way between the two poles. They are strong enough to withstand Israeli and Saudi pressure, they have a decent enough relationship with Iran, but their regional interests are as explicitly Neo-Ottoman as they've ever been. Hopefully a balance of power can develop in the region, which should be enough to ensure short-term peace.

---

It feels uncomfortable saying this, but I really hope that Turkey can fill the role of immovable object IOT keep the triad of US/Israeli/Gulf states in check.

Our established foreign policy is so bad, and do dangerous, that on a macro scale I hope something can obstruct it long enough for the right people to wake up and fix it.