In the wake of the 9/11 Commission’s finding that there is “no credible evidence” that Iraq and al-Qaeda ever had a “collaborative relationship” with respect to attacks against the United States, there’s been a great deal of scrambling on the right side of the blogosphere to throw all the tenuous links that have been found against the wall and see what “sticks.” What, specifically, are we hearing about? A statement on Meet the Press, which has since been invalidated by the Administration. A 1999 report that Hussein offered Asylum to bin Laden (an offer that bin Laden rejected, mind you). A 1998 letter that does little more than acknowledge that contact was made between Iraq’s intelligence agency and al-Qaeda. The presence of Zarqawi in Iraq (even though intelligence officials say that Zarqawi operates separately from al-Qaeda, not as part of it).
There are two things that I notice here, one small, and one big. The small thing is that none of these things, even if taken together, in any way contradicts or discredits the 9/11 Commission’s report. The report acknowledges that contacts were made, but that there’s no evidence that a working relationship ever resulted from any of those contacts. Considering that the most recent of these reports is from April of 2003, it ought to be pretty safe to assume that the 9/11 Commission knew about them. If they were as important as the blog-hawks seem to claim they are, you would think that the Administration’s members would have taken pains to point them out when they were being questioned. So it’s reasonably safe to say that the bi-partisan, GOP-controlled commission didn’t consider these links to be indicative of a meaningful working relationship.
But there’s something larger here, something that not many people (particularly on the right) are talking about. It has to do with why the Administration repeatedly made claims linking Iraq with al-Qaeda in the first place, dating back to 2002. You see, back then, we had an active military campaign in Afghanistan, with wide bipartisan and public support. Al-Qaeda was seen (by the public as well as by the intelligence community) as the greatest threat to American security, and it was obvious that Afghanistan — a well-known al-Qaeda haven — would be the logical starting point.
The problem is, the Administration — for whatever reason — decided that Iraq should be the next step, and to most of the public (and the world), this seemed like the Underwear Gnomes at work (Step 1: Invade Iraq; Step 2: ????; Step 3: World Safer from Terror!). So the Administration needed to convince the American people not only that Iraq posed a terror threat, but that Iraq was a more important enemy to fight than any other potential enemy in the war on terror. As such, it was imperative that the Administration convince us that Iraq was actively working with al-Qaeda, actively training them, and actively harboring them.
Even before our invasion, the Administration’s logic on the Iraq issue raised a lot of eyebrows. If WMDs were the big threat, then North Korea seemed like a far more compelling next target, what with them lobbing nuclear-capable warheads over Japan. If terrorism were the big threat, there are half a dozen countries — including several of our “friends” — that jumped out as being more compelling targets than Iraq. So the administration needed both things — weapons of mass destruction and an active and meaningful relationship with al-Qaeda — to frame the war in terms that the American people would accept. Sure, there are more dangerous targets in terms of WMDs, and sure, there are more dangerous targets in terms of terror. But when you combine WMDs with an active al-Qaeda link, now you’re talking about a compelling target.
Everyone (war skeptics included) expected us to find WMDs, but the fact that we haven’t found anything substantial makes the al-Qaeda connection even more critical. And now that the 9/11 Commission’s report has dealt yet another blow to the dubious al-Qaeda claims, the right is absolutely scrambling to do damage control. The best they can come up with is five-year-old reports of tenuous connections that have mostly been dismissed by the intelligence community as inconsequential. But they miss the larger point completely. The idea that Iraq was the “logical next step” in the war on terror — or even an important part of it — has already been completely dismembered, in large part by the Administration itself. Even if a more substantial al-Qaeda connection were found tomorrow, it would do little to vindicate the idea that Iraq was the next most dangerous enemy after Afghanistan.
That argument has already been lost; the only thing that remains to be seen is whether or not they’ll ever admit it, and how much kicking and screaming will it take.
Misc. sources here, here, here, and here,
UPDATE: The Talent Show points out that by the “connection” standards currently being used by the right, the Bush Administration is directly connected with an Iranian spy.
June 23rd, 2004
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Iraq, Terrorism |
11 comments
There are certain expressions that always make me cringe. When someone says something is “very unique,” my skin crawls. Something either is unique, or it is not; there can be no degrees. Go ahead and give me the “language is arbitrary” argument and say that over time alternative meanings for “unique” have become acceptable, and I’ll counter that we then need a new word that means what “unique” used to mean.
I know people (including my wife, and I’m guessing Kevin T. Keith) who have a similar reaction to “irregardless,” which isn’t even really a word at all.
Today, I found another one that bugs me:
What’s nice is that the images that we use and the music we use run the gambit from things that would appeal to kids to teenagers, young adults and older adults.
[Emphasis mine.]
AUGH! The expression is “run the gamut”; “run the gambit” doesn’t even make sense. Yet another expression to add to my lexicon of mauled English.
We now return you to our regularly scheduled leftist rants…
UPDATE: I thought I was bad about this stuff, but Jesus, Dvorkin needs to seek counseling.
June 23rd, 2004
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I do too have a life |
17 comments
Gee, how could a guy like me be so unreasonable as to oppose Bush’s benign “Faith-Based” Initiative? This is how:
A Philadelphia church appears to be reaping a windfall of government funds following its pastor’s endorsement of presidential candidate George W. Bush, said Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
During the Republican Party’s 2000 national convention, the Rev. Herbert H. Lusk II, heartily endorsed Bush for president in a satellite television uplink from his church. Since that time, Lusk has repeatedly advocated for Bush’s “faith-based” initiative that seeks to fund church-run social service programs.
Today as the president was preparing to speak at Lusk’s Greater Exodus Baptist Church on combating AIDS at home and abroad, the Associated Press reported that the church’s charitable operation, People For People, has been awarded a nearly $1-million “faith-based” grant. The article also noted that Lusk hopes President Bush’s “faith-based” agenda will help garner more black votes for the president’s re-election bid. Lusk told the AP that Bush “is worthy of the African-American vote.”
Why would anyone think there’s a conflict of interest there? I’m probably just a left-wing nut job who needs to go get a tin-foil hat. I’m sure the explicit endorsement and the $1 Million grant are completely unrelated.
Oh, well. It’s not like they’re using such grants as hush money or anything:
In addition, televangelist Pat Robertson, a Bush ally, was converted from being a harsh critic of the faith-based initiative to being a supporter by a well-timed government grant. In early 2001, Robertson warned his “700 Club” viewers that the initiative “could be a real Pandora’s box” because religious monitories might wind up receiving faith-based grants.
In fall 2002, Robertson’s Operation Blessing received a half-million-dollar faith-based grant from the Department of Health and Human Resources. Since then, the TV preacher has not criticized the initiative.
Ah, who am I kidding? Never mind…
June 23rd, 2004
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Church & State |
3 comments
This seems to be going around the right wing blogoshere, offered up up as some kind of proof of the Iraq link to al-Qaeda.
Except that a little bit of research demonstrates that it’s not.
Here is the money quote from The Guardian:
The key meeting took place in the Afghan mountains near Kandahar in late December. The Iraqi delegation was led by Farouk Hijazi, Baghdad’s ambassador in Turkey and one of Saddam’s most powerful secret policemen, who is thought to have offered Bin Laden asylum in Iraq.
And here is the money quote from the more recent article:
Administration officials reported that Farouk Hijazi, a top Iraqi intelligence officer, had met with bin Laden in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in 1998 and offered him haven in Iraq.
They left out the rest of the story. Bin Laden said he’d consider the offer, U.S. intelligence officials said. But according to a report later made available to the CIA, the al Qaeda leader told an aide afterward that he had no intention of accepting Saddam’s offer because “if we go there, it would be his agenda, not ours.”
So, four years before 9/11, you have a member of Saddam’s intelligence who might have offered Bin Laden asylum – an offer Bin Laden refused. Even if you remove all doubt as to why Saddam would want to do this, there still isn’t a connection. (And the idea that Saddam would have liked to have had under his thumb a man who had declared him an enemy of the faith must be given serious weight. The Middle East is a dangerous place, and even nations that we consider friends have had these kinds of contacts with al-Qaeda. At least some of those contacts are an attempt to infiltrate or fend off al-Qaeda There is no reason to believe that Iraq would be the only country to not attempt to infiltrate the organization of its enemy.) If you ask a woman out and she says no, you don’t have a connection to her – you have a rejection. They are different things.
And the inevitable argument that this proves that Saddam wanted a connection with al-Qaeda is just as worthless. First, as already noted, there are lots of reasons a dictator in the Middle East would want to know what a bunch of religious lunatics were doing. Absent evidence one way or the other, claiming this meeting is an indicator of Saddam’s intention to do anything is to venture into faith-based intelligence. Second, who cares what Saddam wanted? He was obviously not getting it. Wanting and getting are not the same thing, and I really shouldn’t have to point out that there were other nations in the region – like Pakistan, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia – who actually achieved close ties to al-Qaeda. Essentially, this meeting can only be used as an argument that we should have invaded the country who was really, really bad at getting closer to al-Qaeda instead of the countries that were really, really good at it. Not, I must say, a terribly convincing argument. But that is the absolute best argument one can make with this information.
Via Xrlq, via SayUncle.
June 23rd, 2004
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Iraq |
no comments
This happens every year. Why doesn’t someone either move the tournament to a time when its not raining five out of every seven days (if such a time exists in England) or put a roof over the frigging courts?
June 23rd, 2004
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Sports |
2 comments
Brad has a good question
I have not yet figured out why so much of our elite press is so… what should I call it? Feckless. Corrupt (in the sense of well-rotted). Decadent. Why does William Saletan find it funny that Kerry tries hard to give nuanced, reasonably-complete answers to questions about issues with nuances? Why do Weston Kosova and Michael Isikoff cover the government–rather than, say, cover something like advances in bartending–if they find debates over policy the equivalent of crossing the Gedrosian Desert? Why does Michiko Kakutani think it pointless and boring to wake up early to watch the inauguration of the first democratically-elected president in sixteen years in a country of 130 million people?
That really is the question of the day. Democracies cannot survive without a press that is willing and able to do its primary function: keep citizens informed about policy. It is incredible that political reporters like Isikoff and Saletan are so intent on stripping all of the policy away from political coverage. It is incredible that the top book reviewer for perhaps the most serious organ of review in the country thinks that a President’s book that contains information about policy is somehow missing the point of a Presidential memoir. We have a press corps that, by and large, acts as if they are covering Hollywood and not Washington.
Policy matters, but if policy is not covered, then no one can know whether or not it matters. The reason we have an administration that orders up memos on just how much torture we can get away with is because the press convinced people that a blow job was more important that forty years of policy. No, it’s worse than even that: the press acted as if forty years of policy and how those differences were reflected in the positions of the two candidates didn’t even exist. It was as if the Super Bowl had been covered solely in terms of who had the better looking uniforms.
I don’t know the cause, and I am not sure of a cure, but I do know that nothing scares me for the future of our democracy more than the abysmal state of our press corps. The lifeblood of democracy is information about and debate on policy. Our press is no seems to concern itself with helping to provide either.
June 23rd, 2004
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Culture |
2 comments
Discourse.net points out the two most important facts about the document dump
- Bush reserved himself the right to declare laws and treaties null and void — that is, he put himself above the law.
- The documents are all form a period before the two leaked torture memos.
Bush, from the start, put himself above the law and the Constitution and the Administration continued to look at the legal question of just how much torture was allowed long after the memos it released yesterday were written. Until someone can explain why the practices outlined in the “Rumsfeld torture memo” were so widespread and why the Administration ordered up a review of what torture they could and could not excuse, then they have answered nothing.
June 23rd, 2004
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Legal Issues |
5 comments
It is beginning to look that way:
Yet, Pickard testified to the 9/11 commission that when he tried to brief Ashcroft just a week later, on July 12, about the terror threat inside the United States, he got the brush-off.
“Mr. Ashcroft told you that he did not want to hear about this anymore,” Democratic commission member Richard Ben-Veniste asked on April 13. “Is that correct?”
“That is correct,” Pickard replied.
Testifying under oath the same day, Ashcroft categorically denied the allegation, saying, “I did never speak to him saying that I didn’t want to hear about terrorism.”
However, another senior FBI official tells NBC News he vividly recalls Pickard returning from the meeting that day furious that Ashcroft had cut short the terrorism briefing. This official, now retired, has talked to the 9/11 commission.
That means that there is one career professional who has said under oath that Ashcroft blew off the terrorism warnings. There is also one career professional who has stated, again under oath, that the first official told him exactly the same story he told the commission minutes after the meeting with Ashcroft. But there is more:
NBC News has learned that commission investigators also tracked down another FBI witness at the meeting that day, Ruben Garcia, head of the Criminal Division at that time. Several sources familiar with the investigation say Garcia confirmed to the commission that Ashcroft did indeed dismiss Pickard’s warnings about al-Qaida.
We now have two direct witnesses to Ashcroft’s behavior, and one witness who was in a position to confirm one of the witness’s reaction very shortly after the meeting took place. That is probably enough to build a perjury case in and of itself, but that is not the entire story.
Ashcroft, of course, denied it under oath. One of his top aides who attended the meeting has backed up Ashcroft’s version of the story. The article does not mention if this testimony was under oath or not, and, of course, Ashcroft’s top aide has reasons to lie by the boatload. However, Ashcroft and his defenders have repeatedly claimed that another career professional who attended the meeting would verify Ashcroft’s version. But once that person was under oath, something very strange happened:
“I do not recall the conversation that interim director Pickard referred to,” says former Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson.
This man doesn’t remember a conversation that four other people clearly remember participating in and one that dealt with something as serious as an imminent terrorist threat? That is unlikely, to be generous. In any case, it certainly does not provide any corroboration of Ashcroft’s tale.
On the one side are three people with no known reason to lie and one man who did not say what Ashcroft claimed he would say. On the other are two men trying to protect their own reputations and the election chances of their boss. Any halfway competent prosecute would be drooling at the chance to get that case in court.
June 23rd, 2004
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Politics |
one comment
