The CBS 60 Minutes Richard Clarke Interview

Clarke's questionable timing doesn't take away from the truthfullness of his statements. I am tempted to believe him, as his explanation is the only plausible story I have heard so far.

The idea that the Bush Administration outright lied about Iraqi WMD's and terrorist connections is pretty farfetched. So is the idea that it was all due to a fundamentally flawed intelligence agency.

I have long thought that there is only one plausible explanation: The Bush administration - due largely to Bush's wrongheadedness and his advisors eagreness for war - selectively intrepreted the data to support an invasion of Iraq. Clarke has only confirmed this.

And I would believe the Director of Central Intelligence over whatever this Clarke guy has to say. Clarke's is a lone voice without many others to back up his assertions. There are too many other people who consider his assertions pure unadulterated horse puckey.

Clarke's questionable timing doesn't take away from the truthfullness of his statements. I am tempted to believe him, as his explanation is the only plausible story I have heard so far.

The idea that the Bush Administration outright lied about Iraqi WMD's and terrorist connections is pretty farfetched. So is the idea that it was all due to a fundamentally flawed intelligence agency.

I have long thought that there is only one plausible explanation: The Bush administration - due largely to Bush's wrongheadedness and his advisors eagreness for war - selectively intrepreted the data to support an invasion of Iraq. Clarke has only confirmed this.

The one part I have a problem with is where he said that Rice acted like she had no clue who Al Queda (?)

From what I've heard, every intelligence agency in the world that had any information at all about Iraq was absolutely convinced that Saddam had WMD.

JOSCHKA FISCHER ( Translated ): We owe the Americans our democracy. They are very important for stability and peace especially. We Germans would never have been able to free ourselves from the Nazi regime without America. The Americans allowed us to build up our democracy, but in this democracy my generation has learnt... ( in English ) You have to make the case, and to make the case in a democracy, you have to be convinced yourself, and excuse me, I am not convinced. This is my problem and I cannot go to the public and say, "well, let's go to war because there are reasons and so on," and I don't believe in that.

Tarantulas wrote:

From what I've heard, every intelligence agency in the world that had any information at all about Iraq was absolutely convinced that Saddam had WMD.

That is just plain not true, its pure wishful thinking. Its the favoured line of defense over WMD from the White House right now: well, how could we have thought anything else from what we thought, didnt everyone think so? And then preferably underpinned with quotes from Kerry, Hillary, Pelosi, etc.

How does the administration 1) explain the mistake and 2) sufficiently rebound? The first part turns out to be simpler than one would think, the question being whether non-partisans will accept it: The intelligence was bad. From the United States to the United Nations, from Great Britain to Germany, from Russia to France; from Kofi Annan to Bill Clinton to George W. Bush, from Tony Blair to Gerhardt Schroeder, from Vladimir Putin to Jacques Chirac. The United States wasn't alone in believing there were WMD in Iraq, just in being worried enough to do something about it.

The rebound is another story, a cause not helped by the president's disastrous appearance on Meet the Press. What really needed to be said simply couldn't by any man taking reelection more seriously than the idea of the buck stopping at his desk. What would have helped? Namely: "Under my watch, the military was sent into Iraq because all reliable intelligence from around the world suggested WMD were there. As of today, no WMD have been found. My administration will find out why the intelligence was faulty. In the meantime, if there is an American citizen who can look himself in the mirror and honestly believe America, Iraq and the Middle East genuinely aren't better off with Saddam Hussein out of power, then they should vote for John Kerry."

But the entire single point of the whole diplomatic flak over Iraq last year was that America's NATO allies were not convinced by the proof the US put forward about Iraq still having WMDs. Remember Powell's speech to the UN and how it fell flat? Remember the German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer famously telling Rumsfeld, wait, let me quote:

Quote:

JOSCHKA FISCHER ( Translated ): We owe the Americans our democracy. They are very important for stability and peace especially. We Germans would never have been able to free ourselves from the Nazi regime without America. The Americans allowed us to build up our democracy, but in this democracy my generation has learnt... ( in English ) You have to make the case, and to make the case in a democracy, you have to be convinced yourself, and excuse me, I am not convinced. This is my problem and I cannot go to the public and say, "well, let's go to war because there are reasons and so on," and I don't believe in that.

Considering Fischer's word choice, your assertion that "every intelligence agency in the world" was "absolutely convinced" Saddam had WMD is all the more misplaced. Governments around the world, forsure, suspected that Iraq still had WMD. There was enough evidence that he still had some the last time we looked, even if the bulk of it had already been destroyed during the years of weapon inspections (something the US government back then had proudly talked about). But most other governments, most NATO governments even, considered the proof that he still had WMD (let alone in any measure that would make Iraq into the purported acute threat to world security that warranted immediate warfare) absolutely insufficient.

Tarantulas makes a good point here.

Transcript: Richard Clarke August, 2002 Briefingmid-January, to do two things. One, vigorously pursue the existing policy, including all of the lethal covert action findings, which we've now made public to some extent.

And the point is, while this big review was going on, there were still in effect, the lethal findings were still in effect. The second thing the administration decided to do is to initiate a process to look at those issues which had been on the table for a couple of years and get them decided.

So, point five, that process which was initiated in the first week in February, uh, decided in principle, uh in the spring to add to the existing Clinton strategy and to increase CIA resources, for example, for covert action, five-fold, to go after Al Qaeda

Well, you have to pay attention to what people have said rather than simply asserting what you believe to be true. Observe:

Quote:

The first part turns out to be simpler than one would think, the question being whether non-partisans will accept it: The intelligence was bad. From the United States to the United Nations, from Great Britain to Germany, from Russia to France; from Kofi Annan to Bill Clinton to George W. Bush, from Tony Blair to Gerhardt Schroeder, from Vladimir Putin to Jacques Chirac. The United States wasn't alone in believing there were WMD in Iraq

Intellectual Conservative

So you're saying the German Foreign Minister was privy to his country's full intelligence evaluation? From what he said, he could just have been making himself a pain in the butt to oppose the US intentions.

There was a consensus of opinion worldwide that Saddam had WMD. Deny it all you want, but that doesn't make it untrue.

Notice what these four statements dismiss: Law enforcement. Pinpricks. Rolling it back. Swatting flies. That was why Clarke couldn't get a hearing. His ideas were too partial, too ad hoc, too Clintonesque. Bush wanted a bigger approach: Comprehensive. Strategy. Eliminate. Different. His "comprehensive strategy" was delivered on Sept. 4, 2001. Is the White House embarrassed that it spent those six months studying the "many complex issues involved in the development of the comprehensive strategy" instead of swatting the "flies" that would kill 3,000 Americans a week later? No. It's proud.

But you know even the United Nations thought there were WMD in Iraq. Otherwise why would they have had inspectors there for so long? Many nations did believe the WMD were there, so a majority of delegates voted in the UN to send in weapons inspectors and keep them there for quite a while.