All the news that fits the Times' template
I have not read the new report from the latest blue-ribbon panel about the way intelligence has been gathered by the United States, nor do I plan to. Eugene Volokh set out his outline of the questions he asks before blogging on a particular topic here, and by and large they are good questions to ask. I don't plan to discuss the contents of the report, but rather the manner in which the New York Times has reacted to it.
In its editorial today, the Times criticizes the panel for timidity. It first bows its knee at the altar of bipartisanship, only to immediately criticize the panel for lacking "stature or independence." The Times then cuts to the heart of its complaint: "Sadly, there is nothing [in the report] about the central issue -- how the Bush administration handled the intelligence reports on Iraq's weapons programs and presented them to the public to win support for the invasion of Iraq."
After making this statement, however, the editorial goes on to state just precisely how the intelligence was handled: "The panel . . . utterly ignored the way President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his team, and Condoleezza Rice, as national security adviser, created that environment [that did not encourage skepticism about the conventional wisdom] by deciding what the facts were and saying so, repeatedly.
"It does not say that these powerful people knew or should have known that there was no new intelligence on Iraq, and that as the intelligence reports were sanitized for the public, the caveats were stripped out. Instead, it loyally maintains the fiction that Mr. Bush was just given bum information by incompetent intelligence agents."
The fiction that the president was given bad information by incompetent intelligence agents? What is the basis for that conclusion? Leaving aside the Times' swipe at hard-working agents, it is a fact -- not fiction -- that every major intelligence agency in the world, not just the United States, believed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. This article from the RUSI Journal in Great Britain notes that:
"The first issue - Saddam Hussein's possession of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons - was almost certainly an intelligence blunder by the various intelligence staffs in the UK, US and elsewhere. That Saddam once possessed chemical weapons (CW) was never in question. . . . The international Intelligence Community was prudent in assuming that he still retained that capability. That Saddam had been experimenting with Biological Weapons (BW) was never in any doubt either. . . . Finally, the idea of an Iraqi nuclear bomb was no great mystery: the UN established in the 1990s that Saddam had sought to develop nuclear weapons. The Israeli bombing of Iraq's nuclear plant at Osirak in 1981 demonstrated how serious one neighbouring country took the threat. In sum, the existence of, or the intention to develop, these weapons of mass destruction were either clear capabilities or on the Iraqi dictator's wish list.
"So where are they? The answer is, no one knows. Neither David Kay of the Iraq Survey Croup or the combined inspection and intelligence resources of the international community could find them. Saddam's alleged WMDs - the casus belli of Britain's attack on a sovereign nation in the Middle East - have become invisible. There are two possible explanations: either Saddam got rid of them long before the war (as the UNSCOM inspectors and Kay maintain) or he hid them and they are still to be discovered. There is however a possible third explanation: Iraq's Rais may no longer have had WMD but was playing a fatal game of bluff to pretend that he was more powerful than he really was. It would not be the first time that a bull-frog from the Iraqi marshes had over-inflated himself to frighten and impress his Arab neighbours. It really doesn't matter. The point is that if the intelligence communities of France, Germany, Britain and the United States all assessed that Saddam still had WMDs, then it seems that serious mistakes were made."
The final conclusion (that serious mistakes were made by the intelligence agencies of various nations) belies the notion that it is a "fiction" that the president received inaccurate intelligence information. Moreover, the Times cannot explain how the administration officials "created the environment" that resulted in other nations' intelligence agencies reaching the same wrong conclusion. But the Times has a preconceived idea of what happened, and will use any opportunity to ignore evidence that does not fit within that template.
In its editorial today, the Times criticizes the panel for timidity. It first bows its knee at the altar of bipartisanship, only to immediately criticize the panel for lacking "stature or independence." The Times then cuts to the heart of its complaint: "Sadly, there is nothing [in the report] about the central issue -- how the Bush administration handled the intelligence reports on Iraq's weapons programs and presented them to the public to win support for the invasion of Iraq."
After making this statement, however, the editorial goes on to state just precisely how the intelligence was handled: "The panel . . . utterly ignored the way President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his team, and Condoleezza Rice, as national security adviser, created that environment [that did not encourage skepticism about the conventional wisdom] by deciding what the facts were and saying so, repeatedly.
"It does not say that these powerful people knew or should have known that there was no new intelligence on Iraq, and that as the intelligence reports were sanitized for the public, the caveats were stripped out. Instead, it loyally maintains the fiction that Mr. Bush was just given bum information by incompetent intelligence agents."
The fiction that the president was given bad information by incompetent intelligence agents? What is the basis for that conclusion? Leaving aside the Times' swipe at hard-working agents, it is a fact -- not fiction -- that every major intelligence agency in the world, not just the United States, believed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. This article from the RUSI Journal in Great Britain notes that:
"The first issue - Saddam Hussein's possession of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons - was almost certainly an intelligence blunder by the various intelligence staffs in the UK, US and elsewhere. That Saddam once possessed chemical weapons (CW) was never in question. . . . The international Intelligence Community was prudent in assuming that he still retained that capability. That Saddam had been experimenting with Biological Weapons (BW) was never in any doubt either. . . . Finally, the idea of an Iraqi nuclear bomb was no great mystery: the UN established in the 1990s that Saddam had sought to develop nuclear weapons. The Israeli bombing of Iraq's nuclear plant at Osirak in 1981 demonstrated how serious one neighbouring country took the threat. In sum, the existence of, or the intention to develop, these weapons of mass destruction were either clear capabilities or on the Iraqi dictator's wish list.
"So where are they? The answer is, no one knows. Neither David Kay of the Iraq Survey Croup or the combined inspection and intelligence resources of the international community could find them. Saddam's alleged WMDs - the casus belli of Britain's attack on a sovereign nation in the Middle East - have become invisible. There are two possible explanations: either Saddam got rid of them long before the war (as the UNSCOM inspectors and Kay maintain) or he hid them and they are still to be discovered. There is however a possible third explanation: Iraq's Rais may no longer have had WMD but was playing a fatal game of bluff to pretend that he was more powerful than he really was. It would not be the first time that a bull-frog from the Iraqi marshes had over-inflated himself to frighten and impress his Arab neighbours. It really doesn't matter. The point is that if the intelligence communities of France, Germany, Britain and the United States all assessed that Saddam still had WMDs, then it seems that serious mistakes were made."
The final conclusion (that serious mistakes were made by the intelligence agencies of various nations) belies the notion that it is a "fiction" that the president received inaccurate intelligence information. Moreover, the Times cannot explain how the administration officials "created the environment" that resulted in other nations' intelligence agencies reaching the same wrong conclusion. But the Times has a preconceived idea of what happened, and will use any opportunity to ignore evidence that does not fit within that template.
posted by Hal | 10:38 AM
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