Bush's Speech Was Great, Now More!

[Annie]

http://corner.nationalreview.com/05_11_06_corner-archive.asp#082362

INERTIA. FATIGUE. PROBLEMS. [Larry Kudlow]

The GOP House leadership continues to struggle over a $50 billion budget-cutting bill. They dropped ANWR in order to pick up some moderate Republican votes and they are desperately reaching out to Blue Dog Democrats. The Senate Finance Committee is marking up only a one-year tax-cut extension, despite the clear fact that the strong economy is based in large part on the huge incentive jolt from capital formation spurred by lower tax rates on dividends and capital gains. Symbolically, Intel just boosted its quarterly cash dividend by 25 percent.

Why Republicans don’t say more about the tax-cut related economic expansion is beyond me. And whether Tuesday’s disappointing election results provide a wake up call for the GOP remains to be seen. But they need a wake up call. Young Turks in the House like Mike Pence, Jeff Flake, and Marsha Blackburn should be represented in the House leadership. Ideas matter. Dick Armey was a great idea man. Speaker Dennis Hastert doesn’t seem to be a great idea man. The Tom DeLay period is probably over. New blood in the leadership is essential.

And speaking of new blood, where exactly is the White House proposal for budget cutting? Last week Bush said he was open to deeper budget cuts. But no new budget-cutting list has so far been unveiled by the OMB. The White House is not using the bully pulpit to lead the effort.

The public is clamoring for exactly this kind of budget (and tax) crusade. A specific budget proposal from the West Wing would be very helpful. The lack of one offers more evidence of Bush fatigue. Failure to provide a specific Social Security reform plan was a key reason for the downfall of this reform. Likewise, failure to publish a specific budget-cutting plan, which could energize the whole congressional process, may lead to the downfall of a significant budget cut this year.

Specific policies will beat inertia. But without specifics, the Democrats will gain more ground simply because the Republicans now running government are failing to meet taxpayer expectations.

This is a real problem. It ain’t going away.

 

[ThomasPaine]

http://corner.nationalreview.com/05_11_06_corner-archive.asp#082362

Isn't that simply a change of the door of perception? Stealing from Aldous Huxluy of course.. And who is the "savage"?

 

[archangel]

Isn't that simply a change of the door of perception? Stealing from Aldous Huxluy of course.. And who is the "savage"?

Michael of course...blunt is the name of the game today...or else we all will lose!

 

[ThomasPaine]

Michael of course...blunt is the name of the game today...or else we all will lose!

a radio guy. I've heard his program a time or two and he's on the fringe,, JMHO..
But the guy is wack...

 

[007]

His speach was good. His speaches always seem to be good. But it all seems to die right after that.

If he causes a wave in his favor after one of his speaches, I wish he'd "ride the wave" awhile, instead of just sitting back and watching it disappear.

 

[theim]

His speach was good. His speaches always seem to be good. But it all seems to die right after that.

If he causes a wave in his favor after one of his speaches, I wish he'd "ride the wave" awhile, instead of just sitting back and watching it disappear.

It's awfully hard to ride the wave when it crashes into the media seawall. Did you watch CNN after the speech? They didn't report it at all, they just acted like the propaganda arm of the DNC that they are and said the very fact that he responded to the Dems calling him a liar proved he was a liar.

 

[Annie]

It's awfully hard to ride the wave when it crashes into the media seawall. Did you watch CNN after the speech? They didn't report it at all, they just acted like the propaganda arm of the DNC that they are and said the very fact that he responded to the Dems calling him a liar proved he was a liar.

and that's why it's called the MSM/DNC. I agree that this must be followed up on, over and over on the issues that the nation needs: immigration security, tax reforms, WOT.

 

[Annie]

I was busy lunching and shopping, so I missed it, I'm going to have to watch it on C-Span.

Well there are talking points from the DNC, I've noticed some already on the board, but here are some, with links:

http://instapundit.com/archives/026799.php

November 11, 2005

WELL, THE HATEMAIL HAS POURED IN after my earlier post on Bush's speech. For the record, though, I didn't say (and don't think) that anyone who opposes the war is unpatriotic. (In fact, only antiwar people seem to keep raising this strawman). But the Democratic politicans who are pushing the "Bush Lied" meme are, I think, playing politics with the war in a way that is, in fact, unpatriotic. Having voted for the war, they now want to cozy up to the increasingly powerful MoveOn crowd, which is immensely antiwar. The "Bush Lied" meme is their way of getting cover. This move also suggests that their earlier support for the war may itself have been more opportunistic than sincere, which I suppose is another variety of unpatriotism.

This bit of hatemail, though, seems to carry the flavor best:

Did you ever really think you'd be the kind of person who would be calling dissenters from a right-wing, gay-bashing, anti-evolution, incompetent war-making administration "unpatriotic"?​

I'm not sure where evolution or gay rights come into this (I've "dissented" on those points myself, after all), but I think this illustrates that the "Bush lied" issue has more to do with anti-Bush sentiment than with anything having to do with the merits of the war.

But it's not "dissent" that's unpatriotic, something I've been at pains to note in the past. It's putting one's own political positions first, even if doing so encourages our enemies, as this sort of talk is sure to do. And that's what I think is going on with the sudden surge of "Bush Lied" stuff from Congressional democrats.

Of course, outrage over questioning of patriotism is kind of one-sided. You can say that Bush and Cheney started the war with a bunch of lies to enrich their buddies at Halliburton, and that their supporters are all a bunch of chickenhawks on the White House payroll. But that's different because -- because Bush is anti-evolution, and doesn't support gay marriage! Or something.

UPDATE: Thanks to the speed of the blogosphere, John Cole has responded to Kevin Drum's rather misleading quotation of my earlier post, before I even noticed it.

I suspect Kevin left out my bit about Democratic politicians pandering to the antiwar base because, well, it's obviously true and it kind of spoils his point.

John gets this part right:

Painting as unpatriotic those individuals who change their opinions simply for political reasons is wholly appropriate, and that is what Glenn stated. Reynolds is not, as Kevin Drum would have you believe, simply calling anyone against the war or anyone who believes that the the reasons used to go to war were inaccurate ‘unpatriotic.’​

See, it's not so hard if you actually read the post. Jeff Goldstein has related thoughts.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Richard Samuelson emails:

The response to your posts is interesting. One question that might be interesting to ask. To what degree to your critics believe that patriotism is a good thing? To what degree do they believe it is proper to support one's own country ahead of others?

How to criticize one's country responsibly is a very interesting question, particularly with regard to an ongoing war. On the one hand, it is one's duty as a citizen to support one's country when it is engaged in a war. Even if one opposed the war at the start, it is one's job in a democratic republic to show faith in one's fellow-citizens, and give them the benefit of the doubt on the rightness of the decision. On the other hand, a good citizen has a responsibility to criticize the government when he finds it to be misguided.

I wonder if the passion behind the rhetoric here is existential. If this war is justified, it raises doubts about whether the world will ever become war-free. For that reason, it raises fundamental questions about the possibility of true progress in any grand sense. If this war is justified, it might mean that patriotism will always remain a virtue in some circumstances, because the world will always, in some ways, be divided between us and others. It might be, in short, an attack upon the implicit universalism of so much modern ideology. Giving that up might be too high a price to pay. Hence it's easier to dismiss the war as fundamentally corrupt from the start. ​

I don't know, but it's surprising the extent to which people who routinely make the Halliburton and chickenhawk slurs seem to require much greater delicacy from others.

MORE: Tom Maguire:

In any case, I believe there is a substantial difference between "Your false charges are undermining the troops" and "Your criticism is undermining our troops".

OK, I understand that for purposes of debating this point, war critics will have to insist that *all* their criticisms are perceived as false. However, that is simply not so. For example, a war opponent who argued that this war would not go well without international support and a specific UN resolution is entitled to that opinion, and I don't see how it could be proven to be either true or false. Consequently, I don't see how the specific passage offered by the Times could be viewed as an attempt by Bush to stifle that particular dissent, or to question that critic's patriotism.

But I am gloomily resigned to having it explained to me.

The Democrats do seem to be finding traction with the new approach. The old talking point - "I would have spoken out against the war, but Karl Rove and Bill O'Reilly would have been mean to me, and Arnold might have called me a girlie-man" - lacked a certain John Wayne quality.

Whether the new talking point - "I couldn't see through Bush's lies" - takes hold depends on just how empty-headed various Dems want to appear as they abase themselve before their base.​

Heh. Indeed.

MORE STILL: Reader Dan Farmer emails:

How is the constant repetition of, ‘Bush fooled me, I didn’t know what I was doing!’, help the Democrats? How will they stand up to the perfidy and guile of our real enemies and sometimes allies? Maybe someone can work that into a winning campaign slogan, but it’s beyond me. How about “We’re Dumber than Bush!”?​

That'll sell.

STILL MORE: Josh Wills emails:

Only one question comes to mind when I read your post on the hate mail you received in response to your comments on "unpatriotic" congressional Democrats- still nicer than the hate mail you got for your (still blasphemous) barbecue post?​

Oh, the barbecue hatemail was much worse. But the spelling was better.

 

[Annie]

http://polipundit.com/index.php?p=11182

Links at site:

Friday, November 11th, 2005
Why Now

Michelle Malkin asked this in response to Bush’s decision to finally fight back against his Iraq critics:

My question: What took him so long? He could have made this speech while Sheehan was gaining traction outside his Crawford, Tx. ranch this summer with her “Bush lied!” brigades. He could have made this speech while the anti-war movement and the media were busy politicizing the “2000 dead” milestone in the most macabre and dishonest way. He could have made this speech as Harry Reid was jumping up and down like Rumpelstiltskin behind the Senate chamber’s locked doors.

But he didn’t.

Better late than never. I hope this is a sign of renewed intestinal fortitude. The GOP needs it.​

I think that the timing of this is George W. Bush through and through. He rarely answers his critics when they are screaming. He waits until they work themselves into frothing-at-the-mouth lunatics and lets them make more and more outlandish statements that they later have to try to distance themselves from. Then, when there is an opening in the news cycle, he addresses them on his terms. In this case, in a Veteran’s Day speech.

I agree with Michelle that the outrageous allegations of “lying” and “misleading” into war should have been addressed sooner. At one time I thought maybe it was better that Bush not personally respond, but that others do it for him. And many did a good job. As time passed though, and those allegations got repeated enough, with the media never questioning their validity, but merely parroting them over and over again, they gained an air of credibility about them. That is all that the public has heard in the mainstream media for two years now. Many have accepted those allegations as truth. I am very impatient. I could not have waited as long as Bush has to come out swinging. Maybe, though, if the President and his people come out forcefully enough now, armed with unassailable facts, they might be able to make a stronger argument than they would have if they were playing defense. I have been begging for this for a while now and would have liked to have seen it sooner, but it will be interesting to see if the President’s timing and method of action are effective.

Michelle also described Norman Podhoretz’s essay which was linked here as “the clear catalyst for Bush’s speech.” Maybe so, but I would like to think that maybe someone at the White House read this or this. I can dream can’t I?

Update: Sorry to be so long winded today, but there is one more comment I want to make. It is important that Bush not only took on some of the specific accusations many Democrats were making, but that he called them on the despicable act of making false allegations and trying to rewrite history.

If he had simply responded to individual accusations all along, any attempt to point out motives would be seen as personal attacks on his accusers. To instead take on the broader issue, that those backing down from the commitment they made when they voted to authorize the war are doing so as a coordinated political strategy, he exposes Democrats who have chosen political gain over the interest of the country and the troops. If this idea is repeated often enough (which will have to be very often for it to break through the media filter) then any additional accusations of “lying” and “misleading” into war will be viewed as acts of crass political strategy, rather than concern for the nation’s security. It is still extremely important to refute each individual accusation of lying and misleading and manipulation of intelligence with facts. That needs to be done in a thorough and complete manner. The facts are on our side, they just need to be effectively conveyed to the public.

To expose the greater coordinated political strategy of the Democrats, who value the destruction of this President over the victory in Iraq and the general War on Terror, must also be done and the President made a great first step in that effort today.

Update II: Amen, Jeff Harrell. Jeff has an excellent post in reaction to the President’s speech about rewriting history and he happens to incorporate one of my other favorite subjects to blog on lately, the great Joe Wilson/Plame/Libby lie.

Update III: Thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the link and for his excellent posts today on this topic. Please check out some of the other posts at Polipundit. There are several other posts here on the subject of the President’s Veteran’s Day speech, as well as many other topics.
-- Lorie Byrd

 

[Bullypulpit]

Dubbyuh's speeches are seldom more than a rehashing and re-arrangin of the same tired old crap he's been spouting since day one of his presidency. His "stick-to-itiveness" isn't dogged determination, it's the utter inflexibility of an alcoholic personality. Unable to look beyond the box he's built for himself, he continues to repeat the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. But that's a definition of insanity...isn't it. And that's why his speeches fail to rouse any enthusiasm outside of the carefully screened audiences who lap up his words as if they were manna from heaven.

 

[rtwngAvngr]

Dubbyuh's speeches are seldom more than a rehashing and re-arrangin of the same tired old crap he's been spouting since day one ...

Pot. Kettle. Black.

 

[007]

Pot. Kettle. Black.

Oh but it's not that way when HE does it RWA...

 

[Annie]

Fighting back has commenced and the Dems aren't liking it much. Lots of links and there aren't enough smilies to go around:

http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2005/11/harry_reid_iron.html

Harry Reid, Ironist

George Bush came out swinging yesterday against the politicians who have made "false charges" and "baseless attacks" about the use of pre-war intelligence.

Harry Reid, politician and ironist, responded:

"Attacking those patriotic Americans who have raised serious questions about the case the Bush administration made to take our country to war does not provide us a plan for success that will bring our troops home..."

Left unexplained - how the Democrats unrelenting focus on the use of pre-war intelligence is going to substitute for a plan to resolve the situation in Iraq. Was it really only two weeks ago that Harry Reid forced the Senate into a closed session to discuss that?

Perhaps Sen. Reid was simply intending to commemorate the second anniversary of the leak of the strategy memo explaining how the Democrats could politicize the Senate Intelligence Committee hearings for maximum benefit.

This political posturing by the Dems is understandable - their party is pretty well united around the desire to have a mulligan on the decision to go to war against Iraq.

However, on the slightly more topical question of where we go from here, the problem that crippled John Kerry continues to vex the Democrats - their anti-war base wants to declare Bush beaten and leave Iraq, while many of their leaders continue to argue that defeat is not an option. This conflict leads to such spectacles as the Sheehan v. Clinton showdown:

Unless the senator pushes for pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq, Sheehan wrote, "I will resist [her presidential] candidacy with every bit of my power and strength."

On the other side of the aisle, as Commander in Chief and Communicator in Chief Bush had two key tasks with respect to the war in Iraq: manage public expectations and deliver results.

As to public expectations, I am sure we can find a few quotes from him suggesting that the road ahead would be difficult. However, did Bush present something like a five year plan for Iraq with best case, worst case, and best guess estimates for the budget impact, level of troop deployment, and level of casualties? Maybe I missed it, or maybe it was under-emphasized.

Or more likely, Bush and his team believed, back in early 2003, that the results in Iraq would be quick enough and good enough that the absence of projections, timetables, and budgets would be overlooked. That gamble certainly paid off in the (relatively) conventional war against Saddam's army, where we had Mission Accomplished and the end of major combat operations by May 1, 2003. [My point is that the absence of planning and poor expectations management can can be trumped by great results. But if the great results don't follow, you have little by way of a safety net, which is Bush's current position circa late 2005. If the public developed unrealistic expectations and feel disapointed, they will blame their leaders. And of course media bias plays a role, but Bush needed to plan for that as well.]

And in a bout of pure speculation, I will add that many Dems undertook a similar gamble about a quick victory when they backed the war resolution in October 2002. Folks who sincerely believe that John Kerry had confidence in Bush's diplomatic skills and martial judgment, put your hands up. I don't see many hands!

Now, hands in the air if you think that John Kerry voted for the war to preserve the viability of his Presidential candidacy for 2004, when our adventure in Iraq would be a distant, pleasant memory and he could focus on health care and the economy. Oh, it's a forest of fingers! (And are some of those solitary fingers suggesting that Kerry is number one? Or am I number one? Where are my glasses?)

To stroll down memory lane and recapture the mood on October 11, 2002, let's reflect on this excerpt from the ABC Note, as they comment on the passage of the war resolution:

None of the Democrats likely to run for president in 2004 voted against the resolution, and only one Senate Democrat locked in a tough race this fall, Paul Wellstone, voted no. Meaning that last night's vote isn't likely to endure as a political issue anywhere outside of Minnesota — where we're not sure Wellstone's "no" vote is going to make him any more vulnerable than he already was.

Uncanny in their insight.

And my point is what? Bush did what he believed in, Democrats chose to vote expediently rather than lead, and here we are. Three years later Bush is still doing what he believes in, and Democrats are still looking to evade the Iraq issue.

If I were going to engage in pointless recriminations, I would shift the focus from the non-existence of WMDs, and investigate the pre-war assessments of a post-war Iraq - was this sort of insurgency predicted and ignored, did our intelligence agencies miss this as well, or (say it with me, Dems) did Bush Lie?

Oddly, a year ago those questions were meant to be a key part of the Senate Phase Two investigation into pre-war intelligence, if I can believe USA Today:

Panel to probe CIA failure to predict extent of insurgency
By John Diamond, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — As it prepares to release a report highly critical of the CIA for overestimating the prewar Iraq threat, the Senate Intelligence Committee is beginning a new probe, this time into why U.S. spy agencies failed to foresee the strength of the postwar insurgency there.

Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., called the new investigation "phase two" of the committee's probe of the U.S. intelligence community's performance. "We're going to look into the prewar intelligence on postwar Iraq," Roberts said in an interview. Recalling classified intelligence briefings CIA officials gave the committee before the Iraq war, Roberts said the resistance to the U.S.-led occupation "was underestimated as to the perseverance of foreign terrorist involvement, Iraqi Republican Guard and Baath Party elements and on down the list."

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., a member of the Intelligence Committee, said, "At the time of the invasion, we were given nothing but rosy scenarios" about the postwar period. The optimistic predictions came not only from invasion advocates within the administration such as Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, but also from career intelligence professionals who are expected to give unbiased assessments, regardless of the policy implications.

U.S. intelligence was alarmist about Iraq's weaponry before the war. One key prewar report even raised the possibility that U.S. territory might be threatened with attack. In contrast, intelligence agencies were optimistic about a peaceful postwar occupation. But the two intelligence assessments had one thing in common: They served to help the Bush administration make the case for war.

Durbin said CIA officials and their Pentagon counterparts predicted that Saddam's forces would defect en masse as U.S.-led forces approached Baghdad and that the populace would greet the coalition forces as liberators.

"They were just wrong," Durbin said. "I came walking out of some of those meetings shaking my head and thinking, How can it be this easy?"

Today, however, the announced Phase Two accord seems to focus on the Administration use of the pre-war intelligence, although I see this from from Murray Waas:

"Sen. Roberts' spokeswoman, Sarah Little, said the second phase of the committee's investigation would also examine how pre-war intelligence focused on the fact that intelligence analysts -- while sounding alarms that a humanitarian crisis that might follow the war - failed to predict the insurgency that would arise after the war."

It may be harder for Dems to unite around the notion that the CIA and Defense Dept. misunderestimated the insurgency. But I'd like to find out.

Posted by Tom Maguire on November 12, 2005

 

[Annie]

Links, natch.

http://rfraley301.blogspot.com/2005/11/whose-water-is-nyt-carrying.html

Saturday, November 12, 2005

Whose Water is the NYT Carrying
Let's take a brief look at how NYT reporter Richard Stevenson spins the brilliant speech the President delivered yesterday:

Mr. Bush's comments, using language far more direct and provocative than in his previous efforts to parry the criticism, brought an angry response from Democratic leaders in Congress, who said questions about his use of prewar intelligence were entirely legitimate and proper.

It's the President who's provocative, not the Democrats as they've gone hoarse accusing the administration of manipulating intelligence - lying - to involve the country in an unjustified war of aggression.

Before the war, the administration portrayed Iraq as armed with weapons that made it a threat to the Middle East and the United States. No biological or chemical weapons were found in Iraq after the American attack, and Mr. Hussein's nuclear program appears to have been rudimentary and all but dormant.​

Stevenson neglects to mention that all of the Democratic congressional leadership, the Clinton Administration's Iraq and WMD experts, the entire national intelligence community, the UN, and every other intelligence agency in the world was convinced that Saddam had WMD. Stevenson also misstates the findings of the Duelfer report concerning what was found in Iraq after the war. If Stevenson had any interest in summarizing the case accurately he might have written: "Before the war, the administration, the intelligence community, foreign leaders, UN weapons inspectors, and key Democrats believed that Iraq was armed with weapons that made it a threat to the Middle East and the United States. While no stockpiles of biological or chemical weapons were found in Iraq after the coalition attack, expert believe that Mr. Hussein never abandoned his intentions to resume his chemical and biological weapons programs when he judged conditions were favorable, retained technical know-how in these areas, and could have manufactured some of these weapons in a matter of weeks or months. Iraq's nuclear program was found to be dormant though Mr. Hussein remained interested in reconstituting this program after UN sanctions were lifted." A bit longer, yes, but taken almost verbatim from the Duelfer report, and infinitely fairer and more accurate than Stevenson's version.

Stevenson limply adds:

Two official inquiries - by the Senate Intelligence Committee and by a presidential commission - blamed intelligence agencies for inflating the threat posed by Iraq's weapons programs, but stopped short of ascribing the problems to political pressures.
​

How about: "Two official bipartisan inquiries - by the Senate Intelligence Committee and by a presidential commission - blamed intelligence agencies for inflating the threat posed by Iraq's weapons programs, but did not find any evidence that administration officials attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to change their judgments related to Iraq's WMD capabilities." That's straight from the Intelligence Committee's 521-page report.

Then to Al Qaeda:

But the Senate review described repeated, unsuccessful efforts by the White House and its allies in the Pentagon to persuade the Central Intelligence Agency to embrace the view that Iraq had provided support to Al Qaeda. According to former administration officials, in early 2003, George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, and Colin L. Powell, then the secretary of state, rejected elements of a speech drafted by aides to Vice President Dick Cheney that was intended to present the administration's case for war, calling them exaggerated and unsubstantiated by intelligence.
​

Add this sentence: "The Senate review also found that the Central Intelligence Agency reasonably concluded that there was a history of contacts and possible cooperation between Al Qaeda and Iraq, and that reports the Agency collected describing training in the use of chemical and biological weapons Al Qaeda operatives had received in Iraq were substantiated by intelligence. In addition, the Senate review rejected the accusation that the Agency's analytical judgments concerning the relationship between Al Qaeda and Iraq were affected by political pressure and found the information provided by the for the terrorism portion of Secretary Powell's speech was carefully vetted by intelligence analysts and consistent with earlier assessments published by the Agency. " If you're going to mention the Senate report, Richard, please don't, er, cherry pick.

Then its back to Bush-the aggressor theme:

In responding so strongly to the criticism, the White House seems to be throwing fuel on a political fire that it may not be able to control.​

This is how its going to be played in the NYT and its kindred spirits until November 2008.

Get used to it.

# posted by Diomedes @ 9:09 AM

 

[007]

I hope this is a new dawning for the Republican party. A dawning to the day when they don't take all the lies and bull shit the democraps dish out without an all out attack of their own.

This one sided liberal MSM war against President Bush has been going on FAR TOO LONG without a response. The President has the bully pulpit, why he hasn't used it to his advantage, I don't know. I hope someone has stuck a cattle prod up his ass. He NEEDS to start fighting back. The REPUBLICAN PARTY NEEDS to start fighting back!

I've waited for this day. Now lets see how long it lasts.

 

[Annie]

I hope this is a new dawning for the Republican party. A dawning to the day when they don't take all the lies and bull shit the democraps dish out without an all out attack of their own.

This one sided liberal MSM war against President Bush has been going on FAR TOO LONG without a response. The President has the bully pulpit, why he hasn't used it to his advantage, I don't know. I hope someone has stuck a cattle prod up his ass. He NEEDS to start fighting back. The REPUBLICAN PARTY NEEDS to start fighting back!

I've waited for this day. Now lets see how long it lasts.

Me too! Did you check out the www.whitehouse.gov site? Most political I've ever seen, going after Teddy with both barrels!

 

[Annie]

Me too! Did you check out the www.whitehouse.gov site? Most political I've ever seen, going after Teddy with both barrels!

Today they are going after Washington Post! :shocked:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/11/20051113.html

For Immediate Release
November 13, 2005

Setting the Record Straight: The Washington Post On Pre-War Intelligence

The Washington Post Implies That The Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) Was Superior To The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) Given To Congress. "But Bush does not share his most sensitive intelligence, such as the President's Daily Brief, with lawmakers. Also, the National Intelligence Estimate summarizing the intelligence community's views about the threat from Iraq was given to Congress just days before the vote to authorize the use of force in that country." (Dana Milbank And Walter Pincus, "Asterisks Dot White House's Iraq Argument," The Washington Post, 11/12/05)

But The PDB Was The Focus Of Intelligence Reform And Was More "Problematic" Than The NIE Given To Congress.

* The Robb-Silberman Commission Found The PDB To Contain Similar Intelligence In "More Alarmist" And "Less Nuanced" Language. "As problematic as the October 2002 NIE was, it was not the Community's biggest analytic failure on Iraq. Even more misleading was the river of intelligence that flowed from the CIA to top policymakers over long periods of time--in the President's Daily Brief (PDB) and in its more widely distributed companion, the Senior Executive Intelligence Brief (SEIB). These daily reports were, if anything, more alarmist and less nuanced than the NIE." (Charles S. Robb And Laurence H. Silberman, The Commission On The Intelligence Capabilities Of The United States Regarding Weapons Of Mass Destruction, 3/31/05, Pg. 14)

* The Robb-Silberman Commission Reported That The Intelligence In The PDB Was Not "Markedly Different" Than The Intelligence Given To Congress In The NIE. "It was not that the intelligence was markedly different. Rather, it was that the PDBs and SEIBs, with their attention-grabbing headlines and drumbeat of repetition, left an impression of many corroborating reports where in fact there were very few sources. And in other instances, intelligence suggesting the existence of weapons programs was conveyed to senior policymakers, but later information casting doubt upon the validity of that intelligence was not." (Charles S. Robb And Laurence H. Silberman, The Commission On The Intelligence Capabilities Of The United States Regarding Weapons Of Mass Destruction, 3/31/05, Pg. 14)

The Washington Post Implies That There Have Been No Findings On The Use Of Intelligence. "But the only committee investigating the matter in Congress, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has not yet done its inquiry into whether officials mischaracterized intelligence by omitting caveats and dissenting opinions. And Judge Laurence H. Silberman, chairman of Bush's commission on weapons of mass destruction, said in releasing his report on March 31, 2005: 'Our executive order did not direct us to deal with the use of intelligence by policymakers, and all of us were agreed that that was not part of our inquiry.'" (Dana Milbank And Walter Pincus, "Asterisks Dot White House's Iraq Argument," The Washington Post, 11/12/05)

But Congressional And Independent Committees Have Repeatedly Reported No Distortion Of Intelligence

* The Bipartisan Senate Select Committee On Intelligence Report "Did Not Find Any Evidence" Of Attempts To Influence Analysts To Change Intelligence. "Conclusion 83. The Committee did not find any evidence that Administration officials attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to change their judgments related to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities. Conclusion 84. The Committee found no evidence that the Vice President's visits to the Central Intelligence Agency were attempts to pressure analysts, were perceived as intended to pressure analysts by those who participated in the briefings on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs, or did pressure analysts to change their assessments." ("Report On The U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments On Iraq," U.S. Senate Select Committee On Intelligence, 7/7/04, Pg. 284-285)

* The Robb-Silberman Commission Finds "No Evidence Of Political Pressure." "These are errors serious errors. But these errors stem from poor tradecraft and poor management. The Commission found no evidence of political pressure to influence the Intelligence Community's pre-war assessments of Iraq's weapons programs. As we discuss in detail in the body of our report, analysts universally asserted that in no instance did political pressure cause them to skew or alter any of their analytical judgments. We conclude that it was the paucity of intelligence and poor analytical tradecraft, rather than political pressure, that produced the inaccurate pre-war intelligence assessments." (Charles S. Robb And Laurence H. Silberman, The Commission On The Intelligence Capabilities Of The United States Regarding Weapons Of Mass Destruction, 3/31/05, Pg. 50-51)

* The British Butler Report Finds "No Evidence" Of Intelligence Distortion. "In general, we found that the original intelligence material was correctly reported in [Joint Intelligence Committee] assessments. An exception was the '45 minute' report. But this sort of example was rare in the several hundred JIC assessments we read on Iraq. In general, we also found that the reliability of the original intelligence reports was fairly represented by the use of accompanying quali cations. We should record in particular that we have found no evidence of deliberate distortion or of culpable negligence. We examined JIC assessments to see whether there was evidence that the judgements inside them were systematically distorted by non-intelligence factors, in particular the in uence of the policy positions of departments. We found no evidence of JIC assessments and the judgements inside them being pulled in any particular direction to meet the policy concerns of senior of cials on the JIC." ("Review Of Intelligence On Weapons Of Mass Destruction," Report Of A Committee Of Privy Counsellors, 7/14/04, Pg. 110)

# # #

 

[Annie]

Better late than never!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/bush_asi...7Cdn6es0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--

Bush Takes Fresh Shots at Iraq War Critics

By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent 32 minutes ago

President Bush escalated the bitter debate over the Iraq war on Monday, hurling back at Democratic critics the worries they once expressed that Saddam Hussein was a grave threat to the world.

"They spoke the truth then and they're speaking politics now," Bush charged.

Bush went on the attack after Democrats accused the president of manipulating and withholding some pre-war intelligence and misleading Americans about the rationale for war.

"Some Democrats who voted to authorize the use of force are now rewriting the past," Bush said. "They're playing politics with this issue and they are sending mixed signals to our troops and the enemy. That is irresponsible."

The president spoke to cheering troops at this military base at a refueling stop for Air Force One on the first leg of an eight-day journey to Japan, South Korea, China and Mongolia.

During the stopover, he also met privately with families of four slain service members.

After a Latin American trip with meager results earlier this month, the administration kept expectations low for Asia.

"I don't think you're going to see headline breakthroughs," National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said on Air Force One. He dashed any prospect that Japan would lift its ban on American beef imports during Bush's visit and said a dispute with China over trade and currency would remain an issue after the president returns home.

On Sunday, Hadley acknowledged "we were wrong" about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, but he insisted in a CNN interview that the president did not manipulate intelligence or mislead the American people.

Iraq and a host of other problems, from the bungled response to Hurricane Katrina to the indictment of a senior White House official in the CIA leak investigation, have taken a heavy toll on the president. Nearing the end of his fifth year in office, Bush has the lowest approval rating of his presidency and a majority of Americans say Bush is not honest and they disapprove of his handling of foreign policy and the war on terrorism. Heading for Asia, Bush hoped to improve his standing on the world stage.

"Reasonable people can disagree about the conduct of the war but it is irresponsible for Democrats to now claim that we misled them and the American people," Bush said.

He quoted pre-war remarks by three senior Democrats as evidence of that Democrats had shared the administration's fears that were the rationale for invading Iraq in 2003. Bush did not name them, but White House counselor Dan Bartlett filled in the blanks.

_"There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons." — Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va.

_"The war against terrorism will not be finished as long as (Saddam Hussein) is in power." — Sen. Carl Levin (news, bio, voting record), D-Mich.

_"Saddam Hussein, in effect, has thumbed his nose at the world community. And I think that the president's approaching this in the right fashion." — Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., then the Democratic whip.

"The truth is that investigations of the intelligence on Iraq have concluded that only one person manipulated evidence and misled the world — and that person was Saddam Hussein," Bush charged.

In the Senate, 29 Democrats voted with 48 Republicans for the war authorization measure in late 2002, including 2004 Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, and his running mate, John Edwards of North Carolina. Both have recently been harshly critical of Bush's conduct of the war and its aftermath.

On Capitol Hill, top Democrats stood their ground in claiming Bush misled Congress and the country. "The war in Iraq was and remains one of the great acts of misleading and deception in American history," Kerry told a news conference.

Bush is expected to get a warmer welcome in Asia than he did earlier this month in Argentina at the Summit of the Americas, where Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez led a protest against U.S. policies and Bush failed to gain support from the 34 nations attending for a hemisphere-wide free trade zone.

Japan, the first stop on Bush's trip, and Mongolia, the last, are likely to give him the most enthusiastic response, while China and South Korea probably will be cooler but respectful.

In South Korea, Bush also will attend the Asia Pacific Economic Conference summit in Busan, where 21 member states are expected to agree to support global free-trade talks. The summit also is expected to agree to put early-warning and information-sharing systems in place in case of bird flu outbreaks.

"It is good for the president to show up in Asia and say, `We care about Asia,' because that is in doubt in the region," said Ed Lincoln, senior fellow in Asia and Economic Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

At Bush's first stop, in Kyoto, Japan, the president will deliver what aides bill as the speech of the trip on the power of democracy, not only to better individual lives but contribute to the long-term prosperity of nations.

 

[Annie]

Bush is in for a long haul here, I hope he can keep it up for the forseeable future. Why did they wait so long? Links at site:

http://powerlineblog.com/archives/012268.php

November 14, 2005
Bush Lays the Wood to Terrorists, Democrats

President Bush gave another great speech at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska today. You can read it all here, and really should. It reiterates the points he has hammered away at for a long time, laying out, once again, his strategy for victory in the war against Islamic terrorists.

What strikes me about this speech is that he has ratcheted up the rhetoric against both of his chief enemies, al Qaeda and the Democratic Party. About the terrorists, he said this:

[A] clear strategy begins with a clear understanding of the enemy we face. For more than four years, we've seen the brutal nature of the terrorists. They've targeted the innocent in many countries, people from all walks of life. In Casablanca, they killed diners enjoying their evening meal. In Bali, they killed tourists who were on a holiday. In Beslan, they killed Russian school children. They've murdered workers in Riyadh, commuters in Madrid, and hotel guests in Jakarta, and guests at a wedding celebration in Amman, Jordan. They kill Iraqi children in Baghdad.

Translation, for our liberal friends: terrorism didn't start with the invasion of Iraq. Bush continues:

The tactics of al Qaeda and other Islamic extremists have been consistent for a quarter century: They hit us, and they expect us to run. The terrorists witnessed our response after the attacks on American troops in Beirut in 1983, and in Mogadishu in 1993, and they concluded that America can be made to run again -- only this time on a larger scale, with greater consequences. The terrorists are mistaken. America will never run. We will stand, we will fight, and we will win the war on terror. (Applause.) ***

In Afghanistan, we put the terrorists on the run, we routed them, and now they've set their sights on another country. They're trying to turn Iraq into what Afghanistan was under the Taliban -- a terrorist sanctuary from which they can plan and launch attacks against our people. The terrorists regard Iraq as the central front in their war against humanity. And we must recognize Iraq as the central front in the war on terror.

These militants believe that controlling one country will rally the Muslim masses, enabling them to overthrow moderate governments in the region, and establish a radical Islamic empire that reaches from Indonesia to Spain. If they are not stopped, the terrorists will be able to advance their agenda to develop weapons of mass destruction, to destroy Israel, to intimidate Europe, to break our will and blackmail our government into isolation. I make you this solemn commitment: That's not going to happen so long as I'm the President of the United States. (Applause.)

Which brings us to the alternative: the Democrats. Here's what the President had to say about them:

Reasonable people can disagree about the conduct of the war, but it is irresponsible for Democrats to now claim that we misled them and the American people. Leaders in my administration and members of the United States Congress from both political parties looked at the same intelligence on Iraq, and reached the same conclusion: Saddam Hussein was a threat.

Let me give you some quotes from three senior Democrat leaders: First, and I quote, "There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons." Another senior Democrat leader said, "The war against terrorism will not be finished as long as Saddam Hussein is in power." Here's another quote from a senior Democrat leader: "Saddam Hussein, in effect, has thumbed his nose at the world community. And I think the President is approaching this in the right fashion."

They spoke the truth then, and they're speaking politics now. (Applause.)

The truth is that investigations of intelligence on Iraq have concluded that only one person manipulated evidence and misled the world -- and that person was Saddam Hussein. ***

Some of our elected leaders have opposed this war all along. I disagreed with them, but I respect their willingness to take a consistent stand. Yet some Democrats who voted to authorize the use of force are now rewriting the past. They are playing politics with this issue and they are sending mixed signals to our troops and the enemy. And that's irresponsible.

As our troops fight a ruthless enemy determined to destroy our way of life, they deserve to know that their elected leaders who voted to send them into war continue to stand behind them. (Applause.) Our troops deserve to know that this support will remain firm when the going gets tough. (Applause.) And our troops deserve to know that whatever our differences in Washington, our will is strong, our nation is united, and we will settle for nothing less than victory. (Applause.)

Bush needs to keep giving this kind of speech every couple of days for the foreseeable future. There is a limit to the MSM's ability to censor his message by not reporting his speeches, as they have so often done throughout his Presidency. Sooner or later, if he keeps pounding away, the message will get through. And it is a powerful message indeed.
Posted by John at 10:24 PM