You can listen to an NPR interview with Powell’s former chief-of-staff Larry Wilkerson:
Wilkerson paraphrased the directions given to U.S. soldiers: “We’re not getting enough good intelligence and you need to get that evidence, and, oh, by the way, here’s some ways you probably can get it. And even some of the ways that they detailed were not in accordance with the spirit of the Geneva Conventions and the law of war.”
The poll was conducted by Zogby International, the highly-regarded non-partisan polling company. The poll interviewed 1,200 U.S. adults from October 29 through November 2.
The poll found that 53% agreed with the statement:
“If President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should consider holding him accountable through impeachment.”
42% disagreed, and 5% said they didn’t know or declined to answer. The poll has a +/- 2.9% margin of error.
Good god, Boo.
That’s a hell of an interview. New I must go watch/listen to Wilkerson’s speech that C-SPAN has the video for.
And what’s going on with Tenet? (After you listen, you’ll know why I ask Boo.) You told me on the phone recently that you don’t think Tenet did something that he was alleged to have done … all this information mixed in, it sounds like Tenet has volumes of memories that would put the leaders of the administration in prison for a long time, and in The Hague. Do you think he’ll write a book? Do you think he’s waiting for the right moment to testify? What?
“Now” seems like the right moment to testify to me.
first, in April or so 2002, Tenet was informed that we were going to Baghdad. Then an internal debate erupted over what our justification would be and whether we should go to the UN. Powell wanted to go to the UN, but the only argument we could use was related to non-compliance with existing UN resolutions. In other words, we had to say he was building WMD in defiance of the UN.
There was some legitimate fear that this was true, at least on the bio and chemical end of it. But there was no solid intelligence. Fortunately, Clinton had hyped the threat of WMD too, in order to maintain support for the sanctions. So, they could point to old intelligence estimates and claim ‘everyone’ agreed that Saddam was rebuilding his WMD.
When the decision was made to go to the UN over the issue of inspections and WMD, Cheney was pissed off because he knew it was a no-win situation. Either we found WMD and dismantled it, or we didn’t find it and lost our justification for war.
Nevertheless, he set about finding the intelligence we needed to scare the crap out of people. Unfortunately, Tenet was not very helpful in that regard, as he most decidely could NOT come up with a slam-dunk case (Woodward made that shit up).
That is what Judy Miller was for, and Chalabi, and Ledeen, and Bolton, etc.
It was a fraud.
Cheney responsible for torture.
Cheney responsible for blocking Senate investigation into faulty pre-war intelligence.
Cheney responsible for faulty pre-war intelligence.
Something tells me they aren’t setting Cheney up for a run in 2008…
It’s probably covered ad nauseum here already, but why did Tenet accept a medal and agree to be a fall-guy? What do THEY have on him?
I posted a diary this morning on Cheney’s involvement with torture according to Wilkerson. I’m glad you posted this, I think it’s explosive. Either Bush ordered it, or went along with it, I don’t know what is worse.
I saw that Zogby poll… amazing. I think this is just the beginning. Wait until you throw sky high home heating oil/natural gas prices into the mix. It will also become clearer as time goes by that Bush did indeed lie (repeatedly), with Cheney’s fake intel, before the war. Now Cheney comes out as the Father of American Torture.
By spring, it won’t just be a polite 53% that are in favor of impeachment, America will be screaming for Bush’s head.
Who are those absolutely clueless people in that 42% that think Bush shouldn’t be impeached? They shouldn’t even be allowed to have telephones to answer the Zogby pollsters who call them.
if more people knew about the torture being done in our name? Most of the people I talk to are shocked when I even mention it.
Polls are notoriously fickle and even downright rigged.
A recent CBS poll showed wild biases in favor of getting anti-Bush response.
It still astounds me that people are fixated on nailing their own to the cross when there is an actual war in progress with troops risking life and limb daily.
You know, if Bush is replaced by a Democrat, the chances are he or she will have to take military action that will make Clinton’s air attack on Yugoslavia pale by comparison. Even if those attacks are pre-emptive and/or unilateral without UN say so (as was the case with Clinton’s attack), I guarantee you that liberals won’t attempt to demonize that leader.
I fault Bush on quite a few things also, I have grown disillusioned with this administration over the past year. But this remorseless assault on his leadership is all about partisan politics and at a time when the U.S. is at war I think it does nobody any credit.
However, I have long since become convinced that this administration must be removed from office. I don’t expect them to be replaced by a Democrat, and all the obvious congressional replacements are either under indictment, or investigation, or are rumored to take bribes from Turkish heroin/arms smugglers with links to al-Qaeda.
But we are not going to win this war in Iraq, or get a decent outcome unless and until a new administration comes into office that is not tainted with fabricating evidence, torturing and killing detainees, and illegally invading a sovereign nation under false pretenses, hoarding the contracts, and calling our erstwhile allies nasty names.
They have to go. Impeachment is necessary. And it will be good for the war effort.
Well AIden, sounds as if you believe the lies and the manipulation by this corrupt administration. Let me ask you this. Do you support this preemptive war and why? Why do you believe we needed to invade and occupy Iraq? If you have answered yes, let me point you in the direction of the nearest recruiting office. I hear that with all the maimed and dead they are running a little low on recruits.
“But this remorseless assault on his leadership is all about partisan politics and at a time when the U.S. is at war I think it does nobody any credit.”
I would put a question to you but it seems you have disappeared after making your driveby comment but I will give it a shot anyway.
I would say it is more like Bush’s remrseless assault on Iraq that is the question. His assualt on Iraq however wasn’t for partisan politicing, it was for profit, plain and simple. Tell the families of all the dead and hopelessly wounded and scarred for life vets that wanting this war to stop does nobody credit.
This is important and explosive.
Bush better hurry up and give Dick a Medal of Freedom before things get really ugly. ;~)
I think Addington is a revealing link, here, but even a Fitz probably couldn’t get access to those papers.
Whaddya tink?
Together, they teach a few good lessons, seems to me.
–Lies, at least lies with real consequences, do eventually catch up with the liar, with unpredictable results.
–This polling question had to be bought by contributions from ordinary Americans. No “mainstream” or semi-independent outlet has ever asked the question. They would no doubt defend that decision by claiming it is “too out of the mainstream”, too partisan, etc etc. And yet when the question is asked, a large majority opt for impeachment. So much for “liberal bias’ in the MSM, for once and for all.
–I suspect Americans have been waiting to be asked a real question like this for a long time. Not everybody is yet totally numbed out by the tasteless odorless garbage that passes for media culture.
–When our side resorts to lies, even with good intentions, it will come back at us and used to justify much worse lies with bad intentions. Case in point: the Clinton/CIA/NSC weapons of mass destruction propaganda.
–Most of all, you can’t turn evil intent and malevolent beginnings into something good. Given the way the Iraq invasion and occupation was launched and marketed, the torture, lawlessness, escalating lies, and official indifference to Iragis and American troops alike were as inevitable as wet grass after a rain.
It will take more than a Dem Congress and a Dem presidency to begin to restore America’s honor and dignity. It will take some deep thought and a commitment to work for the good and the real, even when expediency and pleasant fantasy is easier to sell and more profitable to one’s cronies.
I think it should be legal to torture Dick Cheney, Scooter Libby, and Karl Rove, until they tell us everything they know.
I mean, because people are guilty until proven innocent. That’s the whole rationale behind torture.
So let’s start yanking Cheney’s toenails out until he confesses to his crimes. He must have done something.
I don’t deny the White House has a credibility problem, I for one though have no wish to see this administration trashed and American troops withdrawn from Iraq leaving Al Qaeda, as represented by Musab al Zarqawi, to claim the victory. Yet another military failure to notch on the American belt. I think a retreat under those conditions would be disastrous.
I’m actually Canadian, not a card-carrying Republican. Do I think Bush should be “worshiped”? Please! Give me a break. WMD evidence was exaggerated and Wolfowitz admitted as much when he referred to it being given top administrative priority. The events in Abhu Ghraib were a disgrace and need to be thoroughly investigated. I am very far from being a blinkered red state worshiper of Bush.
However I do take a different view from those who make the faults of this administration the number one priority.
It is my belief that the Middle East must undergo a radical transformation. Many of the governments in the region are quasi-dictatorial and theocratic. A number of them serve as sanctuaries for terrorists. Despite the entrenched nature of these governments, there are many burgeoning democratic reform movements in the region and the Iraq invasion was one factor in triggering positive regional changes. We have seen Moammar Ghadaffi disarm; Syria withdraw its troops from Lebanon; democratic movements for change in countries such as Egypt and Lebanon; free elections in Saudi Arabia and other evidences of movement.
Recently Christopher Hitchens was in Iran and visited the holy city of Qom where he met with the son of the late Ayatollah Khomenei, one Hossain Khomenei – a Shi’ite cleric in his own right. With remarkable candor this man told Hitchens that “only the free world led by America can bring democracy to Iran.”(Vanity Fair). A remarkable statement, coming as it does from the son of the man who founded the Islamic Republic.
Only a few days ago we witnessed Ahmadi-Nejad of Iran calling for the destruction of the state of Israel. When you have a leader who openly voices genocidal intentions toward a neighbor and is in the process of acquiring nuclear weapons, I think there is very good reason for the allies in the region to sit up and take notice. This isn’t the time to be weakening the moral of the troops and the validity of their mission to help establish democracy in Iraq simply because Bush and Cheney need to have their feet held to the fire. To my way of thinking this is counter productive.
In any case I’m not convinced that punishing Bush would make any difference to the attitudes held by those who regard America as the enemy. The notion that they would view this as a noble gesture and that it would somehow renew American prestige internationally is highly doubtful. In fact I think they would see it as yet more evidence that America buckles under pressure, turns on its own administration and runs.
you need to spend more time here and less time listening to the right-wing wurlitzer.
First, let’s look at Libya. Qaddafi wanted to get American oil companies back into his country to help develop oil fields. The Bush administration wanted that too. In fact, Cheney lobbied hard to lift the sanctions on Iran when he was running Halliburton, and then set up off-shore shell companies to get around those sanctions. Libya gave up a basically non-existent WMD program in order to give us the excuse we needed to develop his oil fields. And you bought their spin that Moamar was scared of the shock and awe.
Second, Zarqawi is a real person who lived in Jordan at some point. Beyond that, there is no evidence that he is in Iraq beyond the endless pronouncements of our government, and a few phony tapes that have a man with a non-Jordanian accent claiming he is Zarqawi, and showing no evidence of a prosthetic device. We have now killed or captured about 8 of Zarqawi’s number twos and about 5 of al-Qaeda’s number threes. And you have fallen for their spin, personifying the insurgency and blaming the violence on jihdists and foreigners.
Third, our war in Iraq has done more to empower Iran’s theocratic thugocracy and to kill their reform movement, than it has to bring peace and prosperity to Iraq. It has further destabilized the House of Saud, which might be a mixed blessing, but certainly wasn’t our intent.
Getting Syria to back out of Lebanon was a real accomplishment and by-product of this war, but it remains to be seen how that will go.
As for the region being a haven for terrorists, we have badly damaged our relationships with Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia (our traditional regional allies) without doing anything worth noting to bring democracy to those countries (Turkey obviously excepted). The most avid revolutionaries in those countries are jihadist and anti-American, making it doubtful that we would benefit from a democratic revolution in the region. Frankly, the ‘terrorists’ would win the elections.
I could go on, but the kool-aid is too strong.
Hi BooMan, I’m pushed for time here so I’ll keep it short.
I’m highly skeptical of the rhetoric that comes from “right wing wurlitzer” sources – probably as suspicious of that hype as you are. The opinions I outlined have come from a diverse range of sources. I will grant your comments on Qadhafi (I’ve seen about 10 variants on the spelling of this name). The guy is nothing if not machiavellian and I’m not as well informed on Libya as you appear to be.
Fiesty site you have … certainly forces me to defend my postions!
Enjoy the Kool-Aid!
I hadn’t time to add to my response last time, so here are are a few additional thoughts, then I’m off the thread.
While I don’t think this is the time for partisan politics and pulling the rug out from under the administration, I do think there were major errors made in this campaign.
What concerns me most is that this Iraq “theater of the absurd” is increasingly less about the truth of what is actually going on there, than the need to score political points at home.
I supported the war and Bush, but I didn’t understand the level of incompetence and sheer idiocy that would lead to the snake pit that is present day Iraq.
Any honest Republican has to admit that the propaganda and drum beating about so-called political progress in Iraq in no way, shape or form addresses the reality on the ground. Critical mistakes were made that cut the legs out from under a sustainable victory. Stupid mistakes. This is the tragedy of this campaign and it’s not being addressed head on by the majority of Conservatives because they are not ready as yet to face the hard truth behind all of the rhetoric about elections successes etc.
When the Americans swept to victory in Iraq, they immediately made a couple of critical errors that set the scene for the present insurgency. They swept away the structure of Ba’athist control, and disbanded the Iraq army – who were allowed to stroll away gun-in-hand. There was no way in hell the Americans were ever able to fill the void – maybe vortex is a better word – that opened up when they took that decision.
They then proceeded to compound idiocy with triumphalism by fashioning a deck of cards that featured the pictures and names of the Sunni leadership. This type of grandstanding was simply throwing fuel on the gathering flames. The Sunni are the traditional rulers of the country, they held the levers of power – not ALL of them were equally venal and blood stained. Instead of alienating an entire people who held the trump card for long term success, the Americans proceeded to demonize and alienate them with bone headed strategies.
Let’s not forget, the Sunni are “progressive” Muslims compared to the Shia who have just been empowered in Iraq in the rotund person of al Jaafri. The Sunni were not in bed with Iran. The Sunni moreover had a concept of a secular society and women had a degree of freedom not accorded to Shia women. The Sunni were America’s natural allies, despite all of Saddam’s sins, and the Americans should have carefully removed the weeds from the garden, while retaining the garden intact – not set a gasoline fire that looks increasingly as though it may consume them also.
I think this Federalist model concocted for the country is also part of this wrong headed thinking. It has empowered a man who is feted like a superstar when he hits the tarmac in Tehran. Iran is the country who is smuggling incendiary material into Iraq like there is no tomorrow. If anyone can’t see a diabolical web of influence here then they are blind. The Americans have literally created a democratic entity that in en-route to becoming Iran 2 – and that scenario is a lot scarier (especially for Israel) than an Iraq with Zarqawi and Saddam loyalists perched on a charred throne. Al Qaeda is not a national entity – it’s a movement. The threat posed by an implacable enemy like Iran and it’s current psychotic-in-chief, Ahmadi-Nejad, is a much greater threat in the region and clearly Ahamdi-Nejad believes the Americans are on the ropes. There is no way he would have ascended his soap box and barked for the destruction of Israel if the U.S. was in a position to make life difficult for him.
This is an appalling mess. No amount of spin working like the windmills of Hades will ever succeed in “dressing up” what has become a very ugly and intractable reality.
None of the above however is reason enough to undermine the administration or to cut and run.
As for the “Bush lied” accusation – nothing could be more hypocritical and ironical coming from the mouths of Democrats who voted for the war and characterized Saddam as a clear and present danger. There is absolutely no proof that Bush blatently lied. Did some in the administration embellish faulty intelligence info? Maybe. But that’s still is far cry from outright lying.
We need more left to right dialogue. The impasse that has existed isn’t good for any of us.