Josh Marshall (TPM) on why we need an Iraq WMD investigation

There’s just so much to say about this new bubbling-up of the WMD controversy. And I plan to say a lot of it. But, for the moment, let’s see if there’s any way to get the media and various other members of the capital's elect to avoid another round of self-administered bamboozlement.

For months we have known with increasing degrees of certainty that there were, contrary to expectations, no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Yet the fact that David Kay has now stated this baldly has suddenly put this reality at the center of the national debate in a way it wasn’t only a couple weeks ago.

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We know that after 9/11 there were intense battles pitting the Intelligence Community against political appointees in the administration and that those battles were over almost every aspect of the Iraqi threat: nuclear weapons capacity, ties to terrorism, whether Saddam would use his arsenal against the United States, degrees of certainty about the state of Saddam’s chemical and biological programs, everything.

To the best of my knowledge there is not one single instance we know of in which any portion of the Intelligence Community pressed for a more ominous view of the threat in the face of skepticism from the political appointees at DOD, the Office of the Vice President, the White House or anywhere else in the administration. Not one.

We know of many points of controversy. And, to the best of my knowledge, every last one involved administration politicals pressing for more extreme and ominous interpretations of the Iraqi threat against skeptical members of the Intelligence Community. Every last one.

more...

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_01_25.html#002507

He cuts through the lies and spin and gets right to the heart of the matter with facts and logic.

especially about the illogic of Kay's "they owe the president an apology" red herring.

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... we know that there were numerous cases in which people in the Intelligence Community tried to stop the White House from making various hyperbolic or unsubstantiated claims, precisely because they were not supported by the Intelligence Community's consensus estimates.

What we have here is a serious intelligence failure, but one that in itself would almost certainly not have led to war, at least not on the grounds of there being an imminent threat to the United States. Recognizing that it was an insufficient casus belli the White House then hyped it up with all manner of unsubstantiated mumbo-jumbo.

And for this the Intelligence Community owes the president an apology?

snip>

As I recall, he fully supported this illegal war prior to the lies being exposed. Yes, he had reservations about the neocon cabal doing it and what their strategy might be. But what about quotes like this:

"Again and again, for more than two decades, the neocon hawks have called it right."

Or this? "Whatever the date, some kind of war seems increasingly certain--and probably wise, for the hawks have a much better argument for attacking Iraq than many people imagine."

Or "Getting rid of Saddam really is necessary."


Give me a break. He is a New Republican through and through.

I was dismayed that he fell for the WMD BS in the run-up to the war, but he was not the only one on the left that did so. Thus calling him a new republican is probably a little harsh.

it was supposed to be a cakewalk, we'd be swimming in oil, Iraq would be free and her people all would be hailing King George. I hear the White House is supposedly "considering an intelligence investigation." LOL, I bet they are SHITTING BRICKS.