[A-List] Fw: Bomb and Switch

["Christopher Black" <bar@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "D. Dostanic" <kdnlist@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <decani@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, June 04, 2003 3:21 PM
Subject: NYT: Bomb and Switch


> http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/04/opinion/04DOWD.html
>
> THE NEW YORK TIMES, Wednesday, June 4, 2003 OP-ED
>
> Bomb and Switch
>
> By MAUREEN DOWD
>
> WASHINGTON
>
> Before 9/11, the administration had too little intelligence on Al Qaeda,
> badly coordinated by clashing officials.
>
> Before the Iraq invasion, the administration had too much intelligence on
> Saddam, torqued up by conspiring officials.
>
> As Secretary of State Colin Powell prepared to make his case for invading
> Iraq to the U.N. on Feb. 5, a friend of his told me, he had to throw out a
> couple of hours' worth of sketchy intelligence other Bush officials were
> trying to stuff into his speech.
>
> U.S. News & World Report reveals this week that when Mr. Powell was
> rehearsing the case with two dozen officials, he became so frustrated by
the
> dubious intelligence about Saddam that he tossed several pages in the air
> and declared: "I'm not reading this. This is $%&*#."
>
> First America has no intelligence. Then it has $%&*# intelligence.
>
> So this is progress?
>
> For the first time in history, America is searching for the reason we went
> to war after the war is over.
>
> As The Times's James Risen reports, a bedrock of the administration's
> weapons case - the National Intelligence Estimate that concluded that Iraq
> had chemical and biological weapons and was seeking nukes - is itself
being
> reassessed. The document is at the center of a broad prewar-intelligence
> review, being conducted by the C.I.A. to see whether the weapons evidence
> was cooked.
>
> Conservatives are busily offering a bouquet of new justifications for a
> pre-emptive attack on Iraq that was sold as self-defense against Saddam's
> poised and thrumming weapons of mass destruction.
>
> Pressed by reporters about whether Tony Blair and President Bush were
guilty
> of hyperbole - Mr. Blair's foreign secretary claimed Saddam could deploy
> chemical and biological weapons in 45 minutes - Senator John McCain
replied,
> "The American people support what the president did, whether we find those
> weapons or not, and they did so the day they saw 9- and 10-year-old boys
> coming out of a prison in Baghdad."
>
> Senator Pete Domenici noted that experts thought that Saddam's overthrow
> might pave the way for the Middle East road map to work. "For those kind
of
> experts to say that has changed the dynamics in the Middle East,
sufficient
> that we might get peace, seems to me to outweigh all the questions about
did
> we have every bit of evidence that we say we had or not," he said.
>
> In a Vanity Fair interview, Paul Wolfowitz said another "almost unnoticed
> but huge" reason for war was to promote Middle East peace by allowing the
> U.S. to take its troops out of Saudi Arabia - Osama's bête noir. But it
was
> after the U.S. announced it would pull its troops from Saudi Arabia that a
> resurgent Qaeda struck a Western compound, killing eight Americans.
>
> And it was after the U.S. tried to intimidate other foes by stomping on
> Saddam that Iran and North Korea ratcheted up their nukes. Iran and North
> Korea actually do have scary nuclear programs, but if we express our alarm
> to the world now, will we be accused of crying Wolfowitz?
>
> A new Pew survey of 21 nations shows a deepening skepticism toward the
U.S.
> "The war had widened the rift between Americans and Western Europeans,
> further inflamed the Muslim world, softened support for the war on
> terrorism, and significantly weakened global public support for the
pillars
> of the post-World War II era - the U.N. and the North Atlantic alliance,"
> said Pew's director, Andrew Kohut.
>
> Brits may be more upset with Mr. Blair than Americans are with Mr. Bush
> because they have the quaint idea that even if you think war was a good
> idea, you should level with the public about your objectives.
>
> The Bush crowd practiced bait and switch, leaving many Americans with the
> impression that Saddam was involved in 9/11.
>
> When James Woolsey, the former C.I.A. director and current Pentagon
adviser,
> appeared on "Nightline" five days after 9/11 and suggested that America
had
> to strike Iraq for sponsoring terrorism, Ted Koppel rebutted: "Nobody
right
> now is suggesting that Iraq had anything to do with this. In fact, quite
the
> contrary."
>
> Mr. Woolsey replied: "I don't think it matters. I don't think it matters."
> The Republicans will have to follow the maxim of Robert Moses, the
> autocratic New York builder who never let public opinion get in the way of
> his bulldozing: "If the ends don't justify the means, what does?"
>
>
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>
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