Keith Devens .com

's funny... talking about non-starters...

How about that one about how Iraq had WMD?

That's hardly a scandal. And even if it was, the scandal isn't Bush's, the scandal would be how everyone, Republicans and Democrats, including both Clintons and our entire intelligence community, could have been wrong.

Have you read the Kay report?

Heh... speaking of nepotism... how about "The Bush" as I like to call him? He got into college based not on his academic merit, but by who his parents where, he got elected at least in part due to his family connections. You don't think dady dearest pulled some strings? Good grief.

My gosh you're biased. There's a big difference between getting into a college based on your connections and putting national security interests at stake.

Oh, and not to mention the fact that it's totally irrelevant to this.

In fact, it's useful when people do things like you've just done. It shows your hand. You can't avoid an opportunity to bash Bush, even if it's completely unrelated to the topic of discussion. It shows your bias, and I think it hurts your credibility when discussing anything involving Bush.

An unsubstantiated allegation of nepotism by an unidentified source who (let's assume inadvertently) broke the law to discredit a critic is not "the real story".

The real story is what you mentioned in your comment: how did the intelligence process break down so badly?

"At least he's doing no worse than Clinton" is a pretty weak defence of the Bush administration. (Oddly enough, this comparison is usually made by people who hate Clinton.) Somebody should've been fired for the "it was only sixteen words, and they were accurate - British intel really did believe that!" line. They should have stuck with "it wasn't up to the State of the Union standard".

An unsubstantiated allegation of nepotism

I'm not sure that it's unsubstantiated. I don't think it's in doubt that Plame was the person who chose Wilson to go on that intelligence mission.

The real story is what you mentioned in your comment: how did the intelligence process break down so badly?

I'm not sure whether you're talking here about Iraq's WMD's in general, or, more on topic, this particular bit of intelligence about Iraq buying uranium from Niger. Assuming the latter, it seems that the intelligence that was faulty was not British intelligence, but the "intelligence" gathered by Wilson which contradicted it.

"At least he's doing no worse than Clinton" is a pretty weak defence of the Bush administration.

Well, I didn't say that. Come to think of it, I've never heard anyone say that. Anyway, the point isn't that he isn't doing worse than Clinton, it's that everyone, including those who are now calling Bush a liar, had a unified opinion of Iraq's WMD's. My point in mentioning the Clintons was to point out that if there was any kind of scandal regarding Iraq's WMD's, it isn't on Bush.

For what it's worth, I meant WMD in general. The gap between conventional wisdom post-1998 and today's reality astounds me. A dictator's sabre-rattling and defectors who were a bit too willing to please might account for it, but I guess I had naively assumed that sort of thing would be tempered via some more objective sources.

As for Niger, the impression I got from the White House response to the "sixteen words" issue was that they were emphasising its British origin because the US didn't have its own intelligence to back it up.

I think the Niger thing is ultimately a non-issue -- it doesn't change what needs to be done in Iraq today, and as you point out it's not going to make a dent in the president's credibility. I haven't heard of anything other than the original leak to Novak which supports the claim of nepotism, but it's far from impossible that I've missed it.

This led to the Niger uranium "scandal", which itself was a non-story, since what Bush said in his SOTU speech was accurate, and British intelligence still stands by their intelligence today.

If what Bush said in his SOTU was accurate, where are the nuclear and biological weapons?

You say

That's hardly a scandal.

You see no problem with using the principal of first strike (in my opinion an extremely dangerous precident to set) to essentially annex a country for reasons that the international community rejected as tenuous and turned out to be wrong?

From George HW Bush -
"Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream, engaging in 'mission creep,' and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible. We had been unable to find Noriega in Panama, which we knew intimately. We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies pulling out as well. Under those circumstances, there was no viable "exit strategy" we could see, violating another of our principles. Furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-Cold War world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different--and perhaps barren--outcome."
George H.W. Bush and Brent Scowcroft, A World Transformed (1998), pp. 489-90

This it still accurate today.

where are the nuclear and biological weapons

I don't think Bush ever claimed that Saddam now had nuclear weapons (if you could show me where I'll take this back), but rather intent to develop nuclear weapons, and nuclear weapons programs -- which is true. We know he was manufacturing high quality aluminum tubes that would be used in a centrifuge, assuming the British intelligence is accurate, he bought, or was trying to buy, uranium from Niger, and IIRC we actually found a nuclear centrifuge buried in one of Saddam's scientist's back yards. In any case, I don't think it's in doubt that Saddam had a nuclear program.

It's also certainly not in doubt that he had biological and chemical weapons, because he used them. In fact, I know that we already did find some botulinum bacteria they had stored.

to essentially annex

Now you're being silly. We're not annexing Iraq. To annex means to make a territory part of your own, and we're not doing that.

for reasons that the international community rejected as tenuous

Well, "the international community" has no referent... you can't use it as a unified whole. If you mean France, Germany, Russia, and Belgium, then sure. Otherwise, not at all. Furthermore, the "international community" (by that I mean the security council) unanimously approved a resolution supporting those reasons... they just couldn't bear the prospect of actually using force to remove a dictator with whom they all had lucrative oil (and other) contracts. Rather than the "international community" rejecting our reasons, I think quite the opposite is the case.

turned out to be wrong

That's certainly premature.

From George HW Bush -
"Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream

In fact, I think our actions during that time -- encouraging the Iraqi people to rise up against Saddam and then leaving them to be slaughtered -- was one of the most shameful acts in this country's history. Sure, we didn't want mission creep, and I can understand that. But in retrospect, it's likely it was the wrong decision.

This it still accurate today.

If you're talking about our prospects for success, I disagree. The picture the media has been giving is not an accurate one, and I think things are generally going very well. As for the rest of what that passage says: it's true, this is all serious stuff, and his predictions of what would have happened at the time might not be wrong (we can never know). But September 11th changed things, and our judgements of what it's worth to pursue are different now than they were before.