June 28, 2003
THE WMD HUNT....Remember those nuclear plans we found a couple of days ago in the backyard of an Iraqi scientist in Baghdad? The original CNN story included this statement: CNN
had this story last week but made a decision to withhold it at the
request of the U.S. government, which cited safety and national security
concerns.
The U.S. government told CNN the security and safety issues have been
dealt with and there is no risk now in telling the story fully.
At the time I paused for a second and wondered why CNN had agreed to hold off, but it is a war zone after all. It wasn't really all that odd.
I should have paid more attention. Today Josh Marshall has the story
behind the story, and it's not a pretty one. Apparently "safety and
national security concerns" translates to "we're completely incompetent
and we'd like a little time to make ourselves look slightly less
foolish." Go read it.
UPDATE: In comments, Matt Weiner suggests that the proper translation
is really, "We're completely incompetent and, now that public exposure
is forcing our hand, we'd like some more time to do at least one tiny
little thing right."
Well, OK.
Posted by Kevin Drum at June 28, 2003 08:36 AM
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So, the neo-cons are wrong AND incompetent.
Do you think CNN will run the full story? Regardless of one's stance
on the war, this is juicy stuff with people who appear to be willing to
be interviewed on the record.
Josh has 3 or 4 great posts in a row. The walkback one is mind
blowing. Every day I lose more respect for powell. (hence the lower case
p)
The Cheney letter is great too.
This post by Marshall is kind of related to one of his posts from a
little while back, where he emphasized the dishonesty of the
administration's line about how "Iraq is as big as California, so how
can we find anything right away" by pointing out that instead of
searching through the entire state, police in California (or anywhere
else) will first talk to people and try to find leads before searching
for evidence. Apparently the administration was indeed being honest in
complaining about the size of Iraq--they were just too inept to plan for
the possibility that there might be some scientists out there who were
still too nervous to be interrogated!
Kevin, I think you're a little uncharitable. It looks to me that the
"safety and national security concerns" were legit--they wanted to get
Obeidi out of Iraq before his cover was blown.
In other words, the translation should be "We're completely
incompetent and, now that public exposure is forcing our wreckage, we'd
like some more time to do at least one tiny little thing right."
(Aside--In Netscape, the first picture on Marshall's site (after the
"support TPM" logos) didn't show up. Checking it in IE, I'm
disappointed that it seems to be a picture of Obeidi, rather than a
giant cockroach.)
Should be "forcing our hand." Sorry.
Gee, thanks for putting it on the main page, and in the coherent
version too. In case it wasn't clear, insert a smiley after the
accusation of uncharity. "Completely incompetent" is the important
part.
Motheragod. Please, someone, anyone, explain to me how we justify
invading this country without a) competent civilian administrators, b)
sufficient military police, c) professional, arabic-speaking weapons
inspectors, or d) intelligence personnel who know where and who the
Iraqui weapons scientists are.
“Motheragod. Please, someone, anyone, explain to me how we justify
invading this country without a) competent civilian administrators, b)
sufficient military police, c) professional, arabic-speaking weapons
inspectors, or d) intelligence personnel who know where and who the
Iraqui weapons scientists are.
Allow me to play the role of devil’s advocate and slightly rephrase the above comment:
“Motheragod. Please, someone, anyone, explain to me how we justify
invading this country (Germany during WWII) without a) competent
civilian administrators, b) sufficient military police, c) professional,
German-speaking weapons inspectors, or d) intelligence personnel who
know where and who the German weapons scientists are.”
Sorry about that, but in the real world---there is rarely a perfect
set of circumstances. I strongly suspect that your being extremely
disingenuous and would find any excuse to blast the Bush administration.
We have been very successful so far in Iraq, and it is absurd to
exaggerate the inevitable challenges.
The odds are overwhelming that historians will look back on our
invasion of Iraq in a very positive manner. If nothing else, there is
more freedom and intellectual liberty in Iraq at this very moment than
any other area in the Muslim dominated Middle East. That by itself is a
tremendous achievement. Moderate Muslims are becoming more willing to
confront their more radical cohorts. A paradigm shift is currently
taking place that promises great things in the relatively near future.
Aha, DT arrives here from Brad Delong's blog, and with a Nazi reference no less.
"We have been very successful so far in Iraq" At defeating a fourth
rate army, yes. but so what? the world is full of tinpot dictators and
fourth-rate armies. Why spend American blood and treasure on THIS one?
At securing oil pipelines? not so much. high-power electrical
lines? nope. clean water? wrong. telephone service? unh-huh. nuclear
power plants? nope. all those drone planes and WMD that posed such a
risk that war was justified? [hysterical laughter follows.]
DT, elections were canceled across much of Iraq yesterday, by US generals. So how much freedom is there?
FDL wrote: "DT, elections were canceled across much of Iraq yesterday, by US generals. So how much freedom is there?"
And, they US generals are putting Iraqi generals in charge of cities.
Not generals in the "newfangled Iraqi army" sense, but old-timers.
Concerning the analogy of occupying Germany cited above:
When Germany was defeated, far more of the occupiers spoke German
than now speak Arabic. There was also more of a cultural awareness of
Germany than there seems to be of Iraq. And, just like in Germany, the
local population wasn't so keen on being occupied. Cooperation came
slowly in Germany, and will come slowly in Iraq as well. Providing for
the daily needs of the people would have helped immensely even in the
short span since the "end" of the war. In both cases, it took
reinstalling the previous regime's functionaries to end the turmoil.
Maybe the Am. Bushed Gang DID learn something from history.
The one main difference between occupying Germany vs occupying Iraq -
No massive Soviet Army on the border with a bloodthirst for revenge
against the occupied people.
Poop--oops.
Didn't we know who the weapons scientists in Germany were? We freaking hired them.
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