Re: Former U.N. Nuclear Weapons Inspector: "GW Bush should face criminal investigati
I don't even know where to start with this... The ignorance surrounding this "debate", on both sides, is astounding. How sad that America, land of the free and home of the brave has morphed into land of the sound-byte media and home of the willfully ignorant.
All the evidence is there, it lies in full view under the thinest of veils. First, let me say that ignorance of the facts is rarely a good legal defense.
There is no credible evidence that President Bush launched the war with full knowledge that Iraq did not possess WMD and did not pose any threat to U.S. interests or allies.
To believe this, one must take it as an absolute. That is to say, that short of 100% certainty any decision on action is acceptable. Or... That Bush and Co. clapped their hands over the ears, shut their eyes tight and loudly chanted LALALALALALALALALALA, I CAN"T HEAR YOU when presented with UN inspection intelligence and dead steady US intelligence going back 12 years. Mind you, we had carte blanche to overfly the country, and did so daily with some of the most sophisticated technology on the planet. More than capable of making detailed assessments of activities.
IMO, the subsequently-released Intelligence assessments showed no credible imminent threat.
And you don't see a contradiction to your first statement?
How is it that overwhelming evidence and intelligence existed from professional non political agencies existed that Iraq was not a threat, and yet Bush and company remained perplexed to the point of believing with conviction the opposite was "true"?
This is where it gets interesting...
Ever heard of Team B?
How about the "noble lie?
These are the two primary tools of the NeoCons, and they have been in play and ever refined since 1976 following the
Halloween Massacre which effectively overthrew President Ford's cabinet.
If you are ignorant of who and what Team B was/is, here is some suggested reading...
"Intelligence Community Experiment in Competitive Analysis- Soviet Strategic Objectives: Report of Team B" (PDF).
National Archives. [PDF file]
Cahn, Anne H. (September 1998).
Killing Detente: The Right Attacks the CIA. Pennsylvania State University Press. ISBN 0-271-01791-0.
Gervasi, Tom (October 1986).
The Myth of Soviet Military Supremacy. W W Norton & Co Inc. ISBN 0-393-01776-1.
Korb, Lawrence J. (August 18, 2004).
"It's Time to Bench 'Team B'". Center for American Progress.
Goodman, Melvin A. (July 23, 2003). "
As a CIA analyst, I've seen distortions of intelligence before". The Progressive.
Husain, Khurram (November/December 2003). "
Neocons: The men behind the curtain" . Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 59 (06): 62–71. doi:10.2968/059006013.
Here is the upshot...
Team B was an independent, ad hoc "competitive intelligence assessment" exercise designed to challenge the official Soviet threat assessment with one goal in mind, to dismantle détente. This was accomplished by grossly over estimating soviet capabilities, with absurd assertions. For example, the reason they stated the the CIA was unable to detect new Russian military hardware, wasn't because the country was in economic chaos, but because their systems were so advanced, they were undetectable... with no evidence beyond the claim that "they knew the Russian mindset". Seriously!
Here is the kicker... they were caught in ever lie, and they admitted to these lies after the Soviet fall.. justifying the noble lie by pointing to this event as vindication of those lies, America was now the sole super power... what else mattered? With the success of that exercise, Team B went to work supporting an agenda for a massive arms build-up, one that helped push the country into deficit spending and recession. When the USSR fell apart under the weight of it's own failings, the neocons believed that they were responsible, which emboldened them...
Here we have the blueprint, the framework for all subsequent attempts to advance the neocon agenda. Which, as a side note, is two fold; to secure US position as sole superpower for the next century, creating a PaxAmericana, and to reignite the moral fiber the held together our society and heal the wounds left from the leftist counter culture. Both could be accomplished most quickly, not by using reason and honesty, but by creating larger than life evils and threats, if curiously vague, using lies and misinformation. It served them in the 80's in the arms build-up, it served them in the 90's to attempt to cripple the Clinton administration, and blossomed in 2000s with an all neocon cabinet.
And we are to believe, with this kind of track record, that past claims of ignorance and later admissions of lies, full admission of the noble lie, the created myths of great good vs evil, the willingness to enter into evil to accomplish "good", men that call themselves "democratic revolutionaries" are to be taken at their word?
If the whole of our intellignece community had it right, or mostly right, over a twelve year period, with daily overflights of a country, where did the confusion come from? Why was there so much alleged handwringing over whether Iraq was a threat? It came from Team B. Wholly manufactured just as in every decade before. Here is a clue, independent intelligence analysis headed by members of a tight knit group of a powerful revolutionary faction will never result in accurate assessments, but rather support the agenda of that group at any cost, even if that means entering into evil (lying) to do so. Period. There was no question in official, professional, intel circles that Iraq was no threat.
Subsequent reviews also found major Intelligence flaws.
Bull.... Flaws? No.. that is a euphamism for outright, bold faced lies. The "flaws" came only from Team B and a special assessment group set up in the pentagon headed by Wolfowitz. These flaws follow lockstep with the tactics employed in previous years, tactics unabashedly admitted to. To ask that these be viewed as flaws by anyone who knows their history, is asking to set aside knowledge and facts. Every credible intelligence agency raised doubts and outright dismissed the sources being used by Team B and the special intel team in the pentagon.
President Bush made a value judgment.
Bush made no judgement. The judgement was made long before Bush ever ran for president.
No matter how erroneous, a bad decision by itself is not a war crime. There has to be a deliberate choice to launch a war with clear knowledge of the evidence under which a reasonable person would clearly not initiate such a conflict given that evidence. That test is not met.
The only way one can claim that test is not met, is if one remains ignorant of the DETAILS and history of the men involved and their single minded, single tactic march to fulfill a 35 year agenda.
Therefore, Dr. ElBaradei's opinion notwithstanding, I do not expect any international war crimes investigation. History will judge the decision as flawed. It won't judge it as constituting a war crime.
Shame Dr. E's "opinion" has more facts supporting it than Bush had in going to war... awfully inconvenient....