Clinton Back's Bush's War in Iraq

[chequita guevara]

WS?

[Drake Tungsten]

Weekly Standard

[GePap]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
Why bring up an article that hasn't been mentioned in this thread and one that I haven't linked to since the first and only time I did so? Is that your pathetic attempt to portray me as a person "stuck with repetative posts"?



BTW, what evidence do you have that the 9/11 commissioner was using the WS article as his source of information?

It's the ONLY piece I have seen making that claim in the "reputable" press making the claim.

[Drake Tungsten]

He claimed that it was intelligence gathered from captured documents. Did you even read the article? Why would a 9/11 commissioner need to get his information from the Weekly Standard when he has access to intelligence that the rest of us can only dream of seeing?

No wonder my cut-and-pastes seem substanceless to you. You don't (or maybe can't) read them...

[The Emperor Fabulous]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Ex-presidents don't critize sitting Presidents. Period. I would be shocked if Clinton did anything other than support Bush.

There is a difference between not critizing Bush and supporting him against part of your own base of support. And Clinton has, on occasion, critized Bush.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Ex-presidents don't critize sitting Presidents. Period.

*cough* Carter *cough*

This is such a blatently incorrect statement, che, I wonder how you wrote it with a straight face.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
He claimed that it was intelligence gathered from captured documents. Did you even read the article? Why would a 9/11 commissioner need to get his information from the Weekly Standard when he has access to intelligence that the rest of us can only dream of seeing?

No wonder my cut-and-pastes seem substanceless to you. You don't (or maybe can't) read them...

You know, the sad fact is you don't even read what you paste! Cause that WS article you have posted says just that! , that captured documents have that evidence. Otherwise how did they get that info?

You can be dense-if all the commissioners had access to this classified info, why has it been only one republican member who metions it? And given that the CIA OKed the report, which contradicts that WS piece that claimed Iraqi participation in the attack on 9/11 itself, I highly doubt its the CIA telling the commissioners thus.

So, cut and paste man, at least remember what you paste

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by GePap


It's the ONLY piece I have seen making that claim in the "reputable" press making the claim.

Obviously you forget my orginal posting of the OPED WSJ peice that predated the Weekly Standard dealing with the same issue.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Interesting piece.

Media is now defending its shoddy attempts at bias by placing the blame on the comission.

OP-ED COLUMNIST
The Zelikow Report
By WILLIAM SAFIRE

Published: June 21, 2004


WASHINGTON — "Panel Finds No Qaeda-Iraq Tie" went the Times headline. "Al Qaeda-Hussein Link Is Dismissed" front-paged The Washington Post. The A.P. led with the thrilling words "Bluntly contradicting the Bush Administration, the commission. . . ." This understandably caused my editorial-page colleagues to draw the conclusion that "there was never any evidence of a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda. . . ."

All wrong. The basis for the hoo-ha was not a judgment of the panel of commissioners appointed to investigate the 9/11 attacks. As reporters noted below the headlines, it was an interim report of the commission's runaway staff, headed by the ex-N.S.C. aide Philip Zelikow. After Vice President Dick Cheney's outraged objection, the staff's sweeping conclusion was soon disavowed by both commission chairman Tom Kean and vice chairman Lee Hamilton.

"Were there contacts between Al Qaeda and Iraq?" Kean asked himself. "Yes . . . no question." Hamilton joined in: "The vice president is saying, I think, that there were connections . . . we don't disagree with that" — just "no credible evidence" of Iraqi cooperation in the 9/11 attack.

The Zelikow report was seized upon by John Kerry because it fuzzed up the distinction between evidence of decade-long dealings between agents of Saddam and bin Laden (which panel members know to be true) and evidence of Iraqi cooperation in the 9/11 attacks (which, as Hamilton said yesterday, modifying his earlier "no credible evidence" judgment, was "not proven one way or the other.")

But the staff had twisted the two strands together to cast doubt on both the Qaeda-Iraq ties and the specific attacks of 9/11: "There have been reports that contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda also occurred after bin Laden had returned to Afghanistan, but they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship." Zelikow & Co. dismissed the reports, citing the denials of Qaeda agents and what they decided was "no credible evidence" of cooperation on 9/11.

That paragraph — extending doubt on 9/11 to all previous contacts — put the story on front pages. Here was a release on the official commission's letterhead not merely failing to find Saddam's hand in 9/11, which Bush does not claim. The news was in the apparent contradiction of what the president repeatedly asserted as a powerful reason for war: that Iraq had long been dangerously in cahoots with terrorists.

Cheney's ire was misdirected. Don't blame the media for jumping on the politically charged Zelikow report. Blame the commission's leaders for ducking responsibility for its interim findings. Kean and Hamilton have allowed themselves to be jerked around by a manipulative staff.

Yesterday, Governor Kean passed along this stunner about "no collaborative relationship" to ABC's George Stephanopoulos: "Members do not get involved in staff reports."

Not involved? Another commission member tells me he did not see the Zelikow bombshell until the night before its release. Moreover, the White House, vetting the report for secrets, failed to raise an objection to a Democratic bonanza in the tricky paragraph leading to the misleading "no Qaeda-Iraq tie."

What can the commission do now to regain its nonpartisan credibility?

1. Require every member to sign off on every word that the commission releases, or write and sign a minority report. No more "staff conclusions" without presenting supporting evidence, pro and con.

2. Set the record straight, in evidentiary detail, on every contact known between Iraq and terrorist groups, including Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's operations in Iraq. Include the basis for the Clinton-era "cooperating in weapons development" statement.

3. Despite the prejudgment announced yesterday by Kean and Democratic partisan Richard Ben-Veniste dismissing Mohammed Atta's reported meeting in Prague with an Iraqi spymaster, fairly spell out all the evidence that led to George Tenet's "not proven or disproven" testimony. (Start with www.edwardjayepstein.com.)

4. Show how the failure to retaliate after the attack on the U.S.S. Cole affected 9/11, how removing the director of central intelligence from running the C.I.A. would work, and how Congress's intelligence oversight failed abysmally.

5. Stop wasting time posturing on television and get involved writing a defensible commission report.

All in all Bias at worst, poor journalism at best.

Regardless, the last 5 points made in this OPED have merit.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

Ex-presidents don't critize sitting Presidents. Period.

*cough* Carter *cough*

This is such a blatently incorrect statement, che, I wonder how you wrote it with a straight face.

I keep forgetting about him. I think you can excuse me that.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by The Emperor Fabulous
There is a difference between not critizing Bush and supporting him against part of your own base of support. And Clinton has, on occasion, critized Bush.

The left was never Clinton's base of support.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I keep forgetting about him. I think you can excuse me that.

Reagan critisized Clinton from time to time before he got sick. As EF pointed out Clinton has critisized Bush, mostly for Ashcroft's doings though.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe
Obviously you forget my orginal posting of the OPED WSJ peice that predated the Weekly Standard dealing with the same issue.

You are right, I did forget that.

As for the Safire piece-the press has gone too far in its claims, but then, the admin. is simply suffering from Bad Karma. They did nothing to make it clear to everyone Iraq had little to do with 9/11-yes, they said it openly to the press, but one wonders why such large numbers of Americans did think Iraq was complicit in 9/11, and the admin. rhetoric made those associations, if not claiming concrete links.

So its the universde coming to bite the admin. in the ass. Thank you universe.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by GePap
Oh, on Media distortion, no one beats FoxNews.

Pravda notwithstanding

[Drake Tungsten]

So its the universde coming to bite the admin. in the ass. Thank you universe.

Ah, so it's the universe that is trying to ruin Bush's chances at re-election, not the media. That makes sense...

BTW, nice pwning of GePap, Ogie. I always love to see other people jumping on the pile.