Bush's dishonest mistakes by Jonathan Chait

[jbfam4]

November 4, 2005
Jonathan Chait:
Bush's dishonest mistakes

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-chait4nov04,0,5889423.column?coll=la-news-comment-opinions

DID THE Bush administration mislead the country in the run-up to the Iraq war? Yes, it did. Did the administration "mislead us into war?" No, not exactly. The CIA leak scandal has again placed those questions at the center of the national agenda. Unfortunately, almost nobody seems to be getting them right.


Take, for instance, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein's comments on CNN the other day. When asked if she was "duped," Feinstein replied: "Yes. And had I known then what I know now, I never would have cast that vote, not in 1,000 years. I read, re-read the intelligence, read the classified versions, tried to get briefings, read open source, listened to the speeches, did everything I could to inform myself, and when I cast that vote, I was convinced that Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat to this nation, with respect to biological weapons, with respect to an unmanned aerial vehicle that was capable of being launched with chemical or biological weapons aboard.

"None of that turned out to be true. And that's what bothers many of us, because we now believe that the impetus for the American use of force essentially was regime change, pure and simple. Not the cause that was sold to us, which was weapons of mass destruction and their immediate threat to our country."

If you are a liberal, you were probably nodding your head when you read that passage. Yet it is highly misleading. It turns out that nearly everything the administration said about the Iraqi threat was wrong. The vast majority of that wrongness, though, was attributable to honest mistakes.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. honest mistakes happen only when

you haven't already decided what you want to happen and have twisted facts to get what you want.

[Fovea]

2. Wow. That's utter bullshit.

The wrongness was about childish vendetta, Xtian fundy zeal, info stovepiping, cooking, and good ol Kenny Boy stylee graft and boondoggle.

If that's what the author calls honest mistakes, someone needs to buy him a dictionary.

[cliss]

10. I could not agree with you more.

There is absolutely NO excuse for being duped into this war. There were PLENTY of warning signs along the way. Those Nigerian documents were suspects from the start. There was so much opposition to this war, it was unbelievable.

The ENTIRE WORLD stood up and protested this insane adventure. Dianne Feinstein could have called me as she she was "gathering the facts". I would have told her the real scoop.

[spindrifter]

3. Ummm..just what were those

HONEST mistakes?

[Vincardog]

4. The real point is the last paragraphs

The Senate has already investigated how U.S. intelligence got it wrong (i.e., the honest mistakes). Now, Democrats are pushing for another investigation into how the administration manipulated intelligence (the dishonest mistakes). And, of course, Bush's allies are seizing upon the confusion between the two in order to absolve him.

Conservative columnist David Brooks wrote sneeringly Thursday of Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid's attempt to investigate "the Republican plot to manipulate intelligence to trick the American people into believing Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction." Brooks pointed out that the Clinton administration also believed that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Therefore, Reid must believe that Democrats were part of the conspiracy to fool the public. Therefore, Reid is crazy. Other conservatives have made the same point as Brooks.

Are they really so dense? It isn't that complicated. The Bush administration, like almost everybody else, made some honest mistakes. Unlike everybody else, it also made some dishonest mistakes. The Clintonites warned against Hussein's weapons, but they didn't bully intelligence analysts into suppressing contrary information, and they didn't pass on information they knew was false. That's what the investigation is about. Everybody got it?

[papau]

5. LOVE THE CLOSE: "Are they really so dense?It isn't that complicated.

Are they really so dense? It isn't that complicated. The Bush administration, like almost everybody else, made some honest mistakes. Unlike everybody else, it also made some dishonest mistakes. The Clintonites warned against Hussein's weapons, but they didn't bully intelligence analysts into suppressing contrary information, and they didn't pass on information they knew was false. That's what the investigation is about. Everybody got it?

[Vincardog]

6. Right papa they left it hanging in the OP This is anti aWoL nt

[indepat]

7. If all the WMD claims had been true, we might have had an excuse to

invade and occupy, but would we have had a valid reason under international law and our own law?

[Boo Boo]

8. Bullshit.

Suppressing information that damages your case, while exaggerating that which supports your case is not an "honest" mistake. That's a dishonest mistake, and the Administration is paying the price for making that mistake. They thought Iraq would be such a cake-walk that none of their deceptions would come back to haunt them.

They were wrong.

Any time somebody lays out this talking point, just remind them of the Aluminum Tubes. The head of the DOE signed off on the centrifuge story even though the experts in his department said the tubes were not suitable for constructing a centrifuge. This is the Department of Energy we're talking about here. If they don't know how to enrich uranium, nobody does. The Bush appointee in question then takes a big fat cash bonus and resigns.

Sound like an honest mistake?

[GL1]

9. bullshit

The fact that the top government officials were having multiple conversations about Plame and Wilson show that there intentions were to mislead. There may have been some honest mistakes along the way, like not realizing Plame was undercover. Does that really matter in the least?

[glitch]

11. Can dishonest people make honest mistakes?

Can honest people make dishonest mistakes?

Welcome to DU GL1!