The Ring of Truth

(written by lawrence krubner, however indented passages are often quotes). You can contact lawrence at: lawrence@krubner.com, or follow me on Twitter.

[ this post was originally published on a weblog called What Is Liberalism ]

Written by Walker Willingham

As we sort through a week of headlines, or the news of the day, we latch onto those stories which for us have the “ring of truth”. For me this week, the ring of truth shouted loudest in the words of Paul Pillar, who concluded his long career in the CIA by serving as National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia from 2000 to 2005.

it has become clear that official intelligence analysis was not relied on in making even the most significant national security decisions, that intelligence was misused publicly to justify decisions already made, that damaging ill will developed between policymakers and intelligence officers, and that the intelligence community’s own work was politicized.

Pillar’s conclusion scarcely shocks those of us who have believed since even before the Iraq war commenced that the Bush administration was bound and determined to find a justification for an invasion and was perfectly happy to “fix the intelligence and facts around the policy”, well before that charge was revealed in the Downing Street Memos. After the invasion but before the Downing Street Memos came Ron Suskind’s book, The Price of Loyalty, which details the observations of former Bush insider, Treasury Secretary, Paul O’Neill that the Administration’s desire to go into Iraq militarily predated even September 11. O’Neill remained loyal to the President, but revealed this as a matter of fact, even as Bush attempted to deny it.

I understand that those with a different political frame of reference won’t see the same ring of truth in each of these successive pronouncements, among a slew of others, which I and many, many others do. But it is absurd to suggest that our willingness to accept these charges as true can be explained away by the “liberal media”. I know that I have come by my opinion that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, et al twist the truth to serve their ends far more by listening to Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, et al than by listening to any liberal spin. And it offends me that a subset of the Bush apologists blithely dismiss those of us who object to his policies as traitors. Truly it is shocking that such vituperative writers as Ann Coulter find any voice in the mainstream media rather than being marginalized in fringe publications. Sure there are immoderate voices on the left for whom the same is true, but they are marginalized on the fringe. But I digress.

Paul Pillar has earned credibility. He stayed with the CIA as long as he did in spite of clear policy disagreements with the Bush administration, I suspect because the cause of protecting us from extremist Islamist elements as well as other threats in the Near East and South Asia was more important than a domestic political dispute. Someone inside the Bush Administration must have recognized his value in spite of his differing politics to have kept him on board. These facts, and Pillar’s own reasoned words, such as this speech he gave in 2003, make laughable some right-wing claims that Pillar is a partisan tool of the left. Even conservative PowerLine blogger, Paul Mirengoff, refers to Pillar as his old friend, though he incredibly manages to interpret Pillar’s recent comments as vindication for Bush’s Iraq policy. Did he really read the same article that I did? Pillar continues:

an acrimonious and highly partisan debate broke out over whether the Bush administration manipulated and misused intelligence in making its case for war. The administration defended itself by pointing out that it was not alone in its view that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and active weapons programs, however mistaken that view may have been.

In this regard, the Bush administration was quite right: its perception of Saddam’s weapons capacities was shared by the Clinton administration, congressional Democrats, and most other Western governments and intelligence services. But in making this defense, the White House also inadvertently pointed out the real problem: intelligence on Iraqi weapons programs did not drive its decision to go to war. A view broadly held in the United States and even more so overseas was that deterrence of Iraq was working, that Saddam was being kept “in his box,” and that the best way to deal with the weapons problem was through an aggressive inspections program to supplement the sanctions already in place. That the administration arrived at so different a policy solution indicates that its decision to topple Saddam was driven by other factors — namely, the desire to shake up the sclerotic power structures of the Middle East and hasten the spread of more liberal politics and economics in the region.

If the entire body of official intelligence analysis on Iraq had a policy implication, it was to avoid war — or, if war was going to be launched, to prepare for a messy aftermath. What is most remarkable about prewar U.S. intelligence on Iraq is not that it got things wrong and thereby misled policymakers; it is that it played so small a role in one of the most important U.S. policy decisions in recent decades.

Bush apologists just love to make a big deal of the fact that almost everyone believed Iraq had WMD. They don’t understand that it misses the point. Yes, I too thought in 2002 that Saddam was an untrustworthy rogue with likely hidden WMDs of some sort and that preventing him from using them should be the focus of an international effort, hopefully culminating in his removal from power. But military overthrow and occupation, especially over the objections of a majority of our usual allies, seemed foolish on its face.

Pillar again:

Policymakers thus influence which topics intelligence agencies address but not the conclusions that they reach. The intelligence community, meanwhile, limits its judgments to what is happening or what might happen overseas, avoiding policy judgments about what the United States should do in response. …
The Bush administration’s use of intelligence on Iraq did not just blur this distinction; it turned the entire model upside down. The administration used intelligence not to inform decision-making, but to justify a decision already made. It went to war without requesting — and evidently without being influenced by — any strategic-level intelligence assessments on any aspect of Iraq. …

Official intelligence on Iraqi weapons programs was flawed, but even with its flaws, it was not what led to the war. On the issue that mattered most, the intelligence community judged that Iraq probably was several years away from developing a nuclear weapon. The October 2002 NIE also judged that Saddam was unlikely to use WMD against the United States unless his regime was placed in mortal danger. …

Before the war, on its own initiative, the intelligence community considered the principal challenges that any postinvasion authority in Iraq would be likely to face. It presented a picture of a political culture that would not provide fertile ground for democracy and foretold a long, difficult, and turbulent transition. It projected that a Marshall Plan-type effort would be required to restore the Iraqi economy, despite Iraq’s abundant oil resources. It forecast that in a deeply divided Iraqi society, with Sunnis resentful over the loss of their dominant position and Shiites seeking power commensurate with their majority status, there was a significant chance that the groups would engage in violent conflict unless an occupying power prevented it. And it anticipated that a foreign occupying force would itself be the target of resentment and attacks — including by guerrilla warfare — unless it established security and put Iraq on the road to prosperity in the first few weeks or months after the fall of Saddam.

Talk about the ring of truth! Bush DID cherry pick intelligence. Loyalist O’Neill told us in 2004 that the decision to invade Iraq was made early. You just can’t have it both ways. If you want to defend the invasion, either you claim that the cause justified the clear deception of the American people and Congress, or you claim quite incredibly that people such as Pillar and O’Neill are simply lying.

I am delighted on the one hand that Saddam is now on the wrong side of the law. Very little he has ever said has any ring of truth. But even so, I for one believe this administration must be held to account for its deceptions, and though it is not yet politically viable, impeachment and the subsequent removal of Bush and Cheney from power would be a moderate and patriotic response.

It will be interesting to see what the next several weeks bring. If Thursday’s story in the National Journal that it was indeed Cheney who authorized “Scooter” Libby to illegally leak the name of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame to reporters is corroborated, surely pressure for his resignation will be intense. Recycled stories about foiled terrorist plots in Los Angeles or elsewhere notwithstanding, Bush faces mounting bipartisan criticism for the illegal NSA wiretapping. They can try to justify their crimes in the name of national security, but that case is shaky, and the crimes still were crimes. But it won’t be our “Geneva Conventions are quaint” Attorney General who will show them the door, and I’m not terribly confident in the Democratic Party’s leadership either . No it is up to us the American people to demand that our government follow the laws of the land or else be gone.

Post external references

  1. 1
    http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20060301faessay85202/paul-r-pillar/intelligence-policy-and-the-war-in-iraq.html
  2. 2
    http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/memos.html
  3. 3
    http://thepriceofloyalty.ronsuskind.com/about/
  4. 4
    http://foi.missouri.edu/polinfoprop/bushdisputes.html
  5. 5
    http://www.horsesass.org/index.php?p=1383
  6. 6
    http://www.duke.edu/web/tiss/archives/conferencerecords/media/Pillar.htm
  7. 7
    http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001994568
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