Yeah, because the President has the authority to declassify the report...unlike the leakers.
I believe there is good reason to think that the Times and Post stories do not fairly represent the report in its entirety. I haven't read the report. But Senator John Cornyn of Texas has, and he would like to see the report declassified, to the greatest extent possible, and made public:
That's a pretty good indication, I think, that the selective leaks were as misleading as many thought they might be.
Nancy Pelosi either just farted or I heard a backfire coming from the left side of the aisle.
Because we overthrew their democratically elected government two decades before to install a dictator who would give Britain and us his oil rights.Ask Jimmy Carter why Iran had a revolution.Well, that administration ended up selling the Iranians 1000 TOW missles in order to cir vent Congress, so cooperation in other areas doesn't seem impossible.And then ask why the Iran's released our Embassy personnel when Reagan was elected.
^^About what I expected. Nice try but a complete
miss on both counts.
How is the truth a complete miss?
gutted our military? the guy was in office for 4 yrs? If I were to follow your logic Bush has decimated the military because our troops were sent over without enough body armor or vehicles with armored plates? Bush has been in 5+ years? Of course he supports the troops!
He's only releasing a portion..maybe he does have something to hide!!
The fed chairman at the time didn't want to be seen as influencing the election and sat on the federal rate until afterwards.
Ask me another one.
Bush to release part of Intel AssessmentHe's only releasing a portion..
And, GGA, you can be sure it'll include the portions already leaked plus information that counters that. Which, by the way, is more than the traitorous leakers did.
Obviously, it is the leakers that had something to hide. It's called the truth.
It took a long time to break out the T word, didn't it?
"leakers that had something to hide."
People who have read report but can't discuss it say the 36 pages not released by the WH are just as bad, if not worse, for the WH as the 4 pages that were released.
Perhaps Fox and other Murdoch mouthpieces will have people that say the other 36 pages totally justify the Repug Iraq fiasco as actually advancing US interests against terrorists.
The WH claims "protecting methods" for not releasing all 40 pages while in fact the WH is simply protecting its ass by hiding the other 36 pages.
The WHIG hid serious doubts in the intelligence community about WMD in Iraq. half-truth, distortions, and outright lies are the coin of the dubya's Exec branch. Nothing new here, same old impeachable .
I just read the released do ent.
It pretty much reinforces what was said in the traitorous leak articles.
Yes, the release stops all the "speculation" about the leak.
We now know, thank you dubya, that the actual do ent confirmed the leak as accurate.
Of course, Yoni will claim the other 36 pages, unseen, totally offset and refute the release 4 pages.
He's furiously Googling the blogosphere to help him spin this.
Actually, I'm looking for the do ent. Care to provide a link? If not, you'll just have to wait until I've found it and read it.
Well, I have boutons on ignore.
Okay, I've read it and come away with this:
The war in Afghanistan is as much responsible for dispersing and diffusing the terrorists into smaller, decentralized groups as is the war in Iraq so. In fact, page one, where this is mentioned, does not say it is Iraq that has done so but "American-led an errorist activities."
Would you have had us not attack terrorists?
Page 2 and 3 talk about our activities in Iraq from the perspective that if the terrorist feel they have won there, they are emboldened but, if they feel they have lost there, fewer jihadists will likely feel called to join the cause.
So, in the words of the NIE, Iraq is the make or break "cause celebe" of the terrorists. I say we break 'em.
Kind of what Bush is saying if you ask me.
Oh, and one more thing, this NIE is dated April. At least one favorable factor they mention has occurred, Zarqawi is dead. But, back to the April date, why do you think it was "leaked" now? And why do you think the portions that tend to support our action weren't leaked as well?
Last edited by Yonivore; 09-26-2006 at 10:33 PM.
Yeah, Afghanistan is the cause celebre. The quote is right there. Oh wait, it isn't. Iraq is listed as one of the four underlying factors for the spread of the jihadist movement. Not Afghanistan.The war in Afghanistan is as much responsible for dispersing and diffusing the terrorists into smaller, decentralized groups as is the war in Iraq so.Actually he said we're just waiting for the Iraqis to stand up so we can stand down.Page 2 and 3 talk about our activities in Iraq from the perspective that if the terrorist feel they have won there, they are emboldened but, if they feel they have lost there, fewer jihadists will likely feel called to join the cause.
So, in the words of the NIE, Iraq is the make or break "cause celebe" of the terrorists. I say we break 'em.
Kind of what Bush is saying if you ask me.Yeah, and his death really weakened the movement, didn't it?At least one favorable factor they mention has occurred, Zarqawi is dead.If that's the strongest supporting portion of the do ent, there's not much to it is there?But, back to the April date, why do you think it was "leaked" now? And why do you think the portions that tend to support our action weren't leaked as well?
"why do you think the portions that tend to support our action weren't leaked as well?"
uh, you mean in the other 36 pages the WH doesn't want us to see?
I was surprised the WH didn't release more of the report, since these 4 pages overwhelmingly support the idea that the Iraq war is NOT advancing the US war on terror.
Al-Quaida is well established in Iraq now, even acting as de facto government in some towns and regions. THAT's really "progress" for dubya and head.
Last edited by boutons_; 09-26-2006 at 11:39 PM.
True. Yoni really thought the traitors were in for it when the "real" story came out.
Yoni,
Don't you think the public has a right to know if the Iraq war has caused terrorism to grow rather than slow? I know alot of folks will play politics with issues like this but we have a right to know. It seems like the WH releases items that benefit them politically and fight like to stop anything that counters what they have been publicly saying. All along Bush and 5 deferremnt knew of this asessment yet went along their way critcizing dems and mocking them with "we have not had an attack since 9/11" as a way of showing success. Well they obviously knew what this NIE stated yet they chose not pass that along and carry on politicizing the war..
Now Yoni before you start calling people traitors I did not remember reading anything that has been released so far in this assessment that refers to military tactics or strategies that could cause harm to our soldiers. My definition of a traitor is not someone who leaks information that won't be released by the WH especially when it contradicts their rationale for war. We have a right to know.
The thing about that is the Bush almost always tells at least part of the truth. So much so that he crossed the border of cynical lying a long time ago. It is one thing to make your case. It is another to completely ignore reality.
Before I read the excerpt I will bet a good chunk of money that it only deals with homeland security.
I think it will simply back up what an administration spokesman said the other day:
(half-truth)
We have strengthened internal security, decreasing our exposure to the risk of attack.
What will not be declassified is the part that puts this half-truth in the proper context:
(whole truth)
We have reduced our exposure to risk by strengthening internal security, but our failed foreign policy has increased our overall level of risk faster than we have reduced our exposure. Bush's actions have directly increased the overall risk of attack.
When seen in the context of the whole truth, the half-truth is easily exposed for what it is: lying by omission.
I will now read what has been declassified and see if my prediction based on past administration lying behavior is correct.
(begin edit)
Ooops. Have to wait until it is published somewhere on the 'net. I thought that the link that Yoni gave actually had the text of the declassified do ent.
Last edited by RandomGuy; 09-27-2006 at 08:10 AM. Reason: added correction at bottom.
I believe the released "Key Judgements" do ent, taken as a whole, shows that the leaks given to the New York Times and Washington Post were so incomplete and unrepresentative as to be wildly misleading, as were the stories those papers wrote based on the leaks. I also believe that as much of the remaining report as can be will be released as soon as they are through redacting source and methods information.
You may recall the exchange that prompted the news of the declassification. The AP's Jennifer Loven, one of the most partisan reporters in that highly partisan stable, asked a tendentious question about the NIE, in response to which President Bush announced that he had ordered the report's conclusions declassified so that the American people can read it for themselves and draw their own conclusions.
Ms. Loven lost no time, once the report was made available, in continuing her attack on the administration in the guise of news reporting. Here is how she and a colleague characterized the report and, not surprisingly, it differs little from the leftist commentary being posted in this forum:
Okay, please keep the next statement in mind.
The Associated Press is apparently relying on the assumption that hardly anyone will read the report's conclusions. Here are a few significant items that, with just one exception, Loven and her colleague didn't see fit to mention:
An argument against the "cut-and-run" strategy of Murtha, et. al.
Again, why it is so critical to win in Iraq.
The administration's strategy of bringing reform to the Muslim world is intended to address factors 1, 3, and 4.
Again, a chief goal of the administration's Iraq policy.
This means that veteran, non-Iraqi jihadists are now focusing their attentions on that country, rather than on places like Europe and the United States.
the NIE is very much a mixed bag, with a lot of on-the-one-hand and on-the-other-hand. But, given the assessments noted above, which are not only positive but also reinforce the importance of the goals the Bush administration is pursuing--victory in Iraq and reform, eventually, in the Arab world--the AP's characterization of the report as "bleak" is ridiculous, and its claim that "[v]irtually all assessments of the current situation were bad news" is simply false. In fact, the majority of the report speaks to how the Bush strategy is the most promising way in which to defeat and contain the Islamic extremists.
Beyond the misreporting of the NIE, what strikes me most about it is what a useless do ent it is. It is couched in such generalities that I don't see what use the President, or anyone else, could make of it for policy-making purposes. I would hope that if we saw the whole report, there would be substance that is not reflected in the "key judgments." If not, if I were President, I would send it back to the agencies it came from with a request to tell me something I didn't already know.
Another thing that strikes me is how, in light of these assumptions, our best defense is the fact we've long had a culture that largely assimilates immigrants and that, with few exceptions, there is little incentive for Muslims already in the United States to radicalize and become jihadists...except for the fact there are so many non-Muslim Americans being radicalized themselves by the perceptions they have of our global war against terrorism and their view of the Operation Iraqi Freedom in particular.
Combine this with our constantly-under-attack but functioning NSA initiatives and I think that, more than anything else, our inclusiveness of Muslims in society can be attributed with there not being any terrorist attacks on this country since September 11.
Not so for Europe whose policies have tended to marginalize the Muslim community and sequester them in substandard communities where they fester and become suspceptible to the propagandist efforts against a backdrop not tempered by inclusion or assimilation.
At least in America, Muslims see the other side of the coin. They see those of us who understand America's Iraqi policy and its long-term implications for a better, more stable, Middle East.
It is worth mentioning here that Iraq was a cause celebre before it was a cause celebre. What motivated Osama Bin Laden to order the destruction of America in 1996 was the U.N. sanctions and the No-fly zone put in place and maintained by George H. W. Bush and William J. Clinton. Osama's fatwa specifically condemns William Perry! not Donald Rumsfeld in what was effectively the death warrant of the World Trade Center and the USS Cole. Among the grievances cited in his Fatwa was the defilement of Saudi soil by the American force gathered to oust Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. In short, the provocation that brought down the World Trade Center was not Operation Iraqi Freedom but Operation Desert Storm.
It may be that no adequate subs ute can be found for Iraq, either as a propaganda cause or a training ground for Jihadis; and that therefore it would be in American national interest to withdraw from it, on the argument that no alternative cause celebre can be found.
Against that proposition, however, should be set the NIE judgement that success in Iraq would weaken the radical Islamist cause and that therefore an American failure would boost the Jihad. This reveals the deep interplay between perception and battlefield kinetics that runs through the NIE excerpts. As a kinetic battlefield Iraq is neither the first nor the last over which America and its enemies will struggle. There is nothing inherently unique about it. What is singular is the mechanism that generates favorable perceptions for the Jihad from any battlefield. The system that energizes the Jihad from any battlefield that is input into it; that turns every battle against radical Islamism into a cause celebre is a much more general threat.
Unless some means is found for delinking the process of fighting terrorism from the process of radicalizing Western Muslims, there is no particular gain from abandoning Iraq, unless one were prepared to abandon every other active battlefield. What is the sense of removing one load of grist if the mill keeps on running? Consequently the one thing the Press left out of discussing the NIE, which heavily emphasizes the role of perception, is the role of the Press itself. Iraq the battlefield -- with its success and failures -- is largely what the combatants have made it. Iraq the symbol is largely the manufacture of observers. Both are factors in the War on Terror.
In judging the effects of perception versus reality the key issue is which is controlling, perception or reality? Because if perceptions can be formed independent of reality, then it really doesn't matter what you do: the only thing that matters is what people present. In this specific case, Osama bin Laden explicitly accuses American-enforced UN sanctions in the nostalgic era of containment of killing 600,000 Iraqi children. Whatever one may think of Kofi Annan, the Oil for Food Program or the sagacity of President Bill Clinton, it is doubtful whether those sanctions caused the death of 600,000 children.
If anything, the corruption of that system by Saddam Hussein and our erstwhile allies, Germany, France, Russia, and the U.N. itself were the cause of any hardships endured by the Iraqi population through the diversion of OFF funds to regime projects -- military and for the purposes of the elite.
Besides and maybe tangential to this, if what Osama was claiming were true, then obviously Operation Iraqi Freedom, if it achieved nothing else, stopped a genocide of historic proportions. But despite the fact that nothing of those sort of deaths happened, reality didn't matter. That Osama bin Laden perceived 600,000 children to have died in Iraq was enough reason to condemn America to death. Osama's fatwa is a clear example of perception making reality unnecessary. No adjustment in policy, no alteration of reality could have changed the picture for Osama because he was receiving his transmissions from an alternate universe. And for so long as he believed that hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children were being starved by America -- certainly fed by bleeding-heart liberals wanting to lift the sanctions under the same misconception-- that perception was enough to cause September 11 no matter what anyone did. Hence, any solution to the problem of the chronic and seething anger of the Islamic world has to address the question of how perception can depart so completely from actuality. If reality by itself doesn't matter, then the root of today's world crisis must partially lie in the way we generate our perceptions.
Finally, if you're going to claim that the war in Iraq is creating more terrorists and, as such, we should withdraw then you have to consider all the other "cause celebres" invoked by the terrorists and, similarly, cease those actions. In other words, capitulate, surrender, and just give up then see where Islamic Extremism takes us in the absence of any opposition.
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