Bush versus the NIE: Buck Naked Bloggerama

 Mark Twain on President Theodore Roosevelt:

We are insane, each in our own way, and with insanity goes irresponsibility.   Theodore the man is sane; in fairness we ought to keep in mind that Theodore, as statesman and politician, is insane and irresponsible.
- Letter to J. H. Twichell, 2/16/1905

Among other things, Twain opposed Roosevelt for his role in the Spanish American war.  I don't know whether you'll find this in any way helpful to remember as you read what follows.

On the President's Press Conference

Dan Froomkin is agog over "the neck-snapping spin from the President."

[T[o hear Bush talk about it at the White House press conference this morning, the new NIE vindicated his beliefs and makes his warnings about Iran more potent....It was neck-snapping spin even by Bush standards. He intentionally misread the report's central point, failed to acknowledge a huge change in his argument for why Iran is dangerous and exhibited pure bullheaded stubbornness.....

Yesterday's report came as something as a shock to the general public. Bush and Vice President Cheney have long asserted that Iran was actively seeking nuclear weapons, and Cheney, in particular, had been accelerating what some observers saw as a drumbeat for war. But the nation's 16 intelligence agencies didn't come to their conclusion overnight. In fact, this NIE had been in the works for 18 months, during which some of its authors were reportedly harried by Cheney for not being sufficiently hawkish.

And points out what he, our own D. Cupples, and many, many others have been saying for months:

The apparent change in Bush's red line for Iran -- no longer the possession or even the pursuit of nuclear weapons but the knowledge of how to make them -- is highly reminiscent of the linguistic contortions Bush executed after it was established that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction. Hours before sending American troops into Iraq, Bush had expressed"no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised." But by late 2004, he shifted to justifying the invasion because Hussein "retained the knowledge, the materials, the means, and the intent to produce weapons of mass destruction."

Bush's new mantra is: "Iran was dangerous, Iran is dangerous, and Iran will be dangerous if they have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon." (Read more...)

The Carpetbagger Report does a bang-up job of picking apart all the possible rationalizations from the right for the NIE outcome: Conservatives not sure what to do about good news on Iran

Klaus Marre at The Hill has a few pithy words from Joe Biden.  Biden reckons that there are only two possible inferences from the bombshell that was the NIE:  Bush is either a liar or incompetent.  Oh, like we haven't heard that one before.  But here's Jarrin' Joe anyway:

“Are you telling me a president who is briefed every single morning, who is fixated on Iran, is not told back in August that the tentative conclusion of 16 intelligence agencies in the United States government said they had abandoned their effort for a nuclear weapon in ’03?” Biden said in a conference call with reporters. 

“That’s not believable,” Biden added. “I refuse to believe that. If that’s true, he has the most incompetent staff in … modern American history and he’s one of the most incompetent presidents in modern American history.”  (Read more...)

At Shakesville, Space Cowboy isn't buying the president's version of the proverbial excuse, "The Dog Ate My Intelligence Report": 

[T]he new NIE report on Iran has placed President McFumblenutz, and his esteemed crew, into quite a pinch. Stephen Hadley made matters worse the other day by stating rather clearly that the NIE findings were given to Bush "a few months ago." For anyone keeping track, this means Bush was already informed about the cease in Iran's nuclear weapons program while he was claiming that World War III is right around the corner.

(Via The Daily Show, here's the President claiming that World War III is right around the corner.)

Re: the tension between Bush's representations and Hadley's, Space Cowboy says:

It seems that people have some kind of problem calling Bush on this extreme level of bullshit due to HUTA Syndrome (head up the ass). [A]low me to be the one to try and help everyone out with this golden rule: When two people present conflicting recollections of the same event, one of them is lying."  (Read more...)

At BradBlog, Jon Ponder asks "Is He Lying Or Is He the Head of an Intelligence Service So Incompetent That U.S. Security Is in Jeopardy?" Not that these are necessarily mutually exclusive, but I've never believed it was the intelligence of the intelligence services that was the problem.   And neither does Jon Ponder. 

Normal U.S. presidents don't generally suggest, especially off-handedly, that the planet is on the brink of World War III. Is it really possible that Bush could have been so woefully uninformed about his own government's intelligence findings that he could make such a world-class blunder?  No.  

Every morning, without exception, a senior intelligence official, usually DNI McConnell, presents Bush with a document called the President's Daily Brief (PDB), a top-secret overview of the very latest intelligence about the status of security threats facing the nation.

From August until October 17, Bush was given at least 60 of these daily security briefings. What he would have us believe now is that during all those briefings DNI McConnell failed to inform him about something of no less consequence than Iran's decision to postpone blowing up the world.  

If this is true, McConnell, along with every top official at all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, should be fired for dereliction of duty and rank incompetence.

But it is not true, and can't be. Bush had to have known the Iranian program was suspended at the time he made his World War III comment. He was lying then, just as he lied today when he laid blame for his own knowingly false statement on DNI McConnell.  

Why would Bush sully the office of the president of the United States with such an outrageous and dangerous lie about Iran? Because keeping America safe is far less critical to George Bush than keeping it scared. (read more...)

Finally, The Sideshow brings up a point I hadn't thought about and don't want to think about and won't think about.

I forget now which of the many pieces I've read on the subject pointed out that the existence of this document explains the sudden push to get the Senate to declare Iran's army a terrorist organization (Kyle-Lieberman), and that Bush actually tamped down his WWIII language and switched to this terrorist business around the time they actually got the report. Bush pretending that he never got this information is almost comedy until you remember that he's supposed to be the President of the United States. Seymour Hersh seems to have pretty strong evidence that it's just the usual Bush lying, anyway. Spencer Ackerman says Congress (Probably) Didn't Compel Release of Iran Intel Report and that....McConnell appears to have done it on his own - which makes you wonder why he did so. (Is there something even worse they didn't want us to be paying attention to?) Media messages;  emphasis added)

'Matt Yglesias cries foul and says the Bush administration has been hyping the threat...'

Matthew Yglesias (Red Handed).  Matt Y. discusses Cheney's somewhat disingenuous efforts to sell the US on the notion that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapons program notwithstanding the administration's knowledge about "the alleged Iranian nuclear program":

Every time I think nothing will surprise me anymore, the Bush administration manages to take my breath away all over again. Consider the staggering dishonesty with which Dick Cheney has been trying to mislead the American people about our knowledge of the alleged Iranian nuclear program.....It's not as if Cheney read the NIE and decided he had some reason to believe it was incorrect. Rather, he read it, decided he'd better not contradict it, but also decided that bottom line conclusions about how Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program were inconvenient, and thus decided to talk around that minor point and try to get the American people confused about what's happening.  (Read more....)

At FP Passport (The Bush administration's Iran dilemma). Did the "past year of bluster": make diplomatic sense?  Was it all about scaring Iran straight?  Read what Passport has to say and decide for yourself. 

Matt Yglesias cries foul and says that the Bush administration has been hyping the threat, and that's certainly true. And it may well be that Vice President Dick Cheney discounts the intelligence community's assessment. But there may also be a defensible reason for the hysteria. If we take Hadley's statement at face value, the past year of bluster coming from the administration makes sense. The fundamental problem is that the Europeans, Chinese, and especially the Russians are skittish about enacting U.N. sanctions. But the sanctions seem to be working! Yet to get others on board, the United States has had to sound the alarm about the program and threaten that if sanctions fail, it will turn to its Air Force for solutions. In order to be effective, this threat has to be credible: The Iranians have to believe it, and the other members of the Security Council have to believe it. In other words, the Bush administration has to convince the world that the alternative to sanctions is war, rather than a nuclear Iran that might be unpalatable but is ultimately a manageable problem.

Of course, what the administration hasn't done is offer Iran a credible package of inducements that includes security guarantees, economic incentives, and so forth. In the words of the NIE, "opportunities for Iran to achieve its security, prestige, and goals for regional influence in other ways." Hadley's mention of a "willingness to negotiate a solution that serves Iranian interests" hints that such a package might be in the offing. The trouble is, Iran's negotiators are much more irascible now than they were in 2003, so the price will be far higher than it was back then—assuming a deal is still even possible.  (Read more...)

How Frustrated Are Hawks within the Vice President's Office?

According to this BBC News article, they are crazy frustrated.

One source, who has close links to US intelligence, said that members of Vice President Dick Cheney's staff continued to call for military strikes against Iran "on a daily basis".

Senior military officers and intelligence officials are understood to have grave reservations about an attack on Iran - not least because it would be unclear how a military confrontation with Iran could be brought to a conclusion.  ( read more of Iran report frustrates US hawks)

Atrios:

It must be understood that since our intelligence agencies don't believe Iran has a nuclear weapons program, it also means that they don't know where such a program would be physically located if it did exist. This means that any desires of Dick Cheney and his people to bomb Iran simply involve... bombing the shit out of Iran.  (Crazy People)

Is the National Intelligence Estimate "a CIA Plot to Protect Iran"?

I already had a go at Podhoretz for trying to protect his position by raising his "dark suspicion" about the NIE report.  But I didn't get into the specifics. 

Josh Marshall at TPM does:  Giuliani Advisor Podhoretz: It's a CIA Plot to Protect Iran

Tim Grieve at Salon would like to remind you that Podhoretz is Giuliani's choice for National Security Adviser (as if Giuliani didn't already have enough problems).

 

Podhoretz -- a "founding father of the neocon movement" who is currently serving as a senior advisor to Rudy Giuliani -- says the NIE is proof that we cannot trust ... the intelligence community.

As Think Progress reports, Podhoretz says he can't shake the suspicion 1) that the "intelligence community, having been excoriated for supporting the then universal belief that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, is now bending over backward to counter what has up to now been a similarly universal view ... that Iran is hell-bent on developing nuclear weapons"; 2) that "having been excoriated as well for minimizing the time it would take Saddam to add nuclear weapons to his arsenal, the intelligence community is now bending over backward to maximize the time it will take Iran to reach the same goal"; and 3) that "the intelligence community, which has for some years now been leaking material calculated to undermine George W. Bush, is doing it again."  

"This time, the purpose is to head off the possibility that the president may order air strikes on the Iranian nuclear installations," Podhoretz writes.

If you're thinking that it would be a good thing to "head off" such airstrikes -- particularly if Iran is not, in fact, developing nuclear weapons -- well, you don't think like Podhoretz thinks. In an interview earlier this year, Podhoretz said that he hoped and prayed that the United States would bomb Iran -- really, he used those words, "hope" and "pray" -- even though doing so might "unleash a wave of anti-Americanism all over the world that will make the anti-Americanism we've experienced so far look like a lovefest."  (Read more of  Giuliani advisor: Doubt the NIE!)

The Carpetbagger Report mordantly remarks that Conservatives [are] not sure what to do about good news on Iran and specifically takes note of Podhoretz's attempt to find an angle:

Rudy Giuliani’s chief national security advisor Norman Podhoretz, argues that the NIE is not only wrong about the Iranian threat, but is actually part of a massive deception, launched by the Central Intelligence Agency to protect Iran....Remember, this guy will not only shape a President Giuliani’s foreign policy, he also boasts “there is very little difference” between how he and the former mayor perceive policy towards Iran.  (Read more....)

At Lean Left, Kevin---who has as jaded a view of the intelligence community as Norman Podhoretz--- is very unkind to poor Podhoretz, concluding from Podhoretz's contribution to the discussion that Giuiliani Employs Insane People

Do I really need to point out that this is insane? The CIA — the folks who do extraordinary rendition and torture people — are trying to appease Iran and make Bush bad. Next week, Podhoretz is going to explain how Santa Claus is really a Chinese spy. Why not? It makes more sense that the tripe he just wrote about the CIA and the NIE.  (Read more...)

Are Neocons Always Wrong?  Yes, Virginia, They Are Always Wrong...

On the topic of the reliable wrongness of  Sweet Neocons, Digby speaks for many of us when she says:

I have been writing for years that the neocons are always wrong about everything and this new NIE basically stating that the Iran threat has been vastly overstated drives that home once more. It would be funny if it weren't so dangerous.

After the invasion of Iraq, when they were once again proved to be wrong about everything, they immediately began pounding the war drums for a campaign against Iran. You'll recall that the pithy little slogan making the rounds was "Anyone can go to Bagdad, real men go to Tehran." Norman Podhoretz, the neocon godfather, made ever more hyperbolic statements about the need to invade and was quite convinced that it was going to happen.....

It's a very useful rule of thumb in foreign affairs to simply assume that the neocons are wrong no matter what, because they are always wrong about everything. That is not to say that all conservatives are wrong about everything, and neocons merge with the more traditional hard line hawk faction just often enough that it gets confusing. But if Norman Podhoretz says something, you can pretty much take it to the bank that he's going to be proven an ass. He's well into his 80's and he hasn't been right yet, so I think the evidence is pretty clear that his powers of observation and analysis are unreliable to say the least.

Yesterday , I wrote that the Iran hawks would immediately call into question the motives and conclusions of the intelligence agencies.  Well, here they come....This was entirely predictable because this is what they have been doing for the past 40 years. When confronted with facts that don't support their embedded worldview that Stalinist regimes are trying to kill us all in our beds, they just say the evidence disproving it is tainted. This has happened over and over again. Why would this be any different? (Read more...)

But Mommy, what will the poor GOP loyalists do?

Why, they'll argue that the Democrats are just as disingenuous as they are, of course.  In addition, they'll try to convince their "base" that Democrats are so irrational as to think Iraq is "a fluffy little fuzz ball," according to Redstate.

Democrats have been bleeding through their bulging eyeballs with outrage over this President's alleged misuse of Intelligence in order to deceive the American people and wage a war of "blood for oil" for YEARS. They have vilified Bush AND they have trashed the Intelligence community relentlessly, accusing them of everything from being Bush's puppets to being the most incompetent group of organizations to ever serve the American people.

Give them a report they like, or one that fits their agenda of pacifism, retreat, and capitulation, and BANG! Magically, the Intelligence community instantaneously transforms into some surreal beacon of hope for a brighter Democrat future.
Having taken credit for requesting a report that coincidently aligns with a promised Obama or Clinton appeasement of the man who wants to see Israel destroyed, the Democrats believe they have George Bush right where they want him. Of course, they also seem to believe...NEED to believe that Iran is but a fluffy little fuzz ball and has been since 2003.  (read more; links in original)

Mph.  That's what some conservatives would have you believe.  It doesn't square with my experience or observations. 

First, the fact that Democrats don't necessarily trust "the intelligence community" strengthens the evidence.  If they believe that the intelligence community are puppets or incompetent, that's all the more reason to do nothing about Iran one way or the other because this means there ARE no facts.  But that's not what most Democrats believe.  Most Democrats believe that the intelligence itself was as reliable as it probably could be, but that the Bush administration ignored the caveats and cautions and just exploited the bits that supported their agenda.

Second, I don't think anyone who is paying attention believes that Iran isn't a threat and as a matter of fact I made the argument earlier today that conservatives are endangering national security by the false certainties with which they state their agenda-driven foreign policy goals.  Now there will be some people who will come away believing that Iran isn't a threat when all the NIE report showed is that it is not an imminent threat requiring the immediate military action that Bush and Cheney were pushing.  But this will be because the Bush administration has been exposed once again as irretrievably given to hyperbole and not because Democrats wish to convince anyone that Iran presents no threat.

But if you want more, check out what else Redstate has to say just after abjuring the reader to hold on a cotton picking minute.

Or for the authoritative versions just go straight to Sadly, No!'s: Shorter Solons Of Neoconservatism

Memeorandum has all SORTS of buzz. 

 RELATED BN-POLITICS POSTINGS

Podhoretz Digests the NIE, Finds It Doesn't Agree

Better Late than Never:  The Truth About Iranian Nuclear Weapons Development?

Senior Brass:  Military Strike Against Iran Currently Unnecessary

 Why the War Hawks Fail to Persuade (Part 2)

Why the War Hawks Fail to Persuade

 

Comments

[Avedon]

The point I brought up looks a lot less interesting when you realize I had a mind-o and read "Mitch McConnell" for "Mike McConnell".