In a move supposed to promote more "transparency," Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) recently invoked a rarely-used rule to force the Senate to close its doors for a short time, kicking out the reporters and barring all non-Senators from a secret discussion on pre-war Iraq intelligence. How a closed-door secret session increases openness in government remains a mystery to all but Harry Reid.
After the secret session, Democrats strutted before the cameras, bragging how they had forced the Republicans to move ahead with yet another inquiry into the use of intelligence before the invasion of Iraq. The media, desperate for any kind of Democrat victory, ate it up. No one even mentioned that the move to phase two of the investigation was already scheduled for this month... something every Democrat serving on the Senate Intelligence Committee already knew.
Senator Bill Frist (R-TN), the Senate Majority Leader, was rightly upset over the literal hijacking of the Senate for a publicity stunt. It's the same tactic the terrorists use in Iraq to bury good news... no matter how much progress is made there, a single hand grenade tossed into a marketplace crowd will dominate the headlines for the day. So what was really behind this prank?
As I see it, the move was pre-planned as the Democratic response to the anticipated indictment of Karl Rove. Democrats and Liberals desperately hoped that Rove would be indicted for intentionally exposing covert CIA agent Valerie Plame. He presumably did this to punish her husband, Joe Wilson, for telling the "truth" about Nigerian uranium.
Wilson was sent to Niger on Plame's recommendation, specifically to debunk "this crazy report," as she put it, that Saddam Hussein was trying to buy uranium. Liberals and Democrats believe, no matter how unreasonable it is, that Karl Rove deliberately exposed a secret agent out of sheer vindictiveness. The indictment of Rove by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was supposed to lead to another one-way debate on how "Bush Lied!" as a kickoff to the '06 campaign season. After all, that worked so well for the Democrats in '04.
Only... it was Wilson who lied about the uranium buy attempt, which did take place after all (as he noted in his book, yet omitted from all his interviews). His wife's identity wasn't being actively concealed, and she hadn't been stationed overseas in at least five years -- the two conditions necessary to make "exposing" her a crime.
Neither Rove nor anyone else was indicted for "outing" her, which -- as she was not a covert agent -- could not have even been done in the first place. "Fitzmas" was what the Angry Left dubbed the fabulous day that, in their fantasies, the entire Bush administration would be marched out of the White House in handcuffs. Well, Fitzmas fizzled... and Reid apparently never got the memo to put the followup on hold.
The "Bush Lied!" meme has been laid to rest several times before, but -- perhaps in keeping with the recent Halloween season -- the Left has brought it back from the grave. The Robb-Silberman Commission report filed in 2005 "found no evidence of political pressure to influence the Intelligence Community's pre-war assessments of Iraq's weapons programs." The 2004 Butler Review of Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction, the British investigation, found no evidence of "deliberate distortion" of the intelligence material or of "culpable negligence". The Senate Select Committee Report on Intelligence in 2004 "did not find any evidence that Administration officials attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to change their judgments related to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction." Well, if the Left doesn't get the conclusion they want, they simply claim it's all a lie and ask the same questions again... and again... and again.
So here's a handy little quiz for you. Below are just 21 statements made before Saddam's overthrow by US government and other officials about his weapons of mass destruction. Can you pick out which statements were deliberate lies, and which were merely based on faulty information (as the "Bush Lied!" crowd claims any statements by Democrats must have been)? Who said the following?
1. "Without question we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator leading an impressive regime. He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation. And now he's miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction."
2. "What is at stake is how to answer the potential threat Iraq represents with the risk of proliferation of WMD. Baghdad's regime did use such weapons in the past. Today, a number of evidences may lead to think that, over the past four years, in the absence of international inspectors, this country has continued armament programs."
3. "We must stop Saddam from ever again jeopardizing the stability and the security of his neighbors with weapons of mass destruction."
4. "One bottleneck for Tabun production is the availability of precursors. Iraq may have retained up to 191 tonnes of NaCN [potassium cyanide] and up to 140 tonnes of DMA.HCl [dimethylamine hydrochloride]."
5. "The community of nations may see more and more of the very kind of threat Iraq poses now: a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction, ready to use them or provide them to terrorists. If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow."
6. "In total, at least 300 to 350 R-400 and R-400A bombs remained unaccounted for by UNSCOM."
7. "We know that he has stored nuclear supplies, secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country."
8. "We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas. Saddam Hussein also has experience in using chemical weapons. He has ordered chemical attacks on Iran, and on more than forty villages in his own country."
9. "We begin with a common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandate of the United Nations, is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them."
10. "Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter, and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power."
11. "In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock. His missile delivery capability, his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists including Al-Qaeda members. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons."
12. "Saddam Hussein's regime represents a grave threat to America and our allies, including our vital ally, Israel. For more than two decades, Saddam Hussein has sought weapons of mass destruction through every available means. We know that he has chemical and biological weapons. He has already used them against his neighbors and his own people, and is trying to build more. We know that he is doing everything he can to build nuclear weapons, and we know that each day he gets closer to achieving that goal."
13. "A document submitted by Iraq in February 2003 outlining the production of Clostridium perfringens [gas gangrene], did not add any detail to previous Iraqi declarations. No evidence to support the declared destruction of the agent was provided."
14. "We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction."
15. "There was unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years. We also should remember that we have always underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction."
16. "Based on its estimate of the amounts of various types of media unaccounted for, UNSCOM estimated that the quantities of additional undeclared agent that potentially could have been produced were: 3,000 - 11,000 litres of botulinum toxin, 6,000 - 16,000 litres of anthrax, up to 5,600 litres of Clostridium perfringens, and a significant quantity of an unknown bacterial agent."
17. "This December will mark three years since United Nations inspectors last visited Iraq. There is no doubt that since that time, Saddam Hussein has reinvigorated his weapons programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical and nuclear programs continue apace and may be back to pre-Gulf War status. In addition, Saddam continues to refine delivery systems and is doubtless using the cover of a licit missile program to develop longer-range missiles that will threaten the United States and our allies."
18. "There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein's regime is a serious danger, that he is a tyrant, and that his pursuit of lethal weapons of mass destruction cannot be tolerated. He must be disarmed."
19. "(Saddam) will rebuild his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and some day, some way, I am certain he will use that arsenal again, as he has 10 times since 1983"
20. "There are 550 Mustard filled shells and up to 450 mustard filled aerial bombs unaccounted for since 1998. The mustard filled shells account for a couple of tonnes of agent while the aerial bombs account for approximately 70 tonnes."
21. "I think Iraq is the most serious and imminent threat to our country."
Ready for the answers? Some of them may surprise you.
1. Senator John Kerry (D-MA), 23 January 2003
2. French President Jacques Chirac, 16 October 2002
3. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, 1 February 1998
4. The United Nations (UNMOVIC), 6 March 2003
5. President Bill Clinton, 17 February 1998
6. The United Nations (UNMOVIC), 6 March 2003
7. Al Gore, 23 September 2002
8. President George W. Bush, 7 October 2002
9. Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), 19 September 2002
10. Al Gore, 23 September 2002
11. Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY), 10 October 2002
12. Senator John Edwards (D-NC), 10 October 2002
13. The United Nations (UNMOVIC), 6 March 2003
14. Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA), 27 September 2002
15. Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), 10 October 2002
16. The United Nations (UNMOVIC), 6 March 2003
17. Letter signed by Senator Bob Graham (D-FL), Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT), Congressman Harold Ford (D-TN), Congressman Tom Lantos (D-CA) and others, 6 December 2001
18. Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA), 27 September 2002
19. National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, 18 February 1998
20. The United Nations (UNMOVIC), 6 March 2003
21. Senator John Edwards (D-NC), 24 February 2002
Quotes taken from "Words of Mass Destruction" from Snopes.com, "If The Bush Administration Lied About WMD, So Did These People" from RightWingNews.com and the 6 March 2003 UNMOVIC report "Unresolved Disarmament Issues: Iraq's Proscribed Weapons Programmes."
Joe Mariani is a computer consultant born and raised in New Jersey. He now lives in Pennsylvania, where the gun laws are less restrictive and taxes are lower. Joe always thought of himself as politically neutral until he saw how far left the left had really gone after 9/11. His essays and links to articles are available at http://www.guardianwatchblog.com/