They won't. Partisan politics trumps principles every time.

And I still believe the White House shut down Brewster-Jennings and outed Plame for more reasons than just trying to "smear" Joe Wilson (which never made any sense anyway - accusing him of a junket to "smear" him? Lame, very lame.)

You'd better start trying to expose the current lies about Iran before the Iran war starts, or Iraq will look like a cakewalk. According to recent reports, most of that "laptop" stuff is really iffy, on a par with the Niger documents, perhaps.

Richard Steven Hack

www.computerproblemssolvedcheap.com 

It was never very credible to say that George Bush wasn't lying. I think they chose the words carefully "British Intelligence has learned that Iraq had sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." I think they were trying to not technically lie, hoping they wouldn't be caught before we could go to war. I've always thought this is the same reason they pulled the inspectors out of Iraq, because they were close to finding that Iraq had no WMDs.

In the end, historians will conclude that this administration was seriously corrupt and assign to it responsibility for all the death and destruction in Iraq along with a host of other lesser misdeeds that it would be impossible to enumerate here. If the voters decide that Bush is culpable beyond a doubt, they'll give Democrats a victory in both houses in November. Then Dems must deliver justice for us all. And if this happens and Dems don't deliver they could be screwed in '08.

Several things could hold back the Dems. They are simply not as mean spirited as their peers across the aisle and they'll have concerns about their degree of participation, however passive, in this debacle. They'll also be facing how to disengage from the Iraq quagmire, trying to fix our relations with our European allies and others along with a pile of other global and domestic issues that would effectively remain on the back burner if they were to pursue punitive action against Bush.

I don't think it is realistic that either party, under any circumstance, could handle such a full plate in any span of two years time. I think, if presented with the decision, Dems will be more inclined to let history resolve the issue of responsibility and focus on fixing the mess that has been created. That alone will take all the leadership they can muster.

thepeoplechoose

I feel the sequence of events points less to subtle conspiracies than to close-minded obsession. That would explain why the arguably lame effort at smearing Wilson went ahead, but there is also the argument that Rove felt the aluminum tubes thing was potentially more damaging (Murray Waas' idea) and it drew fire away from that issue.
I'm siding with an "addle-brained-Cheney" theory. He has become paranoid and attacking enemies trumps good sense. One bypass too many.

I believe that jaded readers of this blog and the other sites that have been telling the truth about Bush since and even before he was installed by the Supreme Court make a mistake to shrug off the cascading revelations in the mainstream media about him now as "old news" or "beating a dead horse". The recent revelations of specific, well-before-the-war knowledge by Bush that the aluminum tube and Niger yellowcake issues were at least extremely questionnable come at a time when the majority of the population has turned against Bush on the war. This was not the case when the scams were launched and many of us in this community first viewed them as cynical manipulations. Far more Americans now are angry at Bush over the war, so these additional revelations of his deceitful manipulation of the "intelligence" to rush us into war will have more political impact and may help deliver a Democratic House and/or Senate later this year that can do something about bringing Bush and his gang to account. Also, one would think that these continuing revelations would make it far more politically difficult for Pat "Rubber Stamp" Roberts to sweep the Administration's pre-war manipulations/exaggerations/fabrications under the table in the long-awaited, long-stonewalled second-phase of the Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation of pre-war intelligence. One would hope that some of his constituents in Kansas have begun holding his feet to the fire with these latest revelations. Maybe it's time for some focused television ads in Kansas itemizing Bush Administration lies and crimes (warrantless NSA wiretapping)and Roberts' continuing efforts to cover them up.

Your reference to 'slam dunk' raises a question. What is the likelihood that George Tenet really said that the case for WMD in Iraq was a 'slam dunk'. Personally, I strongly doubt it. The reference comes for Woodward's book. Although Woodward doesn't reveal the source, it was almost certainly Bush, probably with seconding from Tenet. Bush obviously is a liar with an agenda. Tenet would have gone along in lapdog manner.

What do you think?

What truth did former Ambassador Wilson tell? That Iraq had not sought to purchase uranium in Niger, as he asserted in his NYT op ed? Ot that it had attempted to acquire uranium, but had been unsuccessful, as the CIA concluded from Wilson's debriefing?

How do these "four U.S. officials" come by their "firsthand knowledge"? What did they know that Lord Butler not know?

From Commentary Magazine (Nov. 2005):

"Furthermore—and notwithstanding the endlessly repeated assertion that this assurance has now been discredited—Britain’s independent Butler commission concluded that it was “well-founded.” The relevant passage is worth quoting at length:

a. It is accepted by all parties that Iraqi officials visited Niger in 1999.

b. The British government had intelligence from several different sources indicating that this visit was for the purpose of acquiring uranium. Since uranium constitutes almost three-quarters of Niger’s exports, the intelligence was credible.

c. The evidence was not conclusive that Iraq actually purchased, as opposed to having sought, uranium, and the British government did not claim this.

As if that were not enough to settle the matter, Wilson himself, far from challenging the British report when he was “debriefed” on his return from Niger (although challenging it is what he now never stops doing6), actually strengthened the CIA’s belief in its accuracy. From the Senate Intelligence Committee report:

He [the CIA reports officer] said he judged that the most important fact in the report [by Wilson] was that Niger officials admitted that the Iraqi delegation had traveled there in 1999, and that the Niger prime minister believed the Iraqis were interested in purchasing uranium.

And again:

The report on [Wilson’s] trip to Niger . . . did not change any analysts’ assessments of the Iraq-Niger uranium deal. For most analysts, the information in the report lent more credibility to the original CIA reports on the uranium deal.

This passage goes on to note that the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research—which (as we have already seen) did not believe that Saddam Hussein was trying to develop nuclear weapons—found support in Wilson’s report for its “assessment that Niger was unlikely to be willing or able to sell uranium to Iraq.” But if so, this, as the Butler report quoted above points out, would not mean that Iraq had not tried to buy it—which was the only claim made by British intelligence and then by Bush in the famous sixteen words.

The liar here, then, was not Bush but Wilson. And Wilson also lied when he told the Washington Post that he had unmasked as forgeries certain documents given to American intelligence (by whom it is not yet clear) that supposedly contained additional evidence of Saddam’s efforts to buy uranium from Niger. The documents did indeed turn out to be forgeries; but, according to the Butler report,

[t]he forged documents were not available to the British government at the time its assessment was made, and so the fact of the forgery does not undermine [that assessment].7

More damning yet to Wilson, the Senate Intelligence Committee discovered that he had never laid eyes on the documents in question:

[Wilson] also told committee staff that he was the source of a Washington Post article . . . which said, “among the envoy’s conclusions was that the documents may have been forged because ‘the dates were wrong and the names were wrong.’” Committee staff asked how the former ambassador could have come to the conclusion that the “dates were wrong and the names were wrong” when he had never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports.

To top all this off, just as Cheney had nothing to do with the choice of Wilson for the mission to Niger, neither was it true that, as Wilson “confirmed” for a credulous New Republic reporter, “the CIA circulated [his] report to the Vice President’s office,” thereby supposedly proving that Cheney and his staff “knew the Niger story was a flatout lie.” Yet—the mind reels—if Cheney had actually been briefed on Wilson’s oral report to the CIA (which he was not), he would, like the CIA itself, have been more inclined to believe that Saddam had tried to buy yellowcake uranium from Niger."

LOL, the fine people over at Commentary Magazine, the headquarters of neoconservatism, attempt to throw mud and confuse by citing out of date documents and attacking credibility. Thanks for reposting this comical exercise in stentorian reality denial for our amusement, Chief.

I'll ask, (sigh) again, why did the White House back away from the assertion? Why did they need to "leak"? Why not ignore Wilson? Why mention Plame? Remember Stephen Hadley apologized for including it in the speech.
You're aware that Iraq had 500 tons of uranium already? (Registered to IAEA.) There is some possibility that Saddam wanted off-the-books ore, but he wasn't actually aware that his own program was dead. His underlings were telling him what he wanted to hear. This from documents captured.
Perhaps you have found some WMD everyone else missed?
This administration is going down. Get used to it.

You mean like your "baseless" claim that Americans had nothing to fear from terrorists 2 months before 9-11?

Ok, here's one for you:

Clinton:
Lied About the
Lewinsky Affair

His Cabinet:
Some of the most reprobate
minds of our day. More bent on
their cultural agenda, than the constitutional obligation they
held by oath [of course meaningless to them] of office.

The Result:

Weakening the enforcement of the rule of law by confirming radical judges to the benches across the country, for ideological reasons... not constitutional ones.

Bush:

His alleged misinformation on the "Niger" matter to the Senate Intelligence Committee regardless of committee mandate, and c'mon if you are going to cite a source... the Post is not reliable.

His Cabinet:

Filled with some of the brightest minds
of any cabinet preceding him, this of course with the exception of Rumsfled [in my opinion] who dedicate their lives [in office] for the preservation of the union, not lifestyle of cultural agenda.

The Result:

A recommitment to what this country
was authored as, not alleged to be by citizen muckrakers, who just want their way. A rededication to the rule of law, not the rule of flaw as partisan rebels on the left what like to supplant in the stead of solid principle.

Anyway you slice it, the revealed nature of any action taken have far more telling implications than a steady stream of incessant spin put out there regardless of political position. In the end, Clinton was a cunning strategist, but a weak-minded fool... and an ineffective President, period.

Bush... I am not a stand up and shout fan of, but he understands the role of the elected official over what is becoming today. He is maintaining that role and is effective.. thus the vile vitriol and spew he gets from the left, totally earned by him to them. You have to remember... we are not a democracy. Liberal as you are.. he is still your President [and mine]... you mught guard your word a bit more wisely.

-That Darn Republican

Sorry, Larry, but it seems to me that if someone hasn’t already come to a conclusion about Bush’s allergy to the truth, this latest WAPO story isn’t going to convert them. It reinforces the already copious evidence, but I’m not sure how it is any more “slam dunk” than previous revelations about the SOTU speech.

So it’s not exactly a dead horse, and any additional evidence or fine tuning is worthwhile if only for the fact that it adds layers of credibility to the case against the Bush administration’s Iraq policy.

Their playbook is obviously drawn from how Iran-Contra played out for Reagan. Although damaged, Reagan was personally saved because his denials seemed plausible to much of the American public. The Bushites have played it the same way: make statements, press an issue, make accusations, cherry-pick intelligence, but always in a manner that to the typical American seems, well, plausible enough, even if wrong, because you have footnoted it (in a forgery, hah!) or worded it in a particularly nimble way. Leaking “classified” information is a good recent example since, if the president leaks it, it is no longer classified and he is not required to fire himself. We’ve seen too much of this for them to be making it up as they go along.

I think that what we are witnessing now is the meltdown of this strategy, the success of which is inversely proportional to the length of the war. Had the war been short and glorious, with a relatively smooth transition to a US friendly regime, little of this would have mattered to the extent that it does today. The truth would have been the same, it just wouldn’t be translating into the poll numbers and rancor we are now seeing.

So on the momentum of September 11 and the reservoir of fear and hatred of Saddam , the president’s men (and woman) could make all kinds of frightening accusations and weakly supported assertions: Connections to 9/11 attacks, WMD intelligence is slam dunk, nuclear program reconstituted, yellow cake from Niger, aluminum tubes for one purpose only, etc. They could point to the “intelligence” to make their case plausible to a busy, frightened, angry, and gullible American public. They could sell doing it on the cheap (slightly over $1 billion by early estimates) for the people who were worried about the fiscal end. And always there was the ability to deflect, cover up, confuse, and attack the straw man. For all the incompetence in the post-invasion record, we shouldn’t forget how extremely good this administration was at managing the message and the public.

We can argue forever about Joe Wilson, who offered an opinion based upon a short trip to Niger. It was just one more thing the Bushites had to spin because that is what they do so expertly. The important question is not what Wilson found in Niger, but what the Bush people actually believed about the Niger-Iraq connection, such as it was. The evidence doesn't suggest they should have been particularly concerned. My guess is they weren't, but saw it as yet another point in the case against Saddam that was a. frightening and b. would seem plausible enough to the public if not looked at too carefully.

But with the passage of time, they can no longer hide so easily and we are witnessing the end of their ability to maintain their covers. Larry’s story is an important part of this. But to think that it closes the case seriously underestimates the abilities of this administration to cover itself. I am cautiously optimistic, but I fully appreciate that Bush and his minions are masters of the black arts.
Pantheon

President Bush cannot serve a third term. I "got used to" the US Constitution in Civics class forty years ago.

Why did they need to leak? It's not clear anyone leaked. The President has the power to declassify information. Why does he have to defend himself? The press demand information. In the absence of rebuttal, people will believe mendacious, partisan jounralists and their mendacious partsan bureaucratic sources. Now, when the President releases information, his defense is taken as evidence of guilt. You people are ill.

"You're aware that Iraq had 500 tons of uranium already? (Registered to IAEA.)"

I read that somewhere, yes. With no power reactor to burn it in, what was the point of losing the income Iraq might have had from selling it?

"Perhaps you have found some WMD everyone else missed?"

I have never been to Iraq. Have you? Even people who live there do not know what's under every rock. Only George Bush knows what George Bush knows. Only Saddam Hussein knows Saddam Hussein's intentions. Only the Niger Minister of Mines (or whatever) knows if Iraqi officials approached the Niger Minister of Mines seeking to purchase uranium.

I read that Jordanian security services prevented the detonation of a massive nerve agent/HE bomb in Amman. Where did the material for that originate? I "know" what I read. This does not mean I believe what I read. I have not read Ambassador Wilson's book, but I have read comments which assert that in that book Ambassador Wilson writes that he concluded Iraqi officials sought to purchase uranium. I have not read the 9/11 Commission report. I have read comments which excerpt (so they say) from the report. I have not read the reports of House and Senate committees which review pre-war intelligence, but I have read comments (new articles, blogs) which quote Congressional committee reports (so they say). You have your sources, and I have mine. This does not imply a stalemate. If individual A says "X" and "not X", A is lying. I believe Commentary, that Wilson is lying, but if it's important to you, track down the Commentary references, put the Butler report next to Commentary's version, and I'll accept that Commentary misrepresented Butler (and Wilson). If Wilson did not change his story between his NYT op-ed and his book, then those who say he did lie. If Wilson changed his story, then Wilson iied. I'm hardly agnostic on this, but I can change my mind. Ad hominem does not work for me, however, so those who use that tactic waste their time.

"This administration is going down. Get used to it."

I hope I never get used to malicious lies, as spun by Joseph Wilson, Dan Rather, et cetera.

The distinction you are missing is that Wilson and Rather do not have the power to send thousands of Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis to their deaths for a lie. Bush does and Bush did.

Malcolm, you are irrelevant.

I have trouble taking seriously someone who argues in your ad hominem style, for one. It's too easy; any moron can toss insults like "pea brain" around. I have trouble reconciling what I read about CIA Director Tenet assuring the President that the case for Iraqi WMD was a "slam dunk" with claims that the experts were skeptical. I have trouble reconciling reports that Wilson's findings supported the claim that Iraq sought uranium in Niger with assertions that the CIA was convinced that Iraq had not. If they were convinced otherwise, why investigate? If they were agnostic, and Wilson returned with indications that Iraq had sought uranium, whence comes this reported confidence with which they would assert that the Niger connection was "baseless"? Given the failure of pre-war intelligence on Iraq WMD, I have trouble understanding why journalists now trust CIA insiders to tell us the truth about the inside workings of the CIA. Current anti-administration conversations between anonymous insiders and partisan journalists look to me like a pre-emptive strike by the CIA to protect their asses from a thoroughly justified caning.

Larry,

In 1972 the Mossad considered a plan to assassinate Arafat when he spoke at the UN in New York. It was decided that Arafat was still better than whoever might replace him.

While I agree with you that Bush should be impeached and convicted, doing so is a bad idea. The following is the presidential line of succession. Bush is bad enough. Why would we want any of the following, except Interior, to be President?

# The Vice President Richard Cheney
# Speaker of the House John Dennis Hastert
# President pro tempore of the Senate Ted Stevens
# Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
# Secretary of the Treasury John Snow
# Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld
# Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
# Secretary of the Interior (Vacant)
# Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns

I don't see a big improvement. We would probably have to impeach and convict Bush's successor(s).

Note: Another Mossad idea at the time was to use a laser to surrepticiously blind Arafat as he spoke outdoors, the inference being that God had struck Arafat blind for his sins.

Looming behind Bush's plunging poll numbers and the GOP's increasing disarray is the menace of Iran, or more precisely, the menace of what Bush plans to do there and WHEN he plans to do it. See the latest New Yorker article by Sy Hersh for the Administration's apparent desire to employ tactical nuclear weapons there: http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060417fa_fact. The color-coded terrorist threat system and repeated references to "chatter" were enough to manipulate millions of people to line up behind Bush in 2004, but those devices have probably lost their effectiveness. Would a large scale aerial and special forces attack on Iran rally the population behind Bush and the GOP in 2006? Who knows? Leaving aside the probably horrific consequences of attacking Iran at any time, it's appropriate to start asking Bush and Congress very hard questions about timing. If Iran is now 5 to 10 years away from developing nuclear weapons, as appears to be the case from the New Yorker article, what possible justification, other than perceived domestic political expediency, would Bush have for launching an attack on Iran this year? Or next year? Or the year therafter?