Finally, Rice's assertion doesn't square with Bush's admission to journalist Bob Woodward. According to Woodward, Bush "acknowledged that bin Laden was not his focus or that of his national security team." Bush admitted: "there was a significant difference in my attitude after September 11...I was prepared to look at a plan that would be a thoughtful plan that would bring him to justice and would have given the order to do that. I have no hesitancy about going after him. But I didn't feel that sense of urgency, and my blood was not nearly as boiling." [Woodward, Bush at War, p. 39]
Why lie? Because nobody in the Bush administration dares to admit that its obsession with Iraq (and missile defense) undermined its due diligence against the threat posed by al Qaeda.
But, simply recall that, "barely five hours after American Airlines Flight 77 plowed into the Pentagon" -- even after evidence connecting al Qaeda to the terrorist attacks had become known -- Rumsfeld demanded the "best info fast. Judge whether good enough to hit S.H." [Saddam Hussein]. Unfortunately, Rumsfeld's demand for the "best info" was not limited to accurate info. For he also asserted: "Go massive...Sweep it all up. Things related and not." ["Plans For Iraq Attack Began on 9/11," CBS News, Sept. 4, 2002]
The Bush administration's subsequent abuse of "things related and not" goes far to explain the extreme measures it employed to persuade Americans to support an illegal, immoral invasion of Iraq. These extreme measures are the subject of a new book, Hitting First: Preventive Force in U.S. Security Strategy.
As is now well known, many members of the Bush administration, most notably Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld and Rice, used the first few days after al Qaeda's attacks to urge the president to attack Iraq. Counterterrorism czar Clarke was revolted by the knowledge that "Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were going to try to take advantage of this national tragedy to promote their agenda about Iraq." [Clarke, p. 30.]
And take advantage they did! On September 21, 2001, they received an official intelligence report that advised Bush and his principals that the "U.S. intelligence community had no evidence linking the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein to the attacks [on 9/11] and that there was scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties to al Qaeda." [Murray Waas, "Key Bush Intelligence Briefing Kept From Hill Panel, National Journal.com, Nov. 22, 2005]
In response, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz deployed a Zionist zealot, Douglas Feith, to establish the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group (PCEG) to "fix" [Hitting First p. 81] the intelligence, in order to create ties between Saddam and al Qaeda, where none existed. Thus, notwithstanding the fact that the official intelligence community (IC) issued five reports that found no evidence of significant ties between Saddam and al Qaeda, in September 2002 both Vice President Cheney and President Bush relied on Feith's "fixed" intelligence to falsely link the two.
Cheney falsely asserted, on Meet the Press, that evidence demonstrating that 9/11 hijacker, Mohammed Atta, was in Prague "with a senior Iraqi intelligence official" was deemed "credible" by the CIA. It was not. Moreover, on September 27, 2002, Bush asserted: "The danger is, is that al Qaeda becomes an extension of Saddam's madness...[Y]ou can't distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror. [Hitting First, p. 117] Indeed, the official intelligence community already had.
According to Gordon R. Mitchell and Robert P. Newman, Feith's PCEG engineered a "stealth coup" [Ibid, p. 82] against the established intelligence community, not only by feeding the Bush administration's ideologues with the bits of raw intelligence that buttressed their erroneous preconceptions, but also by "funneling the data directly to policy-makers, skirting peer review institutionalized by the formal processes of the official IC." [Ibid, p. 84]
Consequently, Rodger A. Payne correctly indicts virtually all of the "principals" in the Bush administration when he concludes: "By selectively releasing and mischaracterizing intelligence information that supported an Iraq-al Qaeda collaboration while continuing to keep information classified and out of the public realm that did not, the Administration distorted intelligence to persuade Americans into believing the actions of al Qaeda and Iraq were indistinguishable." [Ibid, p 134]
Unfortunately, as the contributors to Hitting First persuasively demonstrate, the Bush administration's decision to dupe Americans with "things related and not" proved useful beyond falsely linking Saddam to al Qaeda. Perhaps the two most egregiously dishonest uses of "things related and not" concern the deliberate conflation of "preemptive" war with "preventive" war and the equally deliberate absence of precision when discussing WMD - weapons of mass destruction.
The contributors to Hitting First have criticized the Bush administration's 2002 National Security Strategy of the United States of America (NSS 2002), because it deliberately confuses "preemptive" war, initiated in the face of an imminent threat and thus considered legal under international law, with "preventive" war, which, under international law, is indistinguishable from naked aggression. As Tom Rockmore notes: "It follows that defensive, or preemptive, war, which is intended to respond to a clear and present danger, including an ongoing or clearly looming attack, is moral, hence licit or justified. But what the Bush administration calls "preemptive" war, which is widely regarded as preventive, or offensive, war, designed for a situation when an attack is not clearly in the offing, when it may not ever take place, is immoral, hence illicit or unjustified." [Ibid, p. 146]
According to Mr. Rockmore, in NSS 2002, "the term 'preemptive' is being used, perhaps deliberately, in a nonstandard way that extends and broadens the justification for the United States to wage war against real or imagined adversaries. The consequence is to turn on its head the very idea that military action should be defensive only." [Ibid, p. 140] Although many Americans might remain confused by such slight of hand, the rest of the world has seen through the ruse.
Admittedly, to many Americans such serious distinctions might appear to be mere picking at nits, especially after the President, Vice President and National Security Advisor already have frightened them out of their wits with warnings about the threat posed by Iraq's nuclear weapons. But as the contributors to Hitting First demonstrate, the Bush administration not only exaggerated the threat posed by Iraq's nuclear program (which we now know was nonexistent), but also conflated that dire, but improbable, threat with the more probable, but less dire, threats posed by chemical or biological weapons.
Thus, as William Keller and Gordon Mitchell put it, "The rhetorical flexibility afforded by the omnibus category "weapons of mass destruction" enabled Bush administration officials to support claims of an Iraqi 'WMD' threat (replete with ominous 'mushroom cloud' imagery) by pointing to evidence of possible Iraqi chemical weapons development." [Ibid, p. 9]
Although such notorious examples of deceit by the Bush administration might seem more than enough, the contributors to Hitting First also address the psychological operations that were contemplated or actually initiated to shape public opinion in America. As the contributors note, such psychological operations continue in the tradition of "Operation Northwoods," a crackpot scheme proposed by General Lyman Lemnitzer (chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Eisenhower and Kennedy) to turn American public opinion against Fidel Castro.
Why lie? Because nobody in the Bush administration dares to admit that its obsession with Iraq (and missile defense) undermined its due diligence against the threat posed by al Qaeda.
But, simply recall that, "barely five hours after American Airlines Flight 77 plowed into the Pentagon" -- even after evidence connecting al Qaeda to the terrorist attacks had become known -- Rumsfeld demanded the "best info fast. Judge whether good enough to hit S.H." [Saddam Hussein]. Unfortunately, Rumsfeld's demand for the "best info" was not limited to accurate info. For he also asserted: "Go massive...Sweep it all up. Things related and not." ["Plans For Iraq Attack Began on 9/11," CBS News, Sept. 4, 2002]
The Bush administration's subsequent abuse of "things related and not" goes far to explain the extreme measures it employed to persuade Americans to support an illegal, immoral invasion of Iraq. These extreme measures are the subject of a new book, Hitting First: Preventive Force in U.S. Security Strategy.
As is now well known, many members of the Bush administration, most notably Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld and Rice, used the first few days after al Qaeda's attacks to urge the president to attack Iraq. Counterterrorism czar Clarke was revolted by the knowledge that "Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were going to try to take advantage of this national tragedy to promote their agenda about Iraq." [Clarke, p. 30.]
And take advantage they did! On September 21, 2001, they received an official intelligence report that advised Bush and his principals that the "U.S. intelligence community had no evidence linking the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein to the attacks [on 9/11] and that there was scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties to al Qaeda." [Murray Waas, "Key Bush Intelligence Briefing Kept From Hill Panel, National Journal.com, Nov. 22, 2005]
In response, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz deployed a Zionist zealot, Douglas Feith, to establish the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group (PCEG) to "fix" [Hitting First p. 81] the intelligence, in order to create ties between Saddam and al Qaeda, where none existed. Thus, notwithstanding the fact that the official intelligence community (IC) issued five reports that found no evidence of significant ties between Saddam and al Qaeda, in September 2002 both Vice President Cheney and President Bush relied on Feith's "fixed" intelligence to falsely link the two.
Cheney falsely asserted, on Meet the Press, that evidence demonstrating that 9/11 hijacker, Mohammed Atta, was in Prague "with a senior Iraqi intelligence official" was deemed "credible" by the CIA. It was not. Moreover, on September 27, 2002, Bush asserted: "The danger is, is that al Qaeda becomes an extension of Saddam's madness...[Y]ou can't distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror. [Hitting First, p. 117] Indeed, the official intelligence community already had.
According to Gordon R. Mitchell and Robert P. Newman, Feith's PCEG engineered a "stealth coup" [Ibid, p. 82] against the established intelligence community, not only by feeding the Bush administration's ideologues with the bits of raw intelligence that buttressed their erroneous preconceptions, but also by "funneling the data directly to policy-makers, skirting peer review institutionalized by the formal processes of the official IC." [Ibid, p. 84]
Consequently, Rodger A. Payne correctly indicts virtually all of the "principals" in the Bush administration when he concludes: "By selectively releasing and mischaracterizing intelligence information that supported an Iraq-al Qaeda collaboration while continuing to keep information classified and out of the public realm that did not, the Administration distorted intelligence to persuade Americans into believing the actions of al Qaeda and Iraq were indistinguishable." [Ibid, p 134]
Unfortunately, as the contributors to Hitting First persuasively demonstrate, the Bush administration's decision to dupe Americans with "things related and not" proved useful beyond falsely linking Saddam to al Qaeda. Perhaps the two most egregiously dishonest uses of "things related and not" concern the deliberate conflation of "preemptive" war with "preventive" war and the equally deliberate absence of precision when discussing WMD - weapons of mass destruction.
The contributors to Hitting First have criticized the Bush administration's 2002 National Security Strategy of the United States of America (NSS 2002), because it deliberately confuses "preemptive" war, initiated in the face of an imminent threat and thus considered legal under international law, with "preventive" war, which, under international law, is indistinguishable from naked aggression. As Tom Rockmore notes: "It follows that defensive, or preemptive, war, which is intended to respond to a clear and present danger, including an ongoing or clearly looming attack, is moral, hence licit or justified. But what the Bush administration calls "preemptive" war, which is widely regarded as preventive, or offensive, war, designed for a situation when an attack is not clearly in the offing, when it may not ever take place, is immoral, hence illicit or unjustified." [Ibid, p. 146]
According to Mr. Rockmore, in NSS 2002, "the term 'preemptive' is being used, perhaps deliberately, in a nonstandard way that extends and broadens the justification for the United States to wage war against real or imagined adversaries. The consequence is to turn on its head the very idea that military action should be defensive only." [Ibid, p. 140] Although many Americans might remain confused by such slight of hand, the rest of the world has seen through the ruse.
Admittedly, to many Americans such serious distinctions might appear to be mere picking at nits, especially after the President, Vice President and National Security Advisor already have frightened them out of their wits with warnings about the threat posed by Iraq's nuclear weapons. But as the contributors to Hitting First demonstrate, the Bush administration not only exaggerated the threat posed by Iraq's nuclear program (which we now know was nonexistent), but also conflated that dire, but improbable, threat with the more probable, but less dire, threats posed by chemical or biological weapons.
Thus, as William Keller and Gordon Mitchell put it, "The rhetorical flexibility afforded by the omnibus category "weapons of mass destruction" enabled Bush administration officials to support claims of an Iraqi 'WMD' threat (replete with ominous 'mushroom cloud' imagery) by pointing to evidence of possible Iraqi chemical weapons development." [Ibid, p. 9]
Although such notorious examples of deceit by the Bush administration might seem more than enough, the contributors to Hitting First also address the psychological operations that were contemplated or actually initiated to shape public opinion in America. As the contributors note, such psychological operations continue in the tradition of "Operation Northwoods," a crackpot scheme proposed by General Lyman Lemnitzer (chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Eisenhower and Kennedy) to turn American public opinion against Fidel Castro.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
