On May 29, 2003, 50 days after the fall of Baghdad, President Bush proclaimed a fresh victory for his administration in Iraq: Two small trailers captured by U.S. and Kurdish troops had turned out to be long-sought mobile "biological laboratories." He declared, "We have found the weapons of mass destruction."
The claim, repeated by top administration officials for months afterward, was hailed at the time as a vindication of the decision to go to war. But even as Bush spoke, U.S. intelligence officials possessed powerful evidence that it was not true.
A secret fact-finding mission to Iraq -- not made public until now -- had already concluded that the trailers had nothing to do with biological weapons. Leaders of the Pentagon-sponsored mission transmitted their unanimous findings to Washington in a field report on May 27, 2003, two days before the president's statement.
The three-page field report and a 122-page final report three weeks later were stamped "secret" and shelved. Meanwhile, for nearly a year, administration and intelligence officials continued to publicly assert that the trailers were weapons factories.
As I'm sure we all remember, these labs were touted as evidence of Saddam's WMD program, and were repeatedly used as justification for the decision to invade. It appears now that the Bush administration was so desperate for some proof of WMDs that they were willing to shelve this report, and allow President Bush to claim that the trailers were in fact mobile bio-weapons labs.
The article goes into considerable detail as to how the report was made, and how it quickly became clear to the members of the special team that the trailers were anything but labs for bio-weapons. Such a finding was problematic for the administration, as the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency had already concluded (based on initial reports by military experts) that the trailers were most likely weapons labs shortly before the team's findings were reported back to Washington, and were in fact about to release a report of their own stating such. In fact, it was so troubling that the team members were pressured to "revise" their findings:
After team members returned to Washington, they began work on a final report. At several points, members were questioned about revising their conclusions, according to sources knowledgeable about the conversations. The questioners generally wanted to know the same thing: Could the report's conclusions be softened, to leave open a possibility that the trailers might have been intended for weapons?
Nonetheless, the report as released continued to state that the trailers were not used as bio-weapons labs.
It is utterly clear to me that members of the Bush administration, despite having in hand a carefully crafted report that indicated what the labs were and were not for, deliberately shelved the report so they could continue to claim to the American people that they had found WMDs. When you stop for a moment to think about this, you'll realize how pathetic this is. To that point, those trailers were the best evidence that Saddam had a WMD program. In fact, it remains true today that those trailers are the only evidence that has ever been provided publicly that a WMD program even existed, and the validity of that belief was utterly and finally destroyed when the Duelfer Report was issued in 2004. In other words, a couple of run-down trailers of questionable use were the only plausible evidence of the primary justification of the invasion, and the Bush administration continued to play-up that evidence even though at the time of Bush's comments a team of experts had concluded they were not used for the purposes of producing bio-weapons.
The article does not attempt to answer critical questions, such as who decided to shelve that report, and what members of the administration who were still touting the trailers knew as they were doing so. Nor does it address what Bush knew as he made those comments. There are only two possible conclusions: Bush did not know of the report, or Bush did know and made his comments anyway. If the former is true, than the Bush administration is being run by the underlings, and someone should be fired. If the latter, then Bush is a liar. Let me point you to a definition of "lie" in the Merriam-Webster dictionary:
2 : to create a false or misleading impression
Knowing that a team of experts has concluded that the trailers were not used for making bio-weapons, then going on TV and claiming that WMDs had been found is "creating a false or misleading impression." It is a lie. And a shameful one, in that Bush sought to hype any justification for a war that has cost 2300 American soldiers and 30,000 to 100,000 to God-knows-how-many Iraqi civilians their lives. It proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that there is no behavior so base that this administration will not engage in it for political advantage...or even just to save their hides.
UPDATE: It appears the Bush administration is taking a "blame the messenger" approach, blaming the fact that they made these claims on "flawed intelligence work." It's hard to even know what they mean by that, considering that we don't yet know when the Bush administration knew about this report from the team of experts. Are they saying that the initial reports about the trailers was flawed, or the fact that they didn't receive the report contradicting the earlier analysis of two teams of "military experts" before Bush publicly claimed that WMDs had been found was the fault of the intelligence community? Surely they don't mean the report itself was flawed, given that it was eventually given credence by the Duelfer Report provided by the Iraq Survey Group. Nonetheless, even if we assume Bush knew nothing of the team's report when he made his comments-and that's making a pretty big assumption about the failure of communications regarding a pretty significant issue-the fact remains that even after the report had been finalized, members of the Bush administration continued to claim for months afterward that the trailers were mobile bio-weapons labs, without once even bothering to qualify their comments by mentioning the team's report. That is deception, plain and simple. And I'll state again, a pathetic deception, given that our invasion was justified on the basis of "stockpiles" of WMDs and a re-constituted nuclear program, not two abandoned trailers sitting out in the desert.
9 comments:
I hate Bush. But, my take on this is that it is a military liability. A democratic administration cannot lie and mislead to the people and win a war, especially an insurgency.
This is one of the many tactical mistakes that the administration has made.
Check out the spin the administration is trying to put on it now.
"White House spokesman Scott McClellan called the account "reckless reporting" and said Bush made his statement based on the intelligence assessment of the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), an arm of the Pentagon."
Yeah, right. They're just pissed that they got caught lying again.
Good find.
And, a stupid thing to say. Of course he made his claims based on the CIA and DIA reports. That's the point, that they completely ignored the unanimous report provided by a team of civilian experts that the CIA and DIA had in their hands before they issued their reports. The follow-up question to McLellan's comment should have been "So, did Bush not know about the report? If not, why didn't he? Don't you think it's important for the President to know that a credible report refutes the findings of the CIA and the DIA before he makes public statements regarding these trailers?"
Can we impeach Bush now??
The funny thing is, thanks to places like Salon, I knew this back then. But why is the mainstream media only getting to it now?
I wonder if the media had done their job could we have prevented Bush from going to war?
Well, actually it's more illogical to attribute the exact same level of expertise to the three teams of "experts" that studied the trailers, conclude that 1+1=2 > 1, and decide that that's the end of the story.
Whatever you may wish RichJ, it appears clear from the article that the team of civilians who studied the trailers were eminently qualified to determine what the trailers are used for. What do we know about the team of "military experts?" Nothing. Who are these experts? Where is their report? If their reports were of equal merit to the civilian team, then why did the CIA and DIA reportedly ask the civilian team to "soften" it's unanimous finding that the trailers were not used as bio-weapons labs?
Secondly, let's assume the highly dubious proposition that the 2 teams of "military experts" were in fact equal in expertise to the civilian team. In that case we have considerable dissent as to the purpose of the trailers. Did Bush go on TV to say that there was "dissent as to the purpose of the trailers"? No, he said "WMDs have been found." To me, that represents a clear attempt to present a false picture of what the intelligence community thought of the trailers, that there was unanimity of opinion when there was not, and that's in the best of circumstances. In the worst, that the teams of the "military experts" were in fact not nearly as qualified as the civilian team, then it is a clear and unequivocal lie.
I've read this meme on other conservative blogs RichJ. It's without merit there, and here.
Good counterpoint. Even if Bush had good reason to believe that the trailers were meant for bio-weapons, it was still wrong to characterize them that way and not mention that one third of your experts disagreed. One third is a significant fraction. You don't just shrug it off when it's from acknowledged experts.
But we shouldn't expect innocence from the Bush administration, nor should we any longer assume them innocent until proven guilty since their track record has been to be proven guilty every time. They have completely lost the right to the benefit of the doubt.
RichJ-
I'm glad you feel comfortable assuming evidence to support your point. I for one do not. What I see before me is a unanimous report by one team, and reports of unknown quality by "military experts." They are not necessarily of the same quality, and I won't assume as much.
But nonetheless you fail to address my other point, where we assume that in fact they are of the same quality. Why then the claims that WMDs had been found, when one team unanimously concluded in short order that the labs were not for bio-weapons? Why the pressure for the team to "soften" its conclusions? Why did members of the administration continue to claim that WMDs had been found months after the report should have been disseminated? Who shelved that report, and why?
The Bush administration has failed to act in good faith on this issue. They do not deserve the presumption that they acted in good faith in any respect to this report. It is upon them to show us that Bush did not know of this report, or to show us the quality of the military intelligence AND explain why they stated without equivocation that WMDs had been found.
Thanks for the link, guys. I really enjoy this blog.
As for the latest spin, the perception of the public and the combative tone from the administration will not mix well.
Maybe they made an honest mistake. Maybe not. Perception is reality though, in politics and much else.
Well, supposedly the dissenting opinion was part of the report that the administration got before Bush gave his speech. I can't see how it's an "honest" mistake not to at least note that your experts don't agree fully.
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