"The former head of Britain's MI6, Sir Roger Dearlove, confirms to Suskind on the record that both Bush and Blair received late-breaking but excellent first-hand intelligence that Saddam was bluffing on WMDs. A James Bond character, British spy Michael Shipster, secured a real line of information from an Iraqi intelligence chief. Blair had tasked MI6 with getting to the bottom of the WMD question. Suskind's original source, a high-level American intelligence agent, puts it this nway:
'We knew,' he says.
'Knew what?'
That there were no weapons in Iraq.'
'Sure,' I say, 'people suspected. Define knew.'"
If true, this war becomes not well-intentioned blunder ("we had bad intel") but horrific crime. If true.
10 comments:
Hey, Streak.
It's too early.
But. . .
I'm thinking that the concept of Mens Rea would disqualify this as a crime. Unless you want to make a case for these fellows having the intellectual capability and moral fiber to actually discern that what they were doing was wrong.
Perhaps in England--Guilty, but Insane.
But here? They'll be relegated to page 3 news and late night monologues that we can't figure out when they're reruns.
Not that I'm bitter.
James
The President isn't going to be arrested, but this would certainly be an impeacheable offense.
All good lies must have a measure of truth in them.
There are several good reports out there (not from foxnews) that verify that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (not necessarily nuclear). Not only that they were there but that we actually have destroyed some. It was relegated to page 3 and never got much media attention...
But I would agree that if Bush knew that there were not any weapons (which isnt true because we found some) then it would be an impeacheable offense.
I didn't mean "crime" as legally defined. I meant it in a general sense.
What WmD are you talking about, FP? There is no debate that Saddam had old stores of wmd that he used against the Kurds. We found those. We didn't find current or recent stores and certainly nothing that justifies this war.
And everyone can relax. Nothing will get this President impeached. Well, maybe if he had oral sex with an intern, but real crimes, or just atrocities will not get the job done. Torture certainly didn't lead to anything like impeachment, so I have real doubts that any of this will.
btw, thanks for commenting, James. I think one of the things we will continue to debate is the intelligence of this administration. I go back and forth on it. I don't doubt Cheney's intelligence, or his ability to figure out how to manipulate the system, but with him, moral fiber is another issue.
Bush is an interesting case. On one hand, I think he is just incredibly adept at self-deception, and so actually means well, and isn't a complete dope. But then I see him speak, and I change my mind.
I am hopeful that at some point historians will give us a window into this administration. From what I have read about Mayer's recent book, it gives us one glimpse--and the news on Cheney is not good.
Streak, if this claim is true I would be the first in line to call for him to be removed. That would be unacceptable to me because I believe those in political office should be of high moral character. This would disqualified.
Now onto the conversation of WMD's. The first question we must ask is what is a weapon of mass destruction? I think chemical, biological, and nuclear are all WMD's but some might disagree. I think anything that potentially can eliminate 1000's of people in one act should be considered a WMD. I would have to do some checking to see what the official definition of it is though.
Now off the top of my head I can give you 3 instances of what the media called WMD's.
1. Chemical grade weapons trucks burried and destroyed in Iraq.
2. Long Range Artillery shells filled with chemical agents of Sarin and Mustard Gas were found. There were over 500 found in 1 sight.
3. A submerged containment units and tunnels were found a year or so ago with radiation all over.
Next, from all the information that we have gathered from Saddam himself he in his collection of info admits to still having them. According to independent Civilain intelligence committee's.
Finally we have found mass graves that were during the time of the invasion where people were killed by chemical grade weapons.
This has always been a confusing thing to me because it was reported in the news but this presidency has never fought the charges that there never was any WMD's
Perhaps because those clearly were not the threat to America that the President said justified the war. We knew he had WMD before. But the problem was that he didn't have the current weapons system in place that we used to justify the invasion.
"No, that was just what I said. You misunderstand. What I meant was . . . "
Redefine terms. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
I like SFC Red Thomas's take on biological and chemical weapons as weapons of area denial rather than mass destruction, since they pose the most threat to military personnel who for whatever reason will not be able to leave an area where the weapons are put into effect.
This line is key:
These weapons are about terror; If you remain calm, you will probably not die.
I don't believe the all the fussing and hand-wringing about "WMDs" in the media and coming from hawkish political commentators promotes an informed, capable citizenry who would handle an actual chemical or biological attack sanely and with minimal loss of life. Fearmongering promotes panic in the case of actual disasters, which is why I tend not to have much sympathy for it.
i dont remember suskind claiming that anyone 'knew' there were no wmds. he has that quote from one of his sources, but i think he points out that different sources have different opinions.
he talks in his bbc interview, that the habbush pre-war information raised doubts, enough doubts to stop the war i suppose he is implying.
he also talks about the debate inside the part of the government, with some people thinking habbush was telling the truth, some people thinking habbush was lying, and most people not sure what to think.
he talks about how for habbush to have proved his case, he would have had to have proven a negative, which is hard to do.. ie, prove theres no WMDs. well, can you prove there are no ants in your house? thats proving a negative.
iirc, his book talks about how bush & co knew about the habbush talks, and about naji sabri, and had many other sources telling them there were no WMDs, and from suskind's account, they did not pursue those sources very vigorously...for example , naji sabri was supposed to get 200,000 dollars, but the intermediary stole it, and bill murray couldnt get another 200 grand for the job. naji would have defected if we would have arranged some sort of protection for his family, but we never offered. .. . if i remember the books account correctly.
for the british, it might be a different story... michael shipster, the guy who met with habbush, said that if the british had known about naji sabri, they might not have gone to war. but they didnt really know about naji sabri, because the US didnt share what naji actually said with the british. the US somehow, shared the opposite of what naji said, with the british. thats my attempt to summarize the book's case, anyways.
but any way you look at it, i dont remember suskind saying 'bush knew for certain'. it seems that what suskind is doing is trying to show us the same intelligence that bush had, and then say that bush should have had more doubts and should have digged deeper to figure out what was really going on. thats my take on the book.
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