Re: The "Lie"

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On Wednesday July 16, 2003 09:09, Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> On Wednesday 16 July 2003 06:31, Neil Stevens wrote:
> > > because Bush was cautioned it was untrustworthy. because the CIA
> > > knew it was likely forged.
> >
> > Says who?  Not NSC head Rice, not CIA head Tenet.
>
> i was watching a political show with D. Rumsfeld as guest and his report
> on it was that he believed what Tenet said, namely that they had not
> coroberated it at the time, that there were doubts about it since it
> came from a single source and not one that was known as trustworthy,
> that Tenet's office had cautioned against using the material in
> something such as the SotU speach due it's shaky foundations.

Interesting, so in your view Secretary Rumsfeld is more trustworthy than 
Prime Minister Blair?  Blair is saying his government has multiple 
sources, not just the one now discredited.

As an aside: I'd still like to read Rumsfeld's words myself in context, 
though.  During this whole public debate, senior US officials have been 
taken terribly out of context, even cut off mid-sentence as Ms. Dowd at 
the New York Times did to President Bush, and then had those quotes 
disseminated and used to make this case.

> > > because anyone who had any sort of expertise in the
> > > field knew it was a forgery as soon as they looked at it.
> >
> > Mr. Blair says that MI6 had evidence independent of the allged forgery
> > supplied by the French.
>
> and this evidence is.... where? and it was ... how accurate?

OK, the pattern fits.  Is Bush the liar here, or Blair, according to what 
you're saying here?  If Blair is the one lying and lying, isn't it 
possible that the White House was duped by Blair's claims of what the MI6 
had?

Bush may have been wrong that night (of course, the discrediting of one 
piece of evidence does not exhonerate Saddam Hussein, given that even the 
French government was saying before the war that Iraq had pursued nuclear 
weapons), but being wrong doesn't make him a liar.

> > > because Blair
> > > can't say he doesn't believe it without losing major political face
> > > / capital, especially since it would cause the loss of major
> > > political face / capital to his political ally George W. Bush and
> > > many others in the US government and its agencies.
> >
> > So you can read minds now?  Super.
>
> no, but i can see what's happening and take a good guess at political
> agendas. they got caught trying to stretch the truth by stating as fact
> intelligence that was extremeley dubious to begin with (by the CIA's own
> admission) and quickly turned out to be a forgery (something they don't
> even deny at this point).

THE CIA WASN'T THE SOURCE OF THE POINT IN THE SPEECH!!!  Did you even read 
the quote, the line in the State of the Union that has been the center of 
this whole scandal?

"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought
significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

Do you deny that the British government still believes that?

Of course the White House, CIA, and other US agencies don't deny that the 
forgery is a forgery.  They didn't claim that they had the evidence.  I've 
still not seen you cite anyone who actually stated that the US had seen 
the evidence.

And according to some ( http://uk.news.yahoo.com/030715/17/e46dm.html ), 
the US didn't see the full evidence because the French didn't allow the 
British to share that evidence!

> now they're not just going to say, "Yep, we knew there was a good chance
> it was false, and yes once others saw it they came to that conclusion
> pretty quickly themselves, but we decided it was worth using anyways. We
> needed to sway the public opinion and felt it was a good tool in doing
> so." why? because it's already a political fiasco. imagine what it would
> be if they openly admitted they knowingly and purposefully mislead the
> American public?

Of course they're not going to say it, because it's not quite true.  Yes, 
the point of Presidential speeches, especially the SotU, is to set an 
agenda, and to direct and shape public opinion.  What political speech 
doesn't have such motivations?

However, mentioning an allegation that has since losts is evidence doesn't 
mean the speech was a lie used to deceive the American public into a war.

> they will never voluntarily admit to it, but the evidence is there. you
> may choose to give them the benefit of the doubt; i choose to call it as
> it likely is. politicians, especially the most powerful ones, are rarely
> men of extreme honour. they are more often people willing to do what it
> takes to get it done.
>
> > > if GWB and Blaire lied knowingly once, they'll do it again.
> >
> > More mind reading.
>
> so if someone lies consistently they must be telling the truth? pfft.

You still haven't showed how both can be lying at once.  If Blair is a 
liar, then wasn't Bush a *victim* of the lie?

> fact, i repeat, FACT is that the evidence they trotted out was a
> forgery. FACT is that it was easily spotted as such. i don't buy for a
> single moment that the very competent-at-what-they-do people in the CIA
> bungled that badly on this one given its high profile nature. nor do i
> believe the White House to be so naive as to poo-poo warnings by the CIA
> in an innocent mistake.

Who in the CIA is making this claim?  Unnamed sources?  A Clinton 
appointee?

> but let's say that's what happened, however unlikely: then they'd only
> be incomptent.

Yes, and that's why Tenet is taking the blame.  He is saying his office let 
down the White House on this.

Who in the CIA is contradicting his claim?  Who in the CIA warned the 
President about the fake that the British were believing?  And who was 
warned?

> note that this was not the only piece of "evidence" trotted out for this
> war that wasn't accurate. i seem to remember a plaguerized student paper
> along the way as well........... that's what thinking people call
> "precedence" and a "pattern of behaviour".

Since when is plagiarism of the sort the *British* committed the same as 
inaccuracy?  They lifted stuff from a student paper.  Are you saying that 
student was wrong?

And once again, you're establishing a pattern here that should lead to the 
villification of Blair and the UK government, not Bush and the US 
government.

- -- 
Neil Stevens - [email protected]

"I'll believe it when I see it." -- George Walker Bush
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