Compare and contrast

[libertango]

"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."
George W. Bush, 17 March 2003

"I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms Lewinsky."
Bill Clinton, January 1998

Both of these statements now appear to be equally false.

Yet, despite the appearance of both statements to have been lies "with knowledge aforethought," one of the speakers appears to have so far escaped any harm to his reputation -- despite the fact that his lie put thousands of US troops at risk, while the other's was merely a personal peccadillo.

As a conservative once famously said, "Where's the outrage?"

Comments

[ashley-y.livejournal.com]

The second was made under oath.

[hal-obrien.livejournal.com]

No, actually, Clinton's comment was made at a press conference. It's the one where Mrs. Clinton is at his side, and he's hitting the podium with each syllable.

But, as may be... If Mr. Bush has not been under oath on this matter, Messrs. Powell and Rumsfeld certainly have.

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

Have been trying to find an article I saw on CNN a day or so ago, by a legal advisor to the President (didn't mention which President). He now lectures in law, and he said that when his students asked him, in the run-up to the Iraq invasion, "should we believe the President when he says that Iraq has WoMD" he told them yes, because the statements were unequivocal and no President after Nixon would ever dare make such unequivocal statements without qualifiers such as "it is believed" - particularly on a matter of such importance - unless the President knew that what he was saying was factually true.

Now, looking at the evidence, he says it looks as if the President was lying - and there certainly ought to be an investigation to establish this, because if the President was lying, he ought to be impeached.

[ashley-y.livejournal.com]

Oh no, to impeach someone is to accuse them of a crime. I don't think such a lie would be a crime.

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

As I said, I wish I could find that damn article on CNN. Certainly this legal advisor seemed to feel that for th President to use his Presidential powers/authority for political actions was an impeachable offense.

[atlaz.livejournal.com]

You don't believe that the president intentionally misleading the very people he is supposed to represent in order to garner support for a war is a serious lie?

If Clinton can be impeached for lying about a largely personal matter unrelated to his presidency (ignore for a moment the question of whether his flawed judgement is related or not), surely the same should be expected for someone who lied and sent men and women to kill and be killed based on a falsehood?

[ashley-y.livejournal.com]

No, it may be a 'serious lie', but I don't believe it's a crime.

Clinton was impeached (but then acquitted) for lying under oath. That was a crime, or at least sufficiently looked like one that he was impeached. I suppose it wasn't a crime in the end because he was indeed acquitted.

Bush, on the other hand, cannot be impeached if it doesn't look like he committed a crime.

We are a nation of laws, we can't start prosecuting people for "doing bad stuff" just because we don't like it, they have to have actually broken some law.

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

See this article Missing Weapons Of Mass Destruction - Is Lying About The Reason For War An Impeachable Offense? (http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0606-05.htm) by John W. Dean, for an outline on why it may indeed be a crime for Bush to have made false claims about WoMD in Iraq in order to get the US to go to war.

[hal-obrien.livejournal.com]

And we do know Dean has... experience in these matters. {cough}

(I haven't looked at the article yet, so this isn't a comment on the strength of it. It's just Dean can be used as a straight man for all kinds of jokes regarding this topic.)

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

Really? Why? (I'd never heard of him before reading this article.)

[hal-obrien.livejournal.com]

John Dean worked as Special Counsel to the President during the Nixon Administration -- essentially, Nixon's personal lawyer. He was one of the star witnesses during the Watergate hearings. Some even believe Dean was the auteur, if you will, of Watergate.

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

Ah! Thank you. I have to admit that at least 50% of what I know about Watergate I found out here (http://www.plaidder.com/waterg.htm) - while the habit of adding "gate" to a noun to name a political scandal got to the UK, the ins and outs of Watergate didn't.

[zzrg.livejournal.com]

Wonderful editoral cartoon the other day, Bill Clinton holding his book entitled "Lies About Sex" and Bush holding his book entitled "Lies About WMD's." The caption? "Bush brings respectiblity to the White House".

[hal-obrien.livejournal.com]

Mr. Kagan makes a number of errors here, some of fact, some of logic.

The Iraqi government in the 1990s admitted to U.N. weapons inspectors that it had produced 8,500 liters of anthrax, as well as a few tons of the nerve agent VX. Where are they? U.N. weapons inspectors have been trying to answer that question for a decade.

Given the time-frame involved, it doesn't matter.

According to former UN inspector Scott Ritter, who gave a speech at my alma mater, Pomona College, anthrax in the form the Iraqis produced it has a shelf life of three years. Given that the UN has been looking for this material for a decade, and given there's no evidence the Iraqis have made any new stocks since 1991, their supplies, if any still exist, are almost certainly unusuable.

Which the Bush Administration knows as well as anyone else who can read.

Because Hussein's regime refused to answer, the logical presumption was that they had to be somewhere still in Iraq.

Um, no. The only thing such reticence shows is that the Iraqis weren't talking. Which demonstrates nothing. Given that they have a neighbor who almost certainly does have weapons of mass destruction -- Iran -- keeping other countries in the dark about this was in the Ba'athist regime's best interest.

Mr. Kaplan is here performing a fallacy known in the trade as an argument to ignorance (argumentum ad ignorantiam). Another example would be:

1. I believe aliens exist.
2. There is no evidence to prove the non-existence of aliens.
:. Therefore aliens exist.

The Administration has also been doing this all along. Each time anyone -- the Iraqis, the UN, our own intelligence services, anyone -- would point out there was no hard evidence showing weapons existed, the response was, "You're lying. We have reports. We know where they are."

The problem there, of course, is even on the face of it this is questionable. Because it means that after years of surveillance and infiltration, years -- albeit interrupted -- of UN inspections, recent capture of top Iraqi scientists, the paying off of Iraqi generals to cooperate with us (""I had letters from Iraqi generals saying: `I now work for you',"
General (Tommy) Franks said," in an article in the UK paper The Independent, on 24 May 2003, and two solid months of searching by US troops and civilian personnel... We haven't found one indisputible thing. If we had, the Administration would be shouting it from the rooftops. Instead, they mumble about two whole trailers that might have been labs.

Now, look at Bush's statement again:

"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."

"No doubt." "Continues to possess."

Let alone, he doesn't say what agency (or agencies).

For example, there's an article in the May/June 2003 issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists that rigourously goes through the public record of what the CIA has been estimating Iraqi's capabilities to be for the last many years. Some quotes:

"(I)n its annual threat briefing (for 2002), the CIA merely concluded that Iraq "retains a significant amount of dual-use infrastructure that could support a rejuvenated nuclear program." In 2001 (CIA SDirector George) Tenet did not refer to the possibility of Iraqi nuclear weapons at all in his opening presentation. The year before that, his language was even less definitive: "Iraq probably has not given up its nuclear ambitions despite a decade of sanctions and inspections."

"Ambitions." Not "capabilities."

An equivalent British paper actually makes no reference to Iraq's nuclear program beyond the Gulf war, although it declares in its executive summary that Iraq "tried covertly to acquire technology and materials which could be used in the production of nuclear weapons."

"Tried."

(continued next comment)

[hal-obrien.livejournal.com]

(T)he CIA claimed to have discovered every facility that was part of the program before the Gulf war, and asserted that almost every facility was heavily damaged during the war. For the most part, what the bombs did not get, the inspectors did, according to the CIA."

And that leaves aside the Israeli pre-emptive strike against the Osirak reactor in 1981. Let alone, the complete calm of the Israelis in the face of the alleged "threat" of Iraq vis-a-vis WMD. One suspects, given their own history, the Israelis would've made a another pre-emptive strike if they felt sufficiently threatened.

So much for nukes. How about bioagents?

"(I)n George Tenet's worldwide threat briefings in 2000, Iraq was simply lumped in with a dozen other states thought either to possess or to be actively pursuing biological weapons. In 2001, no specific mention was made of biologicals, which were instead lumped together with all weapons of mass destruction. Of Iraq, the CIA director simply declared: "Our most serious concern with Saddam Hussein must be the likelihood that he will seek a renewed WMD capability."

Tenet also commented significantly on intent: Iraq, he said, sought a bioweapons capacity "both for credibility and because every other strong regime in the region either has it or is pursuing it." He made no claims about Iraq attacking either the United States or a neighboring state. In both 2000 and 2001, the CIA emphasized Iraq's deteriorating economic situation. [emphasis added]

Who would be these other "strong regimes"? Syria? Iran? Our NATO ally Turkey?

Simply put, there has been no "failure of intelligence" in this episode. The intelligence was there in the public record for all to see. What there has been is a persistent approach by the Administration to override their own intelligence and baldly assert that a threat is present, and imminent, despite the lack of credible evidence.

For more on this, I also recommend the article "Selective Intelligence" by Seymour Hersh, in the 12 May 2003 issue of The New Yorker. I can't get a pithy pull-quote from it, it's the sort of piece that builds over time, but the main idea is that Rumsfeld an Wolfowitz set up their own intelligence opertation at the Pentagon, mostly because the CIA wouldn't tell them what they wanted to believe (or wanted to pitch to the public). In short, failing any evidence at hand, they decided to make some up.

But.

This. Emperor. Wears. No. Clothes.

Color me cynical, I guess

[bibliofile.livejournal.com]

I think it's too early to tell whether Hussein actually had any WMDs. It occurs to me that one of the best ways for him to get back at Bush would be to hide the WMDs in order to put Bush in a bad light. It may take some time. Of course, if Bush was lying, he oughta be impeached -- yeah, *phfft* like that'll happen.

Then again, I also thought that the weapons inspectors could have used more time too.

Frankly, I think the whole business is outrageous, from start to finish, with the exception of the weapons inspectors (their existence and purpose).