# Intelligence report: Iraq going to Hell in a handbasket **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 17, 2004, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligence-report-iraq-going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket/264769 "2004-09-17T01:16:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2004, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligence-report-iraq-going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket/264769/21 "2004-09-18T19:22:11Z")
> [@manhattan](#): > > I eagerly await all the people who think the Plame affair to have been so important to come into this thread insisting that an investigation be started to determine who leaked this classified information to the _Times_. I further eagerly await all those who castigated the CIA over it’s errors regarding Iraq’s WMD program progess to caution that this report needs to be treated with some, well, caution. > > I’m not dumb enough to hold my breath or anything like that but I’m eagerly awaiting nonetheless, as I have high confidence that the level of intellectual honesty is higher on this board than on other message boards. Well, you’re certainly not setting a good example of intellectual honesty right now, **manhattan.** I think you know as well as the rest of us that Valerie Plame’s identity as a CIA agent was the sort of secret that was never supposed to be leaked to any unauthorized person under any circumstances; whereas intelligence briefings of the kind cited in the OP often are deliberately partially “leaked” in order to test the wind of public opinion. Furthermore, this particularly leak, unlike the Plame leak, puts no lives in danger. Quite the contrary – it might help build public support for getting us out of this mess, which would save American lives. ---
**Author:** ![PatriotX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2004, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligence-report-iraq-going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket/264769/22 "2004-09-18T19:55:17Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > **SimonX** dug up this very nice analysis, which is worth reading ( pdf format ): > > [International Affairs Think Tank | Chatham House](http://www.riia.org/pdf/research/mep/BP0904.pdf?PHPSESSID=92ff63f04b89e1819a45becec8a7a968) > > - Tamerlane Wow! Kudos from **Tam**! Made my Doper day. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![PatriotX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2004, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligence-report-iraq-going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket/264769/23 "2004-09-18T20:20:33Z")
> [@manhattan](#): > > I eagerly await all the people who think the Plame affair to have been so important to come into this thread insisting that an investigation be started to determine who leaked this classified information to the _Times_. since the document wasn’t leaked, you may have to eagerly wait a very long time. NYT noted, “[The officials declined to discuss the key judgments](http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/16/politics/16intel.html)…” > [@manhattan](#): > > I further eagerly await all those who castigated the CIA over it’s errors regarding Iraq’s WMD program progess to caution that this report needs to be treated with some, well, caution. First, CIA≠NIC. Second The bulk of what was presented in the 1st NIE was correct. But your right caution shouldbe exercised as always. Look at how closely one had to read the first NIE. One had to read it as if it were a matter of life or death. > [@manhattan](#): > > I’m not dumb enough to hold my breath or anything like that… Good thing because of what I’ve noted above- very long time and all that. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2004, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligence-report-iraq-going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket/264769/24 "2004-09-18T20:55:58Z")
And keep in mind how much things have gone downhill since that report was prepared in July. > **[THE CONFLICT IN IRAQ: THE RECONSTRUCTION; U.S. Intelligence Shows Pessimism...](https://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/16/washington/the-conflict-in-iraq-the-reconstruction-us-intelligence-shows.html)** > > Classified National Intelligence Estimate prepared for Pres Bush in late July is said to spell out dark assessment of prospects for Iraq through end of 2005, in contrast to recent optimistic statements by Bush administration officials; most favorable... > [@](#): > > Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee issued other warnings on Wednesday about the American campaign in Iraq, saying the administration’s request to divert more than $3 billion to security from the $18.4 billion aid package of last November was a sign of trouble. > > “Although we recognize these funds must not be spent unwisely,” the committee chairman, Mr. Lugar said, “the slow pace of reconstruction spending means that we are failing to fully take advantage of one of our most potent tools to influence the direction of Iraq.” > > Less than $1 billion has been spent so far. It’s not just the Democrats that are seeing that the President’s “Freedom is on the march” is hyperbolic, to put it as nicely as I can. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2004, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligence-report-iraq-going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket/264769/25 "2004-09-18T22:02:47Z")
In the event that the OP returns to cull our thoughts: > [@Patty O'Furniture](#): > > Bush’s biggest poll lead over Kerry is in the area of TWAT (The War Against Terrorism). What that has to do with Iraq, I don’t know. But [The National Intelligence Council](http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/09/16/us.iraq.ap/index.html) report looks grim, going so far as to suggest that events may lead tro civil war in Iraq. > > Will this finally turn the tide of public opinion and start chipping away at Bush’s lead in this one area? > > Thoughts? I think it’s a typical report from the sky-is-falling network. It is a bleeding heart editorial thinly disquised as news, using rhetorical technique rather than fact to nudge the reader in a particular direction. For example: > [@](#): > > The estimate contrasts with public comments of Bush and his senior aides who speak more optimistically about the prospects for a peaceful and free Iraq. “We’re making progress on the ground,” Bush said at his Texas ranch late last month. Why is that a contrast? It is perfectly possible to make significant progress on one front while losing ground on others. Yet CNN presents a false dilemma. > [@](#): > > A CIA spokesman declined to comment Wednesday night, and a National Security Council spokesman could not be reached for comment. Why is that worth even mentioning? A CIA spokesman who comments on a “highly classified” document prepared for the president is a rat. And all we can tell abouth the NSC spokesman is that he might have been at a PTA meeting or something. Yet CNN presents this as some onerous evidence that everyone is being hush-hush about something dreadful. > [@](#): > > Senate Republicans and Democrats on Wednesday denounced the Bush administration’s slow progress in rebuilding Iraq, saying the risks of failure are great if it doesn’t act with greater urgency. English has articles and other qualifiers for a reason — they help to deobfuscate and clarify. When it suits them, CNN (and other news sources) use them liberally. _Some_ Senate Republicans… _Most_ Senate Republicans… Or in this case, _A_ Senate Republican. CNN quoted only Chuck Hagel. Yet CNN chooses to use a phrase that implies that, for all we know, _all_ Senate Republicans and Democrats denounce blah blah blah. > [@](#): > > Hagel, Committee Chairman Richard Lugar, R-Indiana, and other committee members have long argued – even before the war – that administration plans for rebuilding Iraq were inadequate and based on overly optimistic assumptions that Americans would be greeted as liberators. And so? Setting aside another missing qualifier (how many other committee members?), it isn’t clear to me what this has to do with the story, and in fact implies that it’s pretty old news. It’s more like CNN saying, “Hey, look! Here’s more proof that Bush is a dodo-head!” Frankly, if all these Republicans were up in arms before the war, where the hell was CNN back when it might have mattered? CNN could have opposed the war when it would have been brave to do so. Yet CNN chooses to pick one out of (for all we know) many pessimistic reports that it happens to see some other source reporting, and pretend it’s news. > [@](#): > > But the criticism from the panel’s top Republicans had an extra sting coming less than seven weeks before the presidential election in which President Bush’s handling of the war is a top issue. And there’s the crux of it — its own sting being woefully impotent, CNN hopes to stir something up by painting the Republicans as fiercely fighting each other, when the whole world knows that Karl Rove has wrapped up the Democrats into a knot and thrown them in the trash. Too little too late, CNN. No wonder you’re number two. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2004, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligence-report-iraq-going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket/264769/26 "2004-09-18T22:06:07Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > Too little too late, CNN. No wonder you’re number two. No, they’re not, **Liberal.** CNN has more viewers than Fox; Fox has higher ratings because, apparently, its viewers spend more hours per week watching it. ---
**Author:** ![pervert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbe5ce/32.png) [@pervert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pervert)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2004, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligence-report-iraq-going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket/264769/27 "2004-09-18T23:12:12Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > No, they’re not, **Liberal.** CNN has more viewers than Fox; Fox has higher ratings because, apparently, its viewers spend more hours per week watching it. I’m confused. I thought ratings were a rough measure of how many people watch during a specific time period. Your saying that more different people watch CNN, but they do so in small groups? Meanwhile less different people watch Fox, but they do so in large groups. That way any particular measure shows fox with more viewers, but really its just that more of thier viewers are watching. I’m more confused. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2004, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligence-report-iraq-going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket/264769/28 "2004-09-18T23:23:13Z")
> [@pervert](#): > > I’m confused. I thought ratings were a rough measure of how many people watch during a specific time period. Your saying that more different people watch CNN, but they do so in small groups? Meanwhile less different people watch Fox, but they do so in large groups. That way any particular measure shows fox with more viewers, but really its just that more of thier viewers are watching. > > I’m more confused. It’s very simple: **More people** watch CNN than Fox News, but the viewers of Fox are more devoted – they watch it for **more hours per week.** From _Extra!_ (the magazine, print and online, of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), April 2004 ([http://www.fair.org/extra/0404/fox-ratings.html](http://www.fair.org/extra/0404/fox-ratings.html)): > [@](#): > > Reporting on the ratings rivalry between the Fox News Channel (FNC) and CNN is often misleading–and almost always over-hyped. > > “Fox Tops CNN as Choice for Cable News,” declared one typical headline (Chicago Tribune, 3/24/03). “Fox News Channel Continues to Crush CNN,” reported Knight Ridder (Dallas Morning News, 2/3/04) in a column comparing the rivalry to a party primary: “Fox News Channel is winning the Nielsen caucuses.” Last summer (8/17/03), the New York Times Magazine declared, looking back at the period of the Iraq invasion, “Fox was–and still is–trouncing CNN in the ratings.” > > After exposure to countless similar stories published since January 2002, when Fox was reported to have surpassed CNN in the Nielsen ratings, one might naturally conclude that Fox has more viewers than CNN. > > But it’s not true. On any given day, more people typically tune to CNN than to Fox. > > So what are the media reports talking about? With few exceptions, stories about the media business report a single number for ratings (often expressed two different ways–as “points” or “share”). This number is often presented as if it were the result of a popularity contest or a democratic vote. But it is actually the average number of viewers watching a station or a show in a typical minute, based on Nielsen Media Research’s monitoring of thousands of households. > > The average is arrived at by counting viewers every minute. Heavy viewers–those who tune in to a station and linger there–have a greater impact, as they can be counted multiple times as they watch throughout the day. > > When an outlet reports that CNN is trailing Fox, they are almost invariably using this average tally, which Fox has been winning for the past two years. For the year 2003, Nielsen’s average daily ratings show Fox beating CNN 1.02 million viewers to 665,000. > > But there is another important number collected by Nielsen (though only made available to the firm’s clients) that tells another story. This is the “cume,” the cumulative total number of viewers who watch a channel for at least six minutes during a given day. Unlike the average ratings number the media usually report, this number gives the same weight to the light viewer, who tunes in for a brief time, as it does to the heavy viewer. > > How can CNN have more total viewers when Fox has such a commanding lead in average viewers? Conventional industry wisdom is that CNN viewers tune in briefly to catch up on news and headlines, while Fox viewers watch longer for the opinion and personality-driven programming. Because the smaller total number of Fox viewers are watching more hours, they show up in the ratings as a higher average number of viewers. > > CNN regularly claims a cume about 20 percent higher than Fox’s (Deseret Morning News, 1/12/04). For instance, in April 2003, during the height of the fighting in Iraq, CNN’s cume was significantly higher than Fox’s: 105 million viewers tuned into CNN compared to 86 million for Fox (Cablefax, 4/30/03). But in the same period, the ratings reported by most media outlets had Fox in the lead, with an average of 3.5 million viewers to CNN’s 2.2 million. ---
**Author:** ![pervert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbe5ce/32.png) [@pervert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pervert)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2004, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligence-report-iraq-going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket/264769/29 "2004-09-18T23:48:36Z")
That’s what I thought. But how does that put to lie **Liberal’s** suggestion that CNN is number 2? Isn’t the standard measure of such things the ratings? ---
**Author:** ![Spavined\_Gelding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/958977/32.png) [@Spavined\_Gelding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spavined_Gelding)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2004, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligence-report-iraq-going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket/264769/30 "2004-09-19T00:05:55Z")
> [@pervert](#): > > I appreciate your attempt to remove the polemics. If you could help me with any further insight into the report I would appreciate that as well. The post was based on my understanding of the news broadcast on Thursday evening. Having seen more on the report, or the parts made public, and looking at the parts of the report _released by the Administration, not leaked,_ the analysis is more pessimistic that the initial news reports suggested. You don’t have to rely on spin and comment to reach that conclusion. All you have to do is read the damned thing. Of course it should be read with a view to the fact that some past NIEs have been about as wrong as they could have been – especially the estimate of October 2002 on Iraq’s unconventional weapons. Some how I keep thinking of the staff officers axiom – that no battle plan survives the first contact with the enemy. This estimate does serve to emphasize that our nation went into this thing with a battle plan that assumed the best case scenario – that US forces (the collation of the willing) would be welcomed as liberators and rescuers, that the whole thing could be funded with oil revenues, that the civil infrastructure could be made operational in short order and that every thing would be hunky-dory and Donald Rumsfelt would be made the Queen of May. The plan didn’t work because it was based on wishful thinking and there was no fall back position. There should have been a Plan B, and a Plan C and yet another plan right through the alphabet. It was throughly predictable that Plan A would fail. That is why there is an axiom, for Pete’s sake. For those who think that the whole invasion and occupation were handled in a suburb manner, was required for the security of the nation in the face of a clear and present danger and that everything is going just dandy, I can only hope that Senator McCain was wrong last week when he opined a 20 year occupation and that your children and grandchildren will not have to follow the flag into the Iraqi desert. Surely that wasn’t the Plan. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2004, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligence-report-iraq-going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket/264769/31 "2004-09-19T00:09:35Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > II think it’s a typical report from the sky-is-falling network. It is a bleeding heart editorial thinly disquised as news, using rhetorical technique rather than fact to nudge the reader in a particular direction. It seems that by your standards, everything is an editorial and nothing is news. > [@](#): > > Why is that a contrast? It is perfectly possible to make significant progress on one front while losing ground on others. Yet CNN presents a false dilemma. So when was the last time you heard Bush saying “We are making progress in some areas, but losing in other areas”? To hear Bush or his various mouthpieces tell it, only those who are “excessively negative” (Scott McClellan) see anything bad happening in Iraq. So it looks to me like CNN’s description of the situation is right on the money. > [@](#): > > Why is that worth even mentioning? A CIA spokesman who comments on a “highly classified” document prepared for the president is a rat. And all we can tell abouth the NSC spokesman is that he might have been at a PTA meeting or something. Yet CNN presents this as some onerous evidence that everyone is being hush-hush about something dreadful. I read the CNN article, and I do not see any sentence which says or suggests what you claim here. Where to they suggest that “something dreadful” is being covered up? > [@](#): > > English has articles and other qualifiers for a reason — they help to deobfuscate and clarify. When it suits them, CNN (and other news sources) use them liberally. _Some_ Senate Republicans… _Most_ Senate Republicans… Or in this case, _A_ Senate Republican. CNN quoted only Chuck Hagel. Yet CNN chooses to use a phrase that implies that, for all we know, _all_ Senate Republicans and Democrats denounce blah blah blah. So what exactly is your complaint? CNN and others shouldn’t allowed to use the phrase ‘Democrats and Republicans’ unless every single members of both party is acting in unsion? Or if not that, then what is the standard you’re using to judge them negatively on this, and why is it reasonable to ask that every news organization obey your standard? Face the facts. Everybody regularly describes something as a bipartisan effort even if the only evidence they provide is statements from one or a few people from each party. Explain why CNN should be castigated for this particular instance. > [@](#): > > when the whole world knows that Karl Rove has wrapped up the Democrats into a knot and thrown them in the trash. Cite, please. If the whole world knows it, you obviously won’t have any trouble providing some evidence. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2004, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligence-report-iraq-going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket/264769/32 "2004-09-19T00:14:58Z")
[http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/08/20040805-4.html](http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/08/20040805-4.html) Here’s a better cite, of Bush talking in August after he got that report. According to him, there have been “great challenges” but we’ve “successfully met every one” and in the final analysis everything is just rosy in Iraq. So CNN was absolutely correct when they said that the contents of the report were not compatible with what Bush is telling the country. ---
**Author:** ![pervert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbe5ce/32.png) [@pervert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pervert)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2004, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligence-report-iraq-going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket/264769/33 "2004-09-19T00:26:35Z")
> [@ITR champion](#): > > [http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/08/20040805-4.html](http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/08/20040805-4.html) > > Here’s a better cite, of Bush talking in August after he got that report. According to him, there have been “great challenges” but we’ve “successfully met every one” and in the final analysis everything is just rosy in Iraq. So CNN was absolutely correct when they said that the contents of the report were not compatible with what Bush is telling the country. No, it doesn’t. It says in the very first paragraph that “_America and our allies are fighting a new kind of war against a different kind of enemy. This conflict places great demands on the men and women of our armed forces, including our Guard and Reserve. They have met every test. They’ve risen to every challenge._”. The word ‘challenge’ is used one other time in an entirely different context. Nowhere in the link does Bush say that we have conquered every challenge. It says simply that we have risen to them. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2004, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligence-report-iraq-going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket/264769/34 "2004-09-19T00:31:03Z")
> [@ITR](#): > > It seems that by your standards, everything is an editorial and nothing is news. No it doesn’t. > [@](#): > > So when was the last time you heard Bush saying “We are making progress in some areas, but losing in other areas”? Constantly. He’s constantly saying that there’s much more work to do. > [@](#): > > So it looks to me like CNN’s description of the situation is right on the money. I’m sure it does. > [@](#): > > I read the CNN article, and I do not see any sentence which says or suggests what you claim here. I quoted the sentence. > [@](#): > > So what exactly is your complaint? You mean, if I repeat it, you’ll get it this time? ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2004, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligence-report-iraq-going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket/264769/35 "2004-09-19T00:44:06Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > Constantly. He’s constantly saying that there’s much more work to do. Oh, do you have a link to a Bush speech that actually acknowledges the truth about what’s going on in Iraq? That violence is on the rise, with 90 attacks on our troops daily and God knows how many on the Iraq civilian populace? That a significant chunk of the country is in the hands of insurgents? That the vast majority of the money we sent for reconstruction hasn’t been spent? And that a civil war may be imminent? That’s orders of magnitude away from just saying “a lot of work needs to be done”. > [@](#): > > I quoted the sentence. You quoted this sentence: “CIA spokesman declined to comment Wednesday night, and a National Security Council spokesman could not be reached for comment.” Then you said: “CNN presents this as some onerous evidence that everyone is being hush-hush about something dreadful.” The sentence that you quoted from CNN does not mean the same thing as the sentence that you yourself wrote, at least not when parsed in the English language. As far as I can tell they have no relationship to each other whatsoever. If you think they do mean the same thing, please explain to me how you reached that conclusion. Otherwise provide an example of CNN stating that the CIA and NSC are covering up “something dreadful”, or else admit that you lied about what CNN wrote. > [@](#): > > You mean, if I repeat it, you’ll get it this time? I asked several questions in that paragraph. Are you capable of answering any of those questions, or are you just going to stick with snarky but meaningless retorts? ---
**Author:** ![pervert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbe5ce/32.png) [@pervert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pervert)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2004, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligence-report-iraq-going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket/264769/36 "2004-09-19T00:45:02Z")
> [@Spavined Gelding](#): > > For those who think that the whole invasion and occupation were handled in a suburb manner, was required for the security of the nation in the face of a clear and present danger and that everything is going just dandy, I can only hope that Senator McCain was wrong last week when he opined a 20 year occupation and that your children and grandchildren will not have to follow the flag into the Iraqi desert. Surely that wasn’t the Plan. I really do appreciate your attempt to remove the polemic earlier. but this seems to simply reasert it. Can you name for me a single serious policy thinker who belives that everything is going just dandy? Really? ---
**Author:** ![pervert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbe5ce/32.png) [@pervert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pervert)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2004, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligence-report-iraq-going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket/264769/37 "2004-09-19T00:49:08Z")
> [@Spavined Gelding](#): > > You don’t have to rely on spin and comment to reach that conclusion. All you have to do is read the damned thing. This seems reasonable. But the report itself is classified. So we cannot read the damned thing. We have a few quotes from a few people who have read it. These quotes are necessarily taken out of context (although not necessarily to the point of falshood) because we don’t have the actual report. Everything else. I repeat, everything else is spin. It may be accurate, but it is spin, nonetheless. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2004, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligence-report-iraq-going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket/264769/38 "2004-09-19T00:52:17Z")
> [@pervert](#): > > No, it doesn’t. It says in the very first paragraph that “_America and our allies are fighting a new kind of war against a different kind of enemy. This conflict places great demands on the men and women of our armed forces, including our Guard and Reserve. They have met every test. They’ve risen to every challenge._”. The word ‘challenge’ is used one other time in an entirely different context. Nowhere in the link does Bush say that we have conquered every challenge. It says simply that we have risen to them. To me saying that our forces have “met every test” and “risen to every challenge” means the same thing as saying that our forces have succeeded on our mission in Iraq despite every challenge. Perhaps you were taught a different meaning of the words. Regardless, one of our goals was to create a stable, prosperous, and peaceful democracy in Iraq. We have not achieved that goal, we have not risen to every challenge to that goal from the insurgency, and the report from the NIC indicates that it’s very unlikely we will. So I stand by my previous interpretation. Of course, if you don’t like that Bush statement, I’m sure there are bloggers out there who will give you plenty of other head in the clouds quotes from the Bush administration. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2004, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligence-report-iraq-going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket/264769/39 "2004-09-19T00:52:25Z")
> [@pervert](#): > > That’s what I thought. But how does that put to lie **Liberal’s** suggestion that CNN is number 2? Isn’t the standard measure of such things the ratings? There is no “standard measure.” CNN has more viewers, and I say that makes CNN number 1, Fox number 2. YMMV. ---
**Author:** ![pervert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbe5ce/32.png) [@pervert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pervert)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2004, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligence-report-iraq-going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket/264769/40 "2004-09-19T01:16:26Z")
> [@ITR champion](#): > > To me saying that our forces have “met every test” and “risen to every challenge” means the same thing as saying that our forces have succeeded on our mission in Iraq despite every challenge. Perhaps you were taught a different meaning of the words. Perhaps we were. But even so, it seems pretty clear from the rest of that link that Bush was not suggesting that the conflict was over. > [@](#): > > Regardless, one of our goals was to create a stable, prosperous, and peaceful democracy in Iraq. We have not achieved that goal, we have not risen to every challenge to that goal from the insurgency, and the report from the NIC indicates that it’s very unlikely we will. Can you quote the part of the report which says that this is unlikely? Obviously we have not achieved that goal. No one said we would in this amount of time. Can you name the challenges we have not risen to meet? They shoot at us we shoot at them. Perhaps not the best way to meet their challenge, but meeting it nonetheless. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligence-report-iraq-going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket/264769.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intelligence-report-iraq-going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket/264769.md?page=3)