The Uranium Fiasco: Incompetence or Disinformation?

Great Debates
1

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030331fa_fact1

Please read this article in the New Yorker by Seymour Hersh. It raises disturbing questions, to say the least.

It has to do with the forged documents used by the Administration to bolster its argument that Goddam Saddam was working to create nuclear weapons. Indeed, it even rose to being mentioned in the State of the Union Address, along with the Dreaded Aluminum Tubes.

Mr. Hersh seems to think it was a classic example of “blowback”. British intelligence secretly concocted the story, and then another intelligence function, unknowingly (?) picked up on it and passed it along as “intelligence”. It was then passed to the CIA, who passed it to our Fearless Misleader, who passed it to us. More importantly, it was used to convince Senate leaders in a secret briefing to support the “war resolution”.

As Mr. Hersh put it: “Was the Administration lying to itself? Or did it deliberately give Congress and the public what it knew to be bad information?”

2

Ah, plausible deniability.

I loved that part.

Ya know, the question that I am pondering more frequently these days is: when did Bush decide to invade Iraq?

Was it this year, after the inspectors were not turing out satisfactory?
Was it sometime after 9/11 or in 2002?
Was it before he took office?

For a while, I gave him the benefit of the doubt and thought the first answer was correct. Now I am becoming convinced that its one of the second two. Did you notice in the second cite Sam Stone provided in the “Russia Selling Arms to Iraq” thread talked about how the US had been involved in more than a year of “intensifying discussions” with the Russians about these sales to Iraq?

If accurate, this article is pretty daming. Think the FBI will turn up anything?

3

AZCowboy, Iraq has been under clear sanctions from the UN for over a decade, so it would not be inappropriate for the United States to attempt to ensure that Russia did not sell weapons to Iraq.

4

Thanks for the link. Very interesting reading. I found this sentence especially troubling:
. “Forged documents and false accusations have been an element in U.S. and British policy toward Iraq at least since the fall of 1997, after an impasse over U.N. inspections.”

So this seems to go beyond the Bush adminstration though the Bushies have perhaps take this kind of dishonesty to new levels especially when making public arguments.

5

It’s too bad the forged report didn’t mention a blowjob or two, then maybe there could be some real attention made to it by the “liberal” media. Faking evidence to support a war where hundreds or thousands will die just isn’t as important as being caught cheating on your wife, I guess.

Why the FUCK isn’t there an independant council investigating this? It’s utterly obcene that this isn’t raising a thousand times the bigger stink that it is.

6

Yes, what would be the appropriate instance to investigate something like this?

7

It’s a story that will run and run.

The puzzling thing is that the fakery was so bad. I don’t know what, if anything, that says about the source. But once inside the system I suspect that it was never intended to be used for anything other than briefing the credulous.

The fact that it was effectively made available to scrutiny suggests to me that Powell was set up.

8

Interesting that the tone of the piece suggests ‘blame’ should be directed at London for ‘misleading’ US Intelligence. Those poor, whiter-than-white boys at Langley ….

It’s a canny old game, is this.

I’ve been looking for a very interesting article (can’t find it yet) on the strain the current Iraqi business is placing on the relationship between the politicians and security agencies in the UK – in essence, the security agencies see themselves as long-term guardians of the ‘State’ and, as such, at least as loyal to ‘The Crown’ as any transient political party and party political objective.

Also, they are becoming a little concerned that the information they provide is not always being handled in public by politicians with due objectivity. One can imagine the growing reluctance to pass information on if it’s going to be mishandled by others with their own political objectives, the US included.

Hence, some interesting undercurrents and conflicting loyalties are also in the mix.

9

AZ, I think it was last weeks Newsweek that broke the story of our Fearless Misleader sticking his head into Condie Rices office in March, 2002, and saying “Fuck Saddam, we’re taking him out!”. The Neo-Con war wonks who formulate his opinions are on record as demanding war for at least 10 years.

Revtim - Henry Waxman is demanding an investigation by Congress, last word is he’s getting damn little traction. That could change, if God shall cease to avert his eyes.

London The story suggests to me the possiblility the the covert propaganda arm put out the crap so secretly that when the intelligence side of MI6 picked it up, they didn’t even know that they were eating a turd sundae. They may have passed it along thinking it was the real thing, though clearly they didn’t bother to check it out, having no familiarity with Google. An example of the left hand not knowing what the right hand was wanking. So to speak.

10

The other side I’ve heard is that British Intelligence has clashed w/ their government related to the selective manner and context in which Blair uses their reports to futher his/US agenda, and are trying to undermine his authority with things like this.

I’ve heard similar complaints in the news suggesting that the CIA is a bit miffed with the current US administration - anything intellegence suggesting that this war is uncalled for is never publicly released, while other intelligence reports that sound more damning make the press.

I doubt any intelligence info leaked to the press tells the whole story.

11

Yes, threemae, I do understand that Iraq was under UN sanctions that prohibited these weapons sales.

However, if the US really wanted to stop it, why negotiate for over one year, and then wait til the war has started, to then make it public?

Why not take it public day one? Why not take it to the UNSC? Why not use the information to manage public perception when the US was struggling to get a second resolution passed?

Could it be that the Bush administration had threatened to take it public previously, and the Ruskies called them on it? Or might there be more to the story, where private diplomatic contacts had already made clear our intent, and this whole showdown with the UN was simply window-dressing?

You decide. I haven’t, but my suspicions continue to grow.

12

Said AZCowboy

I think the answer to all three is, “yes.”

This year, it was obvious that the President had decided on war with his “moment of truth” speech on the 9th of March, 2003. At that point, it was obvious that he was willing to bypass the UN if they did not back him up on “regime change,” which at that point could only be completed by invasion or threat of invasion.

But, one day after the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, SecDef Donald Rumsfeld was arguing that the Administration should take advantage of the situation to force a confrontation with Saddam Hussein, according to Bob Woodward’s Bush at War. This argument apparently found its way into a strategy document one week after September 11, 2001, but I can’t find that document.

And Rumsfeld’s enthusiasm was shared by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. In 1998, the two signed a letter to then-President Clinton encouraging him to take military action against Hussein.

Wolfowitz was also the author of the 1992 Defense Planning Guidance document which was the antecedent of the September, 2002 document now associated with the Bush Doctrine.

So did Bush decide before the election to attack Iraq? It may have been amusing to see Bush point out Iraq on a map before the election, but before the election Bush had already lined up the war-hawk wing of his prospective cabinet, and they quite certainly had war with Iraq on their minds.

I still think The Onion pegged these jokers so well that they probably have trouble sleeping at night:

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We must keep in mind that so far this is very one-sided. I’m sure there are any number of posters (the band of bothers I call the “Usual Suspects”) who, no doubt, are anxious to get in a word edgewise, and defend our Fearless Misleader from our scurillous bush-bashing. Perhaps we have intimidated them. Let us politely open the floor for thier rebuttal “with the calm confidence of a Methodist with four aces.”

Gentlemen, start your search engines. (Somebody slip the hamser an expresso.)

14

Actually, elucidator, I think this is the sort of thing they want to ignore. Incompetence or deception isn’t much of a choice.

15

Not even December? Scylla? Brutus? Shodan?

(I know what you’re thinking. You think this is a ploy to snag them on a vanity search. Shame on you.)

16

I wonder how soon the old “Clinton did something as bad” ploy gets brought out.

17

elucidator:

Regarding december: he is busy looking for liberal bias in the world media now.

18

Sure. Here I am. I’ve read the article carefully.

How about we try this one differently? I happen to feel that in this time of war, matters concerning the war should be debated from the standpoint of fighting ignorance rather than the I-take-one-side-you-take-the-other partisan politicking bullshit that seems to be our norm.

Additionally, I don’t really have the time for a nine page train wreck.

The fact that the documents cited are not particularly credible is indeed a very disturbing piece of information, and has been since it became public.

One of Mr. Hersh’s main points is that these documents were accepted with very little critical analysis.

If we take this at face value, it behooves us to examine the scenarios and questions Mr. Hersh raises critically as well. In doing so, it immediately becomes apparent that besides the bare facts that the documents are not credible(which we already knew,) there is no other significant verifiable information to be gleaned from this article.

Mr. Hersh’s scenarios, questions, and implications hinge on about a dozen unnamed sources.

Not to doubt Mr. hersh’s words or integrity, but he can hardly chide the administration for accepting unverified intelligence at face value, and then expect the reader to accept his unverifiable and unverified intelligence from anonymous sources at face value.

Admittedly, according to Mr. Hersh’s own article the suggestion concerning the contents of the President’s PBD is both indirect and hearsay. The speculation is founded on anonymous source who does not claim any personal knowledge of the documents, but only claims to have overheard snippets of conversation (possibly unrelated to the PBD) from people who did have knowledge. Not only is this hearsay, it’s unsubstantiated anonymous inferred hearsay. The claim is basically that it was understood by some form of social osmosis.

Similarly we have these quotes:

“According to two of those present at the briefing, which was highly classified and took place in the committee?s secure hearing room, Tenet declared, as he had done before…,”

If you read a little further the paragraph becomes a little bit more obfuscated.

“The suitability of the tubes for that purpose had been disputed, but this time the argument that Iraq had a nuclear program under way was buttressed by a new and striking fact: the C.I.A. had recently received intelligence showing that, between 1999 and 2001, Iraq had attempted to buy five hundred tons of uranium oxide from Niger, one of the world?s largest producers. The uranium, known as ?yellow cake,? can be used to make fuel for nuclear reactors; if processed differently, it can also be enriched to make weapons. Five tons can produce enough weapon-grade uranium for a bomb.”

Hersh has not come out and said that the “yellow cake” from Niger was part of the classified briefing. He does not say that his two sources say so. He simply states that the yellow cake data would have strongly supported the argument that Iraq had a nuclear weapons program.

Hersh has made no argument that the yellow cake from Niger was discussed. Quite the contrary:

“When the C.I.A. spokesman William Harlow was asked for comment, he denied that Tenet had briefed the senators on Niger.”

It appears the Hersh has constructed this part of the piece in such a manner that the yellow cake was a major part of the briefing while in fact he presents no evidence that it was so, and indeed presents evidence to show that it was not.

Kind of a “When confronted with the accusation, Elucidator denied that he was Marla Maples’ secret lover,” kind of thing. Strongly suggestive, but not actually an argument, assertion, or evidence.

Similarly:

“A former high-level intelligence official told me that the information on Niger was judged serious enough to include in the President?s Daily Brief, known as the P.D.B., one of the most sensitive intelligence documents in the American system. Its information is supposed to be carefully analyzed, or ?scrubbed.?”

Strongly suggestive, but what is this anonymous source actually saying? Is he saying that it was included, or simply that it was judged serious enough to be potentially included, or that he would have judged it serious enough?

Again, it stops short of actually asserting anything.

Then what I call the “osmosis” statement:

"Distribution of the two- or three-page early-morning report, which is prepared by the C.I.A., is limited to the President and a few other senior officials. The P.D.B. is not made available, for example, to any members of the Senate or House Intelligence Committees. ?I don?t think anybody here sees that thing,? a State Department analyst told me. ?You only know what?s in the P.D.B. because it echoes?people talk about it.?

What does this other anonymous source mean? What is being asserted? Really nothing, it’s just contstructed to be suggestive.

The implication being sold here, and I think “sold” is a fair word is that this clearly false and erroneous piece of information is the keystone of the intelligence that went into the decision to make war on Iraq.

But, it’s not actually being said. None of the sources are saying it, neither is Hersh. It’s just being implied.
There’s a lot more like this, but basically I think it’s fair to say that this article does not actually give us anything new.

That the report itself was cited by several athorites when in fact it was not credible is well known (you, Elucidator have mentioned it several times.) That is seemed to originate from British intelligence is also known.
It looks to me that anything and everything in this article that is not already public knowledge is dependant upon unnamed sources, some of which aren’t really claiming what they appear to be.

The new information is founded on implied arguments and hearsay from anonymous sources.

I would not want to make the same embarassing mistake that our government did and accept unsubstantiated claims simply because British intelligence or anonymous sources imply it.

And neither should you.

As for the apparently forged documents, they are indeed significant and disturbing.

19

I find this particularly entertaining:

Sure, if you try to siphon it off all at once, someone’s going to notice, but the US had how many pieces of computer hardware disappear from Los Alamos before anyone figured out it was missing? How many billions of dollars did Enron pretend to have and how long did it take for anyone to notice that it was fictional? Hasn’t the UN itself been accused of losing millions, if not billions of dollars due to embezzlement? Didn’t Florida admit that it had no idea of the whereabouts of thousands of children which it was supposed to be looking after? To categorically state that it couldn’t have happened is ludicrous.

That the government was suckered in by such documents shouldn’t really be a surprise, either. After all, no one in the CIA predicted the fall of the Soviet Union.

20

Hey, not too shabby, Scylla. Kind of skipped over a couple of things. Like how this was referenced in the State of the Union Address. By the President. In support of his contention that an immediate war with Iraq was posolutely, absitively urgently necessary. Transcript is available online, I’m pretty sure, if you’d like to try to contest that.

So what did the President know, and when did he know it? Clueless, or mendacious? As far as Hersh not presenting evidence that is new, so what?

Say this much for you, you’re the only one who had the cojones to even try. J’ais vous salut.