Digest of recent WAR spin

international | anti-war / imperialism | opinion/analysis Saturday February 07, 2004 14:39 by Rennie Galviscon - Spinwatch

caution, may cause heartburn for some.

Anybody who has been channel hopping the news the past week or so will have seen some great statements come out as political scum tries to shift criticism away from themselves.

And so they start to turn on each other in desparation.

here's a round up as seen by Rennie Galviscon.

Following the resignation of CIA weapons inspector David Kay, Bush was in a spot of bother.
When the Hutton verdict went down like a lead ballon, Blair tried to delay criticism by saying "Oh,come on chaps, let's all just wait for the Iraq Survey Group to report back"

Bush pre-empted that (he likes 'pre-emtping' things) by announcing an inquiry into how pre-war intelligence was handled. This was the white house trying to set up George Tennet and the CIA as a scapegoat, if one were needed (kinda like Hoon was for Hutton, if necessary)

Blair, then followed Bush (good dog!) and ordered an inquiry into British pre-war intelligence, explicitly distancing it from oversight of the political decision (as if MI6 had stood up in Westminster and called a vote)

Interestingly, Tony and George are both now focussed on domestic consumption for their timetables.
Bush's inquiry is to take over a year, by which time the Presidential election will be over, and Bush will use the inquiry as an excuse not to comment on it during the race.
Britain however, is a while from an election, and thus Blair opted for an inquiry lasting six months.
With the availability of international news, Americans will thus see the result of the Blair inquiry before the US Presidential election, and likewise the result of Bush's inquiry will be seen in the UK a lot closer to the next UK general election.
More importantly than the result of course, (which will probably be a whitewash) is the evidence and the public reation to the whitewash. So,how much will the public get to see before the verdict? oh, not much. Not like Hutton, where the verdict cleared Tony but the evidence was too public for the people to be duped.

Already some of Tony and George's underlings are trying to get their defence in.

Brian Jones, who retired from the British Defence Intelligence Staff made it clear that he considered the experts to have been over-ruled, and he was far sighted enough to lodge a formal complaint about the Blair dossier before the war started.
He said that the material should have been more cautiously stated and that he did not expect large stockpiles to be found.
He said that some of the 'intelligence' forwarded, was based around an assumption that the WMD must exist, rather than proving that they did. The DIS intel was that Iraq had not carried out chemical weapons tests in over 10 years.

Hoon said he hadn't read the papers and was blissfully unaware that most of Britain was under the impression that they would be blitzed at 45 minutes notice.

Powell tried to cover his ass by saying that he believed at the time that the threat was immediate and that the urgency presented to him was the main factor that swung him round to war, death and destruction.

CIA chief George Tenet, used a speech at his old Alma Mater, Gerorgetown University to draw his line in the sand. He of course has to watch his ass and stand up for the 'independence and objectivity of the CIA's analysts'
He said that the CIA had NEVER said Iraq had nuclear weapons and had never claimed that Iraq had been carrying out chemical weapons tests in the recent past.
He said that they painted no black and white picture for the white house, but shades of grey and that there was some difference between analaysts.
In a speech cleared by the White House, Tenet said that what they had said to Dubya was that Iraq had the INTENT to develop programmes that MIGHT constantly surprise 'us' and threaten 'our' interests. Nobody has elaborated on what INTERESTS are (safety from attack or safety from high oil prices)

Tenet pointed to Libya as a success and said that the people must know how reliable US intelligence is in the defence of the USA.
At least six times, he appealled for more time to search, and, said that those who said we were '85% finished don't know what they're talking about. Many took this as a swipe at David Kay, but Tenet should be aware that Rumsfeld ALSO used the 85% figure.
He then said that "my PROVISIONAL bottom line for TODAY, is this,Iraq had the intent and capability to quickly convert its civil industry to weapons programmes" - of course he didn't mention that this would have been almost possible if the UN weapons inspectors hadn't been pulled out.

and that phrase :
a provisional bottom line,,, for today.. hmmm...

It was also interesting that it was Feb 5th 2004.
On feb 5th 2003, Tenet sat behind Powell at the UN security council when powell showed a fake phial of anthrax and some aerial photos of trucks and made claims of absolute certainty about weapons.

CNN carried this speech live and followed it up with comments from an angry and intense Scott Ritter (former weapons inspector, retired US Marine Major, and generally a straight talking hard-ass)

Ritter said that little of Tenet's speech would stand up to cross examination. some was wrong, and some simply false.
Ritter said that Tenet forget to mention the CIA attempts to kill Saddam.
"Regime change is not a UN policy, it is a unilateral American policy "
Ritter said that, despite Iraqi reluctance the UN weapons inspectors had gotten the access to technical programmes in Iraq.
When asked about access to palaces Ritter said that the Saddam's security detail were naturally obstructive and asked "why do you want to come to Saddam's palace, when you have CIA agents with you and the CIA wants to kill him"

Ritter also dismissed finding initial designs as evidence of a programme. A design in itself is insufficient, as a weapons inspector, I would have to see technical evidence of efforts that the plans were being brought to fruition.
a place to start building and storing things.

Security analyst Dan Plesch also commented, saying that containment had worked on the USSR without a shot being fired.
he also said that if we have found no Iraqi WMD and Iran and Libya are allowing inspections, then perhaps we should now also look at Israeli weapons programmes. (a reference to the only confirmed nuclear power in the middle east)

Joe Circincione of the Carnegie Endownment said that it was ironic that at the time that there was so much intelligence available from the UN inspectors on the ground who had a better idea of what was going on, but that the US agents did not communicate well with them.
Referring to the trucks shown by Powell,
The UN inspectors had tried to tell the US that 'these trucks have already been inspected, they are a British design used for producing hydrogen -perhaps for artillery ballons"

An arabic analyst in Iraq said that Tenet had produced only circumstancial evidence and that the Iraqi people were becoming more and more uneasy about US motives for war.
Especially problematic was the fact that many of the Iraqi governing council (appointed by Bremer) were Iraqi exiles who had been used as sources by the US and UK, including the man who gave the 45-minute claim to MI6. That man, Iyad Allawi, who headed the Iraqi National Accord in exile, is now in Baghdad working with the US.
His washington representative,Nick Theros,
said the information now seemed to be a "crock of shit". "Clearly we have not found WMD," he said.
And yet, these are the people Bush wants to run Iraq when the US 'hands over authority' - to the people who helped provide the false excuses for the war.

In Ireland too, the govt was failry quiet.
first feigning ignorance of massive military use of Shannon, then playing it down, then denying the presence of weapons, then playing it down.
it emerged last year that the Irish Govt had received a copy of the Blair dossier in Sept 2002, as Ireland was still on the UN security council. Irish experts rubbished the dossier, but the Irish govt still used the WMD argument for months afterwards.

This level of scrutiny would have been undreamed of without hard work and lots of public pressure, and it's hitting the ratings of once popular leaders.
Bush's popularity dropped 9% since last month from 56% to 47%
A poll in the UK shows that 51% of UK voters want Blair to resign, and 54% think he lied.
In Ireland the govt is cheering an increase in ratings, ignoring that it is the first upturn in a long time. The FF/PD govt enjoyed good results in the 2002 election, but now FF only has 34% support.

As the politicians scurry back to their next line of defence, are we willing to lower the bar for them or are we going to keep asking the big questions why WAR, why March 2003?
Hussein is scum, and easy to hate, but that was never the trigger for regime change, if it was, he would have been gone long ago.
How credible is it to use things like the Halabja atrocity (in 1988) to justify a war in 2003, especially when no punishment was inflicted at the time?
How can it be considered the trigger for last March's assault and invasion which killed many people who were not even born when Hussein killed the kurds?

Isn't it about time that WE the PEOPLE held our own investigation?
We have grounds, we have questions that need answering and we have the right to ask our rulers to answer.