Ed B

This is a transcript from MSNBC.com of a recent "Meet the Press" exchange between Tim Russert and Gen. Wesley Clark.

Just thought that, as concerned voting citizens, you'd all like to see this. I'll let the apologists go to work at this point



MR. RUSSERT: Was there an intelligence failure? Was the intelligence hyped, as Senator Joe Biden said? Was the president misled, or did he mislead the American people?

GEN. CLARK: Well, several things. First of all, all of us in the community who read intelligence believe that Saddam wanted these capabilities and he had some. We struck very hard in December of ’98, did everything we knew, all of his facilities. I think it was an effective set of strikes. Tony Zinni commanded that, called Operation Desert Fox, and I think that set them back a long ways. But we never believed that that was the end of the problem. I think there was a certain amount of hype in the intelligence, and I think the information that’s come out thus far does indicate that there was a sort of selective reading of the intelligence in the sense of sort of building a case.

MR. RUSSERT: Hyped by whom?

GEN. CLARK: Well, I...

MR. RUSSERT: The CIA, or the president or vice president? Secretary of Defense, who?

GEN. CLARK: I think it was an effort to convince the American people to do something, and I think there was an immediate determination right after 9/11 that Saddam Hussein was one of the keys to winning the war on terror. Whether it was the need just to strike out or whether he was a linchpin in this, there was a concerted effort during the fall of 2001 starting immediately after 9/11 to pin 9/11 and the terrorism problem on Saddam Hussein.

MR. RUSSERT: By who? Who did that?

GEN. CLARK: Well, it came from the White House, it came from people around the White House. It came from all over. <b>I got a call on 9/11. I was on CNN, and I got a call at my home saying, “You got to say this is connected. This is state-sponsored terrorism. This has to be connected to Saddam Hussein.” I said, “But—I’m willing to say it but what’s your evidence?” And I never got any evidence. </b>And these were people who had—Middle East think tanks and people like this and it was a lot of pressure to connect this and there were a lot of assumptions made. But I never personally saw the evidence and
didn’t talk to anybody who had the evidence to make that connection.

MR. RUSSERT: We now know that—and Condoleezza Rice on this program last week, acknowledged that the president said something in the State of the Union message which was untrue, about uranium being shipped from Africa to Iraq. Something like that found its way into the State of the Union message and delivered to the world by the president of the United States. Should there now be open hearings by the Senate Intelligence Committee into this matter?

GEN. CLARK: Well, I don’t know if the hearings ought to be open or not because you’re dealing with classified information. But I do think this. I do think there has to be an accounting for this. I think really it goes back to 9/11. We’ve got a set of hearings that need to be conducted to look at what happened that caused 9/11. That really hasn’t been done yet. You know, a basic principle of military operations is you conduct an after-action review. When the action’s over you bring people together. The commander, the subordinates, the staff members. You ask yourself what happened, why, and how do we fix it the next time? As far as I know, this has never been done about the essential failure at 9/11. Then moving beyond that, it needs to be looked at in terms of the whole intelligence effort and how it’s connected to the policy effort. And these are matters that probably cannot be aired fully in public but I think that the American people and their representatives have to be involved in this. This is essential in terms of the legitimacy and trust in our elected leadership and our way of government.

MR. RUSSERT: The president said that Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat based on the intelligence data he had seen. Did the president mislead the country?

GEN. CLARK: Well, I think that’s to be determined. And there were many of us who said, “Where is the imminence of the threat?” We never saw the—I got people calling me up and they would say, “Well, now, look, don’t you think the president might know something you don’t know?” And I certainly hoped he did. But it was never revealed what the imminence of the threat was. And I think now that the operation’s over, it’s been successful, I think we do need to go back and look at this issue. But as I say, I’m not sure it can all be done in public.
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Dback Jon

Nice transcript.

What's more, the President and his staff KNEW the evidence linking the shipment of uranium from Niger to Iraq was a forgery, and used it anyway. This is grounds for impeachment, for not only Bush, but Cheney, Rumsfeld etc.

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R.I.P Tim Minnick

The KING of Cards

Ed B

The problem is that, as Gen. Clark stated, the Bush loyalists can always fall back on the argument "Well the president knows something you don't".

Which is, of course, as impossible to prove as it is to disprove.

I think the Bush presidency will turn out to be like Nixon's or Clinton's.......the farther away we get from it, the more and more secret information will be uncovered and the more and more it will be disgraced. In 30 years they'll start de-classifying documents about the current situation and Bush will be put next to Clinton and Nixon among the great buffoons and liars in the history of our executives.

schutd

Very interesting read. Thanks for the post. Ill file it away rather than get fired up, and wait for the Bush Supporters' response...

WaywardFan

If such thinking makes you happy, then by all means keep thinking it.

No one, NO ONE has ever claimed Iraq didn't have WMD. Hell, even Syria admitted it when they voted on 1441.

We're trying to find objects and programs that by definition are hidden. Philipinos are STILL finding Japanese weapons caches. Hell, when I lived on Okinawa in the 80's a Japanese soldier came out of the jungle thinking WWII was still going on. We're a couple of months removed from taking over Iraq and we haven't found acres of WMD and all of the sudden Bush lied.

We have evidence of WMD, that much is incontrovertible. Thousand of atropene injections and chemical suits for an army that was less than 35% battle ready, chemicals found floating down the Euphrates. Oh, and the missiles we've found are also WMD. They didn't have VX in them when we found them but we found them. They were illegal.

Salmon Pak anyone?

The WMD will be found. It is laughable in the extreme to suggest that unless it has been found by now it never existed.

Despite all of this hullabaloo, there is absolutely no proof to suggest that Bush has lied. The bogus report. Guess who provided it. France. Big shock.

'Hyped' evidence. Hyped? You mean, like stressing what you got to get your point across??? The horror!!

The only really shameful thing in all of this is that people are falling over themselves to try to implicate Bush that they aren't concentrating on what's really important. Where did the WMD GO? I think it goes to show the priorities of those manically obsessed with trying to discredit Bush.

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Fell deeds awake... Now for Wrath... Now for Ruin... and the Red Dawn...

schutd

Wayward isnt the question "Where did the WMD go?" alone enough to some extent question Bush's credibility? Sure its possible they exist en masse and are still hidden or have been moved, but its equally possible that they didnt exist, and we were snowed into believing in the imminence of the Iraqi threat, no?

Can't anyone see both possible sides of the story? Anyone????

Cant we continue to look for WMD while at the same time perform some checks and balances on ourselves? Oh wait, thats wats happening.

You might pine that the media is spending too much time focusing on trying to discredit Bush, but I guarantee you if they found a pile of the stuff tomorrow it'd be all over the news. The Media is going after Bush, cause theres nothing else to go after right now. Whats the big deal?

WaywardFan

No, it goes to blame France, Germany, and Russia that they gave Iraq a 6 month head start.


schutd, my man. I see your point. But that logic can't be supported. To suggest what you're suggesting is to say that every UN report, including Inspector Cluseau...er...Blix, as well as every single member of the Security Counsel (that means Syria), especially France and Germany, Bill and Hillary Clinton, John Kerry in '98, the entire population of Iraqi defectors have all lied. Now, I know hate for Bush runs deep around here, but it seems people are having to go to incredible and frankly unbelievable lengths to discredit Bush.

So, do you mean to suggest that every single piece of intelligence gather by every single government and official organization in the past 14 years has been fabricated just so Bush can go and invade? I'll even leave out the incredible good that has been accomplished BECAUSE of going in there, as I know that has to be ignored to support the anti-Bush argument.

On a side note, I think the hunt for WMD will gets successfully speedier once Hussein is found DOA. I think many of those in the know are still holding out, afraid he'll come back.

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Fell deeds awake... Now for Wrath... Now for Ruin... and the Red Dawn...

Krangthebrain

SO anecdotal evidence should give us a right to bomb a country?

I think I would like to see some HARD evidence.

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“Somewhere a True Believer is training to kill you. He is training with minimum food or water, in austere conditions, day and night. The only thing clean on him is his weapon. He doesn’t worry about what workout to do—his rucksack weighs what it weighs, and he runs until the enemy stops chasing him. The True Believer doesn’t care ‘how hard it is’; he knows he either wins or he dies. He doesn’t go home at 1700; he is home. He knows only the ‘Cause.’ Now, who wants to quit?”

NCOIC of the Special Forces Assessment and Selection Course in a welcome speech to new SF candidates

On life after football: "I wouldn't mind being a sports commentator. Having my own segment, working for ESPN, my own talk show. Part time trainer. Part time car mechanic. Part time Sprint cell phone salesman. Part time car washman. Grocery store baggage man. Football coach. Model. Actress. Stripper. And I even have dreams of being the next crocodile hunter." - Darnell Dockett

WaywardFan

Ooops. Missed this. Did this come later?

No, that's not what's happening. This board is frantic in its crucifixion attempts. There's no evidence to suggest Bush lied, and there's no evidence yet to suggest there were no WMD (quite the opposite).

I'm all for investigations, let them happen. But the gotcha politics and the liberal media isn't waiting for that to happen. Again, do you REALLY think they weren't there, after all the empirical evidence that we know to be true?

Well, the fact there's nothing else going on is true, but that doesn't necessarily excuse falsification or embellishment of information to discredit.

I do hope it will be all over the news when they find them. However, you know what the mantra will be on this board? Bush planted it!

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Fell deeds awake... Now for Wrath... Now for Ruin... and the Red Dawn...

WaywardFan

Not anecdotal. Universal, incontrovertible, hard evidence. Please, oh please say that every bit of evidence and intelligence gather over more than a decade by hundreds of countries and organizations, including the vaunted UN AND IRAQ itself is total bunk to you.

I would be interested to know your definition of HARD evidence. Does a cropduster dropping anthrax over your home qualify? How about the bombing of the Super Bowl?

And if it is hard evidence you want, why do you think it needed to be found by now?

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Fell deeds awake... Now for Wrath... Now for Ruin... and the Red Dawn...

Dback Jon

Wayward - once again you delude yourself in calling the media liberal. It is anything but liberal. Sure, there are some liberals in the media, but the ownership/programming of all the networks in conservative. Even CNN is more balanced than the Republican News Network (Fox).

The media has given Bush a big pass on this so far. They failed to ask the critical questions about the conjured documents that the Bushies used to justify this war.

The war, that will involve us for at least 10-years, cost us hundreds, if not thousands of American lives, and up to a trillion dollars.

Did Iraq at one time have WMD - yes.
Did they still have them? unknown.
Did they have any capability to harm the US? Most likely no.
Where they an immediate danger to the US? No.

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R.I.P Tim Minnick

The KING of Cards

schutd

Youre points are well taken, Wayward, but read that interview up top. Isnt that a military general saying he saw no evidence of the imminence of the Iraqi threat? Isnt that the MAIN (granted not only) reason we the public were given for going to war? Isnt he saying that he was told by the white house in the aftermath of 9/11 to tie Sadam to the bombers, without being shown one ounce of evidence?

Thats what Im worried about in this thread. It contends that the white house was cooking evidence as far back as 9/11/01 to help provide them with the backing of the public to eventually go to war. That bothers me. The source seems credible too. DOesnt that bother you at all? Speaking SPECIFICALLY about the above posted interview now, not the other standard whinings that come from all sides on this board...

Krangthebrain

Anyone who tries to claim that the media is liberal, is either extreme right wing or has no credibility in my eyes.

Go tell Rupert Murdoch that he's liberal.

__________________
“Somewhere a True Believer is training to kill you. He is training with minimum food or water, in austere conditions, day and night. The only thing clean on him is his weapon. He doesn’t worry about what workout to do—his rucksack weighs what it weighs, and he runs until the enemy stops chasing him. The True Believer doesn’t care ‘how hard it is’; he knows he either wins or he dies. He doesn’t go home at 1700; he is home. He knows only the ‘Cause.’ Now, who wants to quit?”

NCOIC of the Special Forces Assessment and Selection Course in a welcome speech to new SF candidates

On life after football: "I wouldn't mind being a sports commentator. Having my own segment, working for ESPN, my own talk show. Part time trainer. Part time car mechanic. Part time Sprint cell phone salesman. Part time car washman. Grocery store baggage man. Football coach. Model. Actress. Stripper. And I even have dreams of being the next crocodile hunter." - Darnell Dockett

Renz

Wasn't that an episode of Gilligan's Island?

Anyway, I think the war on Iraq was justified based on human rights alone. Look at all the mass graves being found full of women and children. Saddam was not going to give up power under any circumstances. He needed to be removed by force.

As for WMD, I think that just about every country/intelligence service in the world thought Iraq had WMD. I think they will be found eventually and even if they aren't, I think it is an intelligence failure and not the White House purposely misleading us.

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Renz

Rupert Murdoch is not the entire media. Are you saying that the New York Times and Washington Post aren't liberal?

The print media is more liberal and the electronic media is more dominated by conservatives IMO, but both sides are well represented.

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