Iran Report Renews Bush Credibility And Competency Issues
The news about the Iran intelligence report is proving to be a negative double-edged sword for President Bush.
On one hand, it renews and continues to nurture growing credibility problems for the administration, which for many Americans now seems as trustworthy in official pronouncements as the administrations of Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson and Republican Richard M. Nixon.
On the other hand, if the assumption is made that there was no deliberate attempt to mislead, it further raises questions about the judgment and competency of the administration.
President Bush was told in August that Iran’s nuclear weapons program “may be suspended,” the White House said Wednesday, which seemingly contradicts the account of the meeting given by Bush Tuesday.
So already Mr. Bush’s words are inoperative, as a new explanation comes out. Not helpful to rebuilding already-damaged credibility.
Adm. Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, told Bush the new information might cause intelligence officials to change their assessment of the Iranian program, but said analysts needed to review the new data before making a final judgment, White House press secretary Dana Perino said late Wednesday.
“Director McConnell said that the new information might cause the intelligence community to change its assessment of Iran’s covert nuclear program, but the intelligence community was not prepared to draw any conclusions at that point in time, and it wouldn’t be right to speculate until they had time to examine and analyze the new data,” Perino said in a statement issued by the White House.
The new account from Perino seems to contradict the president’s version of his August conversation with McConnell and raised new questions about why Bush continued to warn the American public about a threat from Iran two months after being told a new assessment was in the works.
But one pattern that has emerged with the Bush administration which Democrats and Independent voters note and some Republicans who don’t belong to the let’s-always-adopt-the-official-line part of the GOP is that the White House seldom will admit it was wrong or exaggerated. It’ll parse words — a way as bad as the “it all depends what is is” way that Bill Clinton did…which was lambasted by Republicans for years.
But Perino said there was no conflict between her statement and Bush’s Tuesday account of the meeting, when he said McConnell “didn’t tell me what the information was.”
“The president wasn’t given the specific details” of the revised intelligence estimate, which was released Monday, Perino said.
Question: as a MANAGER shouldn’t he have asked for details before speaking?
Now, hold your breath for this one:
Nor did Bush mislead Americans in October, when he warned of a third world war triggered by Iran’s development of nuclear technology, she said.
“The president didn’t say we’re going to cause World War III,” Perino said. “He was saying he wanted to avoid World War III.”
Bush made a big issue of the fact that the U.S. had to act on this before one day people woke up and found themselves in WWIII. In fact, as it now turns out, it wasn’t quite yet at that risk point. So the problem is not with how his words were perceived by reporters but what he said and what implications came from the mouth of the Commander In Chief.
Meanwhile, a new theme emerged from some of Mr. Bush’s supporters yesterday — a theme that blossomed on some radio talk shows and among some conservative pundits: a suggestion that the report really can’t be trusted because someone is trying to undermine Bush. And who is that someone? Apparently the CIA.
In today’s Washington Post, former UN Ambassador John Bolton took a swipe at the Iran report:
Rarely has a document from the supposedly hidden world of intelligence had such an impact as the National Intelligence Estimate released this week. Rarely has an administration been so unprepared for such an event. And rarely have vehement critics of the “intelligence community” on issues such as Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction reversed themselves so quickly.
All this shows that we not only have a problem interpreting what the mullahs in Tehran are up to, but also a more fundamental problem: Too much of the intelligence community is engaging in policy formulation rather than “intelligence” analysis, and too many in Congress and the media are happy about it. President Bush may not be able to repair his Iran policy (which was not rigorous enough to begin with) in his last year, but he would leave a lasting legacy by returning the intelligence world to its proper function.
And:
We have lost many fruitful sources inside Iraq in recent years because of increased security and intelligence tradecraft by Iran. The sudden appearance of new sources should be taken with more than a little skepticism. In a background briefing, intelligence officials said they had concluded it was “possible” but not “likely” that the new information they were relying on was deception. These are hardly hard scientific conclusions. One contrary opinion came from — of all places — an unnamed International Atomic Energy Agency official, quoted in the New York Times, saying that “we are more skeptical. We don’t buy the American analysis 100 percent. We are not that generous with Iran.” When the IAEA is tougher than our analysts, you can bet the farm that someone is pursuing a policy agenda.
Do you sense there is an attempt to discredit a report that doesn’t have the conclusion Bolton wanted it to have?
That such a flawed product could emerge after a drawn-out bureaucratic struggle is extremely troubling. While the president and others argue that we need to maintain pressure on Iran, this “intelligence” torpedo has all but sunk those efforts, inadequate as they were. Ironically, the NIE opens the way for Iran to achieve its military nuclear ambitions in an essentially unmolested fashion, to the detriment of us all.
Bolton could be correct that some of the report could have been manipulated.
However, if a report like this comes out and is ignored or discredited because it doesn’t fit the agenda of people who wanted it to bolster their position, then we’re now not only living in a world where “fact-based journalism” is ailing, but where “fact-based” foreign policy formulation is truly on life support.
22 Responses to “Iran Report Renews Bush Credibility And Competency Issues”
The Usual Suspects here continue to hype this issue. It’s pretty bad when they outdo the pink tutu crowd on NPR.
However, if a report like this comes out and is ignored or discredited because it doesn’t fit the agenda of people who wanted it to bolster their position, then we’re now not only living in a world where “fact based journalism” is ailing, but where “fact based” foreign policy formulation is truly on life support.
This is the internet bloggers formulating the truth with their own take on events.
Once again we are in a dilemna. Saddam Hussein was believed to have a vast arsenal of WMD’s by everyone. Even Bill and Hillary Clinton Believed it. Hussein perpetuated that myth over and over. Bragged it up and in the end got Bush to invade to discover the real truth.
Now here we have Ahmadinejadh telling us we have x number of centrifuges…..its our right to develop the bomb, we want to blow up Israel, blah, blah, blah. The Investigators going into Iran suspect he has a program so in essence it is as if he is daring the USA to do the same thing to Iran they did to Iraq. Knowing they cant win a conventional war but they sure as hello can bog the USA down and bankrupt this nation.
I always fall on the side that concludes Our intell community which blew up aspirin factories under Clinton, invaded Iraq under Bush ARE now trying to make amends by coming out and saying………NO…..they do not have a program.
In effect this shows quite convincingly that those who are convinced that Bush/Cheney run the intell community and finiggle the news are dead wrong.
If nothing else it shows how little control Bush/Cheney have over the intell community and what they are putting out as assessments.
Bonkers Bolton is an ideologue who stretches the truth and back stabs his former bosses. I won’t go into the details, I made the argument at the Dutch lads new blog. Maybe Ali Rez Asgari told us something that our spy satellites couldn’t see.
Hers’ a cooment over at the Dutch lads:
http://poligazette.com/2007/12/06/bolton-on-nie/#comment-8740
It’s frustrating to see Bush dig the grave himself for his credibility.
He could have salvaged it by acknowledging the NIE Report and its significance, and then continued on to make his points about Iran.
When he walks over the report as if it wasn’t there,
he makes himself out to be a sham.
And that’s a shame, because he does have some legitimate points to make. Iran has, indeed, been deceptive in the extreme.
What are his advisers and speechwriters thinking?
It’s as if they are talking to themselves, without the lightest regard to the wider audience, which is the world.
If he watns cooperation on sancions, he is doing a fine job of spoiling his chances.
Bolton is such a wild-eyed demogofure, it’s hard to distinguish between him and the 9/11 conspiracy theorists. Again, If someone wants to be seen as credible, he has to talk like a credible person.
That concept appears to be out of reach of the ‘bomb Iran now’ crowd..
domajat – Great points. Thoughts and intent won’t start WWIII, at least not from Iran.
Nothing can be “fact-based” when we are not able to see what the facts are ourselves. If past estimates were wrong, which they obviously were in regard to Iraq, what level of confidence is there that any future reports are right, given the past?
On another note, what if we think of Iran as a strange dog on the street and you’re a father out walking with your daughter. As you walk closer to the dog, he growls a little and then stops. He does not advance nor does he back away. Not knowing whether the dog is aggressive or not, how do you react? Do you consider the dog to be harmless and walk carelessly close with your child or do you take the opposite tack and carry your child until your far enough away from the dog that it is no longer a threat? If nothing happens, are you wrong in taking the more protective approach? If something happens, are you wrong in taking the more careless approach? What would your wife say if your child had been attacked while you walked carelessly past the strange dog without taking any precautions?
In the context of Mr. Bush, how would history or the American people treat him if Iran becomes a nuclear power under his watch? Would the explanation, “well, the NIE report stated that they had discontinued their nuclear program in 2003 absolve him of any responsibility?
As per usual, spin and bull from the shrunken right. Hans Blix maintained right up to the point he was told to leave, that there was no credible evidence of WMD.
Time after time he followed up on information passed on by the Bush Administration to search such and such a location for such and such weapons. Nothing was found, ever.
The fact that there was serious debate and dissent within the intelligence agencies over the statements being put out by the administrations’ most senior officers was hidden and those who did express well known doubts were instantly punished.
Literally everywhere other than in the media, the Bush administration and the dining rooms of his supporters, questions were being asked by highly qualified people about the validity of the information spewing forth from the neocon talking heads.
Sy Hersh has it right, I think: bad shit was being planned by bad people and on this occasion those who would be charged with carrying it out decided enough was enough. Hence, the new estimate, and the truth
An example of something Bush wants to do that is wrong will probably be ignored or interpreted the wrong (pro-loser) way by so many in the media and on the Web (including here). I doubt you’ll be making half-screen-length-or-longer postings about this and bashing Bush multiple times in the same way about this if he does it.
A five-year freeze on some subprogram mortgage interest rates? What a Democrat! Does Bush really believe this will convince more people to vote GOP?
This is more Democrat-like, and worse, than Clinton’s releasing oil from the Strategic Reserve to boost the economy in an effort to aid Gore’s chances in 2000.
(The Bush people like high oil prices. When oil prices went down under Bush Sr., he went to talk to the producers to stop the fall, because “We have to have stability…” This is a small reason why he was not re-elected in 1992.)
Normal people know there is no “crisis” [sic] with the subprime mortgages, and don’t have sympathy for those who made bad decisions (both the borrowers and the lenders). We also don’t care about a drop in home prices; the earlier bubble and behavior associated with was disgraceful, and homes still cost far too much!
The Wall Street Journal provides the proper view of this idea.
I bet the Usual Suspects here and elsewhere will be silent, will cheer this, and will bash Bush even if they cheer his action.
(…or…or…)
As per usual, spin and bull from the shrunken right.
Sorry Trufalo you have bought into the antiwars version of the truth so long that you have forgotten many facts.
Hillary did in fact give a speech caught on camera saying “Yup. They got em.” Israel passed out gas masks prior to the invasion. Our troops wore chemical suits during the entire run into Baghdad. Bill Clinton himself stated that he did not doubt that Iraq had WMDS.
What part of that is As per usual, spin and bull from the shrunken right.
Somebody,
You are right. A lot of people believed Saddam had WMD.
The spin and bull part was that we couldn’t wait for the inspectors to finish their job and, instead, had to invade Iraq NOW.
The mushroom cloud of Iraq is the WWIII of Iran.
Any administration has to entertain worst case scenrios. It would be negligent in the extreme if it didn’t. Good judgement, instead of hyping fears is what separates competent leaders from the
hysterical idologues who are ready to jump off a cliff without checking how far down the bottom is.
DLS said:
I agree with that statement 100%. My sympathy is with regular folks, working regular jobs, living in regular homes, who lost their regular jobs (not by their fault), and are losing their regular homes due to lack of income. But that is another topic for another time.
Doma I dont disagree with what you said.
I just take exception when I point historical fact and am told its right wing Spin.
I dont abide liars and I wont be called one.
That is why I do not support this administration. I only support The Iraqis whom we have put in harms way.
[saluting] So is “job lock” with health insurance, which didn’t go away in 1992 with Bush Sr., as I could easily remind people.
This is a narrative by the lazy MSM, both Liberal and Conservative, prior to the Iraq invasion. But much of the “mushroom cloud” and aluminum tubes BS was debunked by arms control experts.
When Bush and Cheney repeated the same arguments again about Iran skepticism was warranted, but few questioned the WWIII hyperbole prior to the NIE release. The Iran BS was working, polls indictated Americans were willing to consider an attack on Iran.
What if the dog were known, not strange, and were known to have attacked many other children in the past, and growled at and approached many others? (in part by having other dogs doing the attacking and threatening under the direction of this dog)
What if the foregoing is true (it is, in the case of Iran), you’re an Israeli father and this is a talking dog, it is known to have attacked and threatened others in the past, and this talking dog says, “I’m going to kill you and your kid! You don’t deserve to live! I hate you and everything about you and your kind, including your home!”
I can remember calling “Bullsh*t!” in regards to many of the media takes on the Iraq threat prior to the invasion. I was reading the same wide range of online sources and MSM that I always had. Somehow I managed to glean the truth of the situation out my sources, even though I had many others screaming in my ear and to my eye that there was a huge threat there.
The same sources now make my bullsh*t meter go off again in regards to the imminent Iranian threat. Maybe people need to look beyond the American media more often.
Iran has long been a threat, and an actor — it has acted many times to commit aggression, murder, and mayhem. Having no nuclear bomb yet in no way erases the threat of that, as well as other aggressive threats based on its past actions, which are indisputable facts. And Iran has been working on a nuclear weapon and trying to acquire or create fissile material for many, many years.
Plenty of us do, even if we don’t unconsciously or consciously distort what we encounter abroad as well as at home.
“When intelligence types talk of Iran’s weapons programme, what they mean is work to design a nuclear warhead, master the mechanics to make it go bang and covertly produce the highly-enriched uranium or plutonium for its explosive core. … Yet, as a leaked speech by a senior Iranian nuclear official later made clear, Iran was not abandoning enrichment, only ducking and weaving to get the world off its back. … Does that matter if all the other work has stopped? Producing enough plutonium or highly enriched uranium (power reactors use the low-enriched sort, but this can be enriched to weapons grade by running it through the centrifuges a few more times) is the chief obstacle to building a bomb. … Iran claims never to have had any intent to build weapons. The NIE disagrees. America is even more firmly convinced on the evidence it has obtained—some of it quite recently—that until 2003 Iran’s government was trying to build a nuclear weapon. … It always was implausible that a country without a single working nuclear-power reactor would spend so heavily on, and be so secretive about, uranium enrichment. The IAEA still wants to know more about unexplained traces of highly enriched uranium found by inspectors and a document Iran had for years, but claims never to have made use of, showing how to shape uranium metal into hemispheres, a technique useful only for weapons. Inspectors also want Iran to account for drawings dated 2003 from a laptop provided to America by a defector the following year that show design work on a missile cone that could accommodate a nuclear warhead.”
That didn’t come from a US source, but elsewhere, and no, not from Israel, either (who is in no way discredited among normal people).
“The same sources now make my bullsh*t meter go off again in regards to the imminent Iranian threat. Maybe people need to look beyond the American media more often.”
I think it’s become amply clear in the 21st century that we don’t have anywhere near enough bullsh*t meters to go around for everyone.
DLS – It’s OK to link to the Economist, but this paragraph is BS.
The HEU is from centrifuges purchased illegally/secretly from Pakistan. The laptop info was in ENGLISH, not FARSI and isn’t mentioned as a source by NIE, US intel or IAEA. Google “HEU Iran pakistan” and diregard the Pakistanis papers to see about the HEU.
Well, “BABY MILK PLANT, IRAQ” was in English, too. [grin]
> Google “HEU Iran pakistan” and diregard the
> Pakistanis papers to see about the HEU.
I know about the contamination; thanks just the same. But that’s not the issue. The issue is that Iran is enriching uranium on its own (and it’s only a matter of time before it does plutonium extraction or acquires plutonium from elsewhere, which may have been what the recently bombed Syrian site was about). It is no longer trying to so totally in secret. But it has been trying so secretly for a long time (and note the centrifuges were secretly obtained). Why secretly? It’s not for civilian purposes. It was perfectly reasonable and predictable to suspect Iran had been enriching uranium more than it had admitted(!) (And, again, why were the centrifuges secretly obtained? Why didn’t the Iranians announce what they wanted to do and ask for Western assistance?)
And does anybody sensible really believe the Iranian regime has now, suddenly, (or suddenly as of 2003) gained its senses and decided to behave itself, and only to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes? The civilian program game is a sham, even if a civilian reactor is built and runs someday. Have you ever heard of “diversion” of fissile material from civilian to weapon programs? That the civilian program is now being done openly is not due to sudden reform, but deliberately to defy the USA and the rest of the West. Why else?
(Iran probably learned something from North Korea: Shake down the West for goodies, especially if Westerners want to be more friendly to and to try to understand and even sympathize with the Poor, Sweet, Innocent Iranians So Badly Misjudged and Treated By the West [tm]. And they’ll continue working on weapons-related items if they can get away with it.)
In kindness I can try to concede sometimes and just refer neutrally to Iran’s currently publicly-revealed activities as its “nuclear program.” But we all know, and admit if we’re honest and also stylish, that it is its “nuclear (weapons) program.”
DLS-
RE:
“But we all know, and admit if we’re honest and also stylish, that it is its “nuclear (weapons) program.”
If you’re trying to make the case for not taking Iran at its word, you are going about it in exactly the wrong way.
Every time you say “know’,instead of the more accurate ‘suspect’, your arguments lose credibility.
Overstate the case, and you lose the audience, thus making it easy to scoff at legitimate concerns you raise.
Every time there is an attenmpt to pass ‘suspect’ off as ‘know’, the likelihood for ‘suspect’ to be taken seriously is reduced., and the best way to ensure that Iran’s role in destabilizing the region is overlooked is to keep on making the mistake of overstaing the case re it’s nuclear program.
That’s how the terrorism warning system came to fail.
That’s how the US lost it’s credibility internationally.
That’s how the threat of terrorism in the US lost the attention of the public.
There is a consistent lesson in be learned from past experiences. The smart thing to do would be to take that lesson to heart.