Bush "Admits" He Had Bad Intel, BUT...

While the networks are praising him for this admission, they're all overlooking the good intel that said Saddam DID NOT have WMD. Stop giving this guy a pass for his deadly mistakes.

This really isn't complicated. President Bush was not being "blunt" or showing "candor" when he told ABC News in an interview published yesterday that his biggest regret was the failure of intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq War.

Rather, he was whitewashing away his own role in the fisaco by promoting the demonstrable falsehood that there was no available evidence or information that argued against war and that he was merely fooled into invading Iraq solely by the bad intel...

Let's go over this very slowly. For Bush to blame the failure of intel for his decision to invade is not a concession at all, and it is not an admission of failure on his part. Rather, it is the opposite of these things. It is an evasion of responsibility for what happened.

Yet the big news orgs seem unable -- or unwilling -- to grasp this simple dynamic or give readers the info they need to understand it, and for some reason are perfectly willing to enable Bush's falsification of history.

Comments

[Dusty]

Apparently charlie still enjoys taking it up the keyster from asswipe...sic semper newsfuks like gibson and his ilk...

[Mark Richards]

"...deadly mistakes."

I'm not buying the line that it was "bad judgment" or a "mistake".

In the end, should all the facts be known (long after the culprits are beyond prosecution), we may well find that the wars were engineered, not blundered into.

[Hoffmania Himself]

Mark...if invading Iraq wasn't a mistake, I don't know how else to describe it. Intentional on his part, yes, but it was still a big mistake. Semantics aside, I agree with you.

[Hoffmania Himself]

Of course I meant that going into Iraq was a big mistake. I can't think of another way of putting it. Intentional on Bush's part? Very likely. He's so much as saying so. Semantics aside, I agree with you.

[J L]

These guys not only need to be prosecuted, they need to do some real mean and unusual punishment for their crimes against not only the U.S., but the entire world. If they aren't prosecuted, then I hope they all get the worst kind of slow cruel cancer known to mankind.

[Diamond Joe]

How about "deadly hubris"? It combines the intentionality of the action with the unintended negative result.

The title of Bush's presidential memoirs should be "No One Could Have Anticipated," because it's his all-purpose excuse for misfeasance and malfeasance. Ignoring pre-9/11 warnings? Ignoring the condition of New Orleans' levees? Invading Iraq backed by wishful thinking and ginned-up "intelligence"? Who woulda thunk it would turn out badly?

[ThCapn]

Having received a few "intel" briefings in my day, I can offer that MOST intel is "bad" - no more than a best guess of the worst case. In Iraq's situation, there is evidence (gained after laboriously sifting through tons of documents only available by literally kicking in the doors with boots-on-the-ground AFTER the invasion) that there was an active dis-information campaign in place to convince Iran (Iraq's perceived #1 threat in 2001-02) that the WMD weapons and programs (the ONLY weapons that kept Tehran from going to Baghdad in the 80's) were still in place. Not surprisingly, that Iraqi dis-information campaign had the same effect on ALL the western intelligence services. The interesting (and unanswered question) is whether Saddam's military and scientists were fabricating the information to deceive just Iran, or Saddam himself as well. Would YOU have liked to be the guy to tell Saddam that the WMD program that he was pouring millions into ($$$$ obtained by smuggling Iraqi oil past the UN sanctions) was actually defunct?

[David Aquarius]

How fucking pathetic!

Bush whining that his intel was bad. Bad intelligence wasn't the problem, it was NO intelligence. The intel was out there plain as the clueless look on his face. Bad intel...fuck what a sorry excuse for a human. He orchestrates the single most ill-conceived, poorly executed worthless national defense endeavor this country has ever experienced and all he can say is he got bad intel.

He had a hard-on for Saddam since the Gulf War, stoked by Rove, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Spitcomb, and the rest of the goons at PNAC. The events that precipitated the attacks on 9/11 were consequential for no other purpose than to give them cover for spanking Iraq. That alone is cause for putting the lot of them before the Hague. But, instead they pointed at Iraq, riled up the low-brow base - the folks who's IQ wouldn't fill a case of beer and we went in balls out and brains off.

We gave up a golden opportunity to deal a lasting blow to radical Islamic terrorism through the defeat of the Taliban and the rebuilding of Afghanistan, but nooo... we had to be the big stupid goon that walks away from a real fight and stir up a bee's nest in Iraq - for NO damn good reason!

Historians will look back on this time and label the Bush years a waste of calendar space and the man himself an incompetent fool but they will be much harsher on us, the American people for putting him in office not just once but twice. In the face of all the evidence that this imbecile was the worst fucking choice for the job other than Satan himself, we still put him back in the big chair for 4 more years.

Now, here we sit waist deep in this backed up sewer we can call Bush's legacy; we must reap what we sow. What were we thinking?

[lawton]

Only a fucking, idiotic fool would believe the so called intel was not cooked!
I have to agree with David A. The American People along with our beloved democrats were complicit as hell. We still funded and supported the invasion long after the truth was known. We could have stopped the slaughter of thousands and saved billions. We are guilty as charged!

Now, what is our new president and congress going to do to help us atone for the horrific deeds we've allowed to happen?