When is a lie, a lie?

Dick Cheney and President Bush are out there swinging--saying that to question the intelligence that led us into the War in Iraq is irresponsible. Is it sticking? I don't know. That is a topic for another day. Today, we delve into the philosophical. When is a lie a lie? Take a look at these whoppers and you tell me...

1) On July 11, 2003, Ms. Rice stated with respect to the claim that Iraq was seeking uranium in Africa: “Now, if there were doubts
about the underlying intelligence . . . those doubts were not communicated to the
President, to the Vice President, or to me.”5 This statement is false because, as
Ms. Rice’s deputy Stephen Hadley subsequently acknowledged, the CIA sent Ms.
Rice and Mr. Hadley memos in October 2002 warning against the use of this
claim.

2) In his speech on February 5, 2004, Mr. Tenet explained that there was not unanimity on whether Iraq had reconstituted its nuclear program and that these differences were described in the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE): “let me be clear, where there were differences, the Estimate laid out the disputes clearly.”15 In particular, the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) concluded in the NIE that “[t]he activities we have detected do not, however, add up to a compelling case that Iraq is currently pursuing what INR would consider to be an integrated and comprehensive approach to acquire nuclear weapons.” INR added: “Lacking persuasive evidence that Baghdad has launched a coherent effort to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program, INR is unwilling to speculate that such an effort began soon after the departure of UN inspectors.”16 The INR position was similar to the conclusions of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which concluded that there was “no indication of resumed nuclear activities . . . nor any indication of nuclear-related prohibited activities." (emphasis mine)

President Bush said in October 2002 that “[t]he regime has the scientists and facilities to build nuclear weapons and is seeking the materials required to do so."

Three days before the War began, Vice President Cheney said, "We know he has been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons. And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons."

Secretary Rumsfeld denied on July 13, 2003, that there was “any debate” about Iraq’s nuclear capabilities within the Administration, stating: “We said they had a nuclear program. That was never any debate.”

I'm still not clear whether or not the Senate had access to the NIE, so I wont make the case that Congress was misled, but the President and his administration sure as hell lied to you and me.

There is a searchable database of some 237 outright lies and misrepresentations. You can access it here. The summary of the report (PDF) is here.

Hat Tip to Stage Left and AmericaBlog

Others talking about this Scrutiny Hooligans, The Heretik, American on Line

Posted over at Jo's Cafe, The Political Teen,

Comments

[Pothus]

When is a lie, a lie? Hmm, it depends on how you define IS. (Sound familiar?)

[Jo]

Did Bush Lie? Goggle This: Clinton Iraq 1998

I don't mind a little debate on this - and actually wouldn't mind a further investigation into it -- but who is lying and when? And when is a lie okay? When it's a Democrat and a blue dress? Hmmm

[Chris]

Hey Jo--morning--I've already done the google thing and I think we even posted the clip--the whole Clinton clip--and I think that's fine...Saddam had WMD, we bombed him and destroyed some capability--but then we had 9/11--and I think everyone admits the colossal intel failure that led to that and squarely put a lot of blame on Clinton--justifiably so-- but President Bush kept on the same guys who blew the intel on 9/11 and then said he had irrefuateble evidence that Saddam had WMD and this that and teh other thing--and um, they were wrong. And the statements quoted in the post as well as numerous others clearly show that the President and his administration were not candid with the American people--they knew there was serious doubt about what they were saying and they conjured images of mushroom clouds to get us to support the war. Clinton lied about the blue dress--yup and right now I fail to see how that is relevant to the War in Iraq.

[Chris]

Seriously, is the Clinton lied thing a justification for President Bush and his administration lying or is it just a distraction technique because you guys don't want to look at the facts and say they did. Listen, I think we need to finish the job in Iraq--that doesn't mean I think it's ok to lie to the American people to get them to support a War.

[Screwy Hoolie]

a) Thanks for the shoutout!

b) It takes a very cold heart to suggest that the deaths of thousands of people ought to be compared to a blow job.

When Clinton lied, nobody died.

c) Clinton's policies are the ones that did away with Saddam's WMD.

d) You want to blame Roosevelt for the rise of Germany? Blaming Clinton for the rise of Al Qaeda is similar.

e) We armed Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. We armed Iraq against Iran. We handed out WMD and military training like so much candy throughout the Reagan years. It's important to recognize this as we continue to export more arms than any other nation. Creating our enemies as we go...

f) Reiterating (b). President Clinton should not have lied to us about those sloppy BJs he was getting under the desk in the Oval Office. President Bush should not have cherry-picked intelligence to justify invading a nation that had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks, resulting in the deaths of thousands and thousands of people. Which do you think will go down in history as the greater offense?

It's nice to meet your blog, Chris. See you around.

[Screwy Hoolie]

btw - any vitriol in that comment is pointed at the commenters Pothius and Jo.

[Chris]

Welcome Screwy and trust me, you will get a talking to by many here. We pull no punches. However, it is Friday so today we yell and scream while drinking beer...anyway--

Just one quick thing--can we please stop talking about Clinton and his blow jobs--it isn't relevant and usually any time you find a Democrat arguing with a Republican the actual topic never gets addressed because we spend so much time talking about Clinton's wiener--my question in this post is simple--are you guys who for so long have said that the President and his administration didn't lie or mislead the American people prepared to look at the above statements and others and stick to the that mantra...it isn't any more complicated than that.

[Capitalist Infidel]

"Dick Cheney and President Bush are out there swinging--saying that to question the intelligence that led us into the War in Iraq is irresponsible."

Good lord Chris, you couldn't complete the first sentence of your post without flat out lying. Didn't bother reading the rest for you have lost all credibility.

[Shari]

1) On July 11, 2003, Ms. Rice stated with respect to the claim that Iraq was seeking uranium in Africa: “Now, if there were doubts
about the underlying intelligence . . . those doubts were not communicated to the
President, to the Vice President, or to me.

I would like to see the whole context of this answer & question. I would be willing to bet they are taken out of context as the left is so, so good at.

[Shari]

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Bill Tierney, a former military intelligence officer and Arabic speaker who worked at Guantanamo Bay in 2002 and as a counter-infiltration operator in Baghdad in 2004. He was also an inspector (1996-1998) for the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) for overseeing the elimination of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles in Iraq. He worked on the most intrusive inspections during this period and either participated in or planned inspections that led to four of the seventeen resolutions against Iraq.

(snip)

On the post-war weapons hunt, the arrogance and hubris of the intelligence community is such that they can’t entertain the possibility that they just failed to find the weapons because the Iraqis did a good job cleaning up prior to their arrival. This reminds me of the police chief who announced on television plans to raid a secret drug factor on the outskirts of town. At the time appointed, the police, all twelve of them, lined up behind each other at the front door, knocked and waiting for the druggies to answer, as protocol required. After ten minute of toilet flushing and back-door slamming, somebody came to the front door in a bathrobe and explained he had been in the shower. The police took his story at face value, even though his was dry as a bone, then police proceeded to inspect the premises ensuring that the legal, moral , ethnic, human, and animal rights, and also the national dignity, of the druggies was preserved. After a search, the police chief announced THERE WERE NO STOCKPILES of drugs at the inspected site. Anyone care to move to this city?

(snip)

In Iraq’s case, the lakes and rivers were the toilet, and Syria was the back door. Even though there was imagery showing an inordinate amount of traffic into Syria prior to the inspections, and there were other indicators of government control of commercial trucking that could be used to ship the weapons to Syria, from the ICs point of view, if there is no positive evidence that the movement occurred, it never happened. This conclusion is the consequence of confusing litigation with intelligence. Litigation depends on evidence, intelligence depends on indicators. Picture yourself as a German intelligence officer in Northern France in April 1944. When asked where will the Allies land, you reply “I would be happy to tell you when I have solid, legal proof, sir. We will have to wait until they actually land.” You won’t last very long. That officer would have to take in all the indicators, factor in deception, and make an assessment (this is a fancy intelligence word for an educated guess).

The Democrats understand the difference between the two concepts, but have no qualms about blurring the distinction for political gain. This is despicable. This has brought great harm to our nation’s credibility with our allies. A perfect example is Senator Levin waving deception by one single source, al-Libi, to try and convince us that this is evidence there was no connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda, as though the entire argument rested on this one source. Senator Levin, and his media servants, think the public can’t read through his duplicity. He is plunging a dagger into the heart of his own country.

(snip)

Operation Desert Fox was a perfect example of the uselessness of strike operations. Iraqis have told me that the WMD destruction and movement started just after Operation Desert Fox, since after all, who would be so stupid as to start a bombing campaign and just stop.

It was only after Saddam realized that President Clinton lacked the nerve for anything more than a temper-tantrum demonstration that he knew the doors were wide open for him to continue his weapons program. We didn’t break his will, we didn’t destroy his weapons making capability (The Iraqis simply moved most of the precision machinery out prior to the strikes, then rebuilt the buildings), but we did kill some Iraqi bystanders, just so President Clinton could say “something must be done, so I did something.”

(snip)

http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=20154

[Chris]

Shari, I read the article and while I find it interesting two things come to mind:

1) if you want me to believe that the WMD walked across the border to Syria you are gonna have to find different people to tell me so...no one who screwed up on 9/11 or WMD has any credibility left at all.

2) You haven't dealt with the statements above. The links are all there. I want to know if these statements and the timing of what everyone knew when are accuarate did they lie and mislead the American public?

[Matt Hurley]

When is a lie a lie? Excellent question. One that I have answered here at least once before. As usual, I'll answer again free of charge... :)

A lie requires two things to happen simultaneously: a willful and deliberate distortion of reality enacted for some sort of gain.

Now, there is a very small segment of the population that will attempt to play the HALLIBURTON! card. Don't bother... Your black helicopter is waiting for you but be sure to be wearing your military issue tin-foil hat before disembarking on your trip...

Intelligence is at best a collection of educated guesses. The US intelligence capability has been severely limited. HUMINT capacity is close to non-existent. For far too long, we relied on spy satellites and a magnifying glass. Any time that is the extent of our knowledge of a situation there are bound to be people in the intelligence community who have a different point of view. Those folks, in this case, appear to have been right.

But let's jump in to the wayback machine for a minute and take stock of what the conventional wisdom about Iraq was at the time. Name for me an intelligence agency that held the view that Iraq did not possess WMDs or the capability to make them. I can't think of one.

Hindsight is 20/20...but let's not re-write history because we can see better now. That would be a lie.

[Chris]

Matt--so if Condi said that if there were doubts they weren't communicated to her the VP or the President even though they had been that isn't a lie? or is it, because it seems to me that a lie is merely a statement made by someone who knows it to be false--i looked it up and my dictionary doesn't say that there has to be some sort of gain...are you using Websters?

[Shari]

Good grief, Condi & Hadley were talking about two different things. The inconvenient part of the quote left out of the above statement shows this.

DR. RICE: I'm saying that when we put it together, put together the Secretary's remarks, the Secretary decided that he would caveat the aluminum tubes, which he did -- he said there's some disagreement about what this might be -- and he decided that he would not use the uranium story. The Secretary also has an intelligence arm that happened to hold that view. But the NIE, which, by the way, the Agency was standing by at the time of the -- the time of the State of the Union, and was standing by at the time of the Secretary's speech, has the yellow cake story in it, had the aluminum tube story in it. Now, if there were doubts about the underlying intelligence to that NIE, those doubts were not communicated to the President, to the Vice President, or to me.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/07/20030711-7.html

Hadley: Today I learned of a second memorandum sent by the CIA on October 6. This is commenting on draft eight of the Cincinnati speech. And by this time, by draft eight, the reference to Iraqi efforts to acquire uranium has already been deleted from the speech, as DCI Tenet asked me to do in his telephone request. And what the memorandum does is provide some additional rationale for the removal of the uranium reference.

The memorandum describes some weakness in the evidence, the fact that the effort was not particularly significant to Iraq's nuclear ambitions because the Iraqis already had a large stock of uranium oxide in their inventory. The memorandum also stated that the CIA had been telling Congress that the Africa story was one of two issues where we differed with the British intelligence.

This memorandum was received by the Situation Room here in the White House, and it was sent to both Dr. Rice and myself.

http://www.fas.org/irp/news/2003/07/wh072203b.html

Hadley was talking about a different time, different memo. He was talking about the speech in October.

Condi was talking about the State of the Union address in January, which was over 3 months after the memo Hadley is talking about. She also stated that the CIA was sticking by the statement that was in the NIE.

Just as I thought. Taken out of context and twisted to mean whatever the h*ll the want it to mean

[Shari]

Chris,
Screwed up on 9/11? What the heck are you talking about?

And will you believe anything a democrat puts out without checking it for yourself?

[Chris]

Shari--you aren't denying that 9/11 happened because of intelligence failures, are you? Tenet was the director under clinton and President Bush and 9/11 happened--there were significant errors within the intel community that allowed 9/11 to happen and President Bush kept Tenet and every other person in the intel community on--the they said there were WMD and there weren't--Tenet resigned, received the medal of freedom but to this day no one has been fired for the failures that led to 9/11 or to us believing that there were TONS of and STOCKPILES of WMD and NUCLEAR CAPABILITIES.

And I'm sorry I don't understand what your saying--she said that if there were underlying concerns about the intelligence in the NIE they weren't communicated to her, but in fact they were communicated to her. The fact that there were three months between that communication and the State of the Union means what to you?

Also, as for the CIA sticking by the NIE I refer you to what I said above about the CIA, 9/11 and the medal of freedom.

Nobody has lost their job at the CIA? Are you absolutely sure about that? I remember Porter Goss pissing off a whole bunch of guys who were "responsible" for "failures that led to 9/11 or to us believing that there were TONS of and STOCKPILES of WMD and NUCLEAR CAPABILITIES."

Although, I must point out that the only thing that "led" to 9/11 was the hatred of Islamofascist bastards...but your mileage may vary...

[Matt Hurley]

The above prose belongs to me, in case you couldn't guess... :)

[Shari]

CHRIS: you aren't denying that 9/11 happened because of intelligence failures, are you?

ME: Nope not at all. Wanted to see if you blamed THAT on Bush too, and it looks like you might lean that way.

CHRIS:And I'm sorry I don't understand what your saying.

ME: Did you even read the two links I posted? Have you even read the Senate Intel report, especially the part about Niger?
Hadley gave a press conference concerning the speech in Cin, OH in Oct 2002. This is what he said.

HADLEY: Now, with respect to that sentence, the October 5 CIA memorandum asked that we remove the sentence because the amount, 500 tons, is in dispute and it is debatable whether it can be acquired from the source.

ME: It's debatable whether it can be acquired, not whether they tried to acquire it, which is what the Senate Intel report says also and Wilson confirmed.

THAT IS WHAT the CIA memo was about. Condi was talking about an entirely different speech, the SOTU, and the NIE report which states that they tried to acquire yellowcake which was never disputed. Remember at the time of the SOTU they also had the forgered document that they didn't know was forged too. THE CIA approved the SOTU and saw nothing wrong with the statement. There were no underlying doubts to the intelligence of them trying to ACQUIRE it, just whether they could have actually gotten it from Niger (INR) and the amt. BTW, the SOTU said Africa or African countries (can't remember). Iraq was also trying to get yellowcake from Somolia and the Congo.

So when your little statement above says that Condi lied, it's flat out wrong. Condi & Hadley were talking about two different statements at two different times. Sure, Hadley gave them the memo and sure they more than likely read it, but it didn't affect the exact statement in the SOTU. If I had time, I would go thru the rest of the report, because I'm sure they are just as wrong.

CHRIS: Also, as for the CIA sticking by the NIE I refer you to what I said above about the CIA, 9/11 and the medal of freedom.

ME: Well if you believe that, why are you blaming the administration for LYING?

BTW, I have a hard time transfering thoughts onto paper (or computer) so excuse my clumsiness.

[Matt Hurley]

Shari: "BTW, I have a hard time transfering thoughts onto paper (or computer) so excuse my clumsiness."

ME: I rather liked your style... :)

[Shari]

Well thanks, Matt, I stand by my clumsiness statement though! :)