First Rewrite of History
The most recent of so many.
UK Guardian, under the headline “Iraq war my biggest regret, Bush admits,” reports that in an ABC interview Bush “last night admitted that the decision to go to war against Saddam Hussein on the basis of flawed intelligence was the biggest regret of his presidency.” Sounds great, though neither head nor lede actually reflect what he said:
“The biggest regret of all the presidency has to have been the intelligence failure in Iraq,” Bush told ABC television in an interview scheduled for broadcast last night. “I wish the intelligence had been different, I guess.” But he followed that moment of candour with an attempt to try to deflect charges that the White House misled Congress and the public to build a case for war, arguing that there had been widespread belief that Saddam had a nuclear arsenal.
“It wasn’t just people in my administration; a lot of members in Congress, prior to my arrival in Washington DC, during the debate on Iraq, a lot of leaders of nations around the world, were all looking at the same intelligence.”
He was not asked about allegations that political pressure was brought to bear on the CIA and other intelligence agencies in the run-up to the war.
The exit interview found Bush in an unusually reflective mood for a president who has famously refused in the past to admit any mistakes. He did not go so far as to say he would not have gone to war if the intelligence had been correct.
“That’s an interesting question. That is a do-over that I can’t do,” Bush said, according to excerpts from the interview at Camp David. Later he said: “I will leave the presidency with my head held high.”
Well, he should. Hate to belabor the point, but the world is a better place. WMD was never the only reason to take out Saddam, but as weapons inspectors who went searching for the WMD after the invasion noted, he had scientists and dual-use assets in place to fire it all up again as soon as the sanctions were off. Which, thanks to our Russian and French pals, was likely to be sooner rather than later. Then, there is the matter of his intelligence service’s multiple contacts with al-Qaeda affiliates and past support for terrorism.
NYT’s Caucus, meanwhile, proclaims that “the thing he (Bush) was most ‘unprepared’ for was the war in Iraq after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.” Again, not what he said:
Mr. Gibson: What were you most unprepared for?
Mr. Bush: Well, I think I was unprepared for war. In other words, I didn’t campaign and say, “Please vote for me, I’ll be able to handle an attack.” In other words, I didn’t anticipate war. Presidents — one of the things about the modern presidency is that the unexpected will happen.
I don’t know about you, but I get a pretty strong sense he means “unprepared for war” when he was running and first took office, not after our nation was attacked in an unprecedented manner that, Bush noted a year and a half in advance of the invasion of Iraq, changed everything. Unprepared for war much like Obama is today, I suppose, though Obama has the advantage, and has been taking liberal advantage, of Bush’s experience. Good thing, given that seven years after 9/11 and five years after the invasion of Iraq, Obama is only now figuring out that war is a reality you can’t wish away.
The Bush-bashing press, however, has the benefit of seven years of wartime experience rewriting facts to suit their own purposes. You’d think the first drafters of history would be less clumsy with their instant revisionism at this point. No one seems to have thought much of this point:
Mr. Gibson: Greatest accomplishment? The one thing you’re proudest of?
Mr. Bush: I keep recognizing we’re in a war against ideological thugs and keeping America safe.
Yeah, well, I guess one man’s “war against ideological thugs” and “safe” is another man’s …
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:02 pm on Monday, December 1, 2008
4 Responses to “First Rewrite of History”
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December 2nd, 2008 at 3:59 am
‘…Bush “last night admitted that the decision to go to war against Saddam Hussein…”‘
An amazing feat considering that the United States was bombing Iraq 50-100 per year before George Bush even took office.
How, exactly does one to go to war with a country one is already bombing on a regular basis?
I guess it’s not REALLY war if a Democrat president is presiding over a bombing campaign. Or maybe Slick Willie was using Peace Bombs…or something.
December 2nd, 2008 at 11:47 am
You’re right, Dave. I don’t know why this is so hard for some people to understand. The situation with Iraq was untenable, and evolving. The international embargo was falling apart, and, as it turns out, was already being subverted by the UN “oil for bribes” program. We were enforcing no fly zones in the north and south, but Iraq had already announced in 1998 that they would no longer respect them and would attempt to shoot down any Allied aircraft flying over Iraqi territory. The fact that they did not manage to shoot any down was not due to lack of desire, it was due to our massive edge in technology. However, with countries like France and Germany pushing for an end to the embargo, it was only a matter of time before Saddam would have billions of dollars in hard cash available to resurrect his dormant WMD programs, not to mention obtaining the weapons necessary to make good on his threat to shoot down Allied aircraft.
All of this information is readily available to anybody who wants to find it. It isn’t even controversial. It takes a willing blindness to ignore what was really happening and assume that the Iraq war was just some crazy plot hatched by Bush.
December 2nd, 2008 at 2:42 pm
“In the run-up to the war, the White House adopted a position of absolute certainty that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, basing its arguments on intelligence that was later exposed as flimsy and wrong.”–The Guardian
1.) The “run-up” to the war took place in 1990 when Iraq invaded Kuwait. Despite what lefties say, we’ve been at war with Iraq ever since 1991. We had a blockade on, the Iraqis were shooting at our aircraft, and we were bombing the Iraqis, and that IS war, by definition.
2.) Leftoid fantasies to the contrary, the Baathists did have WMD in their hot little hands when we invaded in 2003. Maybe not enough to bother the lefties at The Guardian, but they did have some. And, of course, they were violating the arms provisions of the 1991 ceasefire agreement in many other ways (rebuilding production facilities, building missiles in violation of the agreement, smuggling prohibited materials into Iraq, etc., etc.).
3.) To hear the lefties tell it, the ONLY reason we were (already) fighting the Iraqis in 2003 was because they had huge stockpiles of WMD, and because the Baathists were working with Al Qaida, which is total baloney, but they have to make it sound that way in order to justify their own absurd position, which is that Bush launched an unprovoked attack against a bunch of peace-loving, kite-flying Baathists.
The short version is is that The Guardian lies by both comission and omission…as usual.
December 3rd, 2008 at 8:31 pm
Yep…And, Saddam’s own Generals believed they were armed with WMD until after the surrender. Also, French UK, German and Rooskie Intel backed the WMD
possession.