The Omega Letter Intelligence Digest
 

Vol: 34 Issue: 15 - Thursday, July 15, 2004

Special Report: Nobody Lied, Er, Sort of . . .
by Jack Kinsella

A British investigative panel looking into the claims that the British
government deliberately misled the public into supporting a war released
its findings that nobody lied, although the intelligence was severely
flawed.

Lord Butler, the jurist who presided over the inquiry, concluded that no
single person was to blame for the 'seriously flawed' intelligence used to
justify going into Iraq.

The five-man inquiry spent six months probing the quality of British
intelligence, interviewing Blair, Cabinet ministers and top ranking spy
chiefs.

The inquiry dismissed calls for the resignation of new M16 spy chief John
Scarlett, who as chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, drew up a
key government dossier on the threat of Iraq's weapons of mass
destruction.

It noted that Britain was not alone in its intelligence assessment.  The
intelligence services of Russian, China, France Germany and the United
States believed the same things MI6 was reporting to the Prime Minister's
Office.

A triumphant Tony Blair told the House of Commons, "No one lied, no one
made up the intelligence, no one inserted things into dossier against the
advice of intelligence services."

Instead, said the Prime Minister, "Everyone genuinely tried to do their
best in good faith for the country in circumstances of acute difficulty.
That issue of good faith should now be at an end."

But it isn't.

The official inquiry's findings exonerating Tony Blair were released just
days after the Senate Intelligence Committee released its conclusions that
Bush didn't lie either.

What's that, you say?  You didn't know about that? Well, let me explain,
before CNN and the John Kerry team have a chance to revise it to suit
their own agenda.  Wait -- I'm too late!

Instead of breathing a sigh of relief that our governments are honest, CNN
headlined the Butler Report, "Critics Slam 'No Blame' WMD Report" -- the
spinning is already underway.

"Bush "misled every one of us," huffed Senator John Kerry."It's beginning
to sound like Watergate," said Governor Howard Dean.  The man the CIA sent
to Africa, Ambassador Joe Wilson, returned to write a column for the New
York Times entitled, "What I DIDN'T Find in Africa."

This time last year, CNN was breathlessly reporting that Bush 'lied' about
Saddam's efforts to obtain yellowcake uranium from Niger. Not that he was
mistaken -- that was never entertained by the president's enemies as a
possibility.

Let's examine the 'lie' one more time.  President Bush said in his State
of the Union speech, "The British government has learned that Saddam
Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

It became known as the 'Sixteen Words'.  Liberal Democratic Senator Carl
Levin, who actually sat on the intelligence committee and KNEW the truth,
nevertheless wrote an article for the Congressional Record entitled, "Not
Just Sixteen Words" in which he built a straw man argument that Bush's
'lie' was part of a larger web of deceit that characterized the entire
Bush administration as deliberate liars.

I don't think Levin considered it at the time he was writing it, but if
the infamous Sixteen Words were actually true, his entire argument
founders.

As it turns out, the Sixteen Words were true, and the only bona-fide liar
so far was the guy on whose uncorroborated testimony everybody was relying
on to prove their case against the administration.

In July 2003, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson claimed he had proof that
the administration ignored anti-WMD information because he had gone to
Niger for the CIA and reported back that there was no evidence Iraq had
obtained uranium there.

The White House knew of his mission, Wilson said, and therefore had
trumped up charges about Iraq's nuclear program. This was the first source
of the "BUSH LIED" mantra of the liberal left.

The Senate Intelligence Committee has an eye-opening refutation of all
this: "Because CIA analysts did not believe that the [Wilson] report added
any new information to clarify the issue," the report states flatly on
page 46, "they did not use the report to produce any further analytical
products or highlight the report for policymakers. CIA's briefer did not
brief the vice president on the report, despite the vice president's
previous questions about the issue."

The Senate report has determined unquestioningly that Dick Cheney never
heard about Wilson's trip.  This is the basic foundation upon which the
liberal left spun the hypnotic mantra, "Bush Lied, Thousands Died".

Turns out that Joe Wilson lied, according to the final Senate report. The
Senate report on the CIA's intelligence gathering concluded that, contrary
to Wilson's statements about his own report, his findings had bolstered
rather than undermined the case that Saddam had sought uranium from Niger.

So, Joe lied about what he said he found in Niger. And he explicitly lied
when he insisted that his wife, CIA employee Valerie Plame, was not the
one who got him the appointment.

Wilson categorically denied she had anything to do with it; the Senate
investigation has since uncovered her memo recommending him.

Here's the key sentence: "The committee found no evidence that the
[intelligence community's] mischaracterization or exaggeration of weapons
of mass destruction capabilities was the result of political pressure."

This sentence was signed off on unanimously by the members of the Senate
committee, including every Democrat on the panel.

So, as it happens, Bush didn't lie! He was right, and the CIA was wrong.
That doesn't mean they 'lied', either. Intelligence is never 100%.

One cannot report something they believe to be true and simultaneously be
lying when they report it.  The worst characterization that one could
accurately make would be to call it a 'mistake'.

And it turns out that, not only was it NOT a lie, it wasn't even really a
mistake.  The 'Yellowcake' story is true.

Assessment:

Now we come to the heart of it.  I write endlessly about the power of the
propagandists' ability to make up look like down and black look like
white.

If someone falsely accuses someone else of lying, is that not a lie?  Of
course it is.  But John Kerry and the leading Democrats continue to repeat
the mantra, 'Bush Lied, Thousands Died'.

David Limbaugh summed up the situation nicely, writing, ". . . the
president didn't make this decision alone. Congress, including Senators
Kerry and Edwards, joined him in it after reviewing the same intelligence
data. So when Kerry accuses Bush of lying about Iraqi WMD, he is tacitly
implicating himself in the same lie.

Kerry has really boxed himself in here. Either Bush lied, in which case
Kerry did, too, or Bush did not lie, but Kerry is still lying by
maintaining, falsely, that Bush lied. Either way, Kerry is lying."

So, where are the headlines saying, "Kerry Lied?" There aren't any. At
least, not among the mainstream press.  The New York Times buried the
Senate report exonerating Bush on page A10.  We've already seen CNN's
version, "Critics Slam 'No Blame' WMD Report".

Newsday, commenting on both the Butler Inquiry and the Senate Intelligence
report, managed to ignore both in its headline, "Bush, Blair Made Wrong
Case for War".  (I'm not making this up).

The case against George Bush isn't rooted in whether or not he lied -- he
didn't, and his detractors already knew it.  Bush's detractors don't care
if we have a liar in the White House.  They just loved Bill Clinton and
they long for a John Kerry administration.

This isn't about George Bush, it is about the truth.  The truth seems to
be as irrelevant to Campaign 2004 as it was to the Clinton-Gore reelection
campaign of 1996.

I am often criticized for being 'too political' or 'blindly partisan'. It
is that 'blind partisan' label that really cuts, since, if I were a blind
partisan, I wouldn't be credible.  I wouldn't believe a word I said and
wouldn't want you to, either.

If I am partisan in any way, it is in the fact I am absolutely certain of
what I am not. Forgive me, if this sounds too personal, but it is relevant
to the central point.  You need to know where I am coming from when I
comment on politics, and why.

Politically, I am a Christian. I believe what Scripture says about the
last days. The political arena takes center stage in the last days, and it
is critical to understanding the times that we read the signs. Political
elections are, after all, an expression of the majority of society at
large.

Paul warned Timothy in his second letter, "This know also, that in the
last days perilous times shall come," before going on to describe the
social and political climate of the last days.

It is hard to pick out which of the characteristics aren't in evidence in
this year's election cycle, so I'll put them all in and let you decide
which DON'T  apply, either to the Kerry campaign itself, or to the liberal
agenda overall.

"For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud,
blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural
affection, trucebreakers, FALSE ACCUSERS, incontinent, fierce, despisers
of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures
more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power
thereof: from such turn away."

Like I said, politically, I am a Christian, and 2nd Timothy 3:1-5 outlines
my political worldview in reverse. Politically, I know what I am not.

The liberal agenda isn't to do what is best for America, but rather, to do
what is best for the agenda.  This, at the moment, is to defeat George
Bush.  Note that fact carefully -- you will hear it repeated over and over
as Democrats try to get out the vote.

Compare the number of times you hear Democrats talk about 'beating George
Bush' to the number of times you hear Democrats speak of 'electing John
Kerry' and the actual agenda becomes clear.  It isn't about electing John
Kerry.

There is very little discussion about what a great president John Kerry
would make, or why he would be better for the country than George Bush.

Nobody seems to think that is as important as defeating George Bush.  It
is almost a case of,"Get Bush, worry about the country later", all the
while, blissfully unaware of what they are actually advocating.

Behold, the poison power of the propagandist's pen!

"Take heed that no man deceive you." (Matthew 24:4)