You asked for it, John. Let’s talk about the Senate Committee on Intelligence report and “Bush’s deliberate deception.”

Over 5 years into the Iraqi theater of the war on terror and still there are people who insist on clinging to a fantasy instead of facing the facts behind our entry into it. From the comments section on a post I did on the Obama campaign’s decision to trick the reporters covering the Dem nomination race onto a plane while Obama slipped away to meet with Hillary:

This post is kinda silly if you ask me. They wanted some privacy. If they knew the details about Hillary and Obama meeting, nothing would have gotten done. Neither Hillary nor Obama did anything wrong in this case. This isn’t newsworthy. You should write about the Iraq intelligence report and Bush’s deliberate deception, which is costing thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars. THAT is newsworthy.

Comment by John | 11 June, 2008

Well, silly is a matter of your opinion, John, and you know what they say about that. No, not that saying, the other one. The one about you being entitled to your own opinion but not your own facts. I’m also going to take a moment to point out something from the “About” section of this blog, helpfully located at the top right of each and every page displayed here at HoodaThunk?:

Lastly, there are some issues that will be big in the news that won’t interest me at all. Rather than ask why I’m not writing about this or that, start your own blog and you write about it. Send me the link to your blog and we can reciprocate links on our blogrolls.

In this particular case, it’s not a matter of being disinterested in the situation, it’s that it’s being covered quite nicely in some of the major-league blogs that I’m assuming people read before they read small, regional ones like this one. But, since John asked sooooooo nicely, how about we go ahead and take a look at this topic?

You’ll note that I emphasized a phrase in John’s comment. “Bush’s deliberate deception” is a $10 method of writing “Bush LIED!” but it has all the same issues as the shorter, more economic method. The implication John’s making is that the report out of the Senate Committee on Intelligence shows that Bush deliberately asserted something the intelligence reports available at the time clearly denied. Fred Hiatt over at the Washington Post dealt with this very issue head-on and he made some interesting discoveries when he actually read the report. (Helps to do that rather than just take the word of folks at MoveOn and Daily Kos.) Here’s what Fred found.

Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, set out to provide the official foundation for what has become not only a thriving business but, more important, an article of faith among millions of Americans. And in releasing a committee report Thursday, he claimed to have accomplished his mission, though he did not use the L-word.

“In making the case for war, the administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when it was unsubstantiated, contradicted or even nonexistent,” he said.

…

But dive into Rockefeller’s report, in search of where exactly President Bush lied about what his intelligence agencies were telling him about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, and you may be surprised by what you find.

On Iraq’s nuclear weapons program? The president’s statements “were generally substantiated by intelligence community estimates.”

On biological weapons, production capability and those infamous mobile laboratories? The president’s statements “were substantiated by intelligence information.”

On chemical weapons, then? “Substantiated by intelligence information.”

On weapons of mass destruction overall (a separate section of the intelligence committee report)? “Generally substantiated by intelligence information.” Delivery vehicles such as ballistic missiles? “Generally substantiated by available intelligence.” Unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to deliver WMDs? “Generally substantiated by intelligence information.”

As you read through the report, you begin to think maybe you’ve mistakenly picked up the minority dissent. But, no, this is the Rockefeller indictment. So, you think, the smoking gun must appear in the section on Bush’s claims about Saddam Hussein’s alleged ties to terrorism.

But statements regarding Iraq’s support for terrorist groups other than al-Qaeda “were substantiated by intelligence information.” Statements that Iraq provided safe haven for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and other terrorists with ties to al-Qaeda “were substantiated by the intelligence assessments,” and statements regarding Iraq’s contacts with al-Qaeda “were substantiated by intelligence information.” The report is left to complain about “implications” and statements that “left the impression” that those contacts led to substantive Iraqi cooperation.

The Committee’s report – the committee chaired by WV Democrat Senator John Rockefeller – states explicitly that the statements made by the President and his administration were informed by and in agreement with the conclusions of the various intel analysis reports available at the time. “Implications” and “impressions” are subjective and are largely guided by the thoughts of the receiver. When an objective analysis was made of those statements, even Senator Rockefeller’s committee had to admit that they were in keeping with the information available.

As I have said time and again on this blog, the President’s statements – regardless of whether they turned out later to be true or not – relied upon information that the President had every reason to believe was accurate. The ultimate truth of that information is irrelevant in judging whether the President had lied.

He. Did. Not. Lie.

It cannot get clearer than this. Over the past 5+ years we’ve been treated to one angry call after another for “hearings” and “investigations” that would – we were assured – show the President “lied us into a war.” Well, people like John have now had their investigation and it showed precisely what those of us who supported the President’s actions have said all along. President Bush did not lie. No lie, no crime. No crime, no impeachment (which is where they’re really trying to get us all to, really). It would be nice for people like John to actually have the integrity and honor to admit their mistake and to say that they’ll let it drop now. I have no faith that they’ll do either. I completely believe that they will continue to lie, themselves, and spread myth and fairy tale as fact.

So far as I am concerned this issue is a closed matter, decisively proven that “Bush Lied!” is, in fact, the lie. Anyone suggesting that it remains an issue is either purposely avoiding the truth or a liar themselves. It’s 2008 and I have more important matters to address than people who want to go on living in a fantasy land.