|
|
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Scott McClellan wants to sell some books...
Scott McClellan's Allegations Lack Credibility
Wednesday, May 28, 2008 8:43 PM
By: Ronald Kessler Article Font Size
If Scott McClellan’s allegations about President Bush sound as if he copied them from the editorial page of any liberal newspaper, there is a reason for it: As White House press secretary, McClellan was not privy to sensitive policy decisions and therefore has no specifics to back up his charges.
In “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception,” McClellan claims that the White House sold the Iraq war to the American people with a sophisticated “political propaganda campaign” led by Bush. He says it was aimed at “manipulating sources of public opinion” and “downplaying the major reason for going to war.”
McClellan says that he and his subordinates were not “employing out-and-out deception” to make their case for war in 2002. But he alleges that the administration repeatedly shaded the truth and that Bush “managed the crisis in a way that almost guaranteed that the use of force would become the only feasible option.”
McClellan cites no details, and for good reason. McClellan was not invited to attend classified meetings where the decisions about going to war were discussed.
“The role of the press secretary does not have him in the most sensitive military and intelligence briefings that the president conducts with his national security advisor and secretary of defense,” Fran Townsend, the former White House counterterrorism chief who was at many of those crucial meetings, tells me. “So the facts and policy discussions he sees are limited.”
Instead of supplying specifics, McClellan makes sweeping allegations that contradict the underlying facts and therefore lack credibility.
First, Saddam Hussein’s own generals thought they had chemical weapons that they were supposed to use if the U.S. invaded. As recounted in my book “The Terrorist Watch: Inside the Desperate Race to Stop the Next Attack,” in secret debriefings after his capture, Saddam admitted to FBI agent George Piro that he was bluffing about having weapons of mass destruction. So it was Saddam, not Bush, who was engaging in deception.
Second, before the invasion of Iraq, Bush gave Saddam an ultimatum: leave Iraq or face war.
“He [Saddam] was given the opportunity to leave Iraq and go to live in Saudi Arabia and be very wealthy and very happy,” Piro told me. “The Saudis gave him the option. But what would that have done to his legacy? And if he were to have said ‘I’m bluffing,’ or ‘I’m not as strong as I present myself,’ where would he have then fit in the historical scheme of Iraq?”
Third, a public relations effort accompanies any White House initiative. One does not go to war without explaining to the American people the rationale for doing so. That effort may be called propaganda if it is an effort to deceive, but McClellan stops short of saying Bush was purposely deceptive.
McClellan claims Bush's real reason for invading Iraq was "an ambitious and idealistic post-9/11 vision of transforming the Middle East through the spread of freedom." In making that claim, McClellan seems to suggest that Bush himself did not consider Iraq a threat. McClellan thus ignores the fact that the CIA and every other intelligence agency in the world believed that Iraq had WMD and that former President Clinton, Al Gore, and Hillary Clinton all said they considered Iraq a threat. But then on NBC's "Today Show," McClellan said he thinks Bush did believe Iraq was a "grave danger." So what is all the fuss about? That WMD were never found? That is not exactly news.
Townsend calls the allegations “self-serving, disingenuous and unprofessional.” She says, “If Scott had concerns, he had an obligation to voice them at the time or even resign. He did neither. Even when he left no one had the slightest idea of any of these allegations. I knew him as a good White House colleague, and I find this shocking and disappointing.”
The bottom line is that, as Saddam told Piro, he was planning to resume his WMD program — including developing a nuclear weapon — within a year. That was when Saddam thought United Nations sanctions would be lifted, in part because he was paying off UN officials.
“His goal was to have the sanctions lifted,” Piro says in an account the media have largely ignored. “And they likely would have been lifted if it were not for 9/11. Even the United Nations changed after 9/11. So Saddam was on the right track. His plan to have sanctions lifted was working. But he told me he recognized that he miscalculated the long-term effects of 9/11. And he miscalculated President Bush.”
Unlike McClellan, who stands to gain by hyping the material in his book, Saddam had nothing to gain by lying. He knew he was about to be executed. Saddam’s own words confirm the wisdom of Bush’s decision to topple him.
Ronald Kessler is chief Washington correspondent of Newsmax.com.
5/29/2008 09:17:00 AM by Todd Bacon
0 comments
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
545
545 People
By Charlie Reese
Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.
Have you ever wondered why, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, but we still have deficits?
Have you ever wondered why, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, we have inflation and high taxes?
You and I don't propose a federal budget. The president does.
You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.
You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.
You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.
You and I don't control monetary policy, The Federal Reserve Bank does.
One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president and nine Supreme Court justices - 545 human beings out of the 300 million - are directly, legally, morally and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.
I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered but private central bank.
I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.
Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.
What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall.
No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it. The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes.
Who is the speaker of the House? She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow House members, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to. It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts - of incompetence and irresponsibility.
I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people.
When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.
If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair. If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red. If the Marines are in IRAQ , it's because they want them in IRAQ . If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way. There are no insoluble government problems. Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like 'the economy,' 'inflation' or 'politics' that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.
Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible. They, and they alone, have the power.
They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses - provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees.
We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!
Charlie Reese is a former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper.
However, it is also true the we, the citizens of this country, reelect approximately 90% of the 545 every election. Therefore, we bear a great deal of the responsibility for the mess we have created .....
5/28/2008 12:08:00 PM by Todd Bacon
0 comments
|
