ÿþ<html> <head> <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1"> <title>OnlineColumnist®.com: Putin Punishes Georgia</title> <meta name="generator" content="Adobe GoLive 4"> <style type="text/css"> .style2 { font-size: large; font-weight: bold; font-family: Arial; } .style3 { height: 69px; } .MsoNormal {} .style5 { width: 179px; } .style6 { font-size: x-large; font-weight: bold; } </style> </head> <body bgcolor="white" vlink="black"> <center> <table cool width="624" height="2719" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" gridx="16" showgridx gridy="16" showgridy> <tr height="79"> <td height="118" rowspan="2" valign="top" align="left" xpos="0" class="style5"><a href="aboutdiscobolos.html"><img height="110" width="62" src="images/discobolos.logo.transp.gif" border="0"></a></td> <td width="7" height="118" rowspan="2"></td> <td width="482" height="79" colspan="2" valign="top" align="left" xpos="140"><img height="75" width="450" src="images/banner.GIF"></td> <td width="1" height="118" rowspan="2"></td> <td width="1" height="79"><spacer type="block" width="1" height="79"></td> </tr> <tr height="39"> <td width="182" height="39"></td> <td width="300" height="39" valign="top" align="left" xpos="322"><a href="aboutdiscobolos.html"><img height="14" width="267" src="images/divisionofNEW.GIF" border="0"></a></td> <td width="1" height="39"><spacer type="block" width="1" height="39"></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="624" colspan="6" valign="top" align="left" xpos="0" class="style3"> <table border="0" width="100%" bgcolor="black" cellspacing="0"> <tr> <td> <table border="0" width="100%" bgcolor="#99ffcc" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="4"> <tr> <td align="center"> <div align="left"> <a href="index.html"><font face="Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular" size="2"><strong> HOME</strong></font></a><font face="Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular" size="2"><strong> &#8226; <a href="articlesindex.html">ARTICLES</a> &#8226; <a href="books.html">BOOKS</a> &#8226; <a href="teflon.html"> THE </a><a href="teflon.html">TEFLON</a><a href="teflon.html"> REPORT</a> &#8226; <a href="mailto:letters@onlinecolumnist.com"> REACTIONS</a> &#8226; <a href="aboutdiscobolos.html">ABOUT DISCOBOLOS</a></strong></font></div> </td> </tr> </table> </td> </tr> </table> </td> </tr> <tr height="2"> <td height="2" class="style5">&nbsp;</td> <td width="489" height="2576" colspan="3" rowspan="2" align="left" xpos="133" content valign="top" csheight="2573"> <p class="style2">Condi&#39;s &quot;Regrets&quot;</p> <p><b><font face="Arial,Geneva,Helvetica">by John M. Curtis</font></b><font face="Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular"><b><a href="books.html"><br> </a></b></font><font face="Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular"><b> (310) 204-8700</b></font></p> <p><font size="2" face="Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular"><i>Copyright December 8, 2008<br>All Rights Reserved. </i></font>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> &nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="style6">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; F</span>earing possible indictments once she leaves government, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice echoed President George W. Bush s  biggest regret about Iraq s prewar intelligence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>Now it s Condi s turn to rewrite history, setting the record straight before the curtain comes down Jan. 20.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>Condi was Bush s biggest cheerleader along with Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld selling the Iraq war.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span> Before the big vote Oct.11, 2002 on House-Senate Joint Resolution 114 authorizing Bush to go to war against Saddam Hussein, Condi warned about  mushroom clouds and bioterrorism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span> She knew, together with her predecessor former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, that her source for intelligence was Doug Feith and the Pentagon s Office of Special Plans, insisting that all reputable intelligence agencies were wrong about Saddam s weapons of mass destruction.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <![if !supportEmptyParas]>&nbsp;<![endif]><span style="mso-tab-count:1">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>German Intelligence, Briton s MI6, Israel s Mossad, and, yes, the CIA, all got it wrong, unable to verify before the March 20, 2003 the presence on any WMD in Iraq.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>U.N. Special Weapons Inspector Dr. Hans Blix begged the White House for more time to prove that Iraq possessed no WMD.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>But no, Condi, and all of Bush s neocon crew, was hell-bent on taking out Saddam.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span> I would give anything to be able to go back and to know precisely what we were going to find when we were there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>But that isn t the way that these things work, said Condi, implying that things would have been different had the White House known for sure Saddam possessed no WMD.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span> And I still believe that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein is going to turn out to be a great strategic achievement, admitting it was of minor significance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>WMD was just one among many excuses the White House gave to invade Iraq.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <![if !supportEmptyParas]>&nbsp;<![endif]><span style="mso-tab-count:1">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>White House officials not only take no responsibility for Iraq they continue to justify the miscalculation based on  faulty intelligence. When Secretary of State Colin L. Powell went before the U.N. Security Council Feb. 5, 2003 to sell the White House case for war, he knew that no reputable intelligence could confirm his case about mobile germ weapons laboratories.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>Powell knew firsthand that much of his case was derived from Feith at the Office of Special Plans working overtime to establish a link between Saddam and Sept. 11 and the presence of WMD in Iraq.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>Powell knew that Feith s sources, largely stemmed from Iraqi exile Ahmed Chalabi s brother-in-law, codenamed  Curveball. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>He was, at the time, in German custody in Bavaria, spawning wild tales about Saddam s bioterrorism capabilities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>Powell and Condi both knew such reports were not corroborated.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <![if !supportEmptyParas]>&nbsp;<![endif]><span style="mso-tab-count:1">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>During the lead up to war, Condi hyped Saddam s nuclear and biological threats on network and capable news.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>She appeared frequently on FOXNews who paraded now missing Iraqi exiles claiming to have worked and seen firsthand Saddam s arsenal of biologic and nuclear weapons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>Condi, like Bush, know wants to set the record straight that she was misled prior to the invasion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>She justifies the invasion stating the obvious that the Mideast and world were better of without Saddam.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>No one disputes that platitude.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>But the real questions is whether or not the White House exaggerated Saddam s threat to justify going to war.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>We all know Bush s post-war plans were inadequate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>In order to engage in preemptive war, there had to be a  clear-and-present danger to U.S. national security.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>Condi now admits that there were other factors, besides WMD, in going to war.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <![if !supportEmptyParas]>&nbsp;<![endif]><span style="mso-tab-count:1">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>White House National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley also jumped into the fray, disputing a New York Times editorial taking exception to Bush s claims to ABC News anchor Charley Gibson that he  regretted intelligence failures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span> While the president has repeatedly acknowledged the mistakes in prewar intelligence, there is no support for the Times claim that the president and his national security team  knew or should have known [the intelligence] to be faulty or that  pressure from the White house led to particular conclusions, wrote Hadley, totally ignoring Feith and the OSP s conclusions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>Hadley, together with Condi, wants to state for the record that the White House was officially duped by faulty intelligence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>He fears also that the new administration will approve Congressional investigations into the so-called mistakes and faulty prewar intelligence.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <![if !supportEmptyParas]>&nbsp;<![endif]><span style="mso-tab-count:1">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>Like her smoke blowing campaign before the Iraq War hyping Saddam s WMD, Condi has launched her own PR blitz to deny she relied on cherry-picked intelligence from Feith and the OSP.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>Faced with possible Congressional investigations, the whole White team is on the same page denying that they relied on the OSP s intel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>A careful look at the record indicates the White House knew their claims about Saddam s alleged WMD were not corroborated by any reputable intelligence source.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>Vice President Dick Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, and his now disgraced and discredited former deputy Secretary of Defense and World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz, all relied on Feith and the OSP for intelligence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>Before they leave office, Condi and Hadley stated for the record they received bad intelligence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>What they and their boss won t admit is that they ordered the  faulty intel to sell the war.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> &nbsp;<bAbout the Author</u><b>John M. Curtis</b> writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news.&nbsp; He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of <i><a href="books.html">Dodging The Bullet</a> </i>and <i><a href="books.html"> Operation Charisma</a></i>.</p> </td> <td width="1" height="2576" rowspan="2"></td> <td width="1" height="2"><spacer type="block" width="1" height="2"></td> </tr> <tr height="2574"> <td height="2574" valign="top" align="left" xpos="0" class="style5"><img height="172" width="111" src="images/johninframe3.jpg"></td> <td width="1" height="2574"><spacer type="block" width="1" height="2574"></td> </tr> <tr height="1" cntrlrow> <td height="1" class="style5"><spacer type="block" width="133" height="1"></td> <td width="7" height="1"><spacer type="block" width="7" height="1"></td> <td width="182" height="1"><spacer type="block" width="182" height="1"></td> <td width="300" height="1"><spacer type="block" width="300" height="1"></td> <td width="1" height="1"><spacer type="block" width="1" height="1"></td> <td width="1" height="1"></td> </tr> </table> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="2" width="597"> <tr> <td><font size="1" face="Arial,Geneva,Helvetica"> <hr noshade size="1"> </font><a href="index.html"><font face="Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular" size="2"><strong> Home</strong></font></a><font face="Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular" size="2"><strong> || <a href="articlesindex.html">Articles</a> || <a href="books.html">Books</a> || <a href="teflon.html">The Teflon Report</a> || <a href="mailto:letters@onlinecolumnist.com"> Reactions</a> || <a href="aboutdiscobolos.html">About Discobolos</a></strong></font> <div align="left"> <p><font size="1" face="Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular">This site designed, developed and hosted by the experts at</font><font size="2" face="Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular"> <a href="http://www.cmeonline.net" target="_blank"><img height="30" width="138" src="images/cmelogoANIM.gif" border="0" align="absmiddle"></a></font></p> </div> <p><font size="2" face="Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular">©1999-2005 <a href="aboutdiscobolos.html"> Discobolos Consulting Services, Inc.</a><br> (310) 204-8300<br> All Rights Reserved. </font></td> </tr> </table> </center> </body> </html>