Reply #10: Hey, I can't give that money back guarantee on the * [View All]

[nolabels]

I would simply have to state "USE AT OWN RISK"

http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/000901.html
July 17, 2003
A Lie's a Lie
There's a Mark Steyn essay floating around on the conservative site making the case that there was no yellowcake lie. Steyn's argument is that intelligence is often faulty, as in the case of Bill Clinton's '98 missile attack in Sudan. I don't know Mark Steyn, so I don't know if he's being deliberately obtuse here or if he genuinely doesn't understand what's going on with the yellowcake. The wide circulation this story is getting, though, makes me think that a large number of people really are confused and think that Bush acted on a piece of faulty intelligence and now liberals are unjustly accusing him of lying.

That's simply not the case. As a matter of fact, there was nothing wrong with our intelligence regarding the yellowcake. The evidence was passed to the US (and to the UK) from the Italian intelligence services, and then it was investigated by the US government to assess it's accuracy. We did our assessment and concluded that the evidence was bogus. Then Bush cited the evidence anyway. That's lying, not a screw-up. At any rate, don't take my word for it, this Time article lays out the sequence of events pretty clearly.

UPDATE: Relatedly, Henry Farrell tries to set the record straight regarding what, exactly, the whole war debate was about.

Posted by Matt Yglesias at July 17, 2003 07:59 PM | TrackBack

Comments
Wheres saddam, where are the wmds, wheres the peace, wheres bin laden, wheres my dead brother? Bush made weapons and personalities the issue AND declared the end to the war...he's now accountable for this. Now, had he 1) not declared an end to the war and 2) followed the alternative line of argument he gave in the AEI speech right before the war he would be in better shape.

Posted by: at July 17, 2003 08:07 PM
Not even the NY Times has claimed on their editorial pages that bush claimed the war was over. He stated that the end of major combat operations were over- and he is right. Seen any shock and awe? How many bombing sorties were there yesterday? Heard of any massive artillery fire? And Movement to Contact operations by the 3rd ID?

Of course not. Quit working so hard to be a political hack- I have a feeling it comes naturally for you.

Posted by: John Cole at July 17, 2003 08:12 PM
Maybe Bush could drive a tank into the center of Baghdad with night vision goggles on and tell the soldiers the Guerilla war is over and your going home. The symbolism of Bush's prime time show on the aircraft carrier was to declare victory and send the message that your going home.

Posted by: at July 17, 2003 08:20 PM
(snip)

* might start by driving that tank to the Red Cross over there.