U.S./World

BUSH LASHES OUT AT IRAQ WAR CRITICS
By News Tribune news services

** President says ‘false charges’ revise history of conflict’s origins, hurt morale of troops **

** Congress saw the same Iraq data he did and the White House has been cleared on prewar intelligence, the president says. The fact differ. **

News Tribune (Tacoma, WA)
November 12, 2005
Pages A1, A12

http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/nationworld/story/5326725p-4825247c.html

President Bush used a Veterans Day speech Friday in Pennsylvania to chastise Democrats who suggest they were tricked into going to war in Iraq 21/2 years ago and to deny critics’ allegations that the administration manipulated prewar intelligence.

“While it’s perfectly legitimate to criticize my decisions or the conduct of the war, it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began,” the president said, flanked by soldiers in a midday speech at the Tobyhanna Army Depot. Questioning the administration’s honesty would only hurt soldiers’ morale and empower terrorists, he said.

“The stakes in the global war on terror are too high, and the national interest is too important for politicians to throw out false charges,” he said.

President Bush and his national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, have answered critics of the Iraq war in recent days with a two-pronged argument: that Congress saw the same intelligence the administration did before the war, and that independent commissions have determined that the administration did not misrepresent the intelligence.

Neither assertion is wholly accurate. Here’s a look at the broader issues the president addressed Friday:

Intelligence sharing: The administration’s overarching point is true: Intelligence agencies overwhelmingly believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, and few members of Congress from either party were skeptical about this belief before the war began in 2003. Indeed, top lawmakers in both parties were emphatic and certain in their public statements.

But Bush and his aides had access to much more voluminous intelligence information than did lawmakers, who were dependent on the administration to provide the material.

Investigation into uses of intelligence: Hadley, briefing reporters Thursday, countered “the notion that somehow this administration manipulated the intelligence.” He said that “those people who have looked at that issue, some committees on the Hill in Congress, and also the Silberman-Robb Commission, have concluded it did not happen.”

But the only committee investigating the matter in Congress, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has not yet done its inquiry into whether officials mischaracterized intelligence by omitting caveats and dissenting opinions.

And the commissions cited by officials, though concluding that the administration did not pressure intelligence analysts to change their conclusions, were not authorized to determine whether the administration exaggerated or distorted those conclusions. Judge Laurence Silberman, chairman of Bush’s commission on weapons of mass destruction, said in releasing his report on March 31, 2005, “Our executive order did not direct us to deal with the use of intelligence by policymakers, and all of us were agreed that that was not part of our inquiry.”

Bush, in Pennsylvania on Friday, still implied that it had been proved that the administration did not manipulate intelligence, saying those who suggest the administration “manipulated the intelligence” are “fully aware that a bipartisan Senate investigation found no evidence of political pressure to change the intelligence community’s judgments.”

Congressional knowledge: In the same speech, Bush asserted that “more than 100 Democrats in the House and the Senate, who had access to the same intelligence, voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power.” Giving a preview of Bush’s speech, Hadley had said that “we all looked at the same intelligence.”

But Bush does not share his most sensitive intelligence, such as the President’s Daily Brief, with lawmakers. Also the National Intelligence Estimate summarizing the intelligence community’s views about the threat from Iraq was given to Congress just days before the vote to authorize the use of force.

In addition, there were doubts within the intelligence community not included in the NIE. And even the doubts expressed in the NIE could not be used publicly by members of Congress because the classified information had not been cleared for release. For example, the NIE view that Saddam would not use weapons of mass destruction against the United States or turn them over to terrorists unless backed into a corner was cleared for public use only a day before the Senate vote.

The lawmakers are partly to blame for their ignorance. Congress was entitled to view the 92-page NIE about Iraq before the October 2002 vote. But, as The Washington Post reported last year, no more than six senators and a handful of House members read beyond the five-page executive summary.

Even within the Bush administration, not everybody consistently viewed Iraq as what Hadley called “an enormous threat.” In a news conference in February 2001 in Egypt, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell said of the economic sanctions against Saddam’s Iraq: “Frankly, they have worked. He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction.”

Congressional approval: Bush, in his speech Friday, asserted: “When I made the decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power, Congress approved it with strong bipartisan support.”

The October 2002 joint resolution authorized the use of force in Iraq, but it did not directly mention the removal of Saddam from power. The resolution voiced support for diplomatic efforts to enforce “all relevant Security Council resolutions,” and for using the armed forces to enforce the resolutions and defend “against the continuing threat posed by Iraq.”

EXCERPTS FROM BUSH’S SPEECH

• One of the hallmarks of a free society and what makes our country strong is that our political leaders can discuss their differences openly, even in times of war. … I also recognize that some of our fellow citizens and elected officials didn’t support the liberation of Iraq. And that is their right, and I respect it.

• While it’s perfectly legitimate to criticize my decision or the conduct of the war, it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began. Some Democrats and anti-war critics are now claiming we manipulated the intelligence and misled the American people about why we went to war. These critics … know that intelligence agencies from around the world agreed with our assessment of Saddam Hussein. They know the United Nations passed more than a dozen resolutions citing his development and possession of weapons of mass destruction. And many of these critics supported my opponent during the last election, who explained his position to support the resolution in the Congress this way: “When I vote to give the president of the United States the authority to use force, if necessary, to disarm Saddam Hussein, it is because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a threat, and a grave threat, to our security.”

• These baseless attacks send the wrong signal to our troops and to an enemy that is questioning America’s will. As our troops fight a ruthless enemy determined to destroy our way of life, they deserve to know that their elected leaders who voted to send them to war continue to stand behind them.

A SAMPLE OF RESPONSES

Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.): He said Bush is using Veterans Day as “a campaign-like attempt to rebuild his own credibility by tearing down those who seek the truth about the clear manipulation of intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war.”

White House press secretary Scott McClellan: “It is regrettable that Senator Kennedy has found more time to say negative things about President Bush then he ever did about Saddam Hussein. If America were to follow Senator Kennedy’s foreign policy, Saddam Hussein would not only still be in power, he would be oppressing and occupying Kuwait.”

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.): “While the Bush administration continues to stonewall the Congress from finding the truth about the manipulation of prewar intelligence, Democrats will continue to press for a full airing of the facts.”

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.): He said the administration is “cherry-picking intelligence and stretching the truth beyond recognition.”

Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.): He criticized how the war has been presented to Americans both by the media and the White House. Santorum said the war has been “less than optimal” and “maybe some blame could be laid” at the White House. “Certainly, mistakes were made.”

--The Washington Post and Margaret Talev of the News Tribune’s Washington bureau contributed to this report.