Hi KLP; Re: "I'd be interested in seeing at least 10 (ten) such editorials in at least 10 major newspapers in this country."
Sure. The fact is that if WMDs did suddenly pop up, anyone who wrote an editorial chastising Bush for starting a war on a fantasy would look pretty stupid. So the language in these editorials is accordingly mild. But things will get worse as time goes on and still no WMDs.
And I did find a couple of editorials more or less positive towards Bush. But note that they both do insist that we need to dig down to the bottom of this.
In other words, everybody knows that the non existence of WMDs is a damn big deal.
Reviewing the Intelligence on Iraq
New York Times, May 26, 2003
With doubts mounting about the accuracy of prewar American intelligence reports about Iraqi unconventional weapons, we are glad to see that the Central Intelligence Agency has begun a review of the spy assessments. The failure so far to find any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the prime justification for an immediate invasion, or definitive links between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda has raised serious questions about the quality of American intelligence and even dark hints that the data may have been manipulated to support a pre-emptive war.
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That review now takes on added urgency because the credibility of the United States is at issue. If the estimates about Iraq's capabilities ultimately prove far off base, it will be harder for the administration to bring international pressure to bear against North Korea, Iran, Syria and other rogue states based on intelligence assessments that they are building unconventional weapons or aiding terrorists.
nytimes.com
Weapons search tests our principles
Seattle Post Intelligencer Editorial Board, June 9, 2003
The debate about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is an important test of our principles.
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The constitutional standard for warfare is for the United States to face a "clear and present danger." That standard was twisted by the administration's argument for a preventative war -- a war called because of a supposed imminent threat of chemical, biological or even nuclear weapons that were available to Saddam's regime and by extension, terrorists worldwide.
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seattlepi.nwsource.com
EDITORIAL: Deciphering hype from fact
The Daily Missippian Editorial Board, June 4, 2003
Our View - Congress has a duty to Americans to conduct hearings on our information on WMD.
With the Iraqi conflict more than a month in the past and no weapons of mass destruction confirmed to date, a growing number of lawmakers spanning the spectrum of politics are calling for congressional hearings to attempt to determine the accuracy of the U.S. intelligence reports regarding weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
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Despite the rationale of the opposition to these hearings, very little can be done to further damage the United States' reputation internationally.
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thedmonline.com
Congress needs to press Bush about weapons
Record Searchlight, Editorial, June 5, 2003
Congress is reluctant to challenge President Bush on issues of national security, but there are times when hard questions must be asked, and one that demands an answer from the administration is: What happened to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction?
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At the G-8 summit, Bush insisted, "We found the weapons of mass destruction." We did not. What we found were a couple of beat-up trailers that may, at one time, have been mobile bioweapons labs.
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But the Bush administration flatly, repeatedly and unequivocally told the American people that Iraq had an arsenal of chemical and biological weapons, was secretly building more of them and was likely to use them or sell them.
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The Pentagon is now saying, well, maybe the Iraqis destroyed the weapons and labs before and during the war or maybe the weapons were shipped to a third country. It is not an explanation that inspires confidence in our intelligence.
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redding.com
Same editorial is at Cincinnati Post:
cincypost.com
Hunting Iraq's Weapons
Editorial, Washington Post, June 3, 2003
PRESIDENT BUSH'S claim last week that U.S. forces in Iraq already "have found the weapons of mass destruction" has made a difficult problem for the administration worse. In fact, no Iraqi chemical, biological or nuclear weapons have been located, though a couple of mobile laboratories likely constructed for producing banned biological agents have been found. It still is possible -- we'd say probable -- that weapons will be found. After all, coalition forces haven't found Saddam Hussein or his sons, either, but they or their remains surely do exist; conditions in Iraq remain chaotic, and American control over large parts of the country is still tenuous. But Mr. Bush's attempt to dismiss the WMD issue, like his equally premature description of the Iraq war as a mission accomplished, has damaged U.S. credibility abroad and raised troubling questions about the administration's intentions.
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If U.S. intelligence was wrong, it is important to learn why. If administration officials misused intelligence, that also should be made clear. What's needed is careful and patient investigation, open to audit by Congress and U.N. inspectors. Hasty conclusions, either by the president or his critics, won't serve.
washingtonpost.com
Get Truth on Prewar Events
Editorial, LA Times, June 9, 2003
President Bush declared last week in Qatar that Iraq was a big country but that the truth about hidden Iraqi weapons of mass destruction would be discovered. His words, however, did not slow the barrage of innuendo, rumor and revelations about the administration's handling of prewar intelligence about such weapons.
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latimes.com
Congress' Turn on Iraq
Editorial, LA Times, June 3, 2003
The United States' failure to uncover evidence of chemical and biological weapons in Iraq puts its credibility at risk. That judgment comes not from a war critic but from Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Warner is rightly calling for hearings on whether intelligence was manipulated or flawed.
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latimes.com
Was the intelligence cooked?
Editorial, International Herald Tribune, June 9, 2003
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We disagree. We are as pleased as anyone to see Saddam removed from power, but the United States cannot now simply erase from the record the Bush administration's dire warnings about the Iraqi weapon threat. The good word of the United States is too central to America's leadership abroad -- and to President George W. Bush's dubious doctrine of preemptive warfare -- to be treated so cavalierly.
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The issue goes to the heart of American leadership. Bush's belief that the United States has the right to use force against nations that it believes may threaten American security is based on the assumption that Washington can make accurate judgements about how serious such a danger is. If the intelligence is wrong, or the government distorts it, the United States will squander its credibility. Even worse, it will lose its ability to rally the world, and the American people, to the defense of the country when real threats materialize.
iht.com
The Christian Science Monitor is pro Administration, but they recognize the problem:
Did Iraq Need Defanging?
Editorial, Christian Science Monitor, June 9, 2003
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Such weapons haven't been found in the few weeks since American troops entered Baghdad, and unless they are found - or at least a technical capability to manufacture them quickly is verifiably discovered - both President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair face that old political charge: a credibility gap.
The high-stakes politics of this issue has reached the point where some opponents of Mr. Blair wonder if he'll need to be replaced as Labour Party leader; while in the US, some Democrats ask if Mr. Bush could likely be impeached for deception.
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Politicizing this issue now is premature. More thorough probing of both Iraq and what the intelligence agencies knew, however, is needed.
csmonitor.com
Editorial: Where are the WMDs?
Editorial, Savannah Morning News, June 5, 2003
NEARLY TWO months after Baghdad fell, allied forces have yet to publicly acknowledge that they have found concrete evidence of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. Not since Geraldo Rivera unlocked Al Capone's empty vault has so much hype gone unrequited.
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Perhaps the allied leaders were making honest assumptions based on faulty intelligence. That possibility isn't very comforting. Indeed, if the information fed them was based on wild extrapolations of thin reeds of substance, or outright disinformation from inside Iraq, then that would undermine confidence in American and British intelligence agencies to get the big things right. If they spectacularly misread Iraq, what else could they be wrong about?
Either scenario -- political manipulation or shoddy intelligence -- would make it much more difficult to justify further implementation of the Bush Doctrine of pre-emption. If no WMDs are discovered in Iraq, the president may find it harder to convince the public that he believes a nation such as Iran or North Korea poses an imminent threat that is deserving of an American military response. It's a matter of trust -- Mr. Bush's most valuable commodity right now.
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But the longer the weapons remain elusive, the more the world needs to know what happened to them, or why their threat was so overstated.
savannahnow.com
Bungling the job
Editorial, The Boston Phoenix, May 16, 2003
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Yet now that the war is over, US forces not only have failed to find evidence that Hussein was armed with weapons of mass destruction, they’ve given up looking for it. And while that’s bad enough, it gets worse: it now seems clear that preventing Iraqi weapons of mass destruction from getting into the hands of terrorists was never high on the Bush-Rumsfeld to-do list to begin with. What else are we to make of a May 4 dispatch in the Post (also authored by Gellman) reporting that the offices of the Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center, "where U.N. weapons inspectors had catalogued tons of partially enriched uranium and natural uranium," had been stripped bare by looters before US forces could secure the site?
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So we ask — again — what was the rush to war all about? It now seems clear that UN weapons inspectors both should and could have been given the time to finish the job — a job the Bush administration apparently has no intention of finishing itself.
bostonphoenix.com
WMD ambiguity may have been Saddam’s ruse
Editorial, The Starbulletin, June 6, 2003
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If Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, the concern should be that intelligence agencies failed to see through the ruse or that political forces acted on evidence that lacked credibility, not that the U.S. and British engaged in an illegitimate war.
starbulletin.com
-- Carl
P.S. Also see Robin Cook's latest:
themoscowtimes.com
observer.co.uk
thestar.com |
