Truth, War and Consequences pbs.org
[ I don't watch much TV, but Frontline usually does a bang-up job of web publishing too, and this one's no exception. I was amused to see he-who-must-not-be-named showing up as the voice of the administration; the NYT review had this mention of him:
No administration official is interviewed on camera. In a flash of journalistic self-importance, the narrator explains that Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, were asked for interviews, and that "they all declined." A meeting with Douglas J. Feith, the under secretary of defense for policy, was canceled by the White House, according to the narrator, who adds, "We received no explanation."
Instead the program relies on Richard N. Perle, a business consultant who was an important aide in the Reagan administration, to explain the government's view. Mr. Perle is not actually a government official, but he plays one on TV. He advises Mr. Rumsfeld from his unpaid perch on the Defense Policy Board, a position that gives him behind-the-scenes access to top Bush officials as well as the freedom to speak out publicly.
"Let me be blunt about this: the level of competence of the Central Intelligence Agency in this area is appalling," Mr. Perle says, explaining why the Pentagon created its own intelligence unit to find links between Mr. Hussein and Al Qaeda. "So if you're walking down the street and you're not looking for hidden treasure, you won't find it."
When Mr. Smith suggests that the converse is also true, Mr. Perle agrees. "Of course, there's no absolute truth in this," he says genially. (from "Selective Intelligence on Road to Baghdad" , nytimes.com )
But the Frontline site does much better, posting the whole Perle interview, see pbs.org . For the numerous local fans of "the 'we know everything and everyone else is stupid' civilian team running the Pentagon" ( (c) Thomas Friedman ) , Perle's interview is a treat indeed. It's always all somebody else's fault. In particular, Perle's Chalabi disclaimer from the preview is quite amusing in light of this bit:
So why have you clung to Ahmad Chalabi? Why not just find somebody else that's acceptable to both sides?
[Perle] No one else has been proposed who's acceptable to both sides. The arguments against Chalabi have been without substance. He is far and away the most effective individual that we could have hoped would emerge in Iraq. No one was proposing that he be anointed in some sense, but simply that his advice and counsel would be valuable to us, and if he emerged in a leadership position, that would be highly desirable, from the point of view of the future of Iraq. He's a very capable guy.
Describe him for me.
[Perle] He's quite brilliant. He is a Ph.D. in mathematics, with a background at the University of Chicago and MIT. He's a Shi'a, committed to secular democracy. He led the Iraqi National Congress, continues to lead the Iraqi National Congress, which was an umbrella group of organizations opposed to Saddam Hussein. He worked tirelessly to achieve Saddam's removal, and is the kind of modern liberal leader that we would hope to see; not only in Iraq, but throughout the Arab world.
What's the controversy?
[Perle ] The CIA doesn't like him, because they don't control him, and they only like people they control. Their view has always been that we should propagate a coup against Saddam; that we needed to find another strongman like Saddam, that the problem was Saddam and not the Ba'ath structure. So they were quite happy to find some other Ba'athists to replace Saddam. They went to extraordinary lengths attempting to do so. They organized coups that failed. People were killed.
I think Perle's little CIA vendetta might be dated, though, the interview probably came before the official new "Future's so bright . . . " PR offensive was declared. The CIA vendetta line was floating around in the summer, though, see #reply-19243430 , and a revival may be due if the Wilson / Plame affair stays around a while. Them spooks gotta learn that their proper role in life is to support the war marketing plan du jour, or make it better, not to go around collecting intelligence in the conventional sense of the word. |
