Regarding "Imminent threat"... "teevee" as well...
Monday, October 13, 2003
hoystory.blogspot.com
Hooray for Tony Snow: On Fox News Sunday, Sen. Jay Rockefeller attacked
President Bush for alleging that there was an imminent threat to the United
States from Iraq.
Snow, then confronted the senator with a clip from this year's State of the
Union address, where President Bush said:
Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have
terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on
notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly
emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late.
Rockefeller's response:
Rockefeller: Tony, if you listen to that as an average American person
would, you, at least myself included, that is talking about the danger of an
immediate attack. And in fact, the intelligence committee, the one thing
they did not say was that there was, we were in danger of being attacked in
this country.
Snow: I'm sorry. We've done a lot of research on this, and the president
never said, and we've been looking for it, because a lot of you and your
colleagues have said he talked about an imminent threat. And he never did.
As a matter of fact, the key argument, was it not, that you can't wait for
it to become an imminent threat because then it's too late.
Rockefeller: No. The argument, Tony, was based upon, I was there and I heard
the speech, very close, and he was talking about weapons of mass
destruction -- biological, chemical and nuclear -- and that was more or less
signed off on by the intelligence community. Which raises a whole 'nother
set of questions. And the whole problem was that there was a danger of
attack. If the word "imminent threat" wasn't used, that was the predicate,
that was the feeling that was given to the American people. And to the
Congress whose vote the president clearly was trying to argue, or to
convince during the course of that State of the Union message.
So, it doesn't matter what the president said, all that matters is that we
(the American people and, apparently, much of the Senate) suffer from
extremely poor comprehension skills. Yeah, he didn't say there was a threat
was imminent, but he used the word, so we were confused.
Of course, Fox News' crack researchers didn't stop there. Rockefeller digs
himself a deeper hole after Snow dug up an Oct. 10, 2002 speech by
Rockefeller himself.
There has also been some debate over how "imminent" a threat Iraq poses. I
do believe that Iraq poses an imminent threat, but I also believe that after
September 11, the question is increasingly outdated. It is in the nature of
these weapons, and the way they are targeted against civilian populations,
that documented capability and demonstrated intent may be the only warning
we get. To insist on further evidence could put some of our fellow Americans
at risk. Can we afford to take that chance? We cannot!
Back to Snow:
Snow: What made you change your mind?
Rockefeller: That's correct. And that's what I felt at the time I cast that
vote based upon the intelligence community's analysis of the situation.
Particularly weapons of mass destruction. And what the president said in his
speech. But the situation turns out not to have been quite like either the
intelligence community or the president indicated. And that would be a vote
that I would probably not make today based upon the revelations that there
don't appear, at least to this point, to be any weapons of mass destruction.
I've heard David Kay a number of times now. He has not indicated that. He's
talking about perhaps they were all burned up or gotten rid of.
Work your mind around that one. Rockefeller didn't change his mind, but he
did. But he didn't. But he was deceived. But it didn't matter. But...
But....
That's more flip-flops than you'd see on a summer day at any San Diego
beach.
But it gets better. Snow quotes again from the same Rockefeller speech.
But this isn't just a future threat. Saddam's existing biological and
chemical weapons capabilities pose a very real threat to America now. Saddam
has used chemical weapons before... He is working to develop delivery
systems like missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles that could bring these
deadly weapons against U.S. forces and U.S. facilities in the Middle East.
Well, at least that much is true, isn't it? Nope, Rockefeller continues the
backpedaling.
Snow: And that, indeed, is what David Kay reported to Congress last week, is
it not?
Rockefeller: No. It is not. David Kay did not report that degree of
possibility at all to the Congress. And he actually was very clear in his
public statements, forget his intelligence committee statements, he was very
clear about that. He was not certain about it. He said we had a lot more
work to do. It's going another six to nine months to find out if he had
these weapons of mass destruction or not.
But as Andrew Sullivan pointed out after Kay made his first report to
Congress and the public, it is 100 percent true.
From Sullivan's blog:
* A clandestine network of laboratories and safehouses within the Iraqi
Intelligence Service that contained equipment subject to UN monitoring and
suitable for continuing CBW research.
* A prison laboratory complex, possibly used in human testing of BW agents,
that Iraqi officials working to prepare for UN inspections were explicitly
ordered not to declare to the UN.
* Reference strains of biological organisms concealed in a scientist's home,
one of which can be used to produce biological weapons.
* New research on BW-applicable agents, Brucella and Congo Crimean
Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF), and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin were
not declared to the UN.
* Documents and equipment, hidden in scientists' homes, that would have been
useful in resuming uranium enrichment by centrifuge and electromagnetic
isotope separation (EMIS).
* A line of UAVs not fully declared at an undeclared production facility and
an admission that they had tested one of their declared UAVs out to a range
of 500 km, 350 km beyond the permissible limit.
* Continuing covert capability to manufacture fuel propellant useful only
for prohibited SCUD variant missiles, a capability that was maintained at
least until the end of 2001 and that cooperating Iraqi scientists have said
they were told to conceal from the UN.
* Plans and advanced design work for new long-range missiles with ranges up
to at least 1000 km - well beyond the 150 km range limit imposed by the UN.
Missiles of a 1000 km range would have allowed Iraq to threaten targets
through out the Middle East, including Ankara, Cairo, and Abu Dhabi.
* Clandestine attempts between late-1999 and 2002 to obtain from North Korea
technology related to 1,300 km range ballistic missiles --probably the No
Dong -- 300 km range anti-ship cruise missiles, and other prohibited
military equipment.
Snow is much too nice. Rockefeller is either a liar or an idiot. I'd bet on
liar. Seriously, what else can be said about this man's statements?
There are issues here that can be debated, and then there are simple truths.
The simple truth is that Iraq's WMD capabilities were there and were
hidden -- and that David Kay reported just that.
The simple truth is that Iraq was working on UAVs and missiles that could
threaten his neighbors and U.S. forces in the region -- and David Kay
reported just that.
To deny these facts and to attack the president based on that willful deceit
is outrageous. Sen. Rockefeller is placing partisan politics above the
security of the United States and the troops on the ground in Iraq.
*UPDATE* Fox News' official transcript can be found here.
1:50 AM 51 comments |
