Iraq

awol Disclosure

This entry was posted in bush Election 2004 Iraq Journalism on by

bush needs to clear up his military record now. He can not afford to have it haunt him through the next 9 months which it will without complete transparency.
The story has legs. See this the Washington Post here and here; see this Daily Howler piece.
It is not at all clear how w got the pass last time around. Yea, Gore wasn’t a combat veteran but his record shined more brightly then w’s. If bush end’s up facing a Kerry or Clark this will be an issue whether the candidate pushes it or not.
bush needs to provide his entire record in unredacted form to the public immediately. Starting a policy of truth and transparency now may be all he can do to salvage his administration.

Uhhh, when will the bs stop?

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From the Guardian:

Intelligence sources, policy makers and weapons inspectors familiar with the details of the hunt for WMD told The Observer it was widely known that Iraq had no WMD within three weeks of Baghdad falling, despite the assertions of senior Bush administration figures and the Prime Minister, Tony Blair.

As Jim Henley notes:

The official hawks, like bad dope dealers, got too fond of their own product. They wanted it to be true and convinced themselves of their desires.

Most of us have been taught that honesty is a good thing and will bring good results in life. The republicans still have time to nominate a candidate who has learned this lesson.

Hutton Report Perspective

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Perry de Havilland has it about right:

The only thing astonishing about the Hutton report…is that so many people are astonished that a paragon of the establishment like Lord Hutton should take the view that whatever the government�s ministers say should be presumed to be correct whilst that of mere journalists, even those working for the state owned media, should be assumed to be dissembling.
Did anyone seriously think the outcome would be otherwise?

The entire report in HTML format is here. The PDF version did not download properly.

History according to w

This entry was posted in bush Iraq US Foreign Policy War on Terrorism on by

Both Tim Dunlop and Atrios point to this article (click through the free pass) where Joe Conason talks about w’s apparent confusion about Iraq inspections:

The president was fantasizing again this afternoon about the circumstances that led to war — and if his remarks at his press conference with the Polish president are to be taken seriously, he also seems badly confused about his Iraqi timeline.

Surely no one who has listened to bush for the last 3 years is surprised when he says stuff like this. He might even really believe he is telling the truth….