The link: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/04/21/60minutes/main1527749.shtml
In response to my last post about Christopher Hitchens, and how he's the only person left in “journalism” with even a hint of genuine curiousity, my dad provided me the link above. In reading the Hitchens article, I wondered how it was possible for the liberal media, and their adoring fans (such as my dad), to ignore al-Zahawie's visit to Niger. My dad did the service of demonstrating exactly how. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that the “how it's done” here is bigger than just the Niger-Yellowcake-Wilson deal, it's just how the liberals deal with everything.
First, we cover the content of the link. An incredibly fat former CIA agent named Tyler Drumheller has come out and given interviews attacking Bush's use of intelligence going into the Iraq war. It boils down to this:
- Saddam had no WMD programs.
- Bush didn't care, he only wanted to to hear intel that supported his decision to go to war.
- Forged document from Italy.
These three items may seem familliar. That's because they're the same three things the liberals say all the fucking time when it comes to this issue. That's “how it's done.” The media decides what the story is, decides on a few key points to support it, and then just hammers on them over and over. “See? The generals says Bush fixed intelligence. See? Former CIA agent says Bush fixed intelligence. See? Patriot-Hero Joe Wilson says Bush fixed intelligence. See? See?”
What makes this extra humorous in the context of the Iraq war, is that even as the liberls accuse Bush, repeatedly, of being prejudiced to a war in Iraq, and ignoring anything that didn't support that goal, they themselves have prejudged what the story is, and are completely uninterested in anything that doesn't portray Bush as a rash cowboy who rushed in without listening to advice. Never mind the fact that Clinton considered Saddam a threat, believed he possessed WMDs, and believed in regime change. As far as they're concerned, everyone in the world knew there were no WMDs except for George W. Bush.
But, back to the morbidly obese Tyler Drumheller. It goes without saying that my dad is not at all upset that a CIA agent would leave his position and immediately commence to badmouthing the administration. It doesn't strike him as being the least bit suspicious that this guy just happens to be out of a job now, even as the Bush administration attempts to shake up a dysfunctional and incompetent CIA, and he can't seem to find anything wrong with the work he did.
What makes this all particularly incredible, though, is the degree of deception that Ed Bradley and Lardy Drumheller implement in order to restate the standard liberal talking points.
Start with item 1, “Saddam had no WMD programs.” The CBS article refers to Drumheller's use of Naji Sabri, an Iraqi diplomat with inside information on Saddam's government. Drumheller was in charge of extracting information from Sabri. When asked what was concluded, Drumheller says: "He told us that they had no active weapons of mass destruction program.” The words are chosen carefully.
This link shows why: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11927856/
I discussed this incredibly cocked up article a while back, and it concerns Naji Sabri. The key quote follows:
On the issue of chemical weapons, the CIA said Saddam had stockpiled as much as "500 metric tons of chemical warfare agents" and had "renewed" production of deadly agents. Sabri said Iraq had stockpiled weapons and had "poison gas" left over from the first Gulf War. Both Sabri and the agency were wrong.
Sabri says that Saddam had stockpiled weapons and poison gas. He didn't have any active programs, but he had stockpiles. It's not by accident that Ed Bradley and Fatfuck Drumheller keep saying “active WMD programs” as they affect disbelief at what a clod Bush is. They know what Sabri said, and they know it supported Bush's allegations that Saddam had WMDs. They lie by omission, very carefully and intentionally.
It should be clear at this point why Drumheller is out of a job.
There's more, though. They also play some interesting games with the forged Nigerian documents. Bradley says, “[s]o, let me see if I have it correctly. The United States gets a report that Saddam is trying to buy uranium from Africa. But you and many others in our intelligence community quickly knock it down.“ And that's it for Ed Bradley. We thought there might be a deal on for uranium from Niger, but the document proved to be a forgery, so clearly there was no deal, nor any pursuit of a deal. Despite this, Bush goes ahead and touts it anyway, blah blah blah. The usual spiel...
One of the reasons that Hitchens suggests for this forgery is, “it was the product of disinformation, intended to protect Niger and discredit any attention paid to the actual, real-time Zahawie visit.” What's funny is that it's now being used to protect the liberal media from the facts. Zawahie was in charge of Iraq's nuclear diplomacy, he did go to Niger, Joe Wilson didn't see fit to take notice, and a forged document changes none of this in the slightest. But the liberals just hammer on their talking points, over and over.
No active programs. Bush wasn't listening. Forged documents.
That's how it's done.