Wednesday, December 05, 2007

August

That's when Bush was told that Iran's nuke program might have been suspended.

I'll bet the fever swamps are already filling with the battle cry of the Bush dead-enders: "not technically a lie!"

If it was good enough for Iraq, might as well recycle it for Iran. In fact, though it doesn't really have the same ring as e pluribus unum, maybe we should just go ahead and put it on the Great Seal or something. I'll bet the Founders would be very proud.

11 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Actually, they knew much earlier, but held it up for almost a year, while they tried to strongarm the analysts into changing their opinions and key findings:

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39978

1:59 PM  
Blogger Tom Van Dyke said...

My view is that the administration doesn't accept the NIE. It's been wrong before, as recently as 2 years ago, voicing opposite findings.

The NIE was released, I think, because someone in State or the CIA would have leaked it to someone like Seymour Hirsch anyway, and the jackals would have had a field day.

5:18 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Of course the administration doesn't support the NIE; it doesn't comport well with their preference for war-mongering.

They had no problem releasing the 02 NIE on Iraq (with the footnotes and dissenting opinions stripped) when they were in full new product-rollout mode.

6:59 PM  
Blogger Winston Smith said...

Yeah, they accept only the evidence that agrees with the opinions they already hold.

Insert screed about the postmodern presidency here...

7:17 PM  
Blogger Tom Van Dyke said...

Well, you didn't like the '02 NIE, but like the '07?

Seems to be a universal thing, this postmodernism.

8:41 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

First anon: "(with the footnotes and dissenting opinions stripped)"

Winston: "Yeah, they accept only the evidence that agrees with the opinions they already hold."

Tom: "Well, you didn't like the '02 NIE, but like the '07?

Seems to be a universal thing, this postmodernism."

Tom, it's postmodernist to object to the removal of dissenting opinions and footnotes? Seems to be what you're saying...

J

12:09 AM  
Blogger Tom Van Dyke said...

The '02 had Saddam with WMDs, the '05 had Iran still working on them. The '07 does not, but all of a sudden NIEs have become oracular.

Hell, I dunno. I hope Iran isn't making nuclear weapons, but it could be they already know how, and just need to keep those centrifuges cranking to get something to put in 'em.

And I don't think the mullah regime's raison d'etat has changed---it's still to export Islamism.

12:26 AM  
Blogger Winston Smith said...

Nobody here has ever rejected the '02 NIE. That's a shameless distortion of arguments that have been made very carefully very many times.

2:46 AM  
Blogger Winston Smith said...

Oh, and nobody's rejected the '05 NIE either, though I wasn't as interested in that one.

9:18 AM  
Blogger Tom Van Dyke said...

Nobody here has ever rejected the '02 NIE...

Fine. Then Bush didn't lie, and you need a fresh set of arguments.

1:24 PM  
Blogger Winston Smith said...

No. Bush exaggerated the evidence available to him at the time, including the evidence in the NIEs.

This is not a complicated point. It has been made many times here and elsewhere. I can't believe that you find this simple position so difficult to understand. One might disagree with it...but to continually *mischaracterize* the position... Well, you know the options here.

5:38 PM  

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