gaming the blame

The U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee report was significant in that 9 Republicans and 8 Democrats unanimously declared all the major reasons the Bush administration gave for taking America to war in Iraq were untrue. Officially this part of the report blamed the CIA and other intelligence agencies. Democrats added that the intel conclusions were clearly influenced by administration expectations, and outright pressure to come to those conclusions. Even though Republicans did not agree, the report included some damning correspondence from within the CIA that clearly leaves that impression: the Bushies were going to war anyway, so if the CIA knew what was good for it, they'd provide what the bosses wanted to hear.

Specific investigation into how the Bushies handled the faulty intelligence they got was put off until after the election, apparently as the price for getting this part of the report out now. But as several news reporters and pundits pointed out, it is simple enough work to compare the claims the Bushies made publicly with the intelligence they got as described in this report, to see that the Bushies exaggerated it (at best), and combined passing on bad information with additional misleading conclusions. A pretty good summary of all that can be found in a short piece appearing in the Nation:

Capital Games

The report's less than subtle purpose was congressional: now that a clear majority of American voters believe going to war was a mistake, the Congress that voted to give Bush the authority to start it now desperately wants to cover its institutional ass. The committee members emphasized that they, as Members of Congress, were misled by the bad intel. Senator Jay Rockerfeller, the ranking Dem, added that had he known then what he knows now, he would not have voted to authorize Bush's bash, nor in his opinion would the rest of Congress have done so.

This cuts no mustard with Bush, of course. After seizing on the report as proof he was led astray by that bad old CIA, he actually told a PA audience this same day that "we fought them in Iraq so we wouldn't have to fight them here."

The other institutional ass that needs covering is the media. But 'the CIA made me do it' won't quite work, not even if you throw in the Bushie rhetoric. The media--from the goofiest cable news to the most august newspapers---helped mightily in the march off the cliff to war. In his interview with Charlie Rose this week, Michael Moore placed the major blame squarely on the press. We expect politicians to lie, he said. But we expect the press to ask questions, to protect us from political lies. Without the press doing its job, we're vulnerable. And he added a bit ruefully, if the press had asked the kind of probing questions about Iraq that he's been getting about "my little movie," we never would have gone to war.

Those of us outside the power centers may not have realized how much the New York Times coverage aided and abetted the Bush march. With its longstanding reputation for probity and integrity, however tarnished it has gotten over recent years, the Times remains the most important newspaper in America. When the Times echoed the Bushwah coming out of Washington, it made a huge difference---if not directly with the American public, then powerfully with the rest of the media that generally takes its lead from the Times, and perhaps most powerfully, with Congress. The Times helped create a climate in which a vote against authorizing Bush could seem out of touch.

Though the Times recently issued something like an apology, it was nowhere near the full story, especially concerning Judith Miller, the reporter more responsible than any other for the Times and perhaps the media in general lending hysterical credibility to the Bushwar Bushwah.

Amy Goodman and David Goodman of Democracy Now! provide such an account, much of which you can read on the Sentient Times site:

Sentient Times June/July 2004

Don't miss the part about Judith Miller as embedded reporter during the war: "her role in the unit's operation became so central that it became known as the 'Judith Miller team.' In one instance she disageeed with a decision...When she took her protest to a two-star general, the decision was reversed....Later, she played a starrring role in a ceremony in which [the unit's] leader was promoted. Other officers were surprised to watch as Miller pinned a new rank" on this officer's uniform.

This is the most outrageous violation of a reporter's role we've ever heard of, yet as far as we know, she is still reporting for the New York Times. As Michael Moore said, (though not with exactly these words) the news media has blood on its hands. Gaming the blame won't help. There's plenty to go around.