Condi's "Regrets"

by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright December 8, 2008
All Rights Reserved.                    

         Fearing possible indictments once she leaves government, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice echoed President George W. Bush’s “biggest regret” about Iraq’s prewar intelligence.  Now it’s Condi’s turn to rewrite history, setting the record straight before the curtain comes down Jan. 20.  Condi was Bush’s biggest cheerleader along with Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld selling the Iraq war.  Before the big vote Oct.11, 2002 on House-Senate Joint Resolution 114 authorizing Bush to go to war against Saddam Hussein, Condi warned about “mushroom clouds” and bioterrorism.  She knew, together with her predecessor former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, that her source for intelligence was Doug Feith and the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans, insisting that all reputable intelligence agencies were wrong about Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction.

            German Intelligence, Briton’s MI6, Israel’s Mossad, and, yes, the CIA, all got it wrong, unable to verify before the March 20, 2003 the presence on any WMD in Iraq.  U.N. Special Weapons Inspector Dr. Hans Blix begged the White House for more time to prove that Iraq possessed no WMD.  But no, Condi, and all of Bush’s neocon crew, was hell-bent on taking out Saddam.  “I would give anything to be able to go back and to know precisely what we were going to find when we were there.  But that isn’t the way that these things work,” said Condi, implying that things would have been different had the White House known for sure Saddam possessed no WMD.  “And I still believe that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein is going to turn out to be a great strategic achievement,” admitting it was of minor significance.  WMD was just one among many excuses the White House gave to invade Iraq.

            White House officials not only take no responsibility for Iraq they continue to justify the miscalculation based on “faulty intelligence.” When Secretary of State Colin L. Powell went before the U.N. Security Council Feb. 5, 2003 to sell the White House case for war, he knew that no reputable intelligence could confirm his case about mobile germ weapons laboratories.  Powell knew firsthand that much of his case was derived from Feith at the Office of Special Plans working overtime to establish a link between Saddam and Sept. 11 and the presence of WMD in Iraq.  Powell knew that Feith’s sources, largely stemmed from Iraqi exile Ahmed Chalabi’s brother-in-law, codenamed “Curveball.”  He was, at the time, in German custody in Bavaria, spawning wild tales about Saddam’s bioterrorism capabilities.  Powell and Condi both knew such reports were not corroborated.

            During the lead up to war, Condi hyped Saddam’s nuclear and biological threats on network and capable news.  She appeared frequently on FOXNews who paraded now missing Iraqi exiles claiming to have worked and seen firsthand Saddam’s arsenal of biologic and nuclear weapons.  Condi, like Bush, know wants to set the record straight that she was misled prior to the invasion.  She justifies the invasion stating the obvious that the Mideast and world were better of without Saddam.  No one disputes that platitude.  But the real questions is whether or not the White House exaggerated Saddam’s threat to justify going to war.  We all know Bush’s post-war plans were inadequate.  In order to engage in preemptive war, there had to be a “clear-and-present” danger to U.S. national security.  Condi now admits that there were other factors, besides WMD, in going to war.

            White House National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley also jumped into the fray, disputing a New York Times editorial taking exception to Bush’s claims to ABC News anchor Charley Gibson that he “regretted” intelligence failures.  “While the president has repeatedly acknowledged the mistakes in prewar intelligence, there is no support for the Times’ claim that the president and his national security team ‘knew or should have known [the intelligence] to be faulty’ or that ‘pressure from the White house led to particular conclusions,” wrote Hadley, totally ignoring Feith and the OSP’s conclusions.  Hadley, together with Condi, wants to state for the record that the White House was officially duped by faulty intelligence.  He fears also that the new administration will approve Congressional investigations into the so-called mistakes and faulty prewar intelligence.

            Like her smoke blowing campaign before the Iraq War hyping Saddam’s WMD, Condi has launched her own PR blitz to deny she relied on cherry-picked intelligence from Feith and the OSP.  Faced with possible Congressional investigations, the whole White team is on the same page denying that they relied on the OSP’s intel.  A careful look at the record indicates the White House knew their claims about Saddam’s alleged WMD were not corroborated by any reputable intelligence source.  Vice President Dick Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, and his now disgraced and discredited former deputy Secretary of Defense and World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz, all relied on Feith and the OSP for intelligence.  Before they leave office, Condi and Hadley stated for the record they received bad intelligence.  What they and their boss won’t admit is that they ordered the “faulty” intel to sell the war.

  John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news.  He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.

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