Would you like to voice your view about this article or my worldview? Click Here to write a letter to be posted on this website next update.
---ARCHIVE---
The Issue Defined
by Robby Gray (JN)
Jan 23, 2004
Want to read more? Click Here for previous monthly articles
I have found that one of the most common ways that writers intentionally slant an issue their way is by smearing* the issue at hand to include a totally different issue. A good example of this is the controversy caused by chief U.S. weapons inspector, David Kay's, testimony, on Jan. 28, 2004, before the Senate Services Committee about efforts to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. I turn to an article from the New York Times, published on page four of the January 31-Feburary 1, 2004 edition of the International Herald Tribune, to use as an example of "objective" reporting being smeared to work with this journalist's, or the New York Times editor's, liberal agenda. Before I go step by step through the article pointing out its amazing amount of smears, let me define this issue as I see it.
I have read the transcript of David Kay's opening remarks before the committee members began questioning him, at www.cnn.com/2004/US/01/28/kay.transcript. I would highly recommend reading this transcript! The chief U.S. weapons inspector clearly states that "...we (the Iraq Survey Group) were almost all wrong, and I certainly include myself here." and goes on to say "...let me take one of the explanations most commonly given: Analysts were pressured to reach conclusions that would fit the political agenda of one or another administration. I deeply think that is a wrong explanation." The issue here is that our intelligence was bad. George Bush and Tony Blair did not lie or stretch the truth. David Kay says this over and over in his remarks. Once again I would highly recommend going to the source and reading the chief U.S. inspector's remarks!
Let me just note here that it was not the issue of weapons of mass destruction, or claimed lack of, that caused France and Germany to oppose this war as David Kay states, "I would also point out that many governments that chose not to support this war--certainly, the French president, Chirac, as I recall in April of last year, referred to Iraq's possession of WMD. The Germans certainly--the intelligence service believed that there were WMD. It turns out that we were all wrong, probably in my judgment, and that is most disturbing." As far as Germany and France were concerned, before Intelligence's recent findings after Operation Iraqi Freedom, Iraq did have WMD. I have recently found out why France was against Operation Iraqi Freedom (April 23, 2004)--France, all the way up to Chirac, Russia, and other high level U.N. officials were accepting bribes from Saddam Hussein! Click Here for the full story.
Now let me go step by step through that New York Times article titled "On arms expert's Iraq report, Europe sniffs and shrugs," in the January 31-Feburary 1, 2004 edition of the International Herald Tribune.
On arms expert's Iraq report, Europe [Smear #1 is in the title! It is not Europe that "sniffs and shrugs" but France, Germany, and Russia!] sniffs and shrugs.
"Paris: Much of Europe gave a mental snort at this week's testimony by the former chief U.S. weapons inspector, David Kay, that there probably were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq before the U.S.-led war there."
I think by the name weapons of mass destruction this reporter means nukes. To quote Bill O'Reilly from Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, "There was one active WMD program underway until the American invasion. That was the construction of the poison Ricin. Now you may remember, Ricin was shipped to England from Iraq. British authorities arrested those involved before the poison could kill anyone."
"'There is a kind of cynicism here,' said Dominique Moisi, a French political analyst in Paris. 'So the Americans lied to their people and to us and maybe to themselves; that's exactly what we already thought."
David Kay's report states the exact opposite of this. To quote from the report "I came not from within the administration, and it was clear and clear in our discussions and no one asked otherwise that I would lead this the way I thought best and I would speak the truth as we found it. I have had absolutely no pressure prior, during the course of the work at the [Iraq Survey Group], or after I left to do anything otherwise." and again, "As leader of the effort of the Iraqi Survey Group, I spent most of my days not out in the field leading inspections. It's typically what you do at that level. I was trying to motivate, direct, find strategies. In the course of doing that, I had innumerable analysts who came to me in apology that the world that we were finding was not the world that they had thought existed and that they had estimated. Reality on the ground differed in advance. And never--not in a single case--was the explanation, 'I was pressured to do this.' The explanation was very often, 'The limited data we had led one to reasonably conclude this. I now see that there's another explanation for it.'" Americans did not lie to their people our intelligence was simply wrong.
"Similar sentiments rippled across the continent, where the debate about the existence of Iraqi weapons split Europe between those countries who believed and those who doubted American and British contentions that Iraq posed an imminent threat."
This is not about whether "Iraq posed an imminent threat" but rather that the intelligence was wrong.
"Kay's testimony Wednesday before a U.S. Senate committee created less derision in places like Poland, which, unlike France, supported the United States in going to war.
'It doesn't change our position,' said Boguslaw Majewski, a spokesman for Poland's Foreign Ministry. 'When the decision was reached, all the warning signals were there."
Once again David Kay was not saying whether or not it was right for us to attack Iraq but rather that we had bad intelligence on Iraq's nuclear capability. This should not change Poland's position as long as they still believe that Saddam Hussein did enough other wrong to justify Operation Iraqi Freedom. David Kay, in his statements, goes into this a little, "In my judgment, based on the work that has been done to this point of the Iraq Survey Group, and in fact, that I reported to you in October, (I read this report as well, find it at www.cia.gov/cia/public-affairs/speeches/2003/david-kay-1002003.html) Iraq was in clear violation of the terms of [U.N.] Resolution 1441. Resolution 1441 required that Iraq report all of its activities--one last chance to come clean about what it had. We have discovered hundreds of cases, based on both documents, physical evidence and the testimony of Iraqis, of activities that were prohibited under the initial U.N. Resolution 687 and that should have been reported under 1441, with Iraqi testimony that not only did they not tell the U.N. about this, they were instructed not to do it and they hid the material."
"But there was greater bemusement in Europe over Britain's seemingly contradictory report that chastised the British Broadcasting Corporation for suggesting that Tony Blair's administration had hyped reports of weapons in Iraq. 'Especially in France, there is a feeling that if the David Kay report is right, how can the BBC be so severely punished for revealing what was ultimately true?' Moisi said."
As I have proved above David Kay's statements proved that George Bush or Tony Blair or any other administration did not lie or stretch the truth. The intelligence was wrong about the nukes but BBC said that Tony Blair had stretched the truth. David Kay's statements prove that the BBC blatantly lied. The BBC should be ashamed.
"Some German media scoffed at the purported independence of the British report, prepared by Brian Hutton, a British judge who found fault this week with the BBC for alleging that British officials 'sexed up' intelligence reports about Iraqi arms.
'Hutton has been a servant to the crown all his life; he always knows what his duty is.' read an editorial in Friday's Die Tageszeitung, a national newspaper published in Berlin.
The debate before the war over weapons of mass destruction in Iraq revealed deep divisions within Europe. France and Germany led the opposition to the U.S. initiative. But Britain, Spain and most of Eastern Europe's former Soviet-bloc countries, including several that will join the EU this year, took the side of the United States and Britain.
Some people in the United States and Britain have called for independent inquiries into the quality of intelligence used to justify [justify?! This is real objective reporting.] the war and whether that intelligence was manipulated. But such arguments are rarely heard in Continental Europe. In Spain, where the government supported the American-led invasion despite popular opposition, the opposition Socialist Party has taken Kay's testimony as an opportunity to call for such an inquiry at home. 'Aznar should agree to an investigation like in the United Kingdom and appear before a parliamentary committee to explain his decision to go war,' said Diego Lopez Garrido, a Socialist Party spokesman, referring to the Spanish prime minister, Jose Maria Aznar.'"
So the end of this section is saying that because of Kay's comments some people in the U.S. and Britain are calling for an independent inquiry into the quality of intelligence used to decide if Iraq was indeed a threat or not (Personally I think the U.S. should inquire into what is going wrong with our intelligence and that is what David Kay is calling for as well.) and ALSO because of Kay's comments Spain should investigate whether Aznar lied or not. These are two totally separate accusations.
"But so far the Spanish government has ignored such calls, and the Iraq debate has taken a back seat to a scandal over a high-level minister's secret negotiations with Basque separatists.
Europe, it appears, would happily forget the matter and move on.
'This conclusion did not come as a surprise for us,' Russia's Foreign Ministry spokesman said earlier this week about Kay's statements."
END OF NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE
Somehow the Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesman knew that our intelligence was wrong?! Why did he not tell us?
I believe chief weapons inspector Kay. His comments should end all this 'lie' nonsense and put us in the right direction, reforming the CIA.
* I believe it was Ayn Rand that coined this term. To smear an issue is to group it with one or more other issues to make the one issue seem to be like the others clouding what the issue actually is.
Please let me know what your views are regarding this article by clicking here
Letters | Home | Back to Top
