Big News Orgs Help Bush Whitewash History Of Iraq War

[ProSense]

Big News Orgs Help Bush Whitewash History Of Iraq War

By Greg Sargent - December 2, 2008, 10:02AM

This really isn't complicated. President Bush was not being "blunt" or showing "candor" when he told ABC News in an interview published yesterday that his biggest regret was the failure of intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq War.

Rather, he was whitewashing away his own role in the fisaco by promoting the demonstrable falsehood that there was no available evidence or information that argued against war and that he was merely fooled into invading Iraq solely by the bad intel.

The big news orgs seem eager to help Bush do this. Not a single one of their reports on the interview that we can find bothered to tell readers that there was plenty of good intel -- ignored by the Bush administration -- saying that Saddam wasn't the threat Bush was claiming he was. Nor did any of them bother mentioning that the weapons inspectors in Iraq were saying the same thing -- something that also went ignored.

These facts are absolutely central to understanding Bush's efforts to falsify history in yesterday's interview. Yet they went unmentioned in reports by Reuters, The Washington Post, the Associated Press, CNN, and The New York Times.

Worse, at least one news org pretended that Bush was making some kind of admission or concession here. WaPo hailed Bush's "candor" and said he was being "unusually blunt."

Let's go over this very slowly. For Bush to blame the failure of intel for his decision to invade is not a concession at all, and it is not an admission of failure on his part. Rather, it is the opposite of these things. It is an evasion of responsibility for what happened.

Yet the big news orgs seem unable -- or unwilling -- to grasp this simple dynamic or give readers the info they need to understand it, and for some reason are perfectly willing to enable Bush's falsification of history.

Bush is a war criminal.

[KansDem]

1. The "failure of intelligence" has always been where it is now...

...right between Bush's ears.

[ProSense]

2. It's one or the other:

Bush is either one of the stupidest men on the planet or the one of the most evil.

Or both.

[blm]

3. Not just news organizations, but all those powerful Dem voices who SIDED with Bush instead

of with the weapon inspectors or even their own 2004 nominee who stood against the DECISION to invade when weapon inspectors were proving force was NOT NEEDED.

THOSE high profile Dems were ON CAMERA for much of 2003 and 2004 giving Bush and his mediawhores all the whitewash they needed.

[Just-plain-Kathy]

8. I want everyone who gave Bush a helping hand investigated, starting with Nancy Pelosi. ...n/t

[EstimatedProphet]

4. But how is Hillary Clinton behind this?

[ProSense]

5. Huh? n/t

[uponit7771]

10. poster forgot \sarcasm

[moondust]

6. The "Failure of Intelligence" is pure bullshit.

With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight it is easy to see that Saddam had no active WMD programs and was not an imminent threat. There's no evidence--not then and not now after searching high and low and no doubt scouring the files and papers and laboratories in all of Saddam's former ministries and palaces and installations.

It's not believable that the 14 or more intelligence agencies around Washington were all incompetent or all part of a huge conspiracy to pull the wool over the eyes of the White House/NSC by saying they had intelligence that they didn't have...because it didn't exist.

The big news organizations shamelessly welcomed the high drama of it all.

[yodermon]

7. Rachel? Keith? n/t

[KakistocracyHater]

9. I agree, the inspectors were IN Iraq

yet 3 months later he's in-your-face-lying, claiming the weapons inspectors were not allowed in; Saddam released about 12,000 pgs in Nov 2002 & had Blix running all over the place. The media act like they're afraid of him.

[uponit7771]

11. They were partially complicate and wonder why thier viewship is down