Tuesday, September 30, 2003
The Newshour bombshell
Today's NewsHour with Jim Lehrer had two segments that I consider pretty explosive, at least as far as Team Bush is concerned. The first segment consisted of an interview with Gen. Anthony Zinni (4-star general, former Centcom commander and Bush envoy to the middle east), in which Gen. Zinni accuses (transcript here) Team Bush of exaggerating and distorting evidence to go to war. He also comes pretty close to calling for Rumsfeld's resignation.
I also think the case that was made to the American people for going in was exaggerated. And I think that's dangerous. We've been down that road before. If it was to take down Saddam because he is bad and evil, if it was to improve things in the region, if it was a strategic decision based on some strategic assessment, it should have run on its own merits.
But to make the case that there was, you know the smoking gun could be a mushroom cloud or that there's 48 hours that he could launch a missile, I think was really exaggerated.
JIM LEHRER: Do you think heads should roll because of this?
Absolutely. Any time we lose lives, any time we have miscalculated, any time we have to go back to the American people and ask for more treasure, more sacrifice and it was not calculated and it should have been, then somebody should be held responsible.
In the second segment, Larry Johnson (former CIA operative, counterterrorism official at the State Dept, Republican and supporter of Team Bush) is asked (transcript here) about the White House leaks in L'affaire Plame.
Let's be very clear about what happened. This is not an alleged abuse. This is a confirmed abuse. I worked with this woman. She started training with me. She has been undercover for three decades, she is not as Bob Novak suggested a CIA analyst.
I say this as a registered Republican. I'm on record giving contributions to the George Bush campaign. This is not about partisan politics. This is about a betrayal, a political smear of an individual with no relevance to the story. Publishing her name in that story added nothing to it. His entire intent was correctly as Ambassador Wilson noted: to intimidate, to suggest that there was some impropriety that somehow his wife was in a decision making position to influence his ability to go over and savage a stupid policy, an erroneous policy and frankly, what was a false policy of suggesting that there were nuclear material in Iraq that required this war. This was about a political attack. To pretend that it's something else and to get into this parsing of words, I tell you, it sickens me to be a Republican to see this.
I also think the case that was made to the American people for going in was exaggerated. And I think that's dangerous. We've been down that road before. If it was to take down Saddam because he is bad and evil, if it was to improve things in the region, if it was a strategic decision based on some strategic assessment, it should have run on its own merits.
But to make the case that there was, you know the smoking gun could be a mushroom cloud or that there's 48 hours that he could launch a missile, I think was really exaggerated.
JIM LEHRER: Do you think heads should roll because of this?
Absolutely. Any time we lose lives, any time we have miscalculated, any time we have to go back to the American people and ask for more treasure, more sacrifice and it was not calculated and it should have been, then somebody should be held responsible.
In the second segment, Larry Johnson (former CIA operative, counterterrorism official at the State Dept, Republican and supporter of Team Bush) is asked (transcript here) about the White House leaks in L'affaire Plame.
Let's be very clear about what happened. This is not an alleged abuse. This is a confirmed abuse. I worked with this woman. She started training with me. She has been undercover for three decades, she is not as Bob Novak suggested a CIA analyst.
I say this as a registered Republican. I'm on record giving contributions to the George Bush campaign. This is not about partisan politics. This is about a betrayal, a political smear of an individual with no relevance to the story. Publishing her name in that story added nothing to it. His entire intent was correctly as Ambassador Wilson noted: to intimidate, to suggest that there was some impropriety that somehow his wife was in a decision making position to influence his ability to go over and savage a stupid policy, an erroneous policy and frankly, what was a false policy of suggesting that there were nuclear material in Iraq that required this war. This was about a political attack. To pretend that it's something else and to get into this parsing of words, I tell you, it sickens me to be a Republican to see this.
