I did promise a more conservative post to balance the ones I wrote praising Clinton and Gore. Mind you, I wouldn’t say this exactly praises the President, but brings something he said into question.

The road to Iraq
A few years ago—it would have been 2002 or 2003 now—I wrote to Charlotte Beers, charged with trying to win the hearts and minds of people about President Bush’s decision to go to war with Iraq. I wasn’t too impressed with his speeches, and advised that Tony Blair’s route—concentrating on matters of international law, specifically UN Security Council resolution 1441—would be levelling with the American people more.
   The President took that tack last week at a press conference at the White House, so I felt some pride that mine was the eventual position he took.
   I suppose it was inevitable that the President did not take that position initially. Telling Americans that they were going to war based on a UN resolution would seem that the US was placing international obligations before domestic ones. But having studied international law, and with no “side” being taken (frankly, I find many arguments on both sides of Congress and the Senate a bit daft), I thought there could be an argument over the legality of enforcing the resolution. Leaving totally aside the question of karma and the sanctity of life. And since I don’t normally leave those questions aside, you now know why I do not practise law despite my qualifications.
   What is interesting, given this eventual recognition of resolution 1441, is a piece that I found today while surfing. I was surprised to see it missed by both the liberal and conservative blogs, though less surprised to see it missed by the mainstream media (at least the MSM here). I thought one mob would damn it and the other mob would praise it. But then, even the President did not mention it.
   You’ll have to bear with my ignorance about the source, and also bear in mind that regardless of whether a Democrat or a Republican is in the White House, it makes little difference to little ol’ me in New Zealand. I am on record as saying I am Confucian, which I imagine in western terms could be labelled centrist libertarian. (Translation: I sit in the middle and wish both groups of politicians would bugger off. It’s time for democratic reform.)

The found article
The source is Investor’s Business Daily, and the headline, dated February 24, is ‘Saddam Had WMD’ (referred by Nanochurch Life & Spirituality). Three paragraphs are probably the most critical to this post:

Inconveniently for critics of the war, Saddam made tapes in his version of the Oval Office. These tapes landed in the hands of American intelligence and were recently aired publicly.
   The first 12 hours of the tapes—there are hundreds more waiting to be translated—are damning, to say the least. They show conclusively that Bush didn’t lie when he cited Saddam’s WMD plans as one of the big reasons for taking the dictator out.
   Nobody disputes the tapes’ authenticity. On them, Saddam talks openly of programs involving biological, chemical and, yes, nuclear weapons.

   I know how politicized things get in the United States, so I won’t make any assumptions on this piece. Maybe IBD is a conservative source and this is part of a conspiracy. Or maybe there is a liberal-media cover-up. Who knows?
   But since it has been carried on Yahoo!, which generally selects pretty good news sources, I would have expected a bit of debate, if not a ‘Bush was right’ cry.
   I would also have expected the President himself to gleefully proclaim, ‘I told you so,’ last week. But he didn’t.
   Searching on Google, there are a lot of results to the search, “Saddam had WMD”, admittedly from conservative news sources.
   My personal position has been that the WMDs must have existed unless every single intelligence agency (including ours in New Zealand) in the world erred. And, may I now add that they could have existed unless Saddam Hussein erred?
   Whether that’s a reason to go to, or continue in, Iraq is not what I am addressing here. I am simply curious to know how the mainstream news media work.
   Since I am in the media, though not in international politics, I would have seized upon this story to create some debate. Even if I was a greedy capitalist wanting more sales, I would have done that. I would expect a journalistic duty to at least talk about these tapes and see how real they are. It would be worthwhile on both sides—and even strengthen arguments for all.
   But the silence has been noticeable. I never heard a peep Down Under.

Ted Koppel believes it
After some research, I understand that Nightline (the ABC one, not the TV3 one here) had aired the tapes partially, and The Washington Times also mentioned them. So that is one liberal and one conservative source. Never heard Fox News mention it.
   The news has not been carried forth much.
   At Dragonfire, Alex Koppelman advances a unique theory: that conservatives are responsible for covering up this information.
   Mr Koppelman cites quotations that shed doubt on one John Loftus, who organized a gathering called ‘The Intelligence Summit’ where the tapes were the central focus.
   Mr Koppelman ultimately does not judge whether the tapes are genuine or not, either.
   I tend to believe they are more likely genuine, if a usually anti-Bush source such as ABC-TV would air them. But it still brings me back to the same point: why such a limited exposure?
   Conspiracy may well be the reason, but I would have hoped for something more logical. That other news stories were more important (in which case I could have attacked the media for making bad judgement calls), or that it was old news (again, not a great excuse).
   Regardless of whom is behind the story not getting more air time, I can’t guess a reason. How about a bit of dialogue between American conservative and liberal bloggers—all civilized, of course—so we can get to the bottom of this? Was President Bush right? Or was our Prime Minister, taking an anti-war stance, the sensible one?

Del.icio.us tags: WMD | Saddam Hussein | Iraq | Iraq war | war on terror | anti-war | George W. Bush | USA | politics | conspiracy | liberal media | mainstream media | conservative | bias | MSM | anti-Bush | media | news Posted by Jack Yan, 02:56  permalink

comments

Post a Comment  Links to this post