Who are these guys and what did they do with the Chicago Tribune staff?
Seriously though, I slam the MSM as a whole whenever I can because of their most times blantant misrepresentation of the facts, if not compete fabrication of news stories based on their liberal agenda.
But it's also fair to point out when they actually print a story based on real journalism - fair and balanced. Such is the case with the story outlined below. Here the times staff does a very good job spearating the hype from the facts as we know them today.
Judging the case for war
"Did President Bush intentionally mislead this nation and its allies into war? Or is it his critics who have misled Americans, recasting history to discredit him and his policies? If your responses are reflexive and self-assured, read on.
On Nov. 20, the Tribune began an inquest: We set out to assess the Bush administration's arguments for war in Iraq. We have weighed each of those nine arguments against the findings of subsequent official investigations by the 9/11 Commission, the Senate Intelligence Committee and others. We predicted that this exercise would distress the smug and self-assured--those who have unquestioningly supported, or opposed, this war."
The Chicago Tribune in this article actually does a very good job on separating the facts surrounding the lead up to the war in Iraq vs. the lies of the left - the "Bush lied" mantra. Read it for yourself, but here are a few of the points:
WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE SAID
The Bush administration said Iraq had stockpiled weapons of mass destruction. Officials trumpeted reports from U.S. and foreign spy agencies, including an October 2002 CIA assessment: "Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons, as well as missiles with ranges in excess of UN restrictions."
WHAT WE KNOW TODAY
Many, although not all, of the Bush administration's assertions about weapons of mass destruction have proven flat-out wrong. What illicit weaponry searchers uncovered didn't begin to square with the magnitude of the toxic armory U.S. officials had described before the war.
THE VERDICT
There was no need for the administration to rely on risky intelligence to chronicle many of Iraq's other sins. In putting so much emphasis on illicit weaponry, the White House advanced its most provocative, least verifiable case for war when others would have sufficed.
Iraq rebuffs the world
WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE SAID
In a speech that left many diplomats visibly squirming in their chairs, President Bush detailed tandem patterns of failure: Saddam Hussein had refused to obey UN Security Council orders that he disclose his weapons programs--and the UN had refused to enforce its demands of Hussein.
WHAT WE KNOW TODAY
Reasonable minds disagree on whether Iraq's flouting of UN resolutions justified the war. But there can be no credible assertion that either Iraq or the UN met its responsibility to the world. If anything, the administration gravely understated the chicanery, both in Baghdad and at the UN.
THE VERDICT
Hussein had shunted enough lucre to enough profiteers to keep the UN from challenging him. In a dozen years the organization mass-produced 17 resolutions on Iraq, all of them toothless. That in turn enabled Hussein to continue his brutal reign and cost untold thousands of Iraqis their lives.
The quest for nukes
WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE SAID
Intelligence agencies warned the Clinton and Bush administrations that Hussein was reconstituting his once-impressive program to create nuclear weapons. In part that intel reflected embarrassment over U.S. failure before the Persian Gulf war to grasp how close Iraq was to building nukes.
WHAT WE KNOW TODAY
Four intel studies from 1997-2000 concurred that "If Iraq acquired a significant quantity of fissile material through foreign assistance, it could have a crude nuclear weapon within a year." Claims that Iraq sought uranium and special tubes for processing nuclear material appear discredited.
THE VERDICT
If the White House manipulated or exaggerated the nuclear intelligence before the war in order to paint a more menacing portrait of Hussein, it's difficult to imagine why. For five years, the official and oft-delivered alarms from the U.S. intelligence community had been menacing enough.
Hussein's rope-a-dope
WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE SAID
The longer Hussein refuses to obey UN directives to disclose his weapons programs, the greater the risk that he will acquire, or share with terrorists, the weaponry he has used in the past or the even deadlier capabilities his scientists have tried to develop. Thus we need to wage a pre-emptive war.
WHAT WE KNOW TODAY
Hussein didn't have illicit weapons stockpiles to wield or hand to terrorists. Subsequent investigations have concluded he had the means and intent to rekindle those programs as soon as he escaped UN sanctions.
THE VERDICT
Had Hussein not been deposed, would he have reconstituted deadly weaponry or shared it with terror groups? Of the White House's nine arguments for war, the implications of this warning about Iraq's intentions are treacherous to imagine--yet also the least possible to declare true or false."
Well, what we know is that dispite "what we know", there are facts of Saddams intentions and what he did with his WMD's before the invasion which have been all but completely ignored by the MSM. Be that as it may, it's refreshing to see at least the attempt at objective journalism, although don't expect the Nighly News with Brian Williams to lead tonight's broadcast with it.
iraq Politics News murtha Able Danger Curt Weldon bush war on terror spying patriot act nsa CIA jonathan alter alitokrugman
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