Stardate 20040119.0438

(On Screen): They say, "Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity", but we seem to have gone beyond any possible stupidity now. Have we reached the point where we can assume there's a conspiracy to spread a big lie? And where we can safely dismiss the opinions of anyone who repeats it?

The Bush administration's inability to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq -- after public statements declaring an imminent threat posed by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein -- has begun to harm the credibility abroad of the United States and of American intelligence, according to foreign policy experts in both parties.

In last year's State of the Union address, President Bush used stark imagery to make the case that military action was necessary. Among other claims, Bush said that Hussein had enough anthrax to "kill several million people," enough botulinum toxin to "subject millions of people to death by respiratory failure" and enough chemical agents to "kill untold thousands."

That was the SOTU address where Bush said that we could not afford to wait until such threats became "imminent". AAaargh!

The myth that Bush claimed that Iraq represented an "imminent threat" has been debunked again and again; there's no excuse for any reporter at this point not knowing that it's a blatant lie. Why is it being repeated now?

As if I didn't know. Lessee, diagnostic signs from the rest of the article:

Criticism about not having UN approval: check.
Concern about disapproval from abroad: check.

But a range of foreign policy experts, including supporters of the war, said the long-term consequences of the administration's rhetoric could be severe overseas -- especially because the war was waged without the backing of the United Nations and was opposed by large majorities, even in countries run by leaders that supported the invasion.

Misstatement of the Bush doctrine: check.

"The foreign policy blow-back is pretty serious," said Kenneth Adelman, a member of the Pentagon's Defense Advisory Board and a supporter of the war. He said the gaps between the administration's rhetoric and the postwar findings threaten Bush's doctrine of "preemption," which envisions attacking a nation because it is an imminent threat.

(The "Bush doctrine" is attack them before they become an "imminent threat", because by the time they are an imminent threat it will be too late.)

Insistence on reliance on international agencies: check.

Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, said the same problem could occur if the United States presses for action against alleged weapons programs in Iran and Syria. The solution, he said, is to let international organizations such as the International Atomic Energy Agency take the lead in making the case, as has happened thus far in Iran, and also to be willing to share more of the intelligence with other countries.

"That's not a feature, that's a bug." check.

James Steinberg, a deputy national security adviser in the Clinton administration who believed there were legitimate concerns about Iraq's weapons programs, said the failure of the prewar claims to match the postwar reality "add to the general sense of criticism about the U.S., that we will do anything, say anything" to prevail.

Reliance on leftist groups as pure oracles of truth: check.

A lengthy study issued by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace also concluded the administration shifted the intelligence consensus on Iraq's weapons in 2002 as officials prepared for war, making it appear more imminent and threatening than was warranted by the evidence.

Yup, all the signs are there: this is a straight leftist propaganda piece disguised as straight news reporting.

Update: And right next door we have this highly unbiased article: U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan is prepared to try to help the United States salvage its Iraq strategy, despite more than a year of rancorous relations over the country, largely due to his deep concern about the potential for a political implosion in Iraq, according to senior U.S. and U.N. officials.

That Annan is such a wonderful guy, to help out the US now that it's stuck in a quagmire, ain't he?

Update: Hindrocket provides some historical background.

Update: David Adesnik comments. When he says "it is improbable in the extreme that a reporter committed to manipulating the public would last very long at a top-flight newspaper" it strikes me that he has a hard time explaining Pilger or Fi