Beauty is truth

Senator Levin's investigation of Doug Feith and the Office of Special Plans (OSP) is making headlines today. CNN said, "very damning". Good call--cuss words seem appropriate here, for so many reasons.

Let us quote the New York Times, itself a paragon of excellence in dealing with wartime intelligence:

The conclusions the Pentagon team reached in the year or so before the invasion of Iraq have been generally known for some time and were largely discredited by the Sept. 11 commission, which found “no evidence” that contacts between the Iraqi government and Al Qaeda “ever developed into a collaborative operational relationship.”

This is somewhat confusing. Are they talking about the same 9/11 Commission that hinted of Iranian involvement in the attack; the 9/11 Commission that was probably shorted critical information by the handiwork of Sandy Berger; or the one who pretended not to care much about the histories of guys like Ramzi Yousef or Mubarak al-Duri? Perhaps the Times can ask Lee Hamilton, if he's not too busy over at Sandy's consulting group.

None of this is to say internal investigations are bad or that Feith's group was crystal clean, but the left will twist this to claim they invented things like this out of whole cloth. It's just as easy to argue that Levin and Rockefeller started this as an attempt to whitewash the history of their yea votes on the Iraq use of force resolution. Imagine what that might do for all those legacies. And Hillary.

Based on what we heard during Tim Russert's testimony phase of the Libby trial yesterday it's also not out of the question to assume the MSM is ready to lend Levin a hand. Attorney Wells reminded the jury how giddy the press was prior to Fitz Kringle's indictment announcement. There are even better examples of this kind of stuff, but they say if blog posts are too long people stop reading.

Meanwhile, as Russert was secretly confiding to the FBI about Libby (before he developed a case of journalistic nobility) a few of his buddies over at Newsweek were setting the table for what we see unfolding now.

Conservative bloggers will probably stand alone in reminding everyone of similar Saddam-bin Laden inferences in our past, back when Mrs. Clinton was First Lady. Click to hear the now famous [update- see below] Sheila MacVicar ABC News report about such chilling possibilities in 1999, which sounded pretty damn damning as well.

Or the rationale surrounding the bombing of the al-Shifa aspirin factory in Khartoum, rumored to be where Iraqi scientists were helping bin Laden bubble up some VX:

This passage led Clarke, who for years had read intelligence reports on Iraqi-Sudanese cooperation on chemical weapons, to speculate to Berger that a large Iraqi presence at chemical facilities in Khartoum was "probably a direct result of the Iraq-Al Qida agreement." Clarke added that VX nerve precursor traces found near al Shifa were the "exact formula used by Iraq."

This is the "Boogie to Baghdad" guy. As to the Atta in Prague connection, true it's never been nailed down, but even if he didn't meet Iraqi intelligence that doesn't change the fact Saddam wanted to blow up Radio Free Iraq.

Guess we should get used to this stuff as it's likely to get worse as we head towards decision-08. Double that assessment if Libby is found guilty. I'll make one last comment here. George W. Bush has proclaimed himself a born-again Christian. If he's been lying to us about Iraq intelligence under the guise of selfish motives then it's simply unconscionable. Should the worst be true, and should he fail to confess, then earthly impeachment will be the least of his problems.

"POST" TRAUMATIC STRESS 2/10/07

IRONY -- The WaPo publishes a story about mishandling intelligence by mishandling the facts of their own story, causing some mild reaction from the blogosphere. May I suggest a possible lede?

"Today the Washington Post was accused of twisting information supporting their Friday story about pre-war intelligence twisting by deliberately mixing opinion from a partisan Senator issued in 2004 and information contained in an IG report requested by the very same Senator. Some believe Post editors intermixed the two sources in an effort to "shape" public opinion about the notion that Bush Administration officials were shaping pre-war intelligence to justify war."

UPDATE 2/12/07

Power Line has a much cleaner MacVicar video.