White House Disputes NYT Editorial

National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley released a statement today (found below) critiquing an editorial that ran in the New York Times on Sunday. The editorial, titled "The Deluder in Chief," was a response to President Bush's regret about what he referred to in an interview with Charlie Gibson as the "intelligence failure" in Iraq. The Times attacked this statement, saying, "The truth is that Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had been chafing to attack Iraq before Sept. 11, 2001. They justified that unnecessary war using intelligence reports that they knew or should have known to be faulty." Though now a common critique of the Bush Administration, this attack prompted the response from the White House below.

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release December 8, 2008

STATEMENT BY NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR STEPHEN HADLEY

Sunday's New York Times contains an editorial expressing inaccurate and incomplete statements on pre-war intelligence and the war in Iraq.

While the President has repeatedly acknowledged the mistakes in the pre-war intelligence, there is no support for the Times' claim that the President and his national security team "knew or should have known [the intelligence] to be faulty" or that "pressure from the White House" led to particular conclusions. Nothing in the many inquiries conducted into these matters supports the view of the Times' Editorial Board. Indeed, the independent Silberman-Robb Commission and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence concluded that no political pressure was brought to bear on the Intelligence Community.

As the President has stated, he regrets the intelligence was wrong, but it was intelligence that members of Congress, foreign governments as well as the Administration all believed to be accurate. Working with Congress, the President has since put in place a number of intelligence reform measures to try to ensure that such mistakes do not happen again.

While Saddam Hussein did not have stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, he was a threat, and his removal has opened the door to a democratic Iraq in the heart of the Middle East that is an ally of the United States.

The New York Times continues to have difficulty acknowledging the undeniable success of the President's decision to surge an additional 30,000 troops into Iraq. Because of the surge, Iraq is a more stable and secure country. It is the success of the surge that is allowing American troops to withdraw from Iraq and return home with a record of heroic service and still unheralded success.

Comments

[northsongs]

And yet, years later, and after this having been discussed, exposed, reported, questioned, repeated and dissected over and over, the question remaining is still ... Why aren't these people behind this in jail?

[lisakaz2]

This is par for the course for these liars. They push back on reality. The question is will the msm be timid or actually represent the truth?

[bayside]

I am finally beginning to trust our media again because of NYT..Thank you for this..

[swanie]

The President lies - and the Chief of Staff defends him.

What a joke both of them are - except that their policies and actions have resulted in the death of over 4,000 American GIs and nearly 30,000 GIs who will pay FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIVES with their injuries.
.

[11907281]

Ya, the Iraqi's have been casualty free because of the care and planning of this war ... or does that even matter?

[StillAmused]

"The New York Times continues to have difficulty acknowledging the undeniable success of the President's decision to surge an additional 30,000 firefighters into Iraq... after HE set the fire in the first place."

Karl Rove and Karen "Bull" Hughes need all the help they can get. Rewriting documented recent history will be a greater challenge than expected.

[blico]

Now with the "winds of change" almost upon us all, Obama and his "team for change" will be able to see through ALL faulty intelligence data and react accordingly.

[bobwalters]

"Intelligence failures" "erroneous intelligence" etc., are red herrings. Intelligence -- or lack thereof -- had nothing to do with invading Iraq, as Paul O'Neill, the Downing Street memo, and numerous others have amply documented. If one tracks the propaganda from the mid-1990s PNAC letters to Clinton, all the way to late 2001 - early 2002, it is not rocket-science-difficult to divine the aims and motivations for the invasion. The fascists got a threefer: 1) establish a strategic, forward-based launch-pad, complete with resident combat troops and materiel, to enable projection of US military power anywhere in the region -- including Africa -- to control access to energy supplies, and to intimidate ANY country that might resist US access/control; 2) create domestic conditions on which to predicate assumption of extraordinary "war-time" powers, ala Cheney's totalitarian notion of the "unitary executive"/absolute dictatorship, and to suppress dissent; and 3) simultaneously bolster Israel's military pre-eminence in the region by taking out Saddam, whom the paranoid Likudniks touted as a serious threat, all the while bleeding the Treasury into the pockets of Halliburton, Blackwater, the Seven Sisters of the oil business, and assorted other leeches. Most of the so-called intelligence (really self-serving propaganda) came from Iraqi-exile Chalabi and friends, and from Israeli "intelligence" sources...all designed from the get-go to promote an invasion the Bush/Cheney Crime family had planned from around 1994-96. Hadley's contribution was miniscule, despite his belief he was a major player.

[jneuman771]

This poor excuse for a president supposedly had access to all the intelligence. He did, but he chose to cherry-pick what suited their purposes. Reading about the Bush, you will find that this was about getting back for his daddy, and Cheney's oil. I hope he is haunted by the images of those lives he cost, and the total harm done to this country by his lack moral compass. He was elected to be above party once he assumed office, and supposed to represent all of the people. He did not. The way this country was manipulated, mismanaged, by he, and people placed in office is criminal. That is why impeachment should pursued. These past 8 years need to be judged, and people need to go to jail for what has happened.

[JerryG1]

With the disaster that was wrought by America and to America (and others) why do we ACCEPT the idea of incorrect, or trumped-up, or slanted, or preferred, or stove-piped intelligence?

Why is this not thoroughly investigated, and prosecuted?

Start with the Pentagon Office of Special Plans and the Office of Vice President.

No Rovian unexcused absences, nor exemptions to former officeholders, current professors or other politically or economically powerful promoters of this intelligence and this war.

NOT above the law, especially if there were to be found to be treasonous crimes and misdemeanors.

[timothe]

Can you not read, Jerry?

"Indeed, the independent Silberman-Robb Commission and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence concluded that no political pressure was brought to bear on the Intelligence Community."

There has been no proof...nada, zip, zero,zilch, that the intelligence gathered before the invasion was "trumped-up, slanted, preferred, or stove-piped", as you claim. Even the Downing Street memo, which was the most damaging piece of evidence against the Bush Administration, stated only that the President knew the intelligence was "thin" prior to the invasion. There was no suggestion whatsoever that anyone knew or believed the intelligence to be "false" prior to the invasion.

You need to prove your statements or retract them, Jerry.

[JayInDallas]

The story here isn't the White House response, the real story is that the NYT actually printed what they did. Albeit they did so in an environment that made it safe to do so. I would have more respect for the Times if they had done this say, 2 or 3 years ago when it wasn't de rigeur to write what everyone already has suspected or come to accept as the truth about this administration. The gross ineptitude, the cronyism, the insular, self-centered nature of their decision-making, the constant denial and self-delusion. This country allowed the highest office to be occupied by a sociopathic psychopath - twice. Printing articles during the decline of his regime does not absolve any journalist or media of their complicity. It might only signal the reawakening of something that has been in short supply the last 8 years...INTEGRITY.

[clamperken]

Rule number 1: Never trust someone who's apoligy starts out by blaming others. What Bush meant was he's sorry he didn't cover his tracks better. After years of hearing and reading all of the evidence surrounding the build up to the Iraq invasion, every intelligent person in the world knows exactly what Bush and his cronies did. They simply ignored U.N. inspectors, fired or exposed any who didn't play by thier crooked rules and used inaccurate and faulty intelligence to justify thier war. It's a little too late to hide the facts now.

[Archie1955]

It is amazing to me that after all this time and with the Internet, people like Stephen Hadley still think they can lie through their teeth and get away with it. Everyone and I mean everyone except the brain dead Republicans know that Hadley is an incompentent fool and a liar, not deserving of any consideration whatsoever. He is an egregious enabler of death and destruction over half the world and he thinks because he still has the temerity to lie to the public that anyone will believe him. Well they won't!

[PSTEN]

We are sorry we were so inept at discerning the difference between accurate and inaccurate intelligence. Thats there job. They keep saying that the rest of the world thought the same thing and had the same intelligence. They always forget to tell everybody that the rest of the world for the most part relies on the intelligence gathered by the United States, at least our allies do.

[syllepsis]

The Times article must have stung the Deluder.

Even delusives feel the sting of reality at times.

[dessertsfirst]

Oh yeah, it HAD to be the faulty intelligence. Bush can no more take responsibility for his failings than he can fly. And speaking of faulty intelligence... he really isn't smart enough or enough in touch w/ reality to realize that he made any mistakes. Jan 20, 2009 can't come soon enough. BTW, Texans have an expression that "he doesn't have the common sense God gave a sick duck"!! In the case of this lame duck president, he doesn't have the common sense of his feathered friends.