Fact Checking Fact Check
I de-linked Annenberg's FactCheck.org some time ago over an entry that was more editorial than fact.
In another case of error by omission, Fact Check drops the ball here: hxxp://www.factcheck.org/article358.html(again, no link)
The point Fact Check attempts to make is that there is evidence that both sides(Bush and DNC Chair Howard Dean) are both misrepresenting the facts about Iraq pre-war intel. Read the piece for more color.
It seems clear that Dean did indeed mis-speak when he said that Lawrence Wilkerson had claimed that Iraq possessed no WMD. In fact, while Wilkerson has penned many things that the White House must cringe at reading, this is a false statement as far as I can tell.(Google, Nexis - no dice)
I think a strong case can be made that an incomplete case that leads a country into war is a few magnitudes of order worse than a mis-statement about what some official said. I am however, aware that mis-statements of any kind are damaging to one's credibility. Dean should have known better.
Putting aside the as yet incomplete Robert's Senate Intelligence Committee report(Caution: Do not hold your breath waiting for part 2 of this report) on intelligence manipulation, there was plenty of information that a properly functioning, skeptical Congress should have questioned.
In the interim, you can sift through these two documents from former DIA intelligence officer, Patrick Lang and 27 year CIA veteran Ray McGovern(Caution: .pdf), and make up your own mind(s).
It is clear that unless the White House shared what both of the intelligence professionals provide the reader with - including timelines - of not only intelligence omissions, but also publicly available documents that demonstrate the Administration's plans for Iraq, that Bush and Co. committed the greater of the two errors.
McGovern and Lang provide compelling evidence that the Bush administration produced policy, and then adjusted statements to support their policy, did not gather current intelligence information, as well as engaged in a few other questionable practices that would have undermined their case for war.
But I'll leave that up to the reader to decide ;)
In another case of error by omission, Fact Check drops the ball here: hxxp://www.factcheck.org/article358.html(again, no link)
The point Fact Check attempts to make is that there is evidence that both sides(Bush and DNC Chair Howard Dean) are both misrepresenting the facts about Iraq pre-war intel. Read the piece for more color.
It seems clear that Dean did indeed mis-speak when he said that Lawrence Wilkerson had claimed that Iraq possessed no WMD. In fact, while Wilkerson has penned many things that the White House must cringe at reading, this is a false statement as far as I can tell.(Google, Nexis - no dice)
I think a strong case can be made that an incomplete case that leads a country into war is a few magnitudes of order worse than a mis-statement about what some official said. I am however, aware that mis-statements of any kind are damaging to one's credibility. Dean should have known better.
Putting aside the as yet incomplete Robert's Senate Intelligence Committee report(Caution: Do not hold your breath waiting for part 2 of this report) on intelligence manipulation, there was plenty of information that a properly functioning, skeptical Congress should have questioned.
In the interim, you can sift through these two documents from former DIA intelligence officer, Patrick Lang and 27 year CIA veteran Ray McGovern(Caution: .pdf), and make up your own mind(s).
It is clear that unless the White House shared what both of the intelligence professionals provide the reader with - including timelines - of not only intelligence omissions, but also publicly available documents that demonstrate the Administration's plans for Iraq, that Bush and Co. committed the greater of the two errors.
McGovern and Lang provide compelling evidence that the Bush administration produced policy, and then adjusted statements to support their policy, did not gather current intelligence information, as well as engaged in a few other questionable practices that would have undermined their case for war.
But I'll leave that up to the reader to decide ;)
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