Monday, November 17, 2003
Leaked Memo Found To Have Leaks
Doubtless you are aware of the DOD letter/memo summarizing links/contacts between Iraq and Al Queda that was sent to the Senate Intelligence Committee, at their request, and then leaked, by an unknown someone, to Stephen Hayes of The Weekly Standard, which then became the top story on Fox News through-out the weekend. And you probably know that within hours of the online publication of Hayes' analysis of the memo/letter, a posting on the DOD website denied that the leaked information therein (tho referred to as "the annex") was meant to be proof of a Saddam/binLaden connection. It was instead a list of fairly raw intelligence. Not that the DOD post is a thorough debunk; but it clearly says that the leaked document is not all that Hayes & co are cracking it up to be.
Doubtless you make regular visits to Quiddity's uniquely wonderful blog, Uggabugga, but in case not of late, by any and all means do. Not only will you find there a series of wonderful cartoons, (just scrowl down), and a map/chart of the connections between the countries in the Western Hemisphere, (part of Quiddity's project to diagram everything in the world,) as of yesterday, you will also find a posting of that rarest of all things, an actual transcript of something broadcast on Fox News, in this case, of a fevered exchange between Fred Barnes, frothing at the mouth with ferocious certitude that Hayes' Weekly Standard bombshell now establishes beyond all doubts, once and forever, that Saddam and binLaden were evil ones sharing their evil, and that everything the Bush administration has ever said about both must now be considered beyond argument, and Juan Williams, trying to introduce some journalistic perspective and skepticism into the discussion. Read it for yourself, and enjoy Quiddity's swift kick in the pants to bullyboy Barnes; it all has to do with the difference between details and facts.
Josh Marshall, in a brief on-the-run comment on the Hayes bruhaha, (also linked to by Quiddity) throws cold water all over the content of the Weeky Standard story, congratulates Stephen Hayes on his "great scoop," and professes his admiration for Hayes work. Josh Marshall has been doing such outstanding work lately, that I'm not about to begrude him his collegial feelings towards other so-called journalists.
So, it's left to blogs like this one to state clearly that we do not admire Hayes' overall work, though there is never a problem in having more information than one did the day before. I'm not sorry about the "leak," because we're not afraid to submit our current beliefs to new information that might arrive tomorrow. But look at the very title of this piece. "Case Closed" Not according to the DOD, where the author of the memo does reside, let us not forget. We start out with a lie, right in the title. No one reading this list of bullet points who is honest would say "case closed." At best one might say, "case advanced."
And here's the opening of Hayes' article as reported at Fox News.
I don't doubt for a moment that Saddam and Usama had an "operational relationship" on some days during that period of time, operational in the sense that they knew how to contact one another, both had operatives who might have done some free-lance maneuvering, and especially on Saddam's side, kept in some kind of dialogue to make sure that bin Laden kept his sights everywhere else but on Iraq. Especially on Saudi Arabia and the US. Remember, Saddam was universally loathed through-out the Arab and pretty much the Muslim world. He'd always run a secular state. He started a brutal war with Iran, an Islamic Republic. It would hardly be surprising to find that he had contacts with Al Queda to make sure that they did not regard him as an enemy.
Hayes gets around the paucity of the links by suggesting that there is much more to come, and that the memo is equivalent to "cliff notes" of the final fully drawn picture. How convient.
The notion that Saddam would ever have given WMD to a terrorist organization run by someone else is absurd on its face. What would stop them from using them against Saddam, if it proved convenient. To believe that goes against everything we know about Saddam's modus operandi, which was to trust no one and to build institutional layers of distrust, one on top of t'other.
On the basis of such unearned certainty, Hayes assaults critics of the administration for insisting that any Saddam/Usama connection was pure fantasy, which no critic has ever maintained, and then goes on to trash Carl Levin, a member of the committee, who is treated as if he had claimed such a connection is pure fantasy, when what he is quoted as asking is, what is the basis for the claim, a question that is treated as a lie by Hayes, because, after all, Levin had access to this "case closed" memo. Doubtless you are familiar with this kind of rightwing circular logic.
Mr. Hayes' most pointed ire is aimed at Al Gore and his August speech critical of Bush's conduct of the "war on terror," and questioning of the Iraq war. Hayes takes great pleasure in pointing out how much of this proof of connections between the two evil doers comes from the Clinton era. But wasn't it the Clinton administration that ignored bin Laden, ignored the threat? How could there be anything worth considering in Clinton era intelligence?
In fact, Hayes gives a perfectly cogent precis of what lead up to the 1998 four day bombing campaign that resulted from Saddam's final refusal to cooperate with UN inspectors, showing correctly that the timing of Operation Desert Fox was forced on Clinton after a prior deal six weeks before, brokered by Kofi Anan within an hour of missiles being launched, broke down for the same reason. The timing was preordained by the prior agreement, which was time limited. I don't remember any such cogent analysis carried on by anyone associated with The Weeky Standard when President Clinton was being accused of wagging the tails of yet more dogs.
What is it with these guys? Do they fool themselves into not seeing the holes in their own arguments? Are they just cynical? Who knows. What I'm sure of is that they know they can get away with this kind of propogandistic so-called journalism, and that nothing they write about has to be "true," to be effective. Fox has continued to run with this story. So will Hayes, so will The Corner, so will National Review. It will become a truth, for a limited number of Americans, no matter the good arguments arrayed against it. But those listeners to Rush and Sean and Dennis and Mancow have friends and relatives they influence. And it will added to the numerous websites, still maintained and kept "up-to-date," that chronicle the Clintons' criminality and the unAmericanism of the Democratic Party.
I don't mean to sound defeatest. There is lots we of the liberal/progressive/Democratic left can do about this kind of thing. And we've taken important steps in figuring out what and how to do it. But beyond all the good work being done by blogs, and by Alterman, and Conason and Molly and Buzzflash and all the others, too often, we're still not fast enough on our feet to get a grass roots response going that could shape the debate.
For instance, wouldn't it be more likely that this story will be covered not merely on whether the content was true, and how true, but also on the circumstances of the leak, the connection to Fox, and the way that Hayes framed his story if we on the liberal/left could get ourselves organized to start writing emails and letters right now to the usual suspects, politely asking the questions that people like Howard Kurtz and Howard Fineman, and hey, how about Fareed Zakarias, should be asking?
Just asking.
Doubtless you make regular visits to Quiddity's uniquely wonderful blog, Uggabugga, but in case not of late, by any and all means do. Not only will you find there a series of wonderful cartoons, (just scrowl down), and a map/chart of the connections between the countries in the Western Hemisphere, (part of Quiddity's project to diagram everything in the world,) as of yesterday, you will also find a posting of that rarest of all things, an actual transcript of something broadcast on Fox News, in this case, of a fevered exchange between Fred Barnes, frothing at the mouth with ferocious certitude that Hayes' Weekly Standard bombshell now establishes beyond all doubts, once and forever, that Saddam and binLaden were evil ones sharing their evil, and that everything the Bush administration has ever said about both must now be considered beyond argument, and Juan Williams, trying to introduce some journalistic perspective and skepticism into the discussion. Read it for yourself, and enjoy Quiddity's swift kick in the pants to bullyboy Barnes; it all has to do with the difference between details and facts.
Josh Marshall, in a brief on-the-run comment on the Hayes bruhaha, (also linked to by Quiddity) throws cold water all over the content of the Weeky Standard story, congratulates Stephen Hayes on his "great scoop," and professes his admiration for Hayes work. Josh Marshall has been doing such outstanding work lately, that I'm not about to begrude him his collegial feelings towards other so-called journalists.
So, it's left to blogs like this one to state clearly that we do not admire Hayes' overall work, though there is never a problem in having more information than one did the day before. I'm not sorry about the "leak," because we're not afraid to submit our current beliefs to new information that might arrive tomorrow. But look at the very title of this piece. "Case Closed" Not according to the DOD, where the author of the memo does reside, let us not forget. We start out with a lie, right in the title. No one reading this list of bullet points who is honest would say "case closed." At best one might say, "case advanced."
And here's the opening of Hayes' article as reported at Fox News.
Usama bin Laden (search) and Saddam Hussein (search) had an operational relationship from the early 1990s to 2003 that involved training in explosives and weapons of mass destruction, logistical support for terrorist attacks, Al Qaeda training camps and safe haven in Iraq, and Iraqi financial support for Al Qaeda - perhaps even for Mohamed Atta - according to a top secret U.S. government memorandum obtained by The Weekly Standard.
I don't doubt for a moment that Saddam and Usama had an "operational relationship" on some days during that period of time, operational in the sense that they knew how to contact one another, both had operatives who might have done some free-lance maneuvering, and especially on Saddam's side, kept in some kind of dialogue to make sure that bin Laden kept his sights everywhere else but on Iraq. Especially on Saudi Arabia and the US. Remember, Saddam was universally loathed through-out the Arab and pretty much the Muslim world. He'd always run a secular state. He started a brutal war with Iran, an Islamic Republic. It would hardly be surprising to find that he had contacts with Al Queda to make sure that they did not regard him as an enemy.
Hayes gets around the paucity of the links by suggesting that there is much more to come, and that the memo is equivalent to "cliff notes" of the final fully drawn picture. How convient.
The notion that Saddam would ever have given WMD to a terrorist organization run by someone else is absurd on its face. What would stop them from using them against Saddam, if it proved convenient. To believe that goes against everything we know about Saddam's modus operandi, which was to trust no one and to build institutional layers of distrust, one on top of t'other.
On the basis of such unearned certainty, Hayes assaults critics of the administration for insisting that any Saddam/Usama connection was pure fantasy, which no critic has ever maintained, and then goes on to trash Carl Levin, a member of the committee, who is treated as if he had claimed such a connection is pure fantasy, when what he is quoted as asking is, what is the basis for the claim, a question that is treated as a lie by Hayes, because, after all, Levin had access to this "case closed" memo. Doubtless you are familiar with this kind of rightwing circular logic.
Mr. Hayes' most pointed ire is aimed at Al Gore and his August speech critical of Bush's conduct of the "war on terror," and questioning of the Iraq war. Hayes takes great pleasure in pointing out how much of this proof of connections between the two evil doers comes from the Clinton era. But wasn't it the Clinton administration that ignored bin Laden, ignored the threat? How could there be anything worth considering in Clinton era intelligence?
In fact, Hayes gives a perfectly cogent precis of what lead up to the 1998 four day bombing campaign that resulted from Saddam's final refusal to cooperate with UN inspectors, showing correctly that the timing of Operation Desert Fox was forced on Clinton after a prior deal six weeks before, brokered by Kofi Anan within an hour of missiles being launched, broke down for the same reason. The timing was preordained by the prior agreement, which was time limited. I don't remember any such cogent analysis carried on by anyone associated with The Weeky Standard when President Clinton was being accused of wagging the tails of yet more dogs.
What is it with these guys? Do they fool themselves into not seeing the holes in their own arguments? Are they just cynical? Who knows. What I'm sure of is that they know they can get away with this kind of propogandistic so-called journalism, and that nothing they write about has to be "true," to be effective. Fox has continued to run with this story. So will Hayes, so will The Corner, so will National Review. It will become a truth, for a limited number of Americans, no matter the good arguments arrayed against it. But those listeners to Rush and Sean and Dennis and Mancow have friends and relatives they influence. And it will added to the numerous websites, still maintained and kept "up-to-date," that chronicle the Clintons' criminality and the unAmericanism of the Democratic Party.
I don't mean to sound defeatest. There is lots we of the liberal/progressive/Democratic left can do about this kind of thing. And we've taken important steps in figuring out what and how to do it. But beyond all the good work being done by blogs, and by Alterman, and Conason and Molly and Buzzflash and all the others, too often, we're still not fast enough on our feet to get a grass roots response going that could shape the debate.
For instance, wouldn't it be more likely that this story will be covered not merely on whether the content was true, and how true, but also on the circumstances of the leak, the connection to Fox, and the way that Hayes framed his story if we on the liberal/left could get ourselves organized to start writing emails and letters right now to the usual suspects, politely asking the questions that people like Howard Kurtz and Howard Fineman, and hey, how about Fareed Zakarias, should be asking?
Just asking.
