This whole story is a bit of a farce.

Hanging Sam (General Sam Williams) stood all his intelligence officers in front of him and yelled at them as was his wont. Sam yelled a lot.

Somebody had slipped up badly and let a sentence or two in an intelligence report imply that just maybe the lackey South Vietnamese government of Ngo Dinh Diem wasn't winning the war to wipe out the Viet Cong. That wasn't policy. You are supposed to tell the generals and admirals and finally the president what they want to hear; i.e., that they are right.

Now you might laugh at Army Intelligence but the CIA didn't.

A major in our office one day announced he had been tailed by the CIA. After all he had the good sources. The major took the operative on a tour of the bars on Tu Do Street in Saigon at an early hour and then slipped out the back door of the last one. Would have been interesting to see that CIA operative's report but I had no need to know.

Does anyone here seriously think it matters whether John Edwards read the NIE? I thought only wingers were that mentally handicapped.

Best, Terry

I don't know, I'm not wholly comfortable with the way the Edwards camp is handling this. And I say that as someone who very much admires Edwards' positions on the issues and his repudiation of his war vote.

What bothers me is that the Edwards people keep saying that the vote for the war was purely based on conviction and on the intel. I feel like they're fogging over his reasons for the vote and what he knew at the time, and I'm not sure why they're doing that, particularly since repudiation of the vote is key to his whole story and partly what makes him so attractive right now.

yeah, totally agreed, ohio. they need to get their message straight here, otherwise they'll be subject to an endless stream of "he read it before he didn't read it" type attacks...

It matters because the declassified 'White Paper' summary was a piece of garbage that lacked all the caveats of the classified NIE. It matters because the Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committe Bob Graham BEGGED his colleagues to read the full NIE and it's full of caveats and dissents that are authoritative. The State Department INR didn't believe the story about the alumnium tubes, Air Force Intelligence didn't believe the part about unmanned drones - there is a lot of doubt in the classified NIE that just isn't in the briefings. It matters because the "briefings" that the Senate was getting at the time were just so much BS.

Washington Post, 9/15/02: With the windowless room swept for bugs and lawmakers sworn to deepest secrecy, Rumsfeld proceeded to disclose, well, absolutely nothing this group of lawmakers couldn't have read in the morning papers or watched on TV news channels, according to participants. Actually, they weren't told even that much. "It was a joke," said McCain (R-Ariz.), who soon rose and strode out the door. [...]

The president's distrust of lawmakers now appears to be undermining his campaign to win congressional authorization to go to war with Iraq. Rumsfeld and other top advisers are not only keeping most lawmakers in the dark about new intelligence on Iraq, but they also are aggravating relations with Congress by portraying their briefings as top-secret affairs, according to interviews with several lawmakers.

"It becomes almost insulting after a while," said McCain, a staunch supporter of Bush's Iraq policy. "Everyone that goes to them is frustrated." McCain said he's very sympathetic to White House concerns about leaks, but suggested Bush should suspend the briefings rather than go through the "charade" of acting like he's keeping lawmakers in the loop.

That's John McCain calling the pre-war Bush Administration briefings a "charade".

It matters that Senators didn't read the Iraq '02 NIE for a lot of basic reasons - it's their effing job to read it, it would only take 3 hours to read a 96-page document, a verbal briefing of the same material would take twice as long (people read 300 words a minute, speak 150 words). You can't review a paragraph in a speech.

Here's CIA Europe Chief Tyler Drumhiler on the NIE from Frontline:

"If you look at what they said, the administration's statements about the danger of this all predated the NIE. The NIE came back because people said, "Let's pull everything together in one place and see what we have."

The other part of it is, there's all sorts of caveats in the NIE. INR [the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research] put a very strong caveat in. People said, "Well, policy-makers only have time to read the headlines." Well, if you're going to go to war, you'd better read more than the headlines in something like that. ... If you really are going to go to war and commit people's lives to that, you want to have a definite view of what you're doing, and you'd better think about how you're doing it. To me, that's the story of the NIE.

And why didn't they?

For whatever reason -- and I can't read their minds -- I think many of them really, honestly believed that defeating Iraq will bring democracy and stop terrorism. I think they really believed that. But for whatever reason, I think they wanted to go. The plan was to knock out Iraq."

It was 1/2 a day's work to read the Iraq NIE and get the definitive judgement of the US intelligence agencies firsthand in writing. We've been in Iraq for 5 years. Pro-war, anti-war, undecided. It's their goddamn job to read the frackin' thing. There's no excuse.

If Albert Einstein briefs you on Physics you still need to read the damn textbook to master the material. If George Tenet briefs you on intelligence you still have to read the NIE on the subject to do you homework.

I'm really not sure how the Republicans would ever be able to attack a candidate based on pre-war mistakes. Do they really want to get into that fight? Their modus has to be to distract the populous from the Iraq issue at all costs if they stand ANY chance of winning.

I also think its laughable that people so concerned with the Senators/Congressmen not reading the classified NIE, are harping on something that's actually old news. The report about the Senators and Congressmen not reading the NIE is 3 years old. If this was so important to people (and it definitely should be) where was the outrage in April of 2004 when Dana Priest wrote the original article? And why did the outrage go away, only to reappear now?

The Edwards camp says that he was regularly briefed on the intelligence (as he was a member of the SCI) that appeared in the NIE which was a summary report. Obviously he said the wrong thing at Google HQ. Did he hear the question wrong, or was he deliberately trying to pass a lie that would easily be fact checked? That's up to each voter to decide. But which seems more plausible?

Biden says he read the NIE. But he still voted for the authorization. There's no certainty that it would have made a hill of beans difference if the Senators/Congressmen did read it. People treat the NIE as irrefutable evidence that giving authorization was a bad idea. It wasn't. The war was sold under the idea that evil Saddam could have nuclear weapons. If you doubted this, the Bush administration wanted the public to know you'd rather be sorry than safe. After all, "we don't want the smoking gun to come in the form of a mushroom cloud". Was finding caveats in the classified NIE going to stop that war drum?

This is Bush's War. That cannot be emphasized enough. Any sort of deviation from that mantra costs the Democrats votes in 2008. But by all means, load the ammunition, click off the safeties and form a circle.

Well said. There's nothing more dangerous than dismissing a report, or a fact, just because the fact comes from someone on the other side. If the fact is documented, it is a fact, not an opinion. To dismiss facts and sound arguments from the other side solely because the other side brought them out, is to let the other side do its thinking for you.

Another good post, blackop. Thanks. A key point even for those who rightly emphasize that "this is Bush's war," is that having the right messenger to attack Bush's war will be of tremendous help. Kerry could have been a good messenger had he voted no on the war and followed his principled opposition to the Vietnam war in 1971 ("we cant ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake") with opposition to the Iraq war. Instead, he was tied up in knots. Edwards was tied up in knots in that MTP interview, in my opinion, and did even worse in a recent Stephanopoulos interview. Obama is able to ace these fora, because he does not have to twist himself into a pretzel; he can say, "I saw all the signs that this was going to be a mistake; ignored the supposedly smart Democratic politicos like Terry McAulliffe who were urging Dems to cede the war issue to Bush in 02 to focus on the minimum wage and domestic issues; and said what I believed."

It matters if Edwards can't exactly recall reading the damned thing--the yes I did and no I didn't is a highly stupid. It appears that Edwards may be the one handicapped.

"Message"? Is that what we've descended to? The message is more important than what actually happened? Spin is more important than truth?

How is this different from the highly orchestrated Bush appearances--like on the battleship with "mission accomplished". That was a "message".

Edwards has repeatedly (and rightly) said that candidates need to be honest and open.

Wasn't Bob Graham universally acknowledged as an expert on intel issues? If you take the most positive spin on Edwards' 02 vote (that he was trying to find his footing in 02), then, why didn't Edwards take cues from the respected Bob Graham?

JRE's apology is hollow if there's more to the story than he and his campaign are leading people to believe. He and his campaign need to get their stories straight, or they invite the suspicion that is (fairly or unfairly) natural in these circumstances.

Yes - Obama voting to continue the war was surprising.

The surprise was that both he and Hillary voted against funding the occupation. Both have taken positions on the dark side - particularly Hillary.

Best, Terry

When has the media ever asked Obama about his hypocrisy of opposing the war yet voting to continue funding it?

I thought about this and I think if you were very strongly for or against the Iraq War it's not as big a deal. If you are strongly for or against something then you likely have your reasons beyond a single document produced under the auspices of the Bush Administration, the NIE.

BUT if you made any public comments about 'how hard' the decision was to make then I think you are bound to do as complete a job as possible in assembling data to inform your decision. You cannot simultaneously claim a decision is hard and then delegate the fact-finding for that decision to staffers and be a passive consumer of second-hand information from briefers. Only members of Congress could read the full NIE - it's not something that was possible to delegate. That's my problem with Democrats who voted for the AUMF/Iraq but didn't read the NIE - their entire decision making process is suspect. Getting briefed or reading the summary is like reading Cliffs Notes Hamlet instead of reading Shakespeare's Hamlet. They are not the same and it's sad to pretend otherwise.

A summary of the NIE is not the NIE.

Putting aside, for a moment, any personal feelings John Edwards had about the Iraq Authorization vote, he was representing North Carolina at the time. Presumably the people he was representing supported the legislation, so my question is, how much of what Edwards' does (did) in the Senate should reflect his constituency and how much should reflect his personal beliefs?

Re:
"Let's be clear: In some key ways the dust-up over who read the whole NIE is a distraction and a side-issue."

For me, the fact that those folks claiming to represent the best interests of the voters, be they Republican, Democrat, or whatever, lose ALL support from me, and hopefully most other patriotic citizens when they are willing to send young people (and according to all the literature, the military is sending diagnosed mentally ill back to Iraq, stating they can test the medications in a wartime atmosphere ethically, since these soldiers are volunteers instead of draftees) to a war without even bothering to read ALL the relevent information available!
How DARE they play with the lives of others to this extent!
Perhaps WE need to recheck our values and moral convictions. How many of us would be okay with these clowns sending our mentally ill family members to Iraq to fight.
When we agree to this sad state of affairs, we have no business choosing to condemning one politician over another... anyone supporting this barbarous behavior has crossed the line of a civil society.
My belief is that we have lost any meaningful positive assets we have when we believe the above quoted statement. This one of the KEY issues, and as long as we deny this fact we will continue to play the game of putting our finger in the dike continually.
I believe the only way to turn this around is to get rid of ALL those scroundrels who show their inability or lack of desire to protect us common folk from the rest of the Washington crowd.
Of course, this opinion is biased... I tend to believe our young and mentally ill should be protected from the wolves by those of us who are supposed to be more capable, not fed to them.

I really want to know what people here think about it. I see so many comments griping and hating about every single thing that I don't see how it's possible for them to choose a candidate.

So I'd like to know: 1) whether a legislator is supposed to vote his own beliefs or vote representing his constituents? And 2) Who in the world measures up to the impossibly high standards people here have?

The executive summary of the NIE had ZERO counterarguments to what was presented--and that was basically the administration's case. Edwards certainly wouldn't have prepared for a trial in this manner and I find his lack of preparation for his vote appalling. In spite of his "my gut feelings" (and I've had enough of the gut thing with Bush), Edwards co-sponsored the Iraq resolution. How do you now say, I did what my advisors said and yet co-sponsor that very resolution that provides Congressional cover for this war?

BTW, we all know how most of the other candidates would have voted--Biden, Dodd, Edwards and Clinton voted for this resolution. Richardson supported it. Obama did not.

There is no possibility of getting out of Iraq right now. The votes simply are not there to force the "idiot guy" to pull out. Our next possibility is in September when Republicans in Congress will be in the frying pan--and we better have photo ops of them strolling through the Baghdad markets without helmets, flak jackets and armed escorts.

The misery right now is there are simply no good choices involving Iraq. I do think we'll have troops there at least providing minimal protection for the Kurds who have handled their freedom quite well, IMHO. So it logically goes back to the fools who put us there--and that includes the enablers in Congress and I simply don't care how they grovel now; I will not reward any of them with my primary vote, my money, or my work in their campaign. Won't happen.

There's a much more basic concept that you are avoiding. Pre-emptive war against a nation who had done us zero harm; against a nation whose citizens had done us zero harm. This war was voted on because of what "might happen" and not what "did happen".

These candidates who voted for this mess avoid the very basic concept of pre-emptive war. Why? Because they do not have any argument that makes sense outside the reason of imperial arrogance.

That's why Peolosi and Gore and Obama can agree. None saw an "imminent threat". None agreed on a pre-emptive war. It's not apples and oranges--it's simply that you are addressing the issue they way these candidates what to frame it. I don't agree with their framing. It's dishonest.

What is his current position on America starting a military war against a nation who had not harmed America, Americans, or American interest? That is an issue I am most interested in.

It's not hypocrisy -- see my reply to you above. Obama's been asked that question, and he has said something to the following effect, without becoming a pretzel: The war never should have been launched but once you've overthrown a regime and put 150,000 US soldiers in harm's way, you have to deal with the new reality that those who opposed the war desperately wished to avoid, and that means funding the occupation so long as it appears that there is a chance US forces can accomplish important objectives that might make an awful situation less bad. Notably, Obama let the Illinois voters know that, although he opposed the war, they should not expect him upon being sworn in to refuse to support any funding of it.

The reason that the war must be brought to an end now is because it is now clear to everyone but W and a few deadenders that we cannot meaningfully improve the situation in Iraq. The point at which that became clear is subject to debate, but it was not the moment Obama was sworn in as a Senator; even many diehard war opponents thought maybe just maybe the national elections in early 2005 would help stabilize Iraq and make it function tolerably. The point at which it became clear the situation was beyond our ability to mitigate came significantly later. Don't get me wrong; I'm not saying that in early 2005 anyone could reasonably conclude the war was worth launching, but only that one could reasonably believe that the United States -- having launched the war and having turned Iraq into a hellhole of sectarian violence, failed infrastructure, inadequate electricity, and so forth -- was capable through its occupation of at least undoing a small part of the damage.

Pre-emptive war against a nation who had done us zero harm...

No matter how loud you shout, no matter how often you repeat yourself; a falsehood is still false.

Some folks might recall Gulf I, especially if they had sons or daughters, mothers or fathers killed or wounded in that war.

Saddam was reported offering a hefty bonus to anyone shooting down an American plane with capture of one or more members of the crew when we patrolled the skies over Iraq to help protect the Kurds and Marsh Arabs from extermination. If it was your son or father being shot at, you probably would not regard Saddam as non-threatening.

I could go on and on about the Butcher of Baghdad but I suspect you get my point.

Whether we should have done anything to rescue Kuwaitis and/or protect indigenous peoples of Iraq from our former CIA asset is another question, but the claim that Saddam was harmless to us is obviously false.

Your hero Obama does not come with clean hands. He opposed Gulf II but is not so eager to get out as other candidates. His messianic message about the role of America in the world in the future is disturbing to this person who donated to Obama's cause.

Given all the choices available, I might yet vote for Obama should he be on the ballot in the primary. There is much to like about the man and some things not to like as well. Isn't it nearly always the way?

My own view is that it is helpful to tell the truth about things as best one can. Others see things differently it appears.

Best, Terry

Yes - Obama voting to continue the war was surprising

What do you mean by this. When did Obama vote to continue the war?

. Whatever, the merits of their book, and the obvious problems with Gerth in the past, the magazine excerpt was a solid piece of reporting that took Hillary on for substantive reasons, not bullshit ones like Whitewater.

How can you cavalierly dismiss Gerths past issues of less than credible reporting on substantive issues on the basis of the criticique being about a matter of substance vs. bullshit?. The substance of the issue does not enhance the credibility of an assertion, rather it is the evidence supporting the criticque of what  is substantive that is the most relevant matter about the substance of the issue being raised.

Gerth is using third party sourcing and that is  less than credible source no matter how substantive the issue being attacked. The lack of valid credible sources means the piece is anything but a solid piece of reporting. An ex-girlfriend of your spouse is a very tawdry source when it comes to references about the wife's political plans revealed in personal correspondence..wtf?  Statements which were initially reported in the' highly reputable' National Enquirer, no less?

Hillary prides herself on due dilligence and yet couldn't find the time to read a 90 page report about a matter of life and death. That's a serious issue and one that should be discussed by people like Digby, Atrios, etc.

Edwards prides himself on due diligence as well, so why is it that you can only see the core issue when it applies to Hillary but not Edwards?. The substance of debate did not shift as you assert, rather it appears, you are only able to see the value and importance of the analysis when the focus is on one candidate vs. another.

I agree this is a serious issue and consequently no candidate is exempt from scrutiny when it comes to  how they totally failed to read a critically important document that only they were privvy to as Senators, so they would be the best informed, prior to their vote. It is serious for Hilliary and it is just as serious for Edwards. Why are you blinded by who the candidate is when the substance and critical analysis remains the same independent of who failed to carry out their constitutional obligations?

But when there is a substantive critique like this one, it should be dealt with on its merits, not dismissed out of hand, just because the messenger is tainted.

You mean like Bush and the way he handled Katrina? We should not just dismiss his Iraq policy because it is a serious substantive issue with huge national impact, simply because his track record on handling substantive policy issues vital to our national security and executive decisions have been so inept?  Is that what you mean about not invalidating the merit of what a person says based on their track record of being wrong consistently?

While we may agree that national security is of vital interest we do not agree when you assert Bush has to be taken seriously because what he has chosen to opine  on is a substantive issue. Point of fact, the opposite would be true given what we  know  about him having been wrong repeatedly in the past, complete with lying sources to pump up his spewing of erroneous messages.

David Brock has a close relationship with Hillary Clinton. We should wonder if his throwing out venom on Gerth and Van Natta's magazine piece isn't just a way to cloud our eyes from the issues raised. I urge people to read the actual piece, despite it's authorship it's a good article.

James Baker has a close relationship with the Bush family. Should we wonder if his throwing out venom on the Iraq war policy isn't just a way to keep the real issues out of the public eye when he opposes Bush's Iraq policy.  We read the Iraq Study Report and Baker was on target, so was Brock...despite their relationship to the individuals seen as the root problem.

Bottomline: It is not Gerth's message it is the lack of reliable sources and his track record of less than stellar sourcing  that is the problem here.

did you read the actual piece? There's hardly any anonymous sourcing in it at all. 90% of it is just stuff from the public record that Hillary has tried to bury. Most damning: she claims now to be "misled" by Bush not using diplomacy, yet she voted against the Levin amendment in October 2002, which would have forced Bush to get Security Council approval or go back to Congress a second time. Why would she do that? If she was so concerned about diplomacy (bullshit obviously) wouldn't you vote to ensure the diplomatic process was followed through? A few Senators who voted for the war also voted for Levin, why didn't she? Isn't that important to understanding who she is as a candidate and just how much of a war-monger she was and will be as President? She has a serious complex about needing to appear tough and allowing the President to preemptively invade a country, destroy it, and kill hundreds of thousads of innocents in the worst foreign policy disaster in the country's history is apparently the way to do it. Misled? Give me a fucking break. Does Gerth's lack of credibility mean that vote against Levin didn't happen? Instead she voted for this toothless Byrd amendment, which she now tries to highlight to anyone ignorant enough to buy it. The Byrd amendment left everything up to the President for him to decide, every 12 months, whether to keep the war going. It left it up to him alone it wasn't binding in any way. To me that's an important detail in the article. Again, how does Gerth's lack of credibility in your view affect that fact?
Look it up in the Senate record if it's Gerth telling you the truth that bothers you. The truth is the truth, it doesn't matter where it comes from.
Gerth's attack on Hillary was actually from the left. I guess I just find it strange that people are so reflexively defending the Clintons. They're terrible and though obviously better than Bush, they're still terrible. Clinton is a complete phony and will bend to the prevailing winds.

whiterosebuddy, I think you are mixing two different points; the Gerth/VanAtta piece that the previous commenter was saying should be taken seriously was the more limited piece in the Sunday Times magazine and not their book. The Sunday magazine piece traces Hillary's public statements and public votes in the period leading to the Iraq war, and then contrasts them with her later explanations as to what she was up to. Virtually everything in that particular magazine article comes from on-the-record public documents, including her actual Iraq-related votes as a Senator, two of which she would like everyone to forget about and one of which she has blatantly misrepresented.

The book, to be sure, does go back over gossipy stuff about the state of the Clintons' marriage, their supposed joint ambitions and the like, and relies on less reliable sources, as to which the Gerth/VanAtta reputation could rightly be considered in evaluating how much credibility to attach to the material.

Virtually everything in that particular magazine article comes from on-the-record public documents, including her actual Iraq-related votes as a Senator, two of which she would like everyone to forget about and one of which she has blatantly misrepresented. ...The book, to be sure, does go back over gossipy stuff about the state of the Clintons' marriage

Ahhh, thanks. Did Brock address this article as well?

 I wonder whether that thorough contrast of her public statements was politically motivated? ..snicker

Point of contention: The Kurds are playing nice? Are we talking about the same Iraq? The PKK was responsible for the Ankara bombing last week and Turkey is currently amassing troops near the border to go after the PKK camps in Iraq.

As for continually comparing apples and oranges, I'm feel like I'm wasting time repeating myself. You, and many others, think Obama would have voted against the authorization had he been in Congress. Of course, Obama has said he did not have access to the classified intelligence that members of Congress did, and that he might have voted differently if he had. Simply put, Obama knows that the comparison is not directly equitable.

He's also said in 2003 he would have voted against funding the war further, "because, at a certain point, we have to say 'no' to George Bush." But then when he got to Congress, in June 2006 when Kerry produced a bill to bring the troops home in 2007, he voted against it citing the use of "arbitrary deadlines" as a bad idea.

Look, we can sit here and argue about the past all we want, it doesn't change it. The only thing that can change is the future. We should focus our effort on what to do to get the troops home. And I think it's quite possible that without Edwards running 1st in Iowa and being the strongest anti-war candidate, Obama and Hillary would have voted for the supplemental. Their complete lack of effort in trying to move Congress to vote against it, suggests that to be true. For people that truly care about ending the war, that lack of effort cannot go unnoticed. But if all it is, is rah-rah for my candidate, politics over policy, then we can just go back to spending time comparing apples to oranges about things that never can be changed while our troops and our foreign policy languish in Iraq.

ditto.

It's too bad they didn't add a 1 term limit and public-financed campaigning while they were at it.

Given this strict constructionist argument, I guess we're doing what the Framers intended: Letting Bush do whatever he wants for his full term. After all he was elected. It doesn't matter that his poll numbers are low. That he's lost touch with the American people. It doesn't matter if he is completely wrong about everything and/or crazy. We elected him and he has no obligation to represent his constituents' changed opinions.

There's a name for people that don't care about the "haves and have nots" divide. They're called "the haves".

It's funny that no one really seemed to address the important aspect of this story. Namely, that Edwards seemed to be suggesting he read the classified NIE but this is contradicted by his spokesperson. I'd give him the benefit of the doubt once, but twice?

Either he didn't know what people were talking about (bad) or he was deliberately misleading people (worse). It's not about message for me, it's about trust in Edwards. Personally, I don't necessarily fault Sens for not reading the NIE or their vote--I thought it was pretty clear that everyone expected Bush to go back to the UN. But that isn't the point. The point is whether we can take what Edwards says as face value. If not, then that limits his credibility on what he says about the issues.

You didn't answer the second question.

As much as it pains me to say this, JJJ and WRB have a point.

-Dave Adams-

There's a name for people that don't care about the "haves and have nots" divide. They're called "the haves".

It's the 'havemores' that don't care.The" haves" are struggling as much as the havenots nowadays

The 23 Senators who voted against the AUMF and the 100+ Congresspersons who voted against it as well.

I think that individuals do their best to measure up to those standards who do not make decisions based on political expediency especially those of such grave significance as taking our country to war. If they do, they can explain their thought process in non-political terms. Something Edwards and Hillary have failed to do.

 In that sense I would say that JFK, WJC and BHO also measure up. These are individuals who have clear in-depth multi-variate thinking along with superb critical reasoning skills that allow them to discuss the process of their decision making. Their analysis is cogent and multifaceted...not just a linear thought process. It is a way of thinking, seeing and acting for powerful purposeful change. It is a type of visionary leadership that looks for what is working and leaves people knowing how to have more success because they have done it before.

Again, it is judgment subsequent to analysis that determines whether they measure up.

The 23 Senators who voted against the AUMF and the 100+ Congresspersons who voted against it as well.

You would vote for all of these people for Pres in 08 just based on this one vote? And none of the candidates who are actually running?

You would vote for all of these people for Pres in 08 just based on this one vote?

Your question was who measures up to the expectations voiced on this thread.