Truth does not harm the troops

From the Journal Sentinel
Posted: Nov. 12, 2005
http://www.jsonline.com/news/editorials/nov05/369897.asp

The president used the occasion of Veterans Day on Friday to lash out at critics of the Iraq war. In doing so, he displayed once again a propensity to play the patriot card to deflect attention from possible administration missteps rather than providing answers that could satisfy critics.

"While it's perfectly legitimate to criticize my decision or the conduct of the war, it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began," he said in Tobyhanna, Pa. He added, "These baseless attacks send the wrong signal to our troops and to an enemy that is questioning America's will."

The problem: There is mounting evidence that there are legitimate questions about how the nation was led to war. This is not about rewriting history but about getting history right.

A recently released declassified document, for instance, shows that the Bush administration knew or should have known that information it cited on Saddam Hussein training al-Qaida operatives in biological and chemical weapons was likely false. The administration, including the president, presented the information as fact nonetheless.

And much the same can be said about intelligence on everything from aluminum tubes to mobile labs to mushroom clouds to Hussein's links to Sept. 11 to yellowcake from Niger.

One defense could be that intelligence is an inexact science. And the president is quite correct. The Senate Intelligence Committee in a previous report on flawed intelligence found no evidence of administration pressure on the intelligence agencies to "cook" the data.

But this is an assertion in and of itself that demands more focused attention given other revelations. Moreover, what really needs to be answered is why the administration spoke to the public with such certainty when the intelligence on Iraq's unconventional weapons was murky at best. The existence of weapons of mass destruction was sold to the public as solid-gold, slam-dunk fact.
The public deserves to know whether this was a matter of honest mistakes or deception. The president should want these questions answered given increasing doubts about him and his administration, as reflected in recent polls.

Before the 2004 election, Sen. Pat Roberts, the Kansas Republican who heads the Intelligence Committee, told Senate Democrats and the nation that after looking at the intelligence itself - found in this "Phase 1" investigation to be overstated and mischaracterized - he would get to Phase 2. This would address how the administration used this intelligence.

It's well after the election, and there still is no Phase 2 report that the public can see, though there appears to be an actual investigation going on. It will apparently compare what was known with what was said. This is information long overdue.

Finding out how the administration handled war intelligence is not about partisanship. It's not about gotcha politics. And finding out does not undermine the troops. This is simply about seeking truth in the urgent matter of war and death.


From the Nov. 13, 2005, editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel