Two Must-Reads

The Bush White House has never been overly concerned with the truth, much less telling the truth to the American people. Two new articles by two top-rate journalists drive that point home regarding the war with Iraq.

Sy Hersh: Who Lied to Whom? Hersh, writing in the New Yorker, looks into the case of the supposed attempts by Iraq to purchase a large amount of uranium oxide from Nigeria. The Bush administration used this "evidence" of Iraqi nuclear ambitions to help convince Congress to grant authority to the President to go to war in Iraq, and to mobilize public support for that war. But as discussed here a few weeks ago, the documents that supported this claim turned out to be rather crude forgeries. So who lied? Apparently, almost everyone, and certainly the CIA.

The former high-level intelligence official told me that some senior C.I.A. officials were aware that the documents weren’t trustworthy. “It’s not a question as to whether they were marginal. They can’t be 'sort of' bad, or 'sort of' ambiguous. They knew it was a fraud—it was useless. Everybody bit their tongue and said, 'Wouldn’t it be great if the Secretary of State said this?'" …

“Somebody deliberately let something false get in there,” the former high-level intelligence official added. “It could not have gotten into the system without the agency being involved. Therefore it was an internal intention. Someone set someone up.”

Josh Marshall: Practice to Deceive. Marshall gives us something new to think about regarding the Bush administration's ultimate aims in the war with Iraq. It's not pretty:

In short, the administration is trying to roll the table—to use U.S. military force, or the threat of it, to reform or topple virtually every regime in the region, from foes like Syria to friends like Egypt, on the theory that it is the undemocratic nature of these regimes that ultimately breeds terrorism. So events that may seem negative—Hezbollah for the first time targeting American civilians; U.S. soldiers preparing for war with Syria—while unfortunate in themselves, are actually part of the hawks' broader agenda. Each crisis will draw U.S. forces further into the region and each countermove in turn will create problems that can only be fixed by still further American involvement, until democratic governments—or, failing that, U.S. troops—rule the entire Middle East.

Of course, Marshall argues, Bush doesn't tell us all this up front; instead, war is justified on a shifting terrain of links to terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, and brutal dictatorship. If most people did know what the administration was up to, they'd never support it. So Bush and Company decide they don't really need to know.

Cheney's Manipulations

Paul Krugman's new column today, Delusions of Power, gives us yet another reason why Dick Cheney doesn't deserve the reputation for quiet competence that has somehow become his trademark. Focusing on the 2001 California "energy crisis", Krugman notes that Cheney was sure the problem was due to excessive government regulation; the manipulation of the energy markets by companies like Enron had nothing to do with it. But "everything Mr. Cheney said was wrong."

In fact, the California energy crisis had nothing to do with environmental restrictions, and a lot to do with market manipulation. In 2001 the evidence for manipulation was basically circumstantial. But now we have a new report from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which until now has discounted claims of market manipulation. No more: the new report concludes that market manipulation was pervasive, and offers a mountain of direct evidence, including phone conversations, e-mail and memos. There's no longer any doubt: California's power shortages were largely artificial, created by energy companies to drive up prices and profits.

The important thing to take away from Krugman's piece, though, isn't just that Cheney blew it; rather, the key is why he blew it, and why he will continue to blow it.

One answer is that Mr. Cheney made sure that his task force included only like-minded men: as far as we can tell, he didn't consult with anyone except energy executives. So the task force was subject to what military types call "incestuous amplification," defined by Jane's Defense Weekly as "a condition in warfare where one only listens to those who are already in lock-step agreement, reinforcing set beliefs and creating a situation ripe for miscalculation."

Another answer is that Mr. Cheney basically drew his advice about how to end the energy crisis from the very companies creating the crisis, for fun and profit. But was he in on the joke?

I don't see anything in Cheney's makeup that would indicate that there won't be a lot more "incestuous amplification" in his future. And I'd like to have an answer to that last question, please.

War Blogging

Appropriately named Cynthia Webb has a new "Filter" piece in the Washington Post called Blogging the War: A Guide. Not much new here, but there is a good list of pro-war and anti-insane-foreign-policy blogs for your reading enjoyment. I've been taking peeks at The Agonist for the last few days — good stuff.