The New York Times Strikes (Out) Again

The big "scoop" on today's front page will be deconstructed at length. Our own professor Geraghty has already done a fine job, and Ed Morrissey has added some further thought and analysis. The bottom line is that the Times has apparently embraced the position taken by Senators Santorum and Roberts, and Representative Hoekstra: that much valuable information was contained in captured Iraqi documents, and that the Intelligence Community was far too slow in translating and evaluating the documents, and that it would be a Very Good Thing to start posting the documents online so that they could be evaluated. Santorum and Hoekstra were up against determined resistance from DNI Negroponte and his people, and many in the White House were, let us say, very slow to respond. The president always said he supported the move, but somehow it never got done. After drafting legislation that would have compel led the executive branch to start declassifying and posting the documents, Santorum, Roberts and Hoekstra finally got the process going earlier this year.

I will discuss the whole thing with Angleton over the weekend, if the ouija board works, but this story is probably a leak from intelligence people trying to embarrass the Senators and the Congressman, protect the Intel Community's "right" to classify and declassify at its own will and on its own schedule. and make the president out to be an idiot (surprise!). But, just like Senator Kerry, it is the leakers (and, insofar as the Times shares their objectives, the Times itself) who have exposed their own consumate stupidity. For the story asserts that a) Iraq was on the verge of mastering nuclear weapons technology and b) that Iran is trying to build atomic bombs. Or, "Bush didn't lie."

And in case you were wondering, Santorum, Roberts and Hoekstra always insisted that nothing that could possibly compromise national security should be posted.

Furthermore--and here you have only to look at Ed Morrissey's excellent blog--by implication the Times has given enhanced credibility to the many other explosive contents of the Iraq documents, heretofore ignored by William Broad and other Times sleuths. Those include the close working relationship between Saddam and Al Qaida.

I wonder if Steve Hadley will apologize for permitting the documents to be posted... Posted at 9:27 AM

November 3, 2006

NYTimes: Bush told truth! Saddam a true threat! Yellowcake!

Filed under: The Fourth Estate, America, US Military, War on Terror, Culture of Treason?

“Earlier today, I ordered America’s armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces. Their mission is to attack Iraq’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors”
- President William Jefferson Clinton 12/16/98

The Bush Derangement Syndrome at the NY Times has reached such yelpingly mad levels that the Times its inevitable breakdown is nigh. The most telling symptom (besides yesterday’s outright lying) of an impending crash is now manifesting itself as the Times’ inability to reason or use simple logic.

In the paper’s insatiable hunger to destroy the Evil Enemy Bush and His Minions, they have frontpaged this story:

U.S. Web Archive Is Said to Reveal a Nuclear Primer

Among the dozens of documents in English were Iraqi reports written in the 1990’s and in 2002 for United Nations inspectors in charge of making sure Iraq abandoned its unconventional arms programs after the Persian Gulf war. Experts say that at the time, Mr. Hussein’s scientists were on the verge of building an atom bomb, as little as a year away.

Yeah! In the wee small hours of some morning, President Bush, the stupidest (and most evil!) man in the world personally uploaded into the web ALL OF IRAQ’S NUCLEAR PLANS, drawings, diagrams, equations. (Ummm…actually Congress put this stuff online, but never mind about that. It’s not like they gave tech information to China, or nuclear power to North Korea, but I digress).

So, the NY Times twirls its mustache and writes:

Stupid Evil Bush Reveals Saddam’s Nuke Plans, and He was Only a Year Away from Having Nukes and….and….

Times Peon #1: HOLY CRAP, Mr. Keller, did we just validate everything Dick Cheney and Colin Powell and stupid evil George Bush said to the UN? When we’re spilling secrets, we’re not supposed to do that!

Keller: OMG, WE DID! We DID validate these scheming nazi theocon bastards!!!

Times Peon #2: And…and…and what about Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame and those sixteen words Bush said…you know, the impeachable 16 words about the Brit intelligence and the Yellowcake! Jim Geraghty at TKS says we might have freaking validated that story, too!

Keller: Ohhhhhh crap! And freaking bloggers! Okay, let’s spin this, baby, spin it! All hands on deck! Turn this ship around! Call Chris Matthews! Call MoDo - no, wait, don’t call her, she’ll make it worse by pretending to be Emma Peel, or something - call Bob Herbert! He’s a wiz at shifting the rudder! Spin, spin! Call Olbermann!

Peon #3: Aye, Aye, captain! Uh, sir, Olbermann is chewing floorboard and Matthews is crying, again. Should we call Judith Miller, sir?

Keller: Jesus God Almighty! No, no, just let her stay buried!

Times Peon #2: There is no God but Allah, sir, and Mohammed is his prophet. Be careful with those acclamations or we might get into trouble with Islamofa-

Keller: Don’t you say Islamofascists, Peon! You know the only fascists on this planet live in the White House and…some place in Kansas…

Times Peon #2: Sorry sir, lost my head - a confusing day. Anyway, we want them on our side, sir, the ummmm…non-fascist Islamists. They’re telling people that the Democrats should win this election!

Keller: Exactly. Thank you, Peon, you’re a good man for reminding me about them. You’re right, this is no time to lose our heads!

Times Peon #1: Hah-haha, good pun, sir!

Keller: Pun, hell, I’m quite serious! (Pounding well-coiffed head against the newsroom’s fifth column)…I gotta think…gotta think…we need…we require…we gotta get Clinton in on this, no choice, only Clinton can spin this thing as adroitly as we’re going to need!

Times Peon #3: Which Clinton would that be, sir? Bill Clinton was on the cover of Time Magazine calling Saddam out in 1998 and saying he had WMD and possibly nukes! Hillary Clinton said in 2003 that the intelligence that stupid evil Bush was showing congress was “consistant with what we saw in the White House in the 1990’s.”

Times Peon #2: And besides, sir, you’re going to have a hard time using Clinton if the bloggers start reminding everyone about the nuke trigger he gave to Iran in 2000!

Keller: (under his breath) Damn! Freaking Clintons, can never count on them for anything! What about Gore!

Times Peon #1: Unavailable, sir! Flying a private jet to Iceland to warn about Global Warning, the biggest threat facing the world at this time, as you know!

Keller: Kobayashi Maru?

Peon #2: Fiction, sir. Star Trek, I think?

Keller: Albright! Gimmee Albright!

Times Peon #3: Under the desk with her head down on her knees, sir, with Byron Calame! She’s in a sort of trance muttering this over and over again: “Iraq is a long way from [here], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face. I knew that when I said it on Feb 18, 1998.” She keeps saying it, sir. And Calame is saying, “Banking data, NSA leak…no way out, no way out, no way out.”

Times Peon #1: Albright and Calame have gone bye-bye, sir.

Keller: I always did think they were the same person…alright, you know what? Get Kerry. Bring on John Kerry! He was a sailor! He’ll spin this wheel and turn us aright! He knows how to get out the information we want gotten out. And besides, he owes us! We shot down the Swiftboat Vets and never asked to see Kerry’s milrecords, and we and got him an extra 10-15% in 2004!

Times Peon #2: Confined to quarters, sir, on account of nobody really likes him, much.

Keller: Okay,dammit, then sound the sirens! Dive! Dive! Dive!

Times Peon #2: Sir, we’re not a submarine, we are the majestic shining jewel of the journalistic sea! We are The TIMESTANIC!

Times Peon #1: Iceberg, straigh’ ahead!

Hate consumes the hater and the NY Times is killing itself because it hates stupid evil George W. Bush and all you unsophisticated, knuckledragging little red-staters stupid enough to believe him, too. Oh, and every chance they can get, they’re going to weaken our defenses against people like Saddam, and countries like Iran, and North Korea. Until, of course, there is a someone with a D after her/his name once again skulking about the Oval Office.

“In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members … It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons.”
– Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct 10, 2002

In my experience, Ed Morrissey is going to be the go-to “Captain” on this story, so check back with him throughout the day. He more than anyone (and certainly not the “mediating intelligences of the press”) has been keeping track of the slow, steady translations workand the info we’re gleaning from 45,000 boxes of Iraqi documents no one else seems to care about.

-- http://theanchoressonline.com/2006/11/03/nytimes-bush-told-truth-saddam-a-true-threat-yellowcake/

I disagree with Ledeen and the NYT spin on this event. The process worked. Important - but not mission critical - intelligence data the intelligence community did not have the capacity to translate and analyze was made available to a broad audience so that the audience could supplement the workload. The concerned public became a part of the intelligence process and was able to determine which documents were or were not important. Once the revelation was made the document, indeed all of the documents were made unavailable. After all, the potential victims of nuclear proliferation are indeed the public so why shouldn't they be empowered to help secure themselves? I am dumbfounded that it was the IAEA that actually found the document (honestly I doubt they found it) and subsequently complained about it (I don't doubt the IAEA complained to US officials). That is ultimately the IAEA's mandate... when they are informed a problem with proliferation exists they usually try to explain it away in terms other than nuclear proliferation. This time they are actually doing their job. The responsability for these threatening documents has shifted from Saddam's dictatorship to the United States, but better late than never, right? For the IAEA to do their job maybe it is necessary to topple threatening regimes and put their documents online for the free world to see - the modern equivalent of severed heads on a medieval pike.

U.S. Web Archive Is Said to Reveal a Nuclear Primer: [EXCERPT]“John Negroponte warned us that we don’t know what’s in these documents, so these are being put out at some risk, and that was a warning that he put out right when they first released the documents,” Mr. Card said on NBC’s “Today” show, according to The Associated Press.

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