Who lied, and who didn't

Mark Steyn:

Well, the week went pretty much as I predicted seven days ago:

BUSH LIED!! Not.

BLAIR LIED!!! Not.

But it turns out JOE WILSON LIED! PEOPLE DIED. Of embarrassment mostly. At least I'm assuming that's why the New York Times, MSNBC's Chris Matthews, PBS drone Bill Moyers and all the other media bigwigs Joseph C. Wilson IV suckered have fallen silent on the subject of the white knight of integrity they've previously given the hold-the-front-page treatment, too.

Heigh-ho. It would be nice to hear his media boosters howling en masse, "Say it ain't so, Joe!" But Joe Wilson's already slipping down the old media memory hole. He served his purpose -- he damaged Bush, he tainted the liberation of Iraq -- and yes, by the time you read this the Kerry campaign may well have pulled the plug on his Web site, and Salon magazine's luxury cruise will probably have to find another headline speaker, and he won't be doing Tim Russert again any time soon. But what matters to the media and to Senator Kerry is that he helped the cause of (to quote his book title) The Politics Of Truth, and if it takes a serial liar to do that, so be it.

But before he gets lowered in his yellowcake overcoat into the Niger River, let's pause to consider: What do Joe Wilson's lies mean? And what does it say about the Democrats and the media that so many high-ranking figures took him at his word?

First, contrary to what Wilson wrote in the New York Times, Saddam Hussein was trying to acquire uranium from Niger. In support of that proposition are a Senate report in Washington, Lord Butler's report in London, MI6, French intelligence, other European agencies -- and, as we now know, the CIA report, based on Joe Wilson's original briefing to them. Against that proposition is Joe Wilson's revised version of events for the Times.

This isn't difficult. In 1999, a senior Iraqi "trade" delegation went to Niger. Uranium accounts for 75 percent of Niger's exports. The rest is goats, cowpeas and onions. So who sends senior trade missions to Niger? Maybe Saddam dispatched his Baathist big shots all the way to the dusty capital of Niamy because he had a sudden yen for goat and onion stew with a side order of black-eyed peas, and Major Wanke, the then-president, had offered him a great three-for-one deal.

Go read the whole thing. And speaking of eating generous helpings of crow ("gulle porties van eigen woorden eten") with side orders of black peas, The Butler Report is online. The Butler commissions concludes there were serious problems with intelligence gathering (duh!) but Clayton Cramer highlights some interesting passages in the report:

53. It is a well-known phenomenon within intelligence communities that memory of past failures can cause over-estimation next time around. It is equally possible to be misled by past success. For 45 years of Cold War, the intelligence community’s major task was to assess the intentions and capabilities of the Soviet Union and its satellite states14. As the details which had been sought became more accessible, ?rst through glasnost’ and explicit exchanges of data under international agreements and then fairly readily through open sources after the dissolution of the Soviet empire, most of the intelligence community’s conclusions were vindicated – at least in the areas in which it had spent the largest part of its efforts, the Soviet bloc’s military equipment, capabilities and order of battle.

54. But it is risky to transfer one model to cases where that model will only partially apply. Against dictatorships, dependent upon personal or tribal loyalties and insensitive to international politics, an approach that worked well for a highly-structured, relatively cohesive state target is not necessarily applicable even though many aspects of the work may appear to be identical. The targets which the UK intelligence community needs to study most carefully today are those that structurally and culturally look least like the Government and society it serves. We return to this when we consider terrorism, at Chapter 3.

[...]

77. Colonel Qadhafi’s dramatic change of policy should be viewed in the wider context of his decision in the late 1990s to move towards rapprochement with the West through, among other things, an attempt to resolve the Lockerbie issue. Much of Colonel Qadha?’s motivation for this rapprochement was economic. He recognised that he needed western, and especially US, investment in Libya’s economy. The UK was important to him because it offered the best route to the US.

78. It is a matter of judgement how far the ‘Iraq factor’ was decisive in Colonel Qadhafi’s policy change, but it seems likely that coalition action in Iraq in 2003 accelerated a process that was already under way. Nevertheless, between the late 1990s and 2003, Colonel Qadha? may well have thought that he could achieve rapprochement with the West while retaining nuclear, chemical and ballistic missile programmes. If so, it took some time for him to recognise the incompatibility between these two objectives.

[...]

207. From our analysis of JIC assessments in this period, we are left with four strong impressions. First, of effective - but not demonstrably complete - work carried out by the IAEA and UNSCOM to supervise the dismantlement of Iraq’s nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programmes, together with those missile programmes prohibited under United Nations Security Council Resolution 687. Secondly, of a progressive reduction in JIC estimates of Iraq’s indigenous capabilities in the period to 1994/95. Thirdly, however, of growing suspicions and concerns underlying JIC assessments between 1995 and 1998 of Iraq’s chemical, biological and ballistic missile capabilities, which were exacerbated and reinforced by Iraqi prevarication, concealment and deception. We detect signs that this context led to the JIC making its estimates of Iraqi capabilities on an over-cautious or worst case basis (not always declared as such).

[...]

397. For the reasons given above, even now it is premature to reach conclusions about Iraq’s prohibited weapons. But from the evidence which has been found and de-briefing of Iraqi personnel it appears that prior to the war the Iraqi regime:

a. Had the strategic intention of resuming the pursuit of prohibited weapons programmes, including if possible its nuclear weapons programme, when United Nations inspection regimes were relaxed and sanctions were eroded or lifted.

b. In support of that goal, was carrying out illicit research and development, and procurement, activities.

c. Was developing ballistic missiles with a range longer than permitted under relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions.

d. Did not, however, have significant - if any - stocks of chemical or biological weapons in a state fit for deployment, or developed plans for using them.

[...]

499. We conclude that, on the basis of the intelligence assessments at the time, covering both Niger and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the statements on Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa in the Government’s dossier, and by the Prime Minister in the House of Commons, were well-founded. By extension, we conclude also that the statement in President Bush’s State of the Union Address of 28 January 2003 that:

The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

was well-founded.