Newsweek-- The latest orchestrated ’s bungled
at Guantanamo story furor about flush over
prison guards flushing the Koran down the toilet
comes at a convenient time for the White House.
So convenient that conspiracists might suspect
the anonymous Pentagon official who fed the
allegation to ace reporter Michael Isikoff but
recanted after rioting in Afghanistan deliberately
set the magazine up for a fall. But that would
assume a level of planning and foresight of which
the Bush administration frankly seems incapable.
What this White House is good at—all it’s
really good at—is deflecting blame for its own
catastrophic blunders by diverting attention.
How ironic that Isikoff, with a long-demonstrated
weakness for singlesource stories, turns out
to be the stooge. (His book, "Uncovering Clinton,"
actually quotes an anonymous caller’s smutty
allegations against Bill Clinton exactly one
page before condemning Internet gossip Matt Drudge
as a "menace to... responsible journalism. ")
It’s amusing to see Linda Tripp and Lucianne
Goldberg’s hero during the Clinton impeachment
made the latest right-wing bête noire.
(That’s French for a clay pigeon.)
Two things need to be said about Newsweek’s error.
(Disclosure: I once worked for the magazine
and have friends there, none involved in this
incident.) First, White House press spokesman Scott
McClellan’s attempt to blame Newsweek for deaths
in the Afghan riots reeks of hypocrisy. No less
an authority than Gen. Richard Myers, chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, insisted that the disturbances
stemmed from local politics, not the alleged
desecration of the Muslim holy book at a faraway prison.
Of course, that was before Isikoff’s source recanted,
so Myers may have been in CYA mode.
Second, Myers had to suspect that the Newsweek
story might be accurate. Allegations by former
prisoners that U.S. Army interrogators at Guantanamo
abused the Koran have been published in
The Washington Post, The New York Times, The
Philadelphia Inquirer and several European
newspapers. They’ve appeared in lawsuits filed
in the U.S. and Britain.
Given that Army reports document female interrogators
parading halfnaked in front of detainees,
touching them provocatively, even smearing fake
menstrual blood on their faces in grotesque attempts
to exploit fears of ritual impurity, mistreatment
of the Koran seems quite likely. Indeed, the only news
value in Newsweek’s brief item was its seeming
confirmation of an old tale.
Anyway, here’s the story White House spin artists
don’t want you paying attention to. During the
run-up to the British election, The Sunday Times
of London published a previously top-secret
government memorandum dated July 23, 2002. It
reported on Prime Minister Tony Blair and
other British officials’ meetings with their
American counterparts about Iraq.
Of particular interest were the findings of Sir
Richard Dearlove, known as" C, "the head of MI6,
the British CIA. Here’s the key paragraph:" C
reported on his recent talks in Washington. There
was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military
action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to
remove Saddam, through military action, justified
by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD.
But the intelligence and facts were being fixed
around the policy.... There was little discussion
in Washington of the aftermath after military
action. "
Invading and occupying Iraq, in short, was a done
deal months before President Bush began his
sales campaign in September 2002. The war would
be justified by claiming a link between
terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.
" But the case was thin, "the memo added." Saddam
was not threatening his neighbors, and his
WMD capacity was less than that of Libya, North
Korea or Iran. "
Repeat: "[T] he intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
Now in British usage, "fixed" doesn’t signify
deliberate corruption; it’s more like "arranged."
A decision had been reached, and the "intelligence"
was being shaped to fit it. Here’s how
Bush explained it during his 2003 State of the
Union message: "U.S. intelligence indicates that
Saddam Hussein had upwards of 30,000 munitions
capable of delivering chemical agents....
[W] e know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had
several mobile biological weapons labs. These are
designed to produce germ warfare agents, and
can be moved from place to a place to evade
inspectors.... The British government has learned
that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant
quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence
sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase
high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear
weapons production. Saddam Hussein has not
credibly explained these activities. He clearly
has much to hide." As the deaths keep mounting—
1,613 American soldiers, more than 300 allied
troops and private contractors, not to mention
tens of thousands of Iraqis—it’s worthwhile remembering
that none of that turned out to be true.
Having given no thought to the aftermath of invasion,
the White House now insists that all is well
as Iraq spirals into a bloody civil war its U.S.-sponsored
government appears powerless to prevent.
If not, blame the messenger.