Informed Speculation

With the hat tip to Power Line, by far the most delicious editorial of the day (week? month?) comes from the New York Sun. ‘Frank Rich’s War’ absolutely skewers one of my favorite targets, at least pre-TimesSelect. Just a small taste:

Those who charge President Bush and Vice President Cheney with lying to get America involved in the war in Iraq, as the New York Times columnist Frank Rich did yesterday, have a special obligation to get the truth correct themselves. It’s one thing for Mr. Rich to disagree with the decision to go to war in Iraq and to blame Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney for the decision. It’s another for Mr. Rich to accuse our elected leaders of misleading the country while the columnist himself goes about misleading readers of The New York Times.

Mr. Rich’s New York Times column yesterday refers to Mr. Bush’s 2003 State of the Union address with the “bogus 16 words about Saddam’s fictitious African uranium.” Those words were, “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” But those 16 words are neither bogus nor fictitious. They were and are true. A July 2004 report of the bipartisan Senate Select Committee on Intelligence reported that an Iraqi delegation visited Niger in June of 1999 and met with Niger’s then-prime minister, Ibrahim Mayaki. The committee relayed that Mr. Mayaki said the meeting was about “expanding commercial relations” between the two countries, which Mr. Mayaki interpreted to mean “that the delegation wanted to discuss uranium yellowcake sales.”

A July 2004 report by the British government’s Butler Commission found that Mr. Bush’s State of the Union comment was “well-founded.” As the Commission put it, “It is accepted by all parties that Iraqi officials visited Niger in 1999.The British Government had intelligence from several different sources indicating that this visit was for the purpose of acquiring uranium. Since uranium constitutes almost three-quarters of Niger’s exports, the intelligence was credible. … The forged documents were not available to the British Government at the time its assessment was made, and so the fact of the forgery does not undermine it.”

According to the Butler Commission, Saddam Hussein’s government claimed that a 1999 mission to Niger by Iraq’s ambassador to the Vatican was for the purpose of conveying an invitation to the Nigerian president to visit Iraq. Now, it’s possible that, in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, if Frank Rich were president, he would have concluded that the Iraqi ambassador to the Vatican probably just had jetted down to Niger for the purpose of hand-delivering an invitation. But the British concluded otherwise, and it’s hardly “bogus” or “fictitious” for Mr. Bush to have said so. Given Saddam’s known nuclear ambitions – remember Osirak? – and Niger’s main export, would it have been prudent for Mr. Bush to take the word of Saddam’s envoy over that of the British?

I often say read the whole thing, and I always mean it – but this time I double-dog mean it…and everyone knows you can’t turn down a double-dog dare…