The Most Damning News that Won't Make Your Local News

by emptywheel

The Senate Dems just held a hearing on pre-war intelligence, an attempt to make up for the fact that Pat Roberts has all but cancelled the Phase II investigation. As witnesses they had:

• Carl Ford ("John Bolton is a Kiss Ass Kick Down Kind of Guy" and former head of INR) [Bolton comment corrected per jonnybutter--got my ass kissing and my down kicking confused]
• Larry Wilkerson (Powell's Chief of Staff and the guy who put together Powell's UN speech)
• Wayne White (INR's principal Iraq analyst)
• Paul Pillar (who worked at the NIO and told Bush Iraq didn't have nukes)
• Joseph Cirincione (former intell)
• Michael Smith (Downing Street Memo reporter)
• Rod Barton (who wasn't allowed to discredit the mobile weapons labs)

(Thanks to Kagro X for making me go broke by watching it)

Anyway, the real fireworks were sparked, twice, by Congressman Walter Jones, who joined the Senate Dems in asking questions.

First, Jones asked how OSP had been able to hijack the intelligence and bring us to war. Larry Wilkerson answered, "The Vice President."

Then, Jones asked Joseph Cirincione if the law had been broken. Quoting from Ellicatt:

[Jones]: Do you feel the law was broken?  Congress was responsible for sending troops to Iraq.  Do you feel that down the road it could be seen as proven?

[Cirincione]:  As deeply flawed as it is, most of it was done legally, they won the policy battles.  The question now is in the coverup; are they telling the truth about their roles? These are the landmines; if congress persues this and tries to find the truth of what went wrong, you will get into criminal areas and coverup.

Well, hopefully CSPAN will replay the hearing so maybe ten more people will see this clear indictment of, as Wilkerson said, The Vice President.

Comments

[emptywheel]

Congressman Jones is Mr. Freedom Fries, who recanted his ways AND HOW. It's unclear who he'll be eating lunch in the House cafeteria going forward, because damn did he get to the thick of the issue.

[njr]

upcoming smears of both murtha and jones ???

thank for keeping us informed ew, thanks K-X

[JohnLopresti]

I wonder if you know about this four year college class, now in summer recess, doubtless, that collects unreported news as a young journalist's introduction to understanding newsworthiness. Evidently they even sell their compendium yearly as a CD; though, these times, likely they need to contemplate making the next issue encompass several CDs; even the Anatomy of a White House Smear 3 now is 228KB (in deluxe WordPad version). Though I wonder if Congress would take kindly to placing an entire hearing on a Project Censored compact disc.

[ironranger]

The hearing was on cspan3..anyone know if/when it will be cspan1 or 2?

[Hostile]

Although three years and three months too late, this is what a political opposition is supposed to do. I sure hope C-SPAN replays later tonight.

[prostratedragon]

Not sure about a tv broadcast (I confess to not fully understanding the c-span website yet), but the video is available if you have realplayer. Go to the "Iraq" Featured Topic and it's about the second Recent Program. Runs 3hrs.

[Kagro X]

I didn't catch the beginning of the hearing, but this report by After Downing Street's David Swanson, who was in the room today, says the Democratic Senators led off the session with prepared statements that sounded "as if there were a mystery as to how the Iraq intelligence ended up so 'flawed.'"

They apparently left it to Republican (but son of a Democrat) Walter Jones to remind them of why they were all there.

[jonnybutter]

A minute correction: Ford called 'Bolt-on' Bolton a 'Kiss ass, kick down' guy. A little more of the intended bully-flava....

Yes, CSPAN's site is a mess - I've been sniffing around there for years and still haven't figured it out, really. Thanks to EW and KgroX for the tip.

[Susan S]

C-Span I usually replays the good stuff right before Washington Journal in the morning. I always get pissed off when I switch over from Imus and realize I've missed some great panel or speech.

[Kagro X]

My recollection, by the way, was that Cirincione answered Jones' question reference above this way: As deeply flawed as it is, most of it was done legally, they won the policy battles [fair and square]. The question now is in the coverup; are they telling the truth about their roles? These are the landmines; if congress persues this and tries to find the truth of what went wrong, you will get into criminal areas and coverup.

That brought me back to something we've considered here before, back in July of last year.:

Is the administration covering up the lengths to which it went to prevent the exposure of its mistaken reliance on bad intelligence? Or is the administration covering up the lengths to which it went to promote intelligence developed by its own, parallel intelligence structure, a plan which required the simultaneous undermining and the destruction of the credibility of the country's established (read: authorized and legitimate) intelligence structure, which refused to give them what they wanted?

The answer to that question is the difference between "just politics," and "we're not kidding when we whisper the word 'treason.'"

This is the point over which we'll decide whether this thing gets settled right, or whether emptywheel's fear that it goes with Iran-Contra on the ash-heap of history, expressed at Yearly Kos, is realized.

[ab initio]

The one reason I hope the Dems win a majority in either the House or Senate is because I hope they will run a thorough investigation into the decision making to invade and occupy Iraq. An investigation into pre-war intelligence, the roles of the various proponents and opponents to war, who influenced the decision making and who provided the erroneous back up, the role of the media, when and how Bush gave the orders, when and where the career professinals in the government where ignored, made complicit or fired.

This should all be uncovered. The American people need to understand the scale and scope of deceit, the unparalleled abuse of power. We need to understand why laws on the books are not enough.

[ironranger]

Damn, cspan1 showed it in the wee hours. Hopefully, they will air it again. I like to tape these hearings, other cspan stuff, PBS programs,TDS, Colbert (on video, don't have a TIVO) so I can loan them to family & friends who don't have the internet or have missed seeing programs. I can multitask better at home if I watch the tape vs internet. I'm sitting at the computer between work & reading all the blogs too much as it is that my butt is turning into elephant hide. Cspan's schedule updates drive me crazy..I have to check every few hours to be sure not to miss something. I was getting their email but it was not worth it.
I was impressed with Carl Ford in previous hearing...telling it like it is...much too rare today & we need much more of this badly.