Tennent Backs his Officers, Never claimed Iraq was imminent threat.

Hiding behind semantics is silly. It's like Clinton insisting in court that he didn't "lie", he just "misled". Whatever. The administration got the american people on board for the war now now now by making the case that Iraq could supply WMD to terrorists for an attack at any time. What was that one quote? "Don't want the smoking gun to be a nuclear mushroom?"

 

But I think Dubya did indeed make a distinction. One of their points was that it was "grave and gathering" and that we should not wait until it is imminent. They never used "imminent."

Now did they exaggerate in other areas? Perhaps.

 

Well, that may be sarcastic, but in any case, I'd say nobody's trying to "win" per se. At least that's what I hope. I think Tennant's statements are very important.

I'm *very* glad to hear him say strongly that he was not pressured or told what to say. I believe him, and it knocks one whole level of conspiracy out the window. But the other points are important also. I do think the administration made the threat seem imminent, even if they didn't use the exact word. Why the big rush to war? I read the CIA statements at the time, and I didn't understand it then. I still don't understand the rush to war.

 

Yes they did. Read up a few posts.

 

technically, i'm not sure the administration ever said it was an imminent threat...

but that's a non-starter with me. that was certainly the way it was communicated...and the way it was received by the nation. that was the argument for action SOONER rather than later.

 

i may have conflated my Q&A's with fleisher. there is a case where he responded to a question about a threat from Iran to Iraq- i'll have to find it, and used the word imminent. he was talking in a psot war sense i believe. in any case, from spinsanity, here's the best, non-biased breakdown of this issue i can find:
http://www.spinsanity.org/columns/20031103.html
--
Sorting out the "imminent threat" debate

By Ben Fritz
November 3, 2003

In recent weeks, a debate has raged over the phrase "imminent threat." Many liberal critics have asserted that a central claim in President Bush's case for war in Iraq was that Iraq posed an "imminent threat." They argue that it's now clear that no such threat existed, and thus the President's argument has been revealed as deceptive or illegitimate. Conservatives retort that Bush never actually used the phrase and in fact specifically used language indicating that the threat was not imminent on several occasions.

As a factual matter, conservatives are largely correct and liberal critics and journalists are guilty of cheap shots or lazy reporting. However, the evidence is not completely clear and both sides are guilty of distorting this complex situation for political gain. Specifically, while there's some evidence indicating the Bush administration did portray Iraq as an imminent threat, there's much more that it did not. Those attempting to assert that the White House called Iraq an imminent threat are ignoring significant information to the contrary. Similarly, those who say the Bush administration never used the phrase or implied as much are ignoring important, though isolated, evidence.
What the administration said

Those defending Bush most often point to an excerpt from the President's 2003 State of the Union speech in which he explicitly said Iraq was not an imminent threat:

Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late.

Furthermore, these Bush administration defenders accurately point out that neither President Bush nor any of his aides ever outright described Iraq as an "imminent threat."

So why has the phrase become so commonly used and an object of such contention? It first gained wide usage based on the National Security Strategy of the United States, a document published in September 2002 that outlined the U.S. government's policy for national defense. In it, the Bush administration argued that the concept in international law of "imminent threat" - which allows countries to defend themselves against opponents who are poised to attack them - must be given a new meaning in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks:

For centuries, international law recognized that nations need not suffer an attack before they can lawfully take action to defend themselves against forces that present an imminent danger of attack. Legal scholars and international jurists often conditioned the legitimacy of preemption on the existence of an imminent threat-most often a visible mobilization of armies, navies, and air forces preparing to attack.

We must adapt the concept of imminent threat to the capabilities and objectives of today's adversaries. Rogue states and terrorists do not seek to attack us using conventional means. They know such attacks would fail. Instead, they rely on acts of terror and, potentially, the use of weapons of mass destruction-weapons that can be easily concealed, delivered covertly, and used without warning...

...The United States has long maintained the option of preemptive actions to counter a sufficient threat to our national security. The greater the threat, the greater is the risk of inaction- and the more compelling the case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy's attack. To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively.

Blogger Josh Marshall argued that this assertion justifies claims that the White House did say Iraq poses an imminent threat. "For my money, one of the most revealing quotes is the passage in the National Security Strategy the White House released in 2002, which essentially argues that the concept of 'imminent threat' must be reinterpreted to apply to countries like Iraq," he wrote.

However, the National Security Strategy language above does not actually apply the term "imminent threat" to Iraq. It instead contends that the legal concept "imminent threat" embodies should be expanded to allow action against threatening "rogue states" and terrorists even when there is not direct evidence that they are mobilizing forces for an attack. Essentially, it argues that we sometimes cannot wait for imminence to launch a pre-emptive strike.

Moreover, there are extremely few instances in which any member of the Bush administration even suggested that Iraq posed an "imminent threat."

Twice, former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer affirmed questions from reporters using the phrase "imminent threat" to describe the administration's case against Iraq. As the liberal Center for American Progress pointed out, when Fleischer was asked by a reporter on May 7 of this year, "Well, we went to war, didn't we, to find these -- because we said that these weapons were a direct and imminent threat to the United States? Isn't that true?" he replied, "Absolutely." And on October 16 of last year, a reporter asked, "Ari, the President has been saying that the threat from Iraq is imminent, that we have to act now to disarm the country of its weapons of mass destruction, and that it has to allow the U.N. inspectors in, unfettered, no conditions, so forth." Fleischer replied, simply, "Yes."

While Fleischer's affirmation of reporters' use of the phrase is indeed notable, it's important to keep in mind that he never uttered the words himself - hardly conclusive evidence in the matter.

More substantially, as Baltimore Sun columnist Jules Witcover noted, in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee on September 18 of last year, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld suggested that Iraq may be an imminent threat and described its biological weapons with a similar term, "immediate threat":

Some have argued that the nuclear threat from Iraq is not imminent-that Saddam is at least 5-7 years away from having nuclear weapons.

I would not be so certain...We do not know today precisely how close he is to having a deliverable nuclear weapon.

He then added:

Those who raise questions about the nuclear threat need to focus on the immediate threat from biological weapons.

This evidence is paltry, however, when compared to the times when Bush specifically argued that Iraq was an enemy for which the concept of "imminent threat" was insufficient.

To take just a few examples, when signing the Congressional resolution empowering him to order an invasion of Iraq last October, Bush stated, "The Iraqi regime is a serious and growing threat to peace." In his address to the United Nations in September of last year, Bush said, "Our greatest fear is that terrorists will find a shortcut to their mad ambitions when an outlaw regime supplies them with the technologies to kill on a massive scale." And when summarizing his case against Iraq shortly before the war began in March, Bush stated, "The dictator of Iraq and his weapons of mass destruction are a threat to the security of free nations. He is a danger to his neighbors. He's a sponsor of terrorism. He's an obstacle to progress in the Middle East. For decades he has been the cruel, cruel oppressor of the Iraq people."

Weak evidence from liberals

However, many liberal critics have ignored this evidence and misinterpreted the meaning of the word "imminent" to argue that the Bush administration made a case that Iraq was an imminent threat, even if it never said the words. One of the most comprehensive efforts came from David Corn, Washington editor of The Nation, on the left-leaning website TomPaine.com. Corn argued that, "On several key occasions, [Bush] did all he could to suggest that there was an imminent threat."

He points out, for instance, that in September 2002, Bush repeated a since-discredited British claim that Iraq could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes. It was indeed irresponsible of Bush to repeat this claim, which was backed by only a single source and appears to have been shown to be false by post-war investigations. However, Bush never alleged that Iraq had the means to launch an attack with these weapons against the United States, which lies on the other side of the world (although Cheney and others did suggest Iraq was developing such technology). Corn also notes that, in the same appearance, Bush described the threat posed by Iraq as "grave" and "growing," which do not mean the same thing as "imminent."

Corn's other evidence is thin. He notes in one case that Bush said there was a "high risk" Iraq could "launch a surprise attack against the United States or its armed forces or provide them to international terrorists who would do so" in a draft resolution submitted to Congress. Corn also points out that Bush said Saddam Hussein could give weapons of mass destruction to terrorists and must be stopped "before he hurts a single American." At another point, Bush said, "If we don't do something he might attack us, and he might attack us with a more serious weapon. The man is a threat."

Saying that Iraq could attack the US soon or might enable terrorists to do so is not the same thing, however, as arguing that Iraq was poised to attack the US. That's what "imminent" means.

Furthermore, liberals like Corn are being selective in their evidence. He introduces his argument by referring to the above-mentioned State of the Union excerpt and stating, "That one line does not erase the many others." Similarly, when asked in a WashingtonPost.com chat why he used the phrase "imminent threat" in his PBS documentary "Truth, War and Consequences," producer Martin Smith stated, "It's simply not a quotation -- it's a summary of the president's assessment."

As we saw above, though, it's not a fair assessment of the Bush administration's case at all.

Repetition by critics and journalists

Many other journalists and commentators have casually used the phrase "imminent threat", sometimes even putting it in quotes as if Bush or one of his aides used the phrase. William O'Rourke wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times that, "Bush and Vice President Cheney went on and on about Saddam's imminent threat and his many WMD." Veteran White House reporter Helen Thomas said in a syndicated column, "In the run up to the war, Bush and his team spent months contending that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction that were a 'direct and imminent' threat to the United States." Writing in the Village Voice, Syndney Schamberg said, "We were told, endlessly, by President Bush and his war cabinet that Iraq, not the Saudi kingdom, posed an 'imminent' threat to the security of the United States." In an online interview, Bill Moyers said, "We were at the mercy of the official view that he was an 'imminent threat' without any reliable information to back it up." And in an online discussion on the New Yorker's website, Hendrik Hertzberg said, "We went to war on the basis that there were weapons that made him an imminent threat."

Andrew Sullivan also pointed out several examples of reporters casually using the phrase on his weblog. A New York Times news analysis stated, "Nothing found so far backs up administration claims that Mr. Hussein posed an imminent threat to the world." And a Los Angeles Times article about President Bush's State of the Union address last year said Bush "[promised] new evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime poses an imminent danger to the world."

Several prominent Democrats have unfairly used the phrase as well. Presidential candidate Howard Dean, for instance, said in June, "To justify the preemptive invasion of Iraq, the President claimed that the United States faced an imminent threat from Iraq's weapons of mass destruction." And in an October 12 interview on Fox News, Senator Jay Rockefeller, D-WV, stated, "We did not go to war to bring democracy and prosperity and peace to Iraq. That was not part of the arrangement. That was not part of the vote. It was all about weapons of mass destruction and the imminent threat of America getting attacked." (Rockefeller later granted that Bush never used the phrase but said it was "the feeling that was given to the American people and to the Congress.")

Attacking arguments that Iraq was not an imminent threat

However, some conservatives have gone overboard in their criticism of Democrats, claiming it is unfair to use the phrase at all. For instance, in a recent New Republic article, Sullivan goes after Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark for the following statement, "It was an unnecessary war. There was no imminent threat." Sullivan retorts, "No member of the administration used the term "imminent threat" to describe Saddam Hussein's Iraq. No one." But it's not at all clear that Clark is claiming to quote the President, As phrased, he's simply saying the war was unnecessary because there was not an imminent threat. That's a perfectly reasonable criticism, regardless of whether Bush used the phrase or not.

Some conservatives have also gone beyond pointing out that Bush never used the phrase to claim that no member of the Bush administration ever suggested that Iraq may pose an "imminent threat" at all. Jonah Goldberg, for example, wrote in his syndicated column that, "To date, nobody has found a shred of proof that the president - or anybody in his Cabinet - ever once said Iraq or Saddam Hussein posed an 'imminent' threat to the United States." But as we saw above, the statement by Rumsfeld makes the situation more complex than Goldberg indicates.

A need for nuance

As we have pointed out before, many of the arguments for war made by the Bush administration were deceptive or false. However, critics who make it appear that the Bush administration's case relied primarily on claims of an imminent threat distort a more complex argument that painted Iraq as an intolerable, but not imminent, threat. Those unfair attacks do not make it legitimate for Bush supporters to jump on any critic who uses the phrase, however, or claim that nobody in the administration ever suggested Iraq could pose an "imminent threat." Complexity is not an excuse for cheap shots from either side.

 

just for the record....

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021007-8.html

this is directly from the White House and is a speech Bush gave on Oct 7, 2002 in Ohio.


" It (Iraq) possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons"

"the Iraqi dictator must not be permitted to threaten America and the world with horrible poisons and diseases and gases and atomic weapons."

"Some ask how urgent this danger is to America and the world. The danger is already significant, and it only grows worse with time. If we know Saddam Hussein has dangerous weapons today -- and we do -- does it make any sense for the world to wait to confront him as he grows even stronger and develops even more dangerous weapons?"

"We've also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas. We're concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVS for missions targeting the United States. And, of course, sophisticated delivery systems aren't required for a chemical or biological attack; all that might be required are a small container and one terrorist or Iraqi intelligence operative to deliver it."

" Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists."

"The risk is simply too great that he (Saddam) will use them, or provide them to a terror network."

"If the Iraqi regime is able to produce, buy, or steal an amount of highly enriched uranium a little larger than a single softball, it could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year. And if we allow that to happen, a terrible line would be crossed. Saddam Hussein would be in a position to blackmail anyone who opposes his aggression. He would be in a position to dominate the Middle East. He would be in a position to threaten America. And Saddam Hussein would be in a position to pass nuclear technology to terrorists."

" Some citizens wonder, after 11 years of living with this problem, why do we need to confront it now? And there's a reason. We've experienced the horror of September the 11th. We have seen that those who hate America are willing to crash airplanes into buildings full of innocent people. Our enemies would be no less willing, in fact, they would be eager, to use biological or chemical, or a nuclear weapon.

Knowing these realities, America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof -- the smoking gun -- that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud."

" There is no easy or risk-free course of action. Some have argued we should wait -- and that's an option. In my view, it's the riskiest of all options, because the longer we wait, the stronger and bolder Saddam Hussein will become"

 

Well, technically speaking, Dubya never said "imminent" but he did say "imminiminent."

Trying to deny the Dubya Administration's portrayal of the great Iraqi threat by picking a particular word and insisting that word is the only word that could mean what that word means is.....confusing.

 

I guess it's time to bust out the "grasping at straws" picture again. I think some here are just playing games, because it is not possible IMHO for a person to even consider some of the silly excuses presented to support the Bush administrations lies. They are right on par with Clinton's nonsense, except the subject is of much greater importance.

 

Yeah, most of Bush's defenders cite only to the State of the Union, but the Ohio speech is the one where he lets loose with "urgent" danger and "peril", and the mushroom clouds.

"Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof, the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud."

To me, the absence of the word "imminent" is inconsequential. Anybody who was alive back then knows how this war was sold.

 

I agree with that article posted by basso that both "sides" (sic) of the argument would be better off not obsessing over the term imminent.

In the recently posted quotations from Bush, he says "the danger is already significant." So, we can all agree that the story was that we had to act quickly because Saddam was already a threat, and this threat assessment was based on our intelligence community. At the time, the intelligence community said well, Saddam is definitely deceptive and he has a history of weapons programs, but we don't have a good picture of his current weapons.

The sad part for me, at this point, is the finger pointing. Bush says "I was just following what the CIA said," and that's not exactly dishonest, but it's not that honest either. The truth I think is that he (or his most influential advisors) decided they had to act, even in the face of uncertain facts on the ground. Maybe the rush was based on the election cycle, or other more complicated international political schemes. But the bottom line for me: the urgent rush could truly not have been exactly as advertised, (WMD, Al Qaeda connections), unless the administration is stupid. ... And they're not stupid at all.

 

Here is a good summary of both sides of the argument.

http://www.spinsanity.org/columns/20031103.html

The intro:
In recent weeks, a debate has raged over the phrase "imminent threat." Many liberal critics have asserted that a central claim in President Bush's case for war in Iraq was that Iraq posed an "imminent threat." They argue that it's now clear that no such threat existed, and thus the President's argument has been revealed as deceptive or illegitimate. Conservatives retort that Bush never actually used the phrase and in fact specifically used language indicating that the threat was not imminent on several occasions.

As a factual matter, conservatives are largely correct and liberal critics and journalists are guilty of cheap shots or lazy reporting. However, the evidence is not completely clear and both sides are guilty of distorting this complex situation for political gain. Specifically, while there's some evidence indicating the Bush administration did portray Iraq as an imminent threat, there's much more that it did not. Those attempting to assert that the White House called Iraq an imminent threat are ignoring significant information to the contrary. Similarly, those who say the Bush administration never used the phrase or implied as much are ignoring important, though isolated, evidence.

 

Yeah, I think they felt it was necessary to go to war with Iraq as a security issue whether there were WMD's or not. But then they decided to base it on WMD's alone so the war could be "legal" through the UN and more convincing to the public. I wish they had not gone this route, it is somewhat dishonest...then again maybe Saddam would still be in power.

As far as the CIA, it seems Bush is standing by them so far. Last I read he has been saying the intelligence was based on solid evidence, and that Saddam is at fault for misleading the world. I wouldn't be surprised if they become the scapegoat they.

 

Last I read he has been saying the intelligence was based on solid evidence

This makes zero sense, not unless we futz with the definition of "solid".

 

T-E-N-E-T

 

The Clinton appointee made scapegoat angle, I see.

 

No, it's the "ha ha you can't spell gooder than me" angle.

 

Don't bother with documented evidence, guys, you're talking to the Ostrich Brigade.


Here's another tack...


Among war supporters: A show of hands for those of you who didn't understand the administration's position to be that Iraq represented an imminent threat, before the war, and argue as much in here for why we had to invade. See, this we can go back and check, and it's not that hard.

 

Well since Cheney had *inside* sources, no wonder he can't face up to the truth.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3660169/

Exclusive: Cheney and the ‘Raw’ Intelligence

An uncovered memo suggests the Iraqi National Congress was feeding intelligence to Cheney's aides
By Mark Hosenball and Michael Isikoff
NewsweekDec. 15 issue - A memo written by a top Washington lobbyist for the controversial Iraqi National Congress raises new questions about the role Vice President Dick Cheney’s office played in the run-up to the war in Iraq.


The memo, obtained by NEWSWEEK, suggests that the INC last year was directly feeding intelligence reports about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and purported ties to terrorism to one of Cheney’s top foreign- policy aides. Cheney staffers later pushed INC info—including defectors’ claims about WMD and terror ties—to bolster the case that Saddam’s government posed a direct threat to America. But the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies have strongly questioned the reliability of defectors supplied by the INC.

For months, Cheney’s office has denied that the veep bypassed U.S. intelligence agencies to get intel reports from the INC. But a June 2002 memo written by INC lobbyist Entifadh Qunbar to a U.S. Senate committee lists John Hannah, a senior national-security aide on Cheney’s staff, as one of two “U.S. governmental recipients” for reports generated by an intelligence program being run by the INC and which was then being funded by the State Department. Under the program, “defectors, reports and raw intelligence are cultivated and analyzed”; the info was then reported to, among others, “appropriate governmental, non-governmental and international agencies.” The memo not only describes Cheney aide Hannah as a “principal point of contact” for the program, it even provides his direct White House telephone number. The only other U.S. official named as directly receiving the INC intel is William Luti, a former military adviser to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich who, after working on Cheney’s staff early in the Bush administration, shifted to the Pentagon, where he oversaw a secretive Iraq war-planning unit called the Office of Special Plans.
.
.
.

 

Great post. It's not about the use of a word any more than it was with Clinton. We all know what the administration was saying. We all know what the argument for war was. If there's a single war supporter here who can dig up a post they wrote saying it didn't matter whether or not Iraq was an imminent (or impending or urgent or whatever other word you want to use) threat but we should go to war anyway, I will at least respect that poster's consistency and intellectual honesty. The administration and its supporters has been moving the goalpost on this -- WRT reasons for going, grounds for justification (remember how ashamed us anti-war types were going to feel when you guys produced the smoking nuke?) and grounds for success -- since the beginning. And now they want to weasel out on a word. There is no denying the parallel to the Clinton thing and there is no denying that the consequences of this doublespeak are more dire than they were in that situation.

Max has my respect here. He voted for Clinton and then held him accountable for his weasel talk and weasel walk. Having voted for Bush and having supported the war he at least seems prepared to consider treating him the same way he treated Clinton. So much more than can be said for so many others here.