Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

Today, the Post -- which has already apologized for underplaying or even ignoring stories that challenged the case for war -- took another step on the path to redemption with this dissection of the lies used by the administration to defend its disastrous war.

Lie #1: Everyone in Congress saw the same intelligence as the White House.

The Truth:

...Bush and his aides had access to much more voluminous intelligence information than did lawmakers, who were dependent on the administration to provide the material...

But Bush does not share his most sensitive intelligence, such as the President's Daily Brief, with lawmakers. Also, the National Intelligence Estimate summarizing the intelligence community's views about the threat from Iraq was given to Congress just days before the vote to authorize the use of force in that country.

In addition, there were doubts within the intelligence community not included in the NIE. And even the doubts expressed in the NIE could not be used publicly by members of Congress because the classified information had not been cleared for release...

In other words: Bush controlled what Congress saw, failed to share all of its information, ommitted the many, many dissenting opinions from agencies that conflicted with its case for war, and delayed sharing its intelligence with Congress until the last minute -- meaning Congress had only a few days to research a few years' worth of intelligence. And if, by some chance, holes in the intelligence could be found in time before the vote authorizing force against Iraq, no one in Congress could present that information to the American people because that info was classified.

Lie #2: Congress approved of Bush's plan to overthrow Saddam Hussein.

The Truth:

The October 2002 joint resolution authorized the use of force in Iraq, but it did not directly mention the removal of Hussein from power.

The resolution voiced support for diplomatic efforts to enforce "all relevant Security Council resolutions," and for using the armed forces to enforce the resolutions and defend "against the continuing threat posed by Iraq."

Lie #3: Congressional committees and the Robb-Silberman Commission both cleared the White House of charges that it manipulated  pre-war intelligence.

The Truth:

...the only committee investigating the matter in Congress, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has not yet done its [Phase II] inquiry into whether officials mischaracterized intelligence by omitting caveats and dissenting opinions. And Judge Laurence H. Silberman, chairman of Bush's commission on weapons of mass destruction, said in releasing his report on March 31, 2005: "Our executive order did not direct us to deal with the use of intelligence by policymakers, and all of us were agreed that that was not part of our inquiry."

It's a pity the Post wasn't this aggressive in 2002, when the most corrupt White House in history began banging the war drums. Better still, if the Post had shown Bush to be the draft-dodging, coke-snorting, recovering alcoholic ("wink wink") that he is, he would never have garnered enough votes to make his electoral coup d'etat in 2000 look legitimate, and this war wouldn't have occured.