Saddam Hussein

In the fall of 2002, during the run up to the war in Iraq, Oprah Winfrey devoted a portion of one of her shows to answering a pressing international question. Do the Iraqi people want America to liberate them from Saddam Hussein?

Ms. Winfrey posed the question to Entifadh Qanbar, a spokesperson for the Iraqi National Congress—an erstwhile group of Iraqi exiles led by Ahmed Chalabi that, at the time, was busy lobbying the American government to overthrow Saddam Hussein. “Absolutely,” responded Mr. Qanbar.

Later, Ms. Winfrey called on an audience member. “I hope this doesn’t offend you,” said the young woman. “I just don’t know what to believe with the media and…” Ms. Winfrey cut her off. “We’re not trying to show you propaganda,” Ms. Winfrey explained. “We’re just showing you what is.”

Four-and-a-half years later, with American troops embroiled in a seemingly intractable civil war in Iraq, and the reputation of Iraqi National Congress in tatters, the question of what exactly Ms. Winfrey and the rest of her colleagues in the media were showing to millions of American viewers on the eve of invasion begs a second look.

Tonight at 9:00 p.m., PBS will be airing a special episode of Bill Moyers Journal, entitled, “Buying the War,” which takes a long, hard look at the American media’s performance in the months leading up to the start of the war. The result is a detailed portrait of media groupthink gone horribly awry.

Throughout the 90 minute program, a large number of print and broadcast journalists--from Oprah, to Judith Miller, to George Will, to the Sunday morning talk show pundits, to Roger Ailes’ legions at Fox, to William Kristol, to the reporters on the evening network news, to Vanity Fair’s David Rose—are shown passing along hyperbolic stories about Iraq’s biological and nuclear weapons capacity.

As it turns out, many of those overblown stories relied almost exclusively on the false claims of hawkish administration officials and dodgy Iraqi defectors. Claims that often went unchecked by some of the best minds in the business.

There were exceptions, and throughout “Buying the War,” Mr. Moyers gives plenty of airtime to the reporters who got the story right, particularly to John Walcott, Jonathan Landay, and Warren Strobel of the erstwhile Knight Ridder news service.

The show also features captivating interviews with 60 Minutes’ Bob Simon, the Washington Post’s Walter Pincus, and an apologetic Dan Rather.

“Especially right after 9/11, especially when the war in Afghanistan is going on, there was a real sense that you don’t get that critical of a government that’s leading us in war time,” Walter Isaacson, the former chairman and CEO of CNN tells Mr. Moyers. “Big people in corporations were calling up and saying, ‘You’re being anti-American here.’”

Reached by phone on Monday, Kathleen Hughes, the producer of “Buying the War,” said that the documentary has been a year in the making. “Bill has called this a historical documentary except the history is only four years ago,” said Ms. Hughes.

“By and large most of us in the media accepted the administration’s point of view,” said Ms. Hughes. “I think that had to do with what some of our reporters say in the show--that there seemed to be an almost bipartisan belief that Saddam Hussein was keeping a big arsenal and that we had to be worried about him. But when you look at the Knight Ridder reporting you begin to understand that there was plenty of detailed, accurate information available in real time. That was the biggest surprise.”

Did the largely unflattering portrayal of the press leave Ms. Hughes feeling depressed about her profession?

“No,” said Ms. Hughes. “I still have a tremendous amount of respect for journalists. We all have our good work and our not so good work. I still think it’s a noble profession. Just look at the Knight Ridder guys. In this case, they’re my heroes.”

CIA Warning of 9/11 Attacks    read more »

Now that everyone except Dick Cheney agrees that Iraq has dissolved into civil war, I grabbed a couple of neocons' (and neolibs') books off my shelf last night to see how they treated the issue of Sunnis and Shi'ites killing one another, back when these brains were pushing for the U.S. to invade Iraq.

Here are Bill Kristol and Lawrence F. Kaplan (in The War Over Iraq, 2003):

"That things might be worse without [Saddam] is of course a possibility. But... it is difficult to imagine how... Nevertheless, Powell and others have argued that if the United States alienates central Iraq's Sunnis, say by overthrowing Saddam, Iraq could be plunged into chaos... But predictions of ethnic turmoil in Iraq are even more questionable than they were in the case of Afghanistan... Saddam has little support among any ethnic group, Sunnis included, and the Iraqi opposition [!] is itself a multiethnic force... Iraq was a multiethnic, multisectarian state before Saddam came to power... [T]he executive director of the Iraq Foundation, Rend Rahim Francke, says, 'we will not have a civil war in Iraq. This is contrary to Iraqi history, and Iraq has not had a history of communal conflict as there has been in the Balkans or in Afghanistan... Iraq will not fall apart and will not be dismembered...'"

Then there's Kenneth Pollack, in The Threatening Storm (the liberals' manifesto for invasion), arguing that urban Iraq is way past such differences:

The Shi'ite clergy could represent the small percentage of Shi'ites who favor an Islamic form of government, but they probably constitute less than 15 percent of the Shi'ite population... [T]ribal Iraqis living in tribal circumstances (Sunni or Shi'ah) now comprise a fraction of the population, probably less than 15 percent. On the other hand, 70 percent of the population is urban, and evne those city dwellers who retain some links to their tribes probably would not want to be represented by shaykhs who know nothing about life in Iraq's cities....[T]he mostly secular urban lower and middle classes... constitute the bulk of Iraq's population..."

Then there's David Wurmser, Cheney's brainy adviser, arguing (in Tyranny's Ally, 1999, published by the visionary American Enterprise Institute with support by Irving Moskowitz, who backs expansion of settlements in the West Bank) that liberating the Shi'ites would bring a modern, liberalizing spirit to the whole region, notably Iran:

"With totalitarian [Sunni] Ba'athism's subjugation of the Iraqi Shi'ite centers... not just Iraq but the entire Arab and Islamic worlds have lost one of their most important models of civil society. These independent [Shi'ite] institutions could have served much as Protestantism did in the Anglo-Saxon world, as a levee against the inundating absolutism of the state and as a foundation of liberalism and civil society...With no clerical freedom in Iraq... no Shi'ite entity has the freedom to challenge the narrow, controversial, and revolutionary form of Shi'ite politics practiced by Ayatollah Khomeini [in Iran]... Liberating the Shi'ite centers in Najaf and Karbala... could allow Iraqi Shi'ites to challenge and perhaps fatally derail the Iranian revolution. Comparably, in the Soviet Union, communism was undermined when the people's courts, the Politburo, and the cult of personality were abolished; without these weapons, power can again be diffused, civil society reestablished..."

I can offer only one comment on all this. Genius!

Whatever happens in the wake of President Bush’s new Iraq strategy, one thing won’t: Sad  read more »

John Fonte of the Hudson Institute is very serious about the issue of dual citizenship. if our great historical success in assimilating millions of immigrants is going to continue, ultimately newcomers must be loyal to the U.S. Constitution and not to any other constitution.

"we are betting" Mexican-Americans will "think Mexico first"

If the United States accepts the principle that it is legitimate for foreign-born citizens (or, worse, for their American-born children) to maintain political allegiance to the foreign state from which they emigrated, we have accepted a racial-ethnic definition of citizenship that makes a mockery of our 200-year old immigration ideal. In effect, Americans would have accepted the old Germanic concept of das Volk (or Latinized, its Spanish equivalent of La Raza) in which the "race" trumps citizenship.

It means dual citizens are, in effect, privileged "supra-citizens" because unlike other Americans they have voting power in more than one state and are loyal to more than one constitution. sanctions would serve two purposes: (1) to discourage the practice, and (2) to remind everyone (Americans and the rest of the world alike) we are serious about the Oath of Allegiance and about our traditional ideal of political rather than racial or ethnic citizenship.

Singer has argued that it was important for the U.S. to remove Saddam because "some of the scholars with the deepest understanding of Muslim history and culture, is to compel the Arab governments to act against terrorism and stay away from WMD by making them afraid of what will happen to them if they fail to do so."

The trial and punishment of the late Saddam Hussein ought to have been accomplished with respect for  read more »

It’s not that John McCain’s call for more U.S.  read more »

The idea that former President George H.W. Bush cracked up in front of the Florida legislature today because he still grieves his son Jeb's loss of the '94 governor's race is preposterous. Yes, that's what Bush was talking about when he started crying, but the idea is nuts. What does your father even remember about a not-tragic career setback that happened to you 12 years ago and was subsequently overcome? Zero.

His feelings were displaced.

So why was Bush upset? Well, it's obvious. The talk of his son's misfortune touched on the real misfortune, his son George's. The father unconsciously fears that he is responsible for George W. stepping in deep do-do, forever and ever in the history books, because the father failed to remove Saddam in '91and the son wanted to set things right. So the father's fears of oedipal parricide have in this case been inverted, and the father feels he has murdered his own son. Thus: the crying jag. (That was free, next time it will cost you $225).

Local Republicans say the national party didn't help enough this year, suggesting that the seemingly pre-determined outcome tomorrow could have been different if they had.

News of Saddam Hussein's death sentence could help some Republicans at the polls tomorrow.

Hillary Clinton leads Barack Obama among New York Democrats, and among black Democrats here.

Obama was in Nashville yesterday campaigning for Harold Ford, Jr.

The fight between Rudy Giuliani and John McCain begins right after the polls close tomorrow.

John Sweeney's lead over Kirsten Gillibrand disappeared after allegations of domestic abuse surfaced recently.

Fred Dicker, who has some suggestions for Eliot Spitzer, says the state Senate race in Westchester will test whether Spitzer has any coat tails.

Republicans here expect to hold onto the state Senate.

The mid-terms elections are a test for Charles Schumer, who said he's "feeling good, but cautious," about Democrats taking over.

Spitzer said, "There was no cover-up," involving the late disclosure of his campaign manager's arrest for drunk driving late last month.

Alan Hevesi's fate is in the hands of Democrats, now that George Pataki seems likely to let his successor to deal with the scandal.

Democrats rally around Vito Fossella's challenger, for a change.

Ben gives out "THE TOM CRUISE EXCELLENCE IN SELF-DESTRUCTION AWARD," and other coveted accolades.

And the Times tips its hat to the winners of "Best Waste of a Good Debate Performance," "Best Campaign Event Heckling," and other notable stand-outs from this campaign season.

-- Azi Paybarah

George W.  read more »

Chris Matthews is on fire these days. Joe Lieberman's loss has freed him to offer pitiless critiques of Democrats who voted for the war. Last night he said that they knew it was a bad decision in 2002 but went along with it out of political fears when they should have displayed "courage"—so let them twist in the wind now.

And Monday night (8/14) Matthews used an interview with Seymour Hersh to attack the administration for conflating Israel's interest with our own in the Middle East. Yep, he used the conflate word, even as he turned the voluble Hersh into a potted plant:

MATTHEWS: Let me cut you off here, because we always conflate these issues. Does [Bush] see Iran as a regional threat to countries who are on our side, like Israel and the other so many Arab countries, or does he see it as a strategic threat? Because this was the whole fight over Saddam Hussein. Of course he was a regional pain in the butt, of course he was a problem to some tactical extent to Israel—he wasn't a strategic threat to Israel. But is Iran a strategic threat to the United States? Does he believe that?

HERSH: I don't know what he believes.

MATTHEWS: How could it be a strategic threat to the United States?

HERSH: I don't know what he believes...

MATTHEWS: You know what it brings into question? Here's an administration that for political or other moral reasons or historic reasons—maybe because his father was pro-Arab—is the most openly pro-Israeli administration in history, in terms of the P.R. And you have to ask yourself, has the loss of our power brokering ability in that region been a bigger loss for Israel than anything we could have done for them?

If anyone can mainstream this issue, Matthews can. In foreign policy circles, what he's talking about is Realism—letting states figure out their relationships by themselves, not messing with their internal politics, doing a little off-shore balancing. As I've said before, and echoed now by the Nation, the left is turning more and more to realism.

Q: What is the difference between a regime and a government?    read more »

Q: What is the difference between a regime and a government?  read more »

One reason the Iraqis don’t believe that the U.S.  read more »

One reason the Iraqis don’t believe that the U.S.  read more »

The Washington Post today today has the courage to run a cover article in its magazine with the question, "Does the Israel Lobby Have Too Much Power?" Hats off to the Post! It has done what real journalists should have been doing for the last 20 years, and confronted the question head on. The achievement of course is not fully the Post's: the newspaper can tee up the question only because of the bravery of Walt and Mearsheimer in publishing their bombshell paper. Which they did overseas of course, three months ago. In London. After it was killed here. The refugee issue is finally being allowed to visit. Not to move home, though.

Unfortunately, the Post's article by Glenn Frankel is defensive and scattered, at times disgraceful. To its credit, it states that President George H.W. Bush lost his presidency in 1992 in part because of his opposition to the Israel lobby. And revisits some other scalps claimed by the lobby. Back when. It is always much easier to talk about power grabs of 15 years ago!  read more »

Two years ago Wall Street Journal reporter Farnaz Fassihi blew our minds with a samizdat email from Baghdad, quickly circulated everywhere, showing it was impossible to live in a normal way in that city. Old news now.

Today a Journal reporter does it again. Neil King, diplomatic correspondent, on CSpan's Washington Journal this morning, relates the latest saying on the Baghdad street: "I'd rather have a fever than death."

What's that mean? They'd rather have Saddam back than what they're experiencing now. A chance of dying every time they step out the door, the loss of the most basic amenities. "These people have electricity four hours a day," King said. "They can't keep meat in the refrigerator."

In 2001, scientists exploring murky river bottoms in Indonesia found a new creature, the mimic octop  read more »

Two weeks back, Paul Krugman got off a brilliant stroke in the Times, when he cited that "peculiar rule, which still prevails in Washington, that you have to have been wrong about Iraq to be considered credible on national security."

The examples of this are legion. The author Peter Beinart, for instance, putting himself forth as an advocate for the use of force overseas after admitting, I got it wrong on Iraq. Sort of like a kid asking for matches after he burned now the neighbor's house. Shouldn't these people have a little humility? Does the suffering unleashed in Iraq mean nothing to them? Or do they rationalize it, saying, Oh it was inevitable when Saddam fell. Do any of them have family members at risk in these adventures?

Yesterday the Washington Post gave a platform to Richard Perle, once again lecturing us about a third force in Iran, and the dangers of appeasement:

A few days ago, I spoke with Amir Abbas Fakhravar, an Iranian dissident student leader who escaped first from Tehran's notorious Evin prison, then, after months in hiding, from Iran. Fakhravar...wonders whether... the proponents of accommodation with Tehran will regard the struggle for freedom in Iran as an obstacle to their new diplomacy.

Wait a second, didn't he just do that with Chalabi?

Iranian President Ahmadinejad's remarkable letter to President Bush could (should!) revive a bleeding question surrounding the Iraq war: how many have died because of our invasion? Ahmadinejad put that figure at 100,000:

Because of the possibility of the existence of WMDs in one country, it is occupied, around 100,000 people killed, its water sources, agriculture and industry destroyed, close to 180,000 foreign troops put on the ground, sanctity of private homes of citizens broken, and the country pushed back perhaps 50 years.

Ahmadinejad's number is more than triple the American President's estimate of 30,000 dead, last December. Bush seemed to be reflecting the counter maintained by Iraq Body Count—now up to between 35-39,000. War supporters had at first been dismissive of these IBC estimates, The Washington Post reported, until the medical journal The Lancet came along in 2004 and said, on the basis of somewhat assiduous surveying, that the invasion had caused 100,000 deaths, making the IBC look conservative.

Ahmadinejad would seem to be echoing the Lancet's estimate from 2004. The American left also tends to use the 100,000 number, though lately on Informed Comment, Juan Cole's site, I have seen the number 200,000, as an extrapolation of the Lancet's two-year-old number. Here is an articulate poster, Terry, whose own website is Chomsky in Chains, making that assertion:

the 200,000 number is the best (and only) available estimate of excess deaths caused by the U.S. invasion. And it needs to be emphasized that the comparison is to Saddam. Call Saddam a monster and you implicate the U.S. Mass graves under Saddam? 200,000 more people are dead because of the U.S. invasion and occupation.

Here's hoping the American President answers the Iranian President's letter—and that the press corps asks the White House what its latest number is.

Let's face it: the Israel lobby may be looking at what the Cuba lobby faced six years ago: that moment when its interest ceases to be a special interest, when ordinary Americans see their own interest at stake in the policy, and take that policy away.

For the Cuba lobby, it was the Elian Gonzales case. You remember the six-year-old, or was he eight? It doesn't matter. The kid whose mother drowned and he ended up with anti-Castro fanatics in Miami, who didn't want to give him back to his father. Castro was filling the streets of Havana with demonstrators, but this was another opportunity to stick it to Fidel. Then two great things happened. Steve Largent, a conservative Republican congressman (and former NFL star receiver, I think he set a receptions record) from Oklahoma came out strongly and plainly for returning Gonzales to his dad. And Bill Clinton did one of his few heroic turns as President, and said the same thing, and stuck to it. The return of Elian Gonzales was a great moment in American moral history. I imagine the Cuba lobby is still suffering from its political misstep.

The Israel lobby has asserted again and again that hewing to Israel's policies thru thick and thin is in our best interest. But it's not, and there are any number of signs that Americans are now turning on that policy. The moment that changed everything was surely 9/11, but the penny is dropping now. I'd cite the Walt-Mearsheimer paper, Tony Judt's warning to Israelis yesterday in Ha'aretz (cited in yesterday's post) that the climate was changing, and this bit from Chris Matthews of a few weeks back—

MATTHEWS: What had [Saddam] done against us?

VIN WEBER: He invaded Kuwait. He attacked Israel. They're our friends, our allies.

MATTHEWS: So we go to war with countries in the Middle East because they fight with each other. We'll have war forever. We will never be out of fighting wars.

Notice how Matthews severs American interests from Israel's interests. Or distinguishes them, anyway. This is an important, symbolic exchange. And, by the way, it doesn't mean that America will abandon Israel. But force it into line? That would be a good thing.

The United Nations’ longest-running saga, the oil-for-food imbroglio, reached a critical point  read more »

The United Nations’ longest-running saga, the oil-for-food imbroglio, reached a critical point whe  read more »

In some strange alternate universe, one without bombings and beheadings and troops with machine guns  read more »

Before the American project in Iraq turned from reconstruction back to combat, Senator Hillary Clint  read more »

Before the American project in Iraq turned from reconstruction back to combat, Senator Hillary Clint  read more »

One of The Politicker's favorite local pundits, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, recently ventured to Washington to chat with Republican legislators about global warning. The impromptu roundtable included Congressmen Jack Kingston (R-Georgia), Dan Lundgren (R-California), Tom Feeney (R-Florida), and Lee Terry (R-Nebraska).

"If all of the science comes in and global warming is proven to be true, how will you hold Saddam responsible?" Triumph demanded.  read more »

Kingston, looking a bit bemused, waggled one of Triumph's cigars in the direction of the camera."Well, I'm sure he'll be connected to it some way," he laughed.

You can watch the video here, courtesy of OneGoodMove.org.

If President George W.  read more »

Americans should not take unseemly unsatisfaction from the spectacle of France’s riots.  read more »

Americans should not take unseemly unsatisfaction from the spectacle of France’s riots.  read more »

My Observer predecessor Greg Sargent emails:

"Can't someone just say, 'Mayor, do you believe going to war with Iraq was the right decision?'"

Also: "As mayor of the city that was attacked on Sept. 11th, do you agree with the position of some in the Republican Party that Saddam Hussein was in any way responsible for or connected to the Trade Center attacks?"

Good questions. All I can say in defense of my City Hall colleagues is that it's not like we haven't asked. Many times.  read more »

Jerry Della Femina would make a marvelous politician.  read more »

Jerry Della Femina would make a marvelous politician.  read more »

Why, hello there!

Real quickly, then on to the show. In today's paper:

The Transom sits down with Jerry Della Femina and encourages him to run for office. Any office. Also: how's it feel for Ramsey Clark to be 'fired' as Saddam Hussein's lawyer?

Don't miss Nina Roberts on the free sex doctor of the Upper West Side.  read more »

Lizzy Ratner gets under the skin of The Transom's old acquaintance, former art writer Steven Vincent, the first U.S. journalist murdered in Iraq.

And of course, George Gurley's couples therapy continues apace. The Transom shares an office with Mr. Gurley, in fact, and is considering asking for some equal time with Mr. Gurley's good and patient doctor.

It's too early for me to tell if Constantine is the kind of movie that incurs unmitigated scorn from  read more »

"This is the famous city of Baghdad, the home of sweetness!  read more »

"You can't be sure of how the trial will go," said longtime Manhattan civil-rights attorney Ramsey C  read more »

If my last venture in charity had been the Oil for Food program, which fleeced the starving in order  read more »

The decision to destroy the World Trade Center showed the audacity of our enemies.  read more »

There is much to say about John Kerry, and I hope to say some of it in my last pre-election column.  read more »

President Bush’s torturous journey from implacable scold of the United Nations to earnest supplica  read more »

For John Kerry, the upcoming debate offers a crucial chance to dispel the myths about him that have  read more »

In a Sept.  read more »

It's the war, stupid.Pretty much everybody seems to get that.  read more »

When Saddam Hussein turned to the TV cameras on Thursday, July 1, and proclaimed his court appearanc  read more »

BAGHDAD–The office was not hidden, but it was hard to find.  read more »

I know Saddam Hussein is a monster, the "Butcher of Baghdad." I know that he ruthlessly seized power  read more »

While trying to avoid ostentatious gloating, Republican operatives quietly confide their hope that t  read more »

As Americans reflected on the lives lost in Iraq over the Memorial Day weekend, they also had the op  read more »

The first reason we do not approve of torture is out of respect for prisoners, even if they are guil  read more »