p15, v9.20 — Left / Right & Legals

Left / Right & Legals

Mountain Views News Saturday, May 16, 2015

MVNews this week: Page 15

OPINION

Mountain Views-News Saturday, May 16, 2015

RICK Jensen

OBAMA SHOULD
RELEASE TRADE
AGREEMENT DETAILS

HOWARD Hays As I See It

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Views

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“Let me be clear: Analysts differed on several important aspects of
these programs and those debates were spelled out in the estimate.
They never said there was an imminent threat.”

- CIA Director George Tenet addressing pre-war intelligence on
Iraq’s weapons programs at Georgetown University, February
2004

After submitting my column last week, I became concerned a
Jeb Bush supporter might be disappointed their favorite wasn’t
included in my overview of candidates for the 2016 nomination.
Bush, who hasn’t yet made it “official”, got some notice last week
for a response given in a TV interview.

It aired last Monday on Fox News, with Bush asked whether he
would have authorized the invasion of Iraq “knowing what we
know now”. He dodged the specific question and responded, “I
would have, and so would Hillary Clinton, just to remind everybody. And so would almost
everybody that was confronted with the intelligence they got.” He blamed the whole mess on
“the intelligence that everybody saw; that the world saw, not just the United States.”

Also making the rounds last week was former NY Times reporter Judith Miller
plugging her just-published memoir, in which she too blamed our bad intelligence for her
discredited stories in the build-up to war. (In Miller’s case, however, it was anonymous Bush
Administration figures using her to plant warnings about Saddam Hussein in the Times that
others - Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld - would later cite in their case
for war.)

The CIA had a different take. Paul Pillar, head of Middle East operations for the agency during
that time, wrote in Foreign Policy in 2006 that “. . . it has become clear that official intelligence
analysis was not relied on in making even the most significant national security decisions, that
intelligence was misused publicly to justify decisions already made . . . and that the intelligence
community’s own work was politicized . . . Official intelligence on Iraqi weapons programs
was flawed, but even with its flaws, it was not what led to the war.”

The Senate Intelligence Committee released its Report on the matter in June 2008, with
Chairman Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) concluding, “In making the case for war, the
Administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when in reality it was unsubstantiated,
contradicted, or even non-existent . . . There is no question we all relied on flawed intelligence.
But, there is a fundamental difference between relying on incorrect intelligence and
deliberately painting a picture to the American people that you know is not fully accurate.”
“Sadly”, he stated, “the Bush Administration led the nation into war under false pretenses.”

The Report cited specific assertions made by President Bush and Vice President Cheney; of
an association between Iraq and Al Qaeda, of Saddam’s providing weapons to terrorist groups
for attacks on the U.S., of the rosy outlook for a post-war Iraq and Saddam’s chemical weapons
capability as being either “not substantiated by”, “contradicted by”, or “did not reflect” the
available intelligence.

The Committee also dealt with the administration’s establishing its own intelligence groups
at the Defense Department. The CIA and other services weren’t coming up with what the
administration wanted, so they set up these other outfits to come up with “intelligence”
tailored to take our country to war.

The focus of these groups was linking 9/11 and Al Qaeda to Saddam Hussein. Mike
McConnell, Director of National Intelligence for the last two years of the Bush Administration,
offered his take on these non-CIA agencies on Meet The Press in 2007: “My sense of it is their
political faith and convictions influenced how they took information and interpreted . . . they
did set up a whole new interpretation because they didn’t like the answers. They’ve gotten
results that in my view now have been disastrous.”

Jeb Bush referred to “intelligence everybody saw”. No, they didn’t. Outside the
administration, the full 90-page National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq was available only
to select members of House and Senate intelligence committees. According to former Sen.
Bob Graham (D-FL), what other Senators got a week before they were to vote on war was a
20-page glossy marketing brochure prepared by the administration – with all caveats and
qualifications from the original report omitted.

Jeb Bush suggested “the world” saw this intelligence, too. Much of the world had its own
intelligence capabilities, and was troubled by what we were doing with ours. The “Downing
Street Memo” of July 2002 quotes the head of Britain’s M16 as observing that “Bush wanted to
remove Saddam Hussein, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism
and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.” British Foreign
Secretary Jack Straw added that although Bush had “made up his mind” to attack Iraq, “the
case was thin.”

The German Federal Intelligence Service warned us about “Curveball”, the Iraqi informant
they described as “crazy . . . out of control”, and who friends called “a congenital liar”.
Nonetheless, his bogus claims about mobile weapons labs (debunked by our own intelligence
agencies) made it into over a hundred government reports and Secretary of State Colin
Powell’s address to the U.N.

To protect their propaganda from actual intelligence, the administration went so far as to
commit the treasonous act of outing an undercover CIA agent, blowing an entire operation
combatting actual nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, merely to discredit her husband –
who’d debunked the president’s State of the Union claim about Iraq’s obtaining uranium from
Africa.

Jeb Bush calls his brother George one of his foreign policy “advisors”. There’s something
to be said about learning from one’s mistakes, but first you’ve got to own those mistakes.
It’s called “character”. In shifting blame instead to those whose job is to gather and assess
intelligence, not to market a war, he reveals a lack of character – which, as I see it, disqualifies
him from the office he may or may not announce he’s seeking.

President Obama is "personally" offended his
own party refuses to allow him to "fast track"
the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade
agreement.

Considering the details are hidden from
everyone except select international insiders
negotiating the fate of American workers,
the American public should be "personally"
offended by Obama and the Republicans
willing to go along.

Republican Pat Buchanan asks, "Where is
the liberal morality in passing laws to ensure
U.S. workers a living wage and clean and safe
conditions, and then, through fast track and
free trade, signaling their bosses that they
can evade these laws by shutting factories
here, moving their plants to Asia, paying
coolie wages, and subjecting Asian workers to
conditions that would earn a U.S. industrialist
a tour in Leavenworth?"

In 2013, Obama was fighting for the
Transatlantic Trade and Investment
Partnership when the liberal Economic Policy
Institute crushed Obama's claims of gaining
hundreds of thousands of jobs, reporting, "U.S.
trade with Mexico after the North American
Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has cost the
United States nearly 700,000 jobs through
2010. U.S. trade with China has certainly failed
to deliver on the promised benefits of growing
exports. Since that country entered the World
Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, the U.S.
has lost 2.7 million jobs through 2011 due to
growing trade deficits with China."

Today's TPP is no exception to American job
loss.

When was the last time the U.S. had an
international trade advantage? Over four
decades ago.

Economists estimate "free trade" has cost a
cumulative 29 million American jobs between
1992 and 2011.

Left-wing news site Slate reported in February
that liberal activist Matthew Covington
pleaded with Republican David Young at an
Iowa event commemorating Dr. Martin Luther
King, "to beware of the executive overreach
that Obama would be engaging in if he secured
fast-track powers. 'I said, 'This is such a
large trade
deal and the
Constitution
gives
Congress
the authority
to regulate
that, not the
president. This
would give the
authority to the president. But we elected you
to give you that authority, to see what's in this
trade deal, to make sure it doesn't jeopardize
Iowa values.'"

If that sounds more like a Tea Party American
than a liberal, you've noticed a political
convergence surrounding free trade.

Pathetically, Ted Cruz has acquiesced to
Obama, but fellow Republican presidential
candidate Rand Paul promises a "no" vote on
the deal, telling The Hill he's "hesitant to give
blanket authority on stuff we haven't seen."

Paul noted that he might support the trade
agreement if he were about to see it, but warned
that the Obama administration doesn't want
the American people to find out the details
"because they're afraid that if the public knows
what we are going to vote on, that somehow
that would destroy the republic."

Bottom line: Obama's economic policies failed
dramatically. For the first time in history, 93
million Americans seeking work can't find
jobs. He is desperately seeking a legacy with
a secret deal with Iran, free trade or anything
besides the Unaffordable Care Act that he
can call a "success." He has failed to earn
Americans' trust to negotiate in our interest.

Senate Democrats are feigning disagreement,
seeking phony amendments designed to create
the false narrative that they're concerned
about American workers.

Unfortunately, his record does not foretell a
good ending for any of this.

Rick Jensen is Delaware's award-winning
conservative talk show host on WDEL,
streaming live on WDEL.com from 1pm —
4pm EST. Contact Rick at rick@wdel.com, or
follow him on Twitter @Jensen1150WDEL.

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