Saddam, WMDs, al Qaqaa, and the Russian Connection
Well, well, well.
The New York Times/Kerry-Edwards axis thought it were pulling an October surprise on George W. Bush by coming at him from his Right on Iraq after defenestrating themselves attacking him from his Left. They thought - they were certain - that after a year and a half of incessantly and ferociously dishonest villification of the President as a "liar" and a "warmonger" and a "war criminal," they had him by the balls: dangerous weapons - almost, dare their hearts start singing, weapons of mass destruction - that the IAEA had sealed are now missing, perchance to fall into terrorist hands, and it's all George Bush's fault.
Except it turns out that no, it isn't George Bush's fault, because the famous 380 tons weren't at al Qaqaa when our forces arrived. Since 760 thousand pounds of anything cannot be "looted" in any practical sense, it can only mean that the high explosives in question were moved somewhere else in the month between the last IAEA eyeballing and the fall of Baghdad.
For nearly a year there have been repeated stories nibbling at the edges of the media "mainstream" (particularly from debka.com) reporting that Saddam shipped his WMD stockpiles to Syria two months before the beginning of OIF for safekeeping against his eventual return to power. This elicited lots of derision and eyerolling from libs who persisted in their fanciful, almost excruciatingly naive belief that Saddam never had WMDs so they could stoke their equivalently malevolent belief that George Bush is the Devil.
Well, the Kerry-Big Media cabal threw their "gotcha" boomerang out there, and now it's coming back to cave in their collectiv[ist] skull.
The Washington Times' Bill Gertz reports in just a few hours from now that, according to John A. Shaw, the deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security, Russian troops "almost certainly" helped Saddam's men clean the Al Qaqaa site out before the Iraq War started, sending the contents to Syria, Lebanon (same thing) and even Iran.
Brother Mirengoff over at Powerline wonders why the Bush Administration would sit on such information for so long when disclosing it months ago would have been immensely helpful in refuting the "Bush lied about WMDs!!!" attacks. Anybody who has read my maunderings over at RepublicanForum.com knows all too well that I have pondered that very same question on numerous occasions. My biggest criticism of the Bush campaign has been its choice between May of last year and March of this one to play rope-a-dope and let the DisLoyal Opposition pound the bejesus out of them without resistence rather than adapting the Clinton "instant response" strategy. Knocking the donks on their asses at every turn may well have sent the President into the spring with the sizeable advantage he should have enjoyed given the lackluster nature of his eventual opponent.
It's possible that they didn't come into possession of this information until recently, I suppose. But it may also be that Rove & Co. decided to hold this haymaker in reserve against just such a Dem/media gambit.
Call it an October "counter-surprise."
If so, I would say it is already successful. As Deacon observes, "[Kerry] will have (a) jumped to a conclusion that wasn't supported by the facts, (b) assumed the incompetence of our troops, (c) confirmed President Bush's position that Iraq had weapons worth worrying about, and (d) unleashed evidence that...suggests that chemical and biological weapons could easily have been moved out of Iraq just before we invaded."
Looks like political jiu-jitsu to me. Or allowing the Boston Balker to braid enough rhetorical rope for a noose, and then swooping in to hang him with it. Having essentially conceded the President's war premise in order to recklessly attack him with it, Kerry has now left himself with no place to go. If he backs away from what he today shriekingly called a "burgeoning scandal," he confirms the "he'll say anything" label and forfeits any credibility he has left; but if he clings to the phony story anyway despite its discrediting, he brings back all the bad things that so damaged him in August during the SwiftVets sturm und drang - his penchant for "embellishment," fantasizing, and cynical indifference to inconvenient facts - and still forfeits his credibility.
It's taken the entire campaign, but John Kerry has finally talked himself into a corner he cannot flip-flop his way out of.
It's almost - almost - worth the President cutting this so damned close.
I still prefer the "swatting a fly with a Buick" approach.
But a second term is a second term.
The New York Times/Kerry-Edwards axis thought it were pulling an October surprise on George W. Bush by coming at him from his Right on Iraq after defenestrating themselves attacking him from his Left. They thought - they were certain - that after a year and a half of incessantly and ferociously dishonest villification of the President as a "liar" and a "warmonger" and a "war criminal," they had him by the balls: dangerous weapons - almost, dare their hearts start singing, weapons of mass destruction - that the IAEA had sealed are now missing, perchance to fall into terrorist hands, and it's all George Bush's fault.
Except it turns out that no, it isn't George Bush's fault, because the famous 380 tons weren't at al Qaqaa when our forces arrived. Since 760 thousand pounds of anything cannot be "looted" in any practical sense, it can only mean that the high explosives in question were moved somewhere else in the month between the last IAEA eyeballing and the fall of Baghdad.
For nearly a year there have been repeated stories nibbling at the edges of the media "mainstream" (particularly from debka.com) reporting that Saddam shipped his WMD stockpiles to Syria two months before the beginning of OIF for safekeeping against his eventual return to power. This elicited lots of derision and eyerolling from libs who persisted in their fanciful, almost excruciatingly naive belief that Saddam never had WMDs so they could stoke their equivalently malevolent belief that George Bush is the Devil.
Well, the Kerry-Big Media cabal threw their "gotcha" boomerang out there, and now it's coming back to cave in their collectiv[ist] skull.
The Washington Times' Bill Gertz reports in just a few hours from now that, according to John A. Shaw, the deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security, Russian troops "almost certainly" helped Saddam's men clean the Al Qaqaa site out before the Iraq War started, sending the contents to Syria, Lebanon (same thing) and even Iran.
Brother Mirengoff over at Powerline wonders why the Bush Administration would sit on such information for so long when disclosing it months ago would have been immensely helpful in refuting the "Bush lied about WMDs!!!" attacks. Anybody who has read my maunderings over at RepublicanForum.com knows all too well that I have pondered that very same question on numerous occasions. My biggest criticism of the Bush campaign has been its choice between May of last year and March of this one to play rope-a-dope and let the DisLoyal Opposition pound the bejesus out of them without resistence rather than adapting the Clinton "instant response" strategy. Knocking the donks on their asses at every turn may well have sent the President into the spring with the sizeable advantage he should have enjoyed given the lackluster nature of his eventual opponent.
It's possible that they didn't come into possession of this information until recently, I suppose. But it may also be that Rove & Co. decided to hold this haymaker in reserve against just such a Dem/media gambit.
Call it an October "counter-surprise."
If so, I would say it is already successful. As Deacon observes, "[Kerry] will have (a) jumped to a conclusion that wasn't supported by the facts, (b) assumed the incompetence of our troops, (c) confirmed President Bush's position that Iraq had weapons worth worrying about, and (d) unleashed evidence that...suggests that chemical and biological weapons could easily have been moved out of Iraq just before we invaded."
Looks like political jiu-jitsu to me. Or allowing the Boston Balker to braid enough rhetorical rope for a noose, and then swooping in to hang him with it. Having essentially conceded the President's war premise in order to recklessly attack him with it, Kerry has now left himself with no place to go. If he backs away from what he today shriekingly called a "burgeoning scandal," he confirms the "he'll say anything" label and forfeits any credibility he has left; but if he clings to the phony story anyway despite its discrediting, he brings back all the bad things that so damaged him in August during the SwiftVets sturm und drang - his penchant for "embellishment," fantasizing, and cynical indifference to inconvenient facts - and still forfeits his credibility.
It's taken the entire campaign, but John Kerry has finally talked himself into a corner he cannot flip-flop his way out of.
It's almost - almost - worth the President cutting this so damned close.
I still prefer the "swatting a fly with a Buick" approach.
But a second term is a second term.
posted by JASmius at 1:22 AM
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