National Reviews'Andy McCarthy is not impressed with George Tenet's 60 Minutes' appearance:
Why do the Iraq naysayers never confront the counterfactual scenario of their dreams? If we had left Saddam in place, the sanctions would have disintegrated in short order — Security Council members France, Russia and China were bought and paid for in Oil-for-Food bribes. Once the sanctions had collapsed, Saddam would have been right back in business — his WMD programs ready to be up and running again (to the extent they were not running already) as he sat there with about $20 billion in Oil-for-Food profits and an ongoing relationship with al Qaeda (among many other jihadist groups).
If you want to say we shouldn’t have gone to Iraq, and should have anticipated the present chaos there, fair enough. But at least have the honesty to say you’d prefer the alternative: A Saddam Hussein, emboldened from having faced down the United States and its sanctions, loaded with money, arming with WMDs, and coddling jihadists.
And Michael Ledeen at National Review Online, accuses Tenet of misrepresenting his efforts:
In December, 2001, I participated in discussions between two Pentagon officials and Iranians who claimed knowledge of Iranian-sponsored efforts to kill Americans in Afghanistan. We met in Rome, Italy over several days. The discussions were approved by Stephen Hadley, the deputy national-security adviser, and the two Defense department officials’ travel was approved by their superiors. The American ambassador in Rome was fully informed in advance, and fully briefed afterwards. The conversations produced detailed information about the identities, locations, and plans of Iranian-trained terrorists in Afghanistan. This was passed on to the proper authorities at the DoD, and I was later told by military officers that the information likely saved American lives.
Now comes the former director of central intelligence, George Tenet, with several pages about the meeting in his new book. He does not mention that American lives were saved, nor does he seem at all interested to learn that there were well-informed sources who were willing to help the American government. Nor, for that matter, is he much interested in the facts at all. His account is repeatedly wrong. He is wrong about the Iranians, wrong about the Americans, wrong about what was discussed, and wrong about the official status of the meeting. He misdescribes the Iranians as “dissidents” living overseas. He misidentifies the two Pentagon officials as subordinates of Under Secretary Douglas Feith (one of Tenet’s many betes noirs), but only one of them was in Feith’s shop. He says it “sounded like an off-the-books covert-action program trying to destabilize the Iranian government,” when the discussion was about Iranians in Afghanistan, not overthrowing the mullahs, and the meeting had been formally approved by the deputy national-security adviser (knowing Stephen Hadley, I presume he had the approval of his boss, Condoleezza Rice). Tenet calls it “Son of Iran-contra,” with which it had nothing in common save for the marginal involvement of Manoucher Ghorbanifar, who helped bring the Iranians to Italy, but was not a source of information. Someone might have reminded Tenet that Iran-Contra had to do with providing weapons to Iran in exchange for hostages, while the Rome meeting was about Iranian efforts to kill Americans in Afghanistan. Some parentage! He’s wrong about other things as well, some of which Ed Morrissey and Bill Kristol have pointed out.
The Corner'sRich Lowry opines that Tenet's book doesn't seem quite as harsh toward the administration as portrayed by the media.
The Weekly Standard'sWilliam Kristol catches George Tenet's imagining an encounter with Richard Perle:
THE WEEKLY STANDARD has now learned of a second, more stunning error in Tenet's book (which is due to appear in bookstores tomorrow). According to Michiko Kakutani's review in Saturday's Times,
On the day after 9/11, he [Tenet] adds, he ran into Richard Perle, a leading neoconservative and the head of the Defense Policy Board, coming out of the White House. He says Mr. Perle turned to him and said: "Iraq has to pay a price for what happened yesterday. They bear responsibility."
Here's the problem: Richard Perle was in France on that day, unable to fly back after September 11. In fact Perle did not return to the United State until September 15. Did Tenet perhaps merely get the date of this encounter wrong? Well, the quote Tenet ascribes to Perle hinges on the encounter taking place September 12: "Iraq has to pay a price for what happened yesterday." And Perle in any case categorically denies to THE WEEKLY STANDARD ever having said any such thing to Tenet, while coming out of the White House or anywhere else.
Scrappleface'sScott Ott spoofs Tenet's new book: "Former CIA Boss Out of Loop on Parts of His New Book"
Hotair'sIan opines that since Tenet said on 60 Minutues that Iraq wouldn't have nukes until 2007 or 2009, then should we have waited to invade until last year? Wizbang'sLorie Byrd adds, "Am I missing something or did Tenet basically say that if Saddam had been left in power, it is likely he would have a nuclear weapon today? Or in a year or two, anyway. I get that the point Pelley was trying to make (yes, some journalists try to make points in their interviews) was that the Vice President was citing numbers other than what he was getting from the CIA. Maybe he was relying on numbers Great Britain or some other entity had shared with the administration. Maybe Pelley and Tenet think we should have waited until 2007 to address that threat, then if our estimates were off by a year or three and Saddam had the bomb in 2004, then oopsie, tough break."
Campaign finance laws are increasingly becoming a tool to suppress political speech, and the courts are finally waking up to the danger. Last week a unanimous Washington state Supreme Court struck down an outrageous interpretation of a law that had been used to classify the antitax comments of two Seattle talk-radio hosts as "campaign contributions" subject to regulation--that is, suppression--by local prosecutors and officials who disagreed.
Washington's highest court struck down a decision by Superior Court Judge Chris Wickham, who in 2005 ordered KVI radio hosts John Carlson and Kirby Wilbur had to place a monetary value on "campaign contributions" they made when they argued in favor of Initiative 912, a ballot measure to repeal a 9.5-cent-a-gallon increase in the state's gasoline tax. The antitax measure ultimately lost by 6% of the vote, in part because its opponents outspent its supporters by 20 to 1.
But the "unofficial" support of the measure by talk-show hosts such as Messrs. Carlson and Wilbur, who went so far as to actively tell listeners how they could sign petitions to get I-912 on the ballot, infuriated the self-styled Keep Washington Rolling coalition, which backed the gas tax hike. The coalition convinced a local prosecutor in San Juan County, along with the cities of Kent, Auburn and Seattle, to sue KVI radio demanding that it be brought under the state's campaign finance laws.
The Club for Growth'sAndrew Roth opines, "It's good to finally see a court prevent runaway restrictions on political free speech. Let's hope we see more of this in the future."
Michelle Malkin adds that this was a stealthy attempt to reimpose the Fairness doctrine, and she is annoyed the MSM has ignored this major court decision.
The Radio Equalizer'sBrian Maloney notes that liberal bloggers who are unhappy that KVI wasn't muzzled are nitpicking the ruling, even though the Washington State Supreme Court "hardly has a 'right-wing' reputation."
Rush Limbaugh is happy with the ruling, and explains why talk radio has "free speech too."
Uncle Jimbo Slaps CNN For Using Sniper Propaganda Video
