Chalabi and Wolfowitz: Liars in error!
Remember bank-robber Ahmed Chalabi‘s recent interview in the Daily Telegraph in which he discussed accusations that he and his Iraqi National Congress misled Washington with faulty intelligence in the run-up to the war?
Mr Chalabi, by far the most effective anti-Saddam lobbyist in Washington, shrugged off charges that he had deliberately misled US intelligence. “We are heroes in error,” he told the Telegraph in Baghdad.
“As far as we’re concerned we’ve been entirely successful. That tyrant Saddam is gone and the Americans are in Baghdad. What was said before is not important. The Bush administration is looking for a scapegoat. We’re ready to fall on our swords if he wants.”
Now we hear from brethren-in-WMDs Paul Wolfowitz on comments by Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski last week that his country was “misled” on information concerning Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction:
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, speaking on PBS’ News Hour With Jim Lehrer, questioned Kwasniewski’s comments.
“I use the word ‘misled’ when somebody knows a fact and tries to persuade you of a different fact. When somebody tells you their best estimate of a situation and it turns out to be wrong, that’s life. That happens often,” he said.
So there you have it, President Kwasniewski! That’s life! You just have to roll with the punches when you’re playing the neocon’s nation-building game! Freedom is messy!
So is the truth, apparently. Will these guys ever tell it? Sadly, no!
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, speaking on PBS’ News Hour With Jim Lehrer, questioned Kwasniewski’s comments.
“I use the word ‘misled’ when somebody knows a fact and tries to persuade you of a different fact. When somebody tells you their best estimate of a situation and it turns out to be wrong, that’s life. That happens often,” he said.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/03/19/60minutes/main607356.shtml
Clarke finally got his meeting about al Qaeda in April [2001], three months after his urgent request. But it wasn’t with the president or cabinet. It was with the second-in-command in each relevant department.
For the Pentagon, it was Paul Wolfowitz.
Clarke relates, “I began saying, ‘We have to deal with bin Laden; we have to deal with al Qaeda.’ Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, said, ‘No, no, no. We don’t have to deal with al Qaeda. Why are we talking about that little guy? We have to talk about Iraqi terrorism against the United States.’
“And I said, ‘Paul, there hasn’t been any Iraqi terrorism against the United States in eight years!’ And I turned to the deputy director of the CIA and said, ‘Isn’t that right?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, that’s right. There is no Iraqi terrorism against the United States.”
So, Paul, what do you call it when a tobacco company scientist insists that smoking doesn’t cause cancer, and denies evidence presented by scientists who are not employed by tobacco companies?
“When somebody tells you their best estimate of a situation and it turns out to be wrong, that’s life.”
Didn’t Frank Sinatra sing a song like that?
“That’s life. That’s what all the people say.
You’re ridin’ high in April, shot down in May…”
Didn’t Frank Sinatra sing a song like that?
Funny that you mention that song, it was running through my head the entire time I wrote that post …