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It's the politician's game of choice. And like other graduates of the Karl Rove school of politics, John Kline is pretty good at it. His polish and Cheneyesque air of authoritarian conviction often provide cover for his slips and slides. That's why, just as in professional sports, it's critical to have it all on tape.
Not surprisingly, Kline's unprecedented town hall meeting last week was, according to a TV news report, "tightly controlled" (http://www.myfoxtwin...). Kline refused to wear a microphone for a TV crew and his staff ordered the school's audio operator to not give the media an audio feed from the wireless mics. But for those of us unable to personally attend our congressman's first-ever event of this sort, it's a good thing there was some media coverage and some videotape.
Catching Political Obfuscation
For the first time, Kline admitted that the Bush Administration has made mistakes in Iraq. So he gets credit for that bit of truth. However, in addition to what you see happened when Kline was asked about his "despicable voting record" on veterans' issues (click here: http://www.youtube.c...), his two other worst obfuscations to be caught on tape concerned the Iraq War. Kline, of course, is incapable of telling the truth about how it started or how it must end. Here's what he said:
"It is very popular in some areas to say that President Bush lied. I do not believe that he did lie. However, it is clear there were some pretty horrific intelligence estimates. Part of that problem was addressed by the 9-11 Commission. Communications between intelligence agencies and law enforcement agencies were prohibited by law and people just weren't talking to each other. Not because they willfully didn't want to, but because laws and regulations prohibited it and there were bad errors made. If I were to be critical of President Clinton, and I'm trying not to be. It's a new thing for me. What did happen in the Clinton administration was a steady erosion of our human intelligence capabilities. And I think that's recognized pretty far and wide. It was not maliciousness of President Clinton nor was it lying on the part of President Bush in my opinion, in my judgment."
The truth, whether it's popular or not, is that Bush and his cronies DID unfortunately LIE us into this disastrous Iraq war. Over half the country now believes Bush misled the public about the strength of the "intelligence" suggesting Saddam had WMD and was linked to Al Qaeda. And this is not a nuanced, small point. We know, for instance, that the Niger documents were crude forgeries and were deliberately used by Bush in his State of the Union speech despite internal warnings not to rely on them (http://www.washingto.... Forgery, for you non criminal justice types, involves lying.
But forgery is just the tip of the iceberg. Former Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth de la Vega's book: U.S. v. Bush (http://www.sevenstor...) has carefully explained by reference to proof strong enough to be used in prosecution for outright criminal fraud just how and why each of the particular items comprising the "intelligence" of Iraq's (non-existent) WMD and ties to Al-Qaeda were horribly distorted and twisted by the Bush-Cheney-Rove-Rice-Rumsfeld cabal.
The Downing Street Memos, minutes taken in Great Britain in 2002, confirm the Bush Administration's plan "to fix the intelligence around the policy," to falsely sell the need for war to the American public. Our Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity group lamented (see Sham Dunk: Cooking Intelligence for the President, http://www.afterdown...) time and time again this perverted politicizing of intelligence. Where, by the way, did all the "leaks" and planted stories about Iraq's WMD and Al Qaeda connections before the invasion come from? Same Bush Administration. And Scooter wasn't the only "loyal Bushie" to do it. Although GOP cronies in Congress have thus far shielded Bush and Cheney's actions from investigation, the Senate Intelligence Committee is believed to be working right now to more fully report and expose the truth of how the intelligence was manipulated and distorted.
Kline also could not have been happy that the Pentagon's IG Report was declassified just two days after he defended Bush's lying. The full IG report contains even further evidence of wrongdoing by Douglas Feith, former Undersecretary of Defense who provided false briefings directly to and for Cheney of non-existent ties between Saddam and Al Qaeda. Cheney of course, like Kline, is sticking to his delusions (http://www.washingto...) about connections between Iraq and Al Qaeda, on his last good public outlet for lies: Rush Limbaugh's radio show.
Real whopper: Kline blaming pre 9-11 situation and Clinton for the Iraq War
Politicians count on the public to forget, confuse or conflate things over time and that's what Kline did when he inserted the 9-11 Commission issues into this particular obfuscation. I happen to be one of the people in the United States whose complaints of things-including the inability to easily share information between criminal and intelligence agents-gave rise to the 9-11 Commission investigation and report. I'll spare you the details about the prior "FISA wall" and the 9-11 Commission. But the short answer is, just as there was no connection between the Al Qaeda terrorists who attacked us on 9-11 and Iraq, there was NO CONNECTION between the problem that existed pre 9-11 in sharing intelligence and the Bush Administration's adducing false information about Iraq's WMD and ties to Al Qaeda. The 9-11 Commission itself conclusively refuted ties between Saddam and the 9-11 terrorists (http://www.9-11commi...).
Second major obfuscation: the "short term surge" originally sought by Bush and Kline is already growing to an open-ended, long-term escalation
In his recent speeches on the House floor, Kline based his support for Bush's "surge" of troops in Iraq on a sentence or two on page 73 of the Iraq Study Group that said they would go along with a "short term surge" as long as military commanders thought it would work. The Iraq Study Group made it clear, however that military commanders had already tried surge strategies and they had not worked (http://www.time.com/...). Military commanders, including General Petraeus, before he was promoted to overall commander, were all opposed to escalation. So with the Iraq Study Group's pessimistic but realistic findings hanging over his head, it became critical for Bush and GOP supporters of Bush and the Iraq War to stress the "short term" nature of the "surge" instead of admitting they were seeking a long term escalation of forces. When pressed, Petraeus went on record saying he would know if the "surge" was working by August; Kline similarly told district residents who met with him (only about a month ago) seeking the "town hall meeting" that he would give the "surge" between 6 and 9 months. That, however, was not what Kline said last Tuesday in Lakeville.
On tape, but unclear whether he's referring to the "surge" or to the war in general, Kline said,
"We'd all like to see that end next year. It can end next year. The American commanders have said they believe that. But I've been wrong and they've been wrong in the past. No question about that. I believed that we would be able to train the Iraqi soldiers faster, get them in the lead faster and we would be able to start pulling back faster than we've been able to."
"Next year" and not August or in 6 to 9 months from now? And just something "we'd all like to see"? Doesn't that sound like an attempt by Kline to stretch the "short term surge" to longer-term, open-ended escalation?
Kline is finally admitting for the first time, after four years, that mistakes have been made in Iraq and that he's been wrong about how difficult it is to train Iraqi troops to take over. This should mean something coming as it does from one of Bush-Cheney's last great loyalist, they-can-do-no-wrong hold-outs, one of the last to even support Donald Rumsfeld up to the time of Rumsfeld's firing a couple days after Republicans lost elections around the country. But Kline seems to be doing what Condeleeza Rice did when she blamed the problems in Iraq on the tactical mistakes of the troops instead of owning up to the Administration's own fundamental errors and deceptions. Over the past four years, Kline has gone on four different junkets to Iraq and then used his military background to falsely proclaim how much progress is being made in Iraq even though it's clear each of his successive trips showed just the opposite. And like Bush Administration officials, Kline has repeatedly predicted victory around the corner, most recently after visiting Iraq in November 2005, "If you're talking to me in eight or 10 months, and we're not starting to see ... actual troop withdrawals, I'll be shocked." But sitting next to Rep. Kline at the WCCO radio booth at the State Fair this last summer after his predicted time for troop withdrawals had long passed, and asking him if he was shocked it hadn't happened, he just laughed and scoffed at me.
It doesn't take an intelligence background to see that his flippant statement "it can end next year" and "we'd all like to see that" is just more of the same. It seems he's already reneged on the "short term nature" of the promised surge. Since the "surge" started, we now have over 90 troops dying per month, up from 40 per month a couple years ago, averaging over 3 American deaths per day (http://icasualties.o...) but Kline just keep scoffing and obfuscating.
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