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Thom Hartmann takes our corporate media and the cheerleaders for war with Iraq to task and ten years after our invasion, asks 'Where are the apologies?'

Via Truthout: How the Media Fueled the War in Iraq:

Yesterday, the U.S. marked the 10th anniversary of the start of the Iraq War. And, over the course of the past ten years, we've learned more and more about how the war with Iraq actually started.

It's incredibly easy to blame the Bush administration for its lies that led us into Iraq. But Cheney, Rumsfeld and company weren't the only ones who played an integral role in convincing this nation that Saddam Hussein was a threat, and that WMD's were a forgone conclusion.

In the days and weeks leading up to the invasion of Iraq, corporate media – and even NPR and PBS - were abuzz with the talking points of the Bush Administration, echoing claims that Iraq had its hands on "yellow cake uranium" and that it had a massive arsenal of "weapons of mass destruction."

Thanks to the media's repeated claims that Iraq and Saddam Hussein were immediate threats to our nation, in the weeks leading up to the invasion, nearly three-quarters of Americans believed the lie promoted by Donald Rumsfeld that Saddam Hussein was somehow involved in the attacks of 9/11.

One of the biggest proponents of the Iraq War was Bill O'Reilly.

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After Sen. John McCain gave his most recent excuse for opposing the nomination of Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense, which is that Hagel was "disagreeable" to George Bush and was mean to him after we found ourselves lied into invading Iraq, Rachel Maddow took on McCain for his history revisionism and for wanting to re-litigate the fact that everything we were told about why it was necessary to go in there and how things were going once we did was wrong.

Maddow has a new documentary which will be airing this Monday titled: Hubris: Selling the Iraq War and it seems John McCain inadvertently has done his best to do a promotion for the special with his behavior this week, because as Maddow pointed out in this segment, if we allow the likes of McCain to pretend that going into Iraq wasn't a disaster and one of or biggest foreign policy disasters since Vietnam, we're going to see it happen again.

Here's more on Rachel's special next week: Rachel Maddow To Probe Lies That Led to Iraq War in TV Special 'Hubris':

Perhaps you think you’ve read or heard it all. Hell, I even wrote my own book about it, So Wrong for So Long,. But now Rachel Maddow is promising surprising revelations in her MSNBC special Hubris: Selling the Iraq War, next Monday night in her regular time slot.

It will be President’s Day, but it looks like she sure won’t be celebrating George W. Bush. Or the mainstream media.

The special marks the opening of what will surely be a slew of tenth-anniversary programs and other media revisits. If you want to go back yourself now: Ten years ago today Hans Blix made another fateful presentation to the United Nations on his team’s search for WMD in Iraq. It was said to bolster both opponents and proponents of a US invasion, since he still found no evidence of such weapons but Saddam was still not cooperating fully with inspections.

Why does this all matter? Well, consider this major Washington Post piece last night on Iran allegedly boosting nuclear program by pursuing certain…magnets. It never ends. [...]

It will be interesting to see if she covers her colleagues, such as Chris Matthews, backing the war, and her network’s move to oust Phil Donahue partly for opposing it.

Given the deference we generally see her give David Gregory, I doubt it. Go read the rest and Greg's got some excerpt clips embedded along with links to a few others. I read Michael Isikoff and David Corn's book, which her documentary is based on, shortly after it came out, but I haven't picked it back up since. Apparently there are going to be some new revelations that weren't in the book as well. It sounds like it will be well worth tuning in.

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Ed Schultz took a whack at chickenhawk Dick Cheney for having the nerve to be out there whining about President Obama's national security cabinet nominations over the weekend: Dick Cheney Criticizes Obama National Security Appointees In Speech :

CHEYENNE, Wyo. -- Former Vice President Dick Cheney said Saturday night that President Barack Obama has jeopardized U.S. national security by nominating substandard candidates for key cabinet posts and by degrading the U.S. military.

"The performance now of Barack Obama as he staffs up the national security team for the second term is dismal," Cheney said in comments to about 300 members of the Wyoming Republican Party.

Cheney, a Wyoming native, said it was vital to the nation's national security that "good folks" hold the positions of secretary of state, CIA director and secretary of defense.

"Frankly, what he has appointed are second-rate people," he said.

John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, has been confirmed as secretary of state. CIA designate John Brennan and defense secretary nominee Chuck Hagel are still awaiting U.S. Senate confirmation.

As Schultz noted, coming from the man who got five draft deferments, and that worked in an administration that lied us into invading Iraq and hired the likes of Condi Rice and Don Rumsfeld, that's pretty rich. And as Ed reminded us, it's just in time for the seventh anniversary of Cheney shooting his friend, Harry Whittington in the face, which is as Ed noted, probably as close to combat as Cheney will ever come.

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The more things change, the more they remain the same. It's now almost ten years later, and Colin Powell is still defending going in front of the United Nations and pushing the faulty intelligence to justify our invasion of Iraq. Of course don't expect any introspection from host David Gregory who decided to treat this as merely some policy disagreement between Powell and former Sen. Chuck Hagel, who he was defending as President Obama's pick for Defense Secretary during this segment on Meet the Press.

It's no wonder all of the neocons don't seem to mind re-litigating the invasion of Iraq if this is the type of coverage that we're going to get from our corporate media once those hearings start.

GREGORY: The renewed debate about Iraq is also occurring, the New York Times write about-- writes about that today. And his-- in his memoir, he writes something very pointed about the Iraq war. He writes, "it all comes down to the fact we were asked to vote on a resolution based on half-truths, untruths and wishful thinking. I voted for this resolution that gave the president the authority to go to war in Iraq if all diplomatic efforts were exhausted and failed. Unfortunately, it was not his intention to exhaust all diplomatic efforts.” He is talking about the diplomatic efforts you were engaged in as Secretary of State in the run-up to the war in Iraq.

GEN. POWELL: I would disagree with this characterization. We were basing all of our actions on a national intelligence estimate that the Congress asked for and was provided to the Congress by the CIA. And all of us in the Bush administration at that time accepted the judgment of our 16 intelligence communities. I presented it to the U.N. Three months before I presented it to the U.N., Congress passed a resolution, also supported by Senator Hagel and many other senators that would give the president the authority to go to war. They weren’t half-truths is what we were being told by the intelligence community. We subsequently found out that a lot of that information was not accurate and that is very unfortunate but that’s the way it unfolded.

GREGORY: Was he wrong on Iraq?

GEN. POWELL: With respect to what?

GREGORY: With respect to what he ultimately called a huge foreign policy blunder?

GEN. POWELL: He-- that’s his characterization and if people want to challenge his characterization, they will have that opportunity during the confirmation.

GREGORY: In your judgment, was he wrong on Iraq?

GEN. POWELL: I would not have called it that. I would have said that what I think was wrong was the president had more than sufficient basis to believe that there were weapons of mass destruction that were a danger to the world and the possibility of those weapons going to terrorists. And so, he undertook military action. I think that was the correct thing to do and it was well supported by the intelligence. I think we did not execute the operation well. Once Baghdad fell, there was a feeling that well that was the end of it. It was not the end of it. That was just the beginning of it.

Here's a little reminder about just what Powell knew and didn't know when he made that presentation to the United Nations: The U.N. Deception: What Exactly Colin Powell Knew Five Years Ago, and What He Told the World

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Senators John McCain and his BFF Lindsey Graham found themselves receiving some similar criticism to that dished out last week by Rachel Maddow, when she slammed McCain for all of the times he said something wrong on a Sunday show. If these two and their "third amigo" Kelly Ayotte want to keep making hypocritical asses of themselves with their petulant attacks on U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, I just hope there's more segments like this to come.

Jon Stewart exposes blatant hypocrisy of McCain and Graham:

The two senators have pilloried Rice for saying the attack in Benghazi was the result of a spontaneous protest against an anti-Islam film. However, Stewart noted that both McCain and Graham had falsely told the public that Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction.

“Unfortunately, that’s not really a fair one-to-one comparison, because Susan Rice admitted to the error within weeks — these two still refuse to acknowledge that invading a country based on information from a source named ‘curveball’ was actually considered a pretty shitty idea by many at the time,” Stewart said.

“If only we had a more direct comparison to make here. Like another high-ranking government official passing what they knew at the time was misleading intelligence to the American public on a Sunday news show, also in line to become secretary of state, and was African American, and a woman, and lets say her name was also Rice. That’d be something.”

Stewart went on to play a mash-up of clips of McCain and Graham, lying about our invasion of Iraq and defending Condoleezza Rice. What's really pathetic is that any of these hypocrites are allowed to appear before what passes for our "news" organizations without being ripped to shreds as Stewart did here.

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An Iraqi defector, codenamed Curveball, who allegedly helped convince the Bush administration that Saddam Hussein had a secret stash of biological and chemical weapons, has admitted for the first time that he made it all up.

Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi told The Guardian that he invented the stories to help topple Saddam Hussein, but was shocked when the US used tales as an excuse to go to war.

"I did that for a number of reasons," he said. "Firstly because of my people, the Iraqi people. The old regime was a dictatorship and that caused a lot of problems for our country."

"I had to do something for my country. So I did this and I am satisfied, because there is no dictator in Iraq any more."

"Maybe I was right, maybe I was not right," Janabi observed. "They gave me this chance. I had the chance to fabricate something to topple the regime. I and my sons are proud of that and we are proud that we were the reason to give Iraq the margin of democracy."

It was just over eight years ago that US Secretary of State Colin Powell took Janabi's claims to the United Nations.

The news also follows the release of former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's admission that there were no weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq before the war.

Tyler Drumheller, the former CIA chief in Europe, told The Guardian that Janabi's confession was "fascinating."

"I think there are still a number of people who still thought there was something in that. Even now," he said.

Janabi's lies were key features of arguments made by the Bush administration, namely that Hussein was moving biochemical weapons from place to place with mobile labs. He falsely claimed that he worked on a team that assembled the weapons, and that Iraq had plans to build even more mobile weapons labs.

On Feb. 5, 2003, Powell repeated the claims in a speech to the United Nations, in which he justified the invasion of Iraq.

Powell later described his speech to the United Nations as a "blot" on his career.

"I'm the one who presented it on behalf of the United States to the world, and [it] will always be a part of my record," he said. "It was painful. It's painful now."

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Glenn Kessler did a bit of fact checking on Donald Rumsfeld's recent interview with George Stephanopoulos on Good Morning America and par for the course, he's still playing CYA with our reasons for invading a country that was never a threat to us.

Rumsfeld's flight of fancy on Iraq:

George Stephanopoulos: "But you had inspectors in the country [Iraq]. Why was it necessary to invade--"

Former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld: Saddam Hussein "had thrown them out about the second or third or fourth time."

--An exchange during an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America," Feb. 8, 2011

Former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld has been hawking his autobiography "Known and Unknown." We will leave the book reviews to others, but his assertion that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had "thrown out" weapons inspectors is a common misperception, often repeated by former Bush administration officials. Let's correct the record.

The Facts

There are two key periods for weapons inspections in Iraq, from 1991 to 1998, after the Persian Gulf War, and then from 2002 to 2003, just before the Bush administration's invasion of Iraq.

Hussein's government often was uncooperative, refused entry to certain facilities and sought to influence the makeup of the independent inspection teams. But at no time did Iraq throw out the inspectors. In both cases, inspectors voluntarily ended their mission because of the threat of military action by the United States and its allies.

1991-1998 inspections

The first set of inspections began in 1991 after the passage of United Nations Security Council Resolution 687, which mandated that Iraq eliminate all of its biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons programs, as well as all of its ballistic missiles capable of traveling more than 90 miles. The resolution created a special inspections regime, known as UNSCOM, to ensure biological, chemical and missile programs were disbanded. The International Atomic Energy Agency was tasked with probing Iraq's nuclear weapons program.

The process was not easy but ultimately was effective. By 1995, Iraq admitted it had an offensive biological weapons research and development program; its nuclear program was exposed by the defection of Hussein Kamel, Hussein's son-in-law. Facilities were destroyed and stocks of chemical and biological-related materials were eliminated. The Security Council, however, had to repeatedly revisit the issue, demanding unhindered access for inspectors.

In August 1998, Iraq said it was suspending cooperation with the inspectors, and U.S. and British officials prepared for a military strike. In November, Iraq reversed itself and said it would cooperate, but the cooperation was not forthcoming. The inspectors withdrew on their own.

Kessler has more so go read the rest. Full transcript via Lexis Nexis below the fold.

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As Steve Benen pointed out, Joe Lieberman proved he can get foreign policy and feminism wrong at the same time on Morning Joe today:

Gail Collins noted this morning the Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) has "reached a point in his public career when every single thing he does, including talking about his grandparents, is irritating."

That's true, but some things are clearly more irritating than others.

Take this morning, for example.

During an appearance on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" today, Senator Joe Lieberman (I-Conn) continued to insist that Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction even though none were ever found after the invasion of Iraq.

The senator, retiring his seat in 2012, also said that despite the enormous cost to the U.S. in blood, prestige and treasure he does not regret his vote for war and would do it all over again.

This was an astounding appearance. Lieberman insisted the "most official and comprehensive report" proved Saddam Hussein was developing WMD, and that the regime was "beginning really tactically to support the terrorist movements that had attacked us on 9/11 and today."

None of this is connected to reality in any substantive way. Every available shred of evidence makes clear that Saddam's regime had nothing to do with al Qaeda, and for Lieberman to still be suggesting otherwise is disgraceful. For that matter, the notion that even the most confused observer would still believe that Iraq was developing WMD, and that this somehow justifies the invasion, is breathtaking.

As part of the same MSNBC segment, Arianna Huffington asked Lieberman to substantiate his claim about Saddam Hussein was working on weapons of mass destruction, a claim even George W. Bush abandoned. The senator replied, "I'm basing it on the so-called Duelfer Report. Charles D-U-E-L-F-E-R conducted the most comprehensive report on behalf of our government."

When Huffington said there's nothing in the Duelfer Report to bolster Lieberman's conclusions, the senator replied, "I don't think you've read it, sweetheart."

I find it nothing short of remarkable that a United States senator in 2011 would be so condescending as to call a woman "sweetheart" on national television. In context, Huffington was calling Lieberman out on his transparent falsehoods, which no doubt irritated him, but frankly, I don't care what the context was. Huffington deserves an apology.

Agreed. And as Steve and the Huffington Post pointed out as well, Lieberman doesn't know what he's talking about -- Joe Lieberman Insists Iraq Was Developing WMDs Despite No Evidence. And good for her for saying this to Lieberman's face:

HUFFINGTON: Well, based on this completely unfounded assumption, I sincerely hope for the sake of the country that you do not become Secretary of Defense.

Amen sister.

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If these Bushies want to come on the air to attempt some turd polishing about why the Bush administration chose to invade Iraq, a country that was not a threat to us, then they should be treated the way Paul Begala treated lying propagandist Ari Fleischer on Anderson Cooper's AC360.

COOPER: Out of Iraq by the end of next year, that was the promise from President Obama. He said the combat mission's over, but America and will provide support for the Iraqi people as both a friend and a partner.

Ari, you were obviously working for George W. Bush. I'm curious to what you thought as you listened to this. And obviously, not a great speech but a historic moment.

FLEISCHER: Well, my first thought was 7 1/2 years ago I was in the Oval Office when the president gave a speech committing us to Iraq. And it's appropriate. Americans don't like to commit troop abroad. And when we do, we want to win, and we want come to come. And the president -- I think President Bush has won because of the surge.

And then, in December of 2008, remember when the shoe was thrown at him? That was actually the announcement of a security agreement with the Iraqi government to bring our troops hope at the end of 2011.

The day had to come. So I'm glad the day was able to come and that President Obama gave a speech where he could thank the troops who also made this possible who really deserve all the credit for making it possible.

COOPER: Do you think he should have said more about President Bush?

FLEISCHER: You know, I think it would have been gracious of him if he'd mentioned the surge, but the problem he has, for President Obama to put the words "President Bush," "Iraq" and anything good in the same sentence, the Democrat base, which already doesn't want to show up in November -- what will Nancy Pelosi see if he starts talking like that?

So I understand -- I wish he was more gracious about it, but he has his own Democratic political imperatives, and he has -- he followed those tonight.

COOPER: Paul, what did you think of the speech? We haven't heard from you tonight.

BEGALA: Well, I think it was -- first, he was trying to do three different things, right? Say we're going to withdraw from Iraq, but we're going to surge into Afghanistan, but we're going to withdraw from there, too. But then, we're going to take care of folks here at home. I want to pick up, though, on this point that Ari makes about the surge, because it is staggering to me. First off, the surge was only necessary because President Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld went to war with too few troops, because they wanted to prove General Shinseki, the Army chief of staff, wrong. That's why we needed it in the first place.

Second, it could have never succeeded without the preceding Sunni awakening. Iraqis themselves had to decide. It wasn't the American surge and then -- that cured it. It was the Sunni awakening.

But I'll make a deal with President Bush. We'll give you all the credit for the surge if you take half of the blame for the lies that got us into the war, by which I mean Iraq -- excuse me, Ari, by which I mean...

FLEISCHER: No, Paul, it's not right.

BEGALA: ... by which I mean Ari himself saying Iraq was an imminent threat to America, by which the president of the United States saying it was a mushroom cloud that could become a smoking gun, by which I mean the threat of unmanned aerial drones that Saddam supposedly had that would gas America, the connections that they allege which were false between al Qaeda and -- and Saddam's regime.

So, you know, there was so much they got wrong about this. Some of it just was botched, and some of it was deeply dishonest. And the notion that somehow George Bush is owed any moment of grace here is appalling to the history.

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David Gergen thinks that Karl Rove deserves a pass for saying the Bush administration didn't lie about the WMD's in Iraq because the Clinton administration thought Saddam Hussein might have had weapons as well. Amazingly in the next breath he admits that they did hype the nuclear threat with the mushroom cloud analogy. Well David Gergen, scaring everyone about Saddam Hussein possibly giving nukes to terrorists is exactly what they used to lie us into war.

He also discounts that the weapon inspectors were not on the ground saying there were no WMD's when Clinton was in office and ignores that the Bush administration wanted to attack Iraq before their first day in office. David Corn's article at the Nation from back in 2006 goes into some detail about the Bush administration's lies to get us into that war in case David Gergen needs his memory refreshed -- Cheney, 9/11 and the Truth about Iraq.

Transcript via CNN.

BLITZER: But let's get some analysis now from our senior political analysts, Gloria Borger and David Gergen -- David, he really didn't want to take personal responsibility for failing to go through the intelligence himself. Even though he had the highest security clearances, he was relying, he points out, apparently, on others.

DAVID GERGEN: Well, I think that's -- you know, he was not the national security adviser and he was -- you know, he was more of a political person in the White House.

But, Wolf, I must tell that you after we went in and couldn't find the WMD, I was very suspicious that the Bush administration and the president personally had lied to us. And then I had the opportunity to talk to several people high up in the Clinton administration, both in intelligence and at the White House.

And I can tell you that those people -- these Democrats in the previous administration, including the president, Clinton, himself, believed that there was likely to be WMD in Iraq based on intelligence. They -- the intelligence -- we had here a massive intelligence failure. And while I -- I think there are many other mistakes the Bush administration made with regard to Iraq -- and I do think they inflated the threat of a nuclear -- a nuclearized Iraq, you know, the -- the mushroom cloud analogy they kept using to scare people -- that that was wrong.

But on the fundamental point Karl Rove is making, that it was intelligence, not lies, not mendacity, I think he very much deserves the benefit of the doubt. I think he's basically right.

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