{"id":11516,"date":"2007-07-19T13:18:18","date_gmt":"2007-07-19T17:18:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/11516.html"},"modified":"2007-07-19T13:18:18","modified_gmt":"2007-07-19T17:18:18","slug":"snow-vs-the-nie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/snow-vs-the-nie\/","title":{"rendered":"Snow vs. the NIE"},"content":{"rendered":"

Apparently, the White House press secretary we all know and tolerate is making a habit of writing mini-op-eds for USA Today. Two weeks ago, Tony Snow penned<\/a> a spectacularly wrong piece on the Scooter Libby commutation, and today, he’s back at it, with an item<\/a> disputing the National Intelligence Estimate and arguing in support of an indefinite war in Iraq.<\/p>\n

From the very first sentence — “Politics sometimes manages to muddle the obvious” — we know we’re in for a rough ride.<\/p>\n

We never argued that he played a role 9\/11; political opponents manufactured the claim to question the president’s integrity.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Oh, don’t go blaming us, Tony. As TP reminds us<\/a>, the White House’s original Iraq war resolution argued that “[m]embers of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks\u2026that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq.” The document didn’t come from “political opponents”; it came from the Bush gang.<\/p>\n

Our enemies started fighting long before 2001. Terrorists bombed … the USS Cole in 2000.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yes, and regrettably, Bush chose not to respond<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The most astonishing argument is the claim the United States (or the Bush administration) is responsible for this terror wave. Terrorists are responsible for terror, period.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Obviously those who commit acts of terrorism are responsible for terrorism; that’s not exactly provocative. But one of the central points of the NIE is that the Bush administration, through its Iraq policies, has made the terrorist threat considerably worse. No one’s arguing that the United States is responsible for terrorism; the argument is that the administration counter-terrorism efforts have had the opposite of the intended effect<\/a>.
\n<\/p>\n

The al-Qaeda of 2001 no longer exists.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Actually, according to the NIE, it does exist<\/a>, it’s fundraising and recruiting are on the upswing, it’s established new training grounds in the western mountains of Pakistan, and it’s getting stronger.<\/p>\n

We’ve killed or captured two-thirds of its senior leadership.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If only that were true<\/a>. It’s not.<\/p>\n

Al-Qaeda doesn’t have the strength it had six years ago.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“[T]he threat — after having greatly receded over the past five years — is back in full force<\/a>. Al-Qaida has ‘protected or regenerated key elements’ of its ability to attack the United States. It has a ‘safe haven’ in Pakistan. Its ‘top leadership’ and ‘operational lieutenants’ are intact. It is cooperating more with ‘regional terrorist groups.'”<\/p>\n

More than anything, al-Qaeda wants the United States to leave Iraq and hand victory to the terrorists.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There’s abundant evidence that al Qaeda wants us to stay<\/i> in Iraq. In early May 2007, Ayman Zawahiri — al Qaeda’s No. 2 — actually criticized efforts by the U.S. Congress to withdraw American troops from Iraq, saying a bill to set a timetable for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq would “deprive us of the opportunity to destroy the American forces which we have caught in an historic trap.” As a CAP report explained<\/a>, “Today, Iraq is a quagmire for the United States; leaving Iraq will make it Al Qaeda’s quagmire.”<\/p>\n

For that matter, last fall, a private letter between senior al Qaeda leaders declared their “most important” goal was “prolonging the war<\/a>” in Iraq.<\/p>\n

To deny al-Qaeda victory in Iraq sends the message that terrorism will fail and democracy prevail.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Maybe Snow hasn’t heard, but al Qaeda is not<\/a> the principle cause of violence in Iraq; the country’s civil war is.<\/p>\n

Keep in mind, before a White House spokesperson publishes a piece like this in a national newspaper, it has to be vetted by a lot of people (the political affairs office, the communications office, the press office, etc.). In other words, Snow’s piece should be the best argument(s) the White House has to offer.<\/p>\n

And if that’s the case, the Bush gang really hasn’t been able to think of much.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Apparently, the White House press secretary we all know and tolerate is making a habit of writing mini-op-eds for USA Today. Two weeks ago, Tony Snow penned a spectacularly wrong piece on the Scooter Libby commutation, and today, he’s back at it, with an item disputing the National Intelligence Estimate and arguing in support of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11516\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}