Huckabee as Deer in the Headlights
Trusts hearsay over NIE
Gov. Mike Huckabee did not know about the new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran when asked about it on Wednesday. It had caused a furor in Washington because it concluded that Iran had halted any weapons-related experiments in 2003.
It is not such a big scandal that Huckabee hadn't heard the news. When you are traveling and out among people, often you don't, until you get back to the hotel that night. I can testify to that myself.
What is the scandal is that Huckabee had been briefed by someone to opposite conclusions from those of the NIE and had swallowed it hook line and sinker.
He told a reporter for Politico.com:
' I don’t know where the intelligence is coming from that says they have suspended the program or how credible that is versus the view that they actually are expanding it. … And I’ve heard, the last two weeks, supposed reports that they are accelerating it and it could be having a reactor in a much shorter period of time than originally been thought.
'
So here's what is troubling. Huckabee puts what he's "heard" above the findings of the 16 US intelligence agencies. And, he seems to be confused that the problem with Iran is that it is building nuclear reactors. Reactors can be used for peaceful energy generation. It is if they were building a bomb that anyone should be concerned. The reactors at Bushehr cannot easily be put to bomb making purposes.
So yes, he could get behind on the news. But he doesn't a) show good judgment in valuing right wing political gossip over an extensively vetted professional intelligence report (which is corroborated by the International Atomic Energy Agency). And b) he doesn't seem very well informed about the nuclear issue.
Not ready for prime time.
posted by Juan Cole @ 12/06/2007 12:40:00 AM
|
Facebook
12 Comments:
I regularly read your comments and generally agree with them. Here you take Huckabee to task for rejecting U.S. intelligence on Iran. You yourself have done the same with regard to U.S. intelligence findings that Iran has been behind the proliferation of sophisticated bombs against our troops in Iraq. YOU have to admit that there's an inconsistency.
He doesn't know what it takes to make a bomb. He doesn't know what reactors do. (Actually, Iran is building a heavy-water reactor at Arak, which could provide plutonium.)
So he tells us that he is in the same boat with any number of reporters and probably some large number of presidential candidates.
Sadly, not too surprising.
But I agree, not being briefed adequately before making a statement is another kind of dumb.
CKR
"Huckabee puts what he's "heard" above the findings of the 16 US intelligence agencies.
Is that necessarily bad? You don't say who he "heard" his information from. Maybe he has a more reliable source. Maybe, like GWB, he gets his information directly from God. And really, after what's been made public about Iraq, who can blame him for discounting the findings of US intelligence agencies?
Incurious George followed by Hapless Huck - wouldn't that be some fate for the Nation! Choices like that make Show-Me-The-Money Hillary and I'm-So-Smart-I-Really-Can-Talk-Out-Both-Sides-of-My-Mouth Obama look like Abraham Lincoln on steroids.
Sneering aside, surely, the NIE report is a total disaster for this administration, that no spin can cure, the end of the trail. It shows that not only was the administration totally off the mark as it ramped up for another war, but that it has demonstrably lied about Iran for an indefinite period of time. There's no possible way W just now found out that Iran has no ongoing bomb program, unless he is an even bigger moron than he is reputed to be. Impeachment is more and more a glaring necessity.
Huckabee's response is frightening on another level. Yet, is typical of our national issue. The question is what is more important, fact or propaganda? There is a general confusion not only among rightist politicians , but there followers, about what constitutes fact.
How often does a Fox guest say, "yeah, that study is biased because it comes from the leftist liberal" university professors? Like peer review (where there are rightist professors that can review works) and scientific methods yield fact to ideology.
I have heard rightist voters, after hearing numbers that disprove their theory, say "Well, the numbers are not facts...." The facts are the propaganda that someone spews to get people to ignore the numbers.
When you hear what Huckabee place hear-say over a government report, you hope he is just playing to part of his base. On another level, having a large and influential voting block to whom facts do not matter is frightening in and of itself.
There's a new lie being promoted - that Iran had a nuclear weapons program in 2003.
The media, as usual, are acting totally credulous, despite the fact that the IAEA has repeatedly stated it has no evidence of a nuclear weapons program.
For example, TIME today assures us "it was widely believed that Iran had a secret bomb-building program (which indeed it had, as of 2003)."
"Which indeed", there's no evidence to support but that doesn't stop TIME from asserting speculation as fact.
There are no facts anymore. There are goals (invasion of Iran/overthrow of mullahs) and then there are arguments. As long as something can be couched in terms of an argument (this latest NIE is just old State Dept. people trying to oppose the president; intelligence is just guesswork and it's been wrong before; Iran still needs to "come clean" about everything they have, etc.) then any argument can be discounted as biased or wrong or whatever.
WHy are we not demanding the impeachment of this administration?
To be lied to about war once and to be dragged into a bloody, costly unending war is outrageous, but for the same administration to do it again without any consequences?
Unbelievable!
And then to blame the messenger instead of themselves. So typical Republican....
We had a President almost impeached for having lying about sex in the oval office but President Bush can lie with impunity about war. Right wing Republicans are so hypocritical.
Impeach this administration before they start WW3!!!!!!!!!!
Unfortunately, knowledge and intelligence is not a prequisite for the job of president of the USA... While Clinton, a Rhodes scholar, seemed to have a clue, the same can't be said for the present incumbant.
ronaldo
Thank you for your site.
ok
I regularly read your comments and generally agree with them. Here you take Huckabee to task for rejecting U.S. intelligence on Iran. You yourself have done the same with regard to U.S. intelligence findings that Iran has been behind the proliferation of sophisticated bombs against our troops in Iraq. YOU have to admit that there's an inconsistency.
US forces have discovered workshops in Baghdad making bombs for insurgent groups, including the shaped charges that Iran supposedly supplies to Sunni insurgent groups who regard the Shia community as heretics and puppets of the Iranian enemy. But these facts are obviously inconsistent with US intelligence reports...
there's a spam at 11.20 am
Post a Comment
<< Home