THE NEW YORKER'S CRITIQUE OF BUSH AND IRAQ: COUNTERFEIT GOODS

In the December 5th edition of THE NEW YORKER magazine, Rik Hertzberg wrote (in his "Comment" column in the "Talk of the Town" section, on page 36), that:

"...he [Bush] might be the receiver of counterfeit goods, such as the phony documents about uranium from Niger which he cited in his 2003 State of the Union addresss, but he was not the forger."

This statement is either written by a grossly misinformed person or one deliberately misinforming the reader in order to slander the president and discredit the motivations for going to war - or both.

In fact, of the famous "16 words" not one is Niger, and they were not based on the phony documents. In fact, Bush based his statement on British intelligence which was re-vetted after the war by the Lord butler Commission and found to still be valid.

In fact, (though Wilson early on reported that the documents figured prominently in the reason the CIA decided to send someone to Niger, and were specifically what he debunked as a result of his visit there), the phony documents were not even in possession of the US government when he made the trip. (More here.)

In addition, the 2003 SOTU was delivered three months AFTER the Congress authorized Bush to attack Saddam in Joint Resolution #141, and therefore EVEN IF those 16 words were false THEY COULDN'T HAVE MISLED A SINGLE Congressman.

What is more, WMD programs and WMD stockpiles and Saddam's nuclear ambitions made up only three of 19 reasons the Congress authorized Bush to attack Saddam. In fact, Saddam ordered his nuclear scientists to HIDE components of Iraq's nuclear program from the UN [because, as Duelfer asserted, Saddam had the intention of re-starting it, (as soon as his bribed cohorts at the UN could arrange an end to sanctions!)] - and this is in DIRECT violation of UNSCR#1441, and is therefore incontrovertibly - in and of itself - ANOTHER casus belli.

In fact, from the time of his UN General Assembly address in September of 2002 - before the Congress authorized him to attack Saddam - the transformative effects of a democratic Iraq figured prominently in Bush's long laundry list of reasons for initiating war against Saddam.

Therefore, it is WRONG for Left-wing doves and Bush critics (like writers and editors at THE NEW YORKER) to focus on WMD or to charge that democratization was merely a post-war rationalization invented by ther Bush Administration to justify the war in the absence of WMD stockpiles.

In fact, since Hans Blix and David Kay and Charles Duelfer unequivocably asserted that Saddam WAS in violation of various and certain UNSCR's which functioned as the armistice for the 1991 Gulf War, a legal, de jure casus belli existed WITHOUT any further discussion or resolutions from anyone - the UN or Congress.

Apparently, Mr. Remnick - the editor of THE NEW YORKER - and his columnist Mr. Hertzberg (SURPRISE: he's a former employee of the Jimmy Carter White House!) are INGORANT of the facts, or know them and DELIBERATELY lie. Which is it?

I think they are both very clever and well-informed fellas. And LIARS.