David Corn at Mother Jones offers a preview of some of the new information coming Monday, in Hubris: Selling the Iraq War, an MSNBC documentary based on the book of a similar name
The film, to be narrated by Rachel Maddow, is said, like the book, to detail the inside story of how America and the world were knowingly scammed by the Bush Administration into invading Iraq ten years ago next month, leading to, as Corn describes it, “a nine-year war resulting in 4,486 dead American troops, 32,226 service members wounded, and over 100,000 dead Iraqi civilians.”
“The tab for the war topped $3 trillion,” he adds, even though “it turned out there were no weapons of mass destruction and no significant operational ties between Saddam’s regime and Al Qaeda. That is, the two main assertions used by Bush and his crew to justify the war were not true.”
The facts of how the nation was conned into going to war, Maddow has argued over the past week while promoting and previewing the new film, are important to understand in order to avoid the same thing happening again. “If what we went through 10 years ago did not change us as a nation — if we do not understand what happened and adapt to resist it — then history says we are doomed to repeat it,” she says.
Maddow says the documentary will likely ruffle many political feathers, and Corn offers a few of the new nuggets of new information on the scam that have been revealed since the publication of his and Isikoff’s 2007 book that will be presented in the MSNBC film on Monday, Presidents Day. Among them…
• Retired General Anthony Zinni, former commander in chief of US Central Command’s explains his reaction to then VP Dick Cheney’s infamous declaration that “There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us.” Zinni, who was sitting on the same stage with Cheney during that 2002 speech to the annual Veterans of Foreign Wars convention says that “It was a shock. It was a total shock. I couldn’t believe the vice president was saying this, you know? In doing work with the CIA on Iraq WMD, through all the briefings I heard at Langley, I never saw one piece of credible evidence that there was an ongoing program.”
• A November 2001 briefing memo declassified two years ago, used by then Sec. of Defense Donald Rumsfeld during a meeting with General Tommy Franks, details how the Administration hoped to trigger a justification for going to war in Iraq. One of those triggers, the memo suggests, was to be a “dispute over WMD inspections,” akin to the one which was eventually, and very publicly, manufactured to help fuel the phony case for war.
• According to then Sec. of State Colin Powell’s Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson, Powell was skeptical of the entire case for war, but hid that from the public, even as he was used by the Administration to sell the war to the UN Security Council and the American public. “Powell walked into my office,” on the day Congress passed its resolution giving authority to Bush to attack Iraq, Wilkerson explains in the film, “and without so much as a fare-thee-well, he walked over to the window and he said, ‘I wonder what’ll happen when we put 500,000 troops into Iraq and comb the country from one end to the other and find nothing?’ And he turned around and walked back in his office. And I — I wrote that down on my calendar — as close for — to verbatim as I could, because I thought that was a profound statement coming from the secretary of state, former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff.”
Wilkerson goes on to add that, in truth, Powell — who now regards his U.N. speech now as a “painful” “blot” on his career — had no clue whether the intelligence he cited to the U.N. was actually legitimate. “Though neither Powell nor anyone else from the State Department team intentionally lied,” says Wilkerson, “we did participate in a hoax.”
[UPDATE: Watch the entire documentary now online here.]Maddow’s own preview of the film, from her show on Friday 2/15/13 — and how the fight over the legitimacy (or lack thereof) of the Iraq War is still playing out right now in the fight over former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE)’s nomination to be the next Sec. of Defense — follows below…
This sounds like one of those nasty “Conspiracy Theories” to me! On the other hand it might be substantially correct. If someone doesn’t like what Corn says, they will dismiss it as a “conspiracy theory” like all the rest of the 9/11 narratives.
On the other hand if they like it, and I suspect they will because it makes Bush and Cheney look like bad guys, they may devise a conspiracy theory that alleges that the account’s opponents are engaged in a “conspiracy theory” against it!
Essentially, for nearly everybody a “conspiracy theory” is a narrative that you don’t like because its hostile to some sacred value, opinion or belief. It has little to do with whether it’s substantially true, supported by evidence or is credibly constructed.
Yes, they did. Yes, they will. Yes, they are.
Please review this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ha1rEhovONU
It all goes back to the 1940’s “Grand Plan”, the New World Order group, and Soviet style NeoCons.
@Laird #1 – Links are provided for a reason dude..
That Rumsfield memo, dated Nov 2001, is pretty fucking damning evidence of an effort to cook up an excuse to unleash the dogs of war. So, please..save your concern trolling for FARK….MMmmmmmKay?
If you can’t wait to see this documentary, you can watch an old one which still delights.
Bill Moyers produced “Buying the War” in 2007, and it is as important today as it was in 2007.
Ohh so the American people were duped into another war based on lies or building free falling to the ground in 6 seconds (World Trade Tower Building #7 not even hit by a plane)or some other staged military attack with a carefully scripted corporate mainstream media storyline repeated over and over. The truth cannot touch these people!
Final result will be: NO INDIVIDUALS WILL BE PROSECUTED FOR FAILURE TO UPHOLD THE CONSTITUTION, WAR CRIMES, AND OR THE REDUCTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS SUCH AS THE LEGALIZED SURVEILLANCE ON ALL AMERICANS WITHOUT A WARRANT.
Now tack on the Supreme Court decision that ruled in favor of the Bush Adm. allowing Naval War Exercises with deadly deafening sonar in Coastal Whale habitats endangering all marine life that lives BECAUSE WE ARE AT WAR. The Obama Adm. recently called for the number of allowed whale deaths etc. to substantially increase.
Hey, what’s with all this … this … backward-looking?
Backward is not the direction we’ve been instructed to look.
Try to grasp the religious portion of the potion.
Quite the elixer.
Hey there w, I’m still wonder who to hold accountable for your mess. ETERNATY EXIST. Welcome to the true and fair universe.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=L6Lpx6JIMmk&NR=1
All is already known, NOW let’s be fair and humane you fraud. Chip off the old block!
I ask no less than lambs to lie down with lions. And BE TRULY FREE.
But don’t wait for those to do for you, that which you know is right do NOW. NOW is when we should act as a good nation, for the correct reason. Calm people…WE DO HAVE THE POWER TO MAKE IT WORK RIGHT. I BELIEVE IN US ALL.
Hey Dred, they are self perpetuating persons who have a missed conceived idea of the whole..that’s all. If we want to bring us all together …we have to leave their miserable distinctions behind.
Hey man, where is Dred’s comment? I’m feeling
censured here… GOD DAMN IT.
Dred…you there for honest uncensured conversation ?
THIS is TOO weird…I will not be afraid.
Where did Dred’s comment go?
I am waiting. ?
An MSNBC documentary, based on a book by David Corn, and narrated by Rachel Maddow. Nah, NO bias there…
Is it just me? Or have noise signals blotted out coherent discussion here?
Hey, Steve, why don’t you watch the goddamn thing and get back to us. I just did. Unless concern about war crimes isn’t your thing.
BTW, I noticed you left out Michael Isikoff in your cheap shot. Remember him? The one who broke much of the Monica Lewinski story? Doesnt fit your narrative? Nah, NO bias there. (Not to mention Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Gen. Anthony Zinni, Rep. Walter Jones and all the other Republicans and honest, non-partisan career civil servants who participated in the documentary. But, nah, NO bias there.)
The bias on TRMS seems to lean towards transparency and honesty in our government officials.
So, I’m ok with the bias.
I guess it was pretty good for corporate media but I was disappointed. The only thing new for me in this report was learning that Powell and Wilkerson hadn’t even read the NIE that contained all the qualifications about actually being sure of any of the shit they were about to go before the UN and be absolutely sure of.
I tend to like Powell and especially Wilkerson. I think they have some integrity. But it really sounds like they didn’t do due diligence in researching the info they based their report on. You’d think knowing how their White House was skewing towards war they woulda been a little more careful. But, I suppose, such is the power of group-think and peer pressure.
This show could’ve been a lot stronger. When they reference Saddam throwing the inspectors out, they leave out the part about the reason he threw them out was because we were fucking around with the inspection process, not acting in good faith, and trying to spy on them, if I remember correctly.
They also had several clips of that idiot Feith saying his crazy, ignorant bullshit and not really countering his claims immediately.
Woulda also been nice to show how Scott Ritter repeatedly, vociferously, and publicly denounced the Bush/Cheney propaganda trying to stop the mad rush to war and how the mainstream media roundly dismissed his entirely accurate and informed assessments.
Perhaps, most importantly, it would have been very helpful to point out the ways in which our politicians and media are and have been engaged in exactly the same sort of pre-war hype RIGHT NOW regarding Iran. If the show was premised on the urgency of learning the lessons that go with being lied into war, so that we do not commit the same mistakes with all their horrific consequences, why not demonstrate what such a change in awareness would look like by including a little real-time application of the lesson?
The best/most poignant part was at the very end when they showed pictures of both Americans and Iraqis grieving. War, by and large, is not real to us, I fear. And part of the illusion of its unreality is maintained by how few images we see of the terrible suffering that is a constant of all wars.
I don’t have any narrative Brad, just looking at the collective source. Has about as much credibility as a Fox News documentary about how Obama is ruining our economy, based on a book by Victor Davis Hansen, and narrated by Sean Hannity…
The lesson could also be applied to our near constant demonization of Chavez and Castro(though I suspect a thoughtful application of the supposed lesson of the MSNBC piece regarding our vilification of these guys would be tolerated about as much as criticism of Israel or an honest assessment of election integrity). The C Brothers only real crime has been their remarkable success in resisting the forces of U.S. imperialism. That is the cardinal sin we cannot tolerate or even acknowledge.
steve @ 22–
Utter nonsense. EVERYBODY has a narrative, Steve. Denying that is like denying we are heated by the sun.
Again, this is the oh so typical and mindless argument of the rightwingnuts these days. It is completely devoid of substance. It is as intellectually rigorous as a schoolyard taunt.
The difference between you and me(and Brad and Ernie) is that I(we) can read shit I(we) largely don’t agree with, acknowledge if there is any common ground there, and then deconstruct the argument with specifics. You, on the other hand, rely all too frequently by saying, basically–It’s (fill in the blank with the name of the person with whom you don’t agree but don’t have the wherewithall to be able to demonstrate with facts and reason why)so, I dismiss them, with prejudice and ignorance by saying they’re liberal.
Not much there, Steve.
They DID intentionally lie. Or at the very least, they spoke as truth what they had grave misgivings about.
Maybe they felt they had no viable choice. But I don’t believe for a minute that they thought they were speaking the truth.
WE thought they were lying, after all, and that was based on evidence that was available to all that countered their silly and incredibly damaging statements. The right-wing PR machine effectively overwhelmed any thoughtful challenge to their lies.
Ancien … feel better now?
What were you saying?
I am not being held captive.
WingnutSteve –
I don’t know Victor Davis Hansen’s work, so I can’t comment on him. Isikoff (who I’ve had some probs with in the past) and Corn are, however, award-winning journalists and deservedly so. If you have a problem with any of their reporting, at any time, in their Hubris book or any place else, I’m sure you’ll let me know.
If you have any problem with the reporting in the Hubris documentary, I’m sure you’ll let us know that as well. (You’ll note that we did so ourselves today here and David Lasagna has done so here.) Of course, you’ll have to watch the goddamn thing, or just continue to sink your own credibility here in comments with your ridiculous (non)-criticisms.
To even suggest that this isn’t a case of blatant war crimes is to suggest that you are completely unfamiliar with the facts and didn’t bother to watch the documentary or any other documentation of the scam that was the selling of the Iraq War.
To compare Maddow and Hannity, as partisan as both can be, is absurd. One makes shit up out of whole cloth and is little more than an obnoxious political operative, and the other one is an actual journalist — an advocacy journalist, to be sure, but an actual journalist. If you have a record of her lying and/or refusing to correct egregious errors, as is the case with Hannity all the time, I’m sure you’ll let us know about that as well.
Which is to say, I’m sure you’ll have no specifics to back up your smarmy, and silly, attacks. Please delight us all for a change and prove me wrong.
David @ 21
“Woulda also been nice to show how Scott Ritter repeatedly, vociferously, and publicly denounced the Bush/Cheney propaganda
Yes indeed, along with John O’Neill. “The Man Who Knew”(too much)and died in the Towers after leaving the FBI. (coincidence?)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/knew/
(Maybe this means an “approved” MSM news site will talk about the questions we, “stupid truthers”, have regarding 9/11. But shhhhhh.)
There’s a name for this kind of journalism: “Now it can be told.” Where the hell was Corn when we needed him? Oh yeah, supporting Bush, denigrating detractors.
Mark Tokarski –
I don’t recall David Corn ever “supporting Bush” or “denigrating detractors”. Though feel free to share your evidence of him doing so. Not to mention his book, Hubris, on which the MSNBC documentary was based, was published in 2007.