Why I Excuse Hillary From Her 2002 Vote On Iraq

Update: Part 2

First, let me state that in terms of foreign policy, I was a Biden supporter. Given that he is now out of the primary, I want to explain why I don't hold Hillary's 2002 vote against her. I draw from John Dean's exposition on what went down with the Autorization bill in 2002. First, here are two summaries of his observation in Worse Than Watergate:

(from http://journals.aol.com/bmiller224/OldHickorysWeblog/entries/2004/08/16/iraq-war-what-did-congress-really-authorize/1657 )

Iraq War: What did Congress really authorize?


In responding to some comments in a previous post about Kerry and the 2002 war resolution, I recalled that John Dean in his Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush (2004) makes an argument that we don't hear much, even from antiwar bloggers. (I'm not at all surprised we don't hear it from the mainstream press.)

Leaving aside the more-or-less interesting politics of why it's not likely to be part of the election debate this year, Dean argues that Bush actually violated the war resolution in the way he went to war in Iraq.

The war resolution (Public Law 107-243, 10/16/02, Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002) included some specific conditions. It didn't just give Bush an open-ended choice to go to war at his own discretion. As Dean summarizes it:

To avoid having to return to Congress for more debate on Iraq, Bush had pushed for and received authority to launch a war without further advance notice to Congress. Never before had Congress so trusted a president with this authority. But in granting this unprecedented authorization, Congress insisted that certain conditions be established as existing and that the president submit a formal determination, assuring the Congress that, in fact, these conditions were present. Specifically (and here I am summarizing technical wording; the actual language [is in section 3(b) (1) and (2) of PL 107-243]), Congress wanted a formal determination submitted to it either before using force or within forty-eight hours of having done so, stating that the president had found that (1) further diplomatic means alone would not resolve the "continuing threat" (meaning WMD) and (2) the military action was part of the overall response to terrorism, including dealing wtih those involved in "the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001." In short, Congress insisted that there be evidence of two points that were the centerpirce of Bush's argument for the war.

We now know, of course, that there were no nuclear weapons program and no WMDs in Iraq. And that the claimed connections of Saddam to al-Qaeda were bogus, and the notion that Iraq was involved in the 9/11 attacks even more so. And,of course, UN weapons inspections were under way in Iraq in 2003, but they were halted by Bush's decision to go to war anyway.

It may seem to be no more than an historical footnote at this point, though these things can come back to bite the unsuspecting in surprising ways.

Dean takes a close look at the documentation Bush submitted to Congress to comply with their requirements for going to war. And he finds it badly deficient:

Bush, in essence, gave Congress only one purported fact to meet the requirement of making a congressional determination. He cited the information offered by Secretary of State Colin Powell to the United Nations. [Powell has since publicly acknowledged that his presentation contained inaccurate information, which damaged his international reputation badly.] Bush merely reminded Congress that Powell's report "revealed a terrorist training area in northeastern Iraq with ties to Iraqi intelligence and activities of [al Qaeda] affiliates in Baghdad." Bush added that "public reports indicate that Iraq is currently harboring senior members of a terrorist network led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a close [al Qaeda] associate," and that in the past Iraq had "provided training in document forgery and explosives to [al Qaeda]." He offered no governmental confirmation of this "public report."

... If there is a precedent for Bush's slick trick to involve America in a bloody commitment, where the Congress requires as a condition for action that the president make a determination, and the president in turn relies on a whereas clause (which he provided to Congress as suggested introductory language) and a dubious public report (which fails to address the substance of the conditions for war set by Congress), I am not aware of it and could not find anything even close.

But the Bush administration has been precedent-setting in more ways than one.

Here is Dean summarizing to Amy Goodman:
(from: http://www.democracynow.org/2004/4/6/worse_than_watergate_former_nixon_counsel )

When [Bush] went to Congress in October of 2002 to get a resolution to go to war in Iraq, he wanted something that the Congress had never given before, which was a delegation of a power that he wouldn’t have to go back to Congress to get war powers when he actually went to war. The Congress had never granted such a power. So, the Congress said, all right. We’ll take the two—we’ll do this with conditions. The two conditions are—really the premise that he had been arguing for war. So, when they granted the resolution, they said, we want a formal Presidential declaration from you that, one, there is no diplomatic way to resolve the problems of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. That was the first condition. The second condition was that going to war in Iraq would be consistent with the war on terrorism, which was his second point, that there was an Al Qaeda connection with Saddam Hussein, was the implicit rationale. Bush, in a secret deal with the House of Representatives, agreed to that. The resolution was written, passed and signed by the President. No one really paid any attention to this resolution, and the President in March of 2003 goes to war. 48 hours after, under the resolution, he had to report that he had done that, and he had to submit his formal declaration. His declaration is one of the most—I can’t really find the right word for it, Amy. It’s just—I use all of the modifiers I can think of in the book. It’s a fraud. It is a deliberate, misleading resolution the President himself asked for. It’s a violation of trust to the Congress who granted him very unusual powers. It’s a violation of the trust of the American people. His declaration is phony. His determination, excuse me, is phony. It’s actually bizarre.

Now some nice context, namely an excerpt from the Senate floor debate. Here is discussion on the Byrd ammendment to the bill which further clarified the limitations of the authorization:
Byrd Ammendment to Iraq War Resolution Bill


Also, the actual wording in question from the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002:

SEC. 3. AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES.

....

(b) PRESIDENTIAL DETERMINATION.—In connection with the

exercise of the authority granted in subsection (a) to use force

the President shall, prior to such exercise or as soon thereafter

as may be feasible, but no later than 48 hours after exercising

such authority, make available to the Speaker of the House of

Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate his

determination that—

(1) reliance by the United States on further diplomatic

or other peaceful means alone either (A) will not adequately

protect the national security of the United States against the

continuing threat posed by Iraq or (B) is not likely to lead

to enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council

resolutions regarding Iraq; and

(2) acting pursuant to this joint resolution is consistent

with the United States and other countries continuing to take

the necessary actions against international terrorist and terrorist

organizations, including those nations, organizations, or

persons who planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist

attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.

(src: http://www.c-span.org/resources/pdf/hjres114.pdf )

And, finally, Hillary's speech before voting:
Hillary Clinton's Statement on the Iraqi War Resolution.

My only complaint is that she did not read the full intelligence report and relied on briefings. See: NY Times on Hillary's Vote

As she had always done, Clinton prepared for her decision on the war vote by doing her homework, or what she has called her ''due diligence.'' This included, she said, attending classified briefings on Capitol Hill concerning intelligence on Iraq. Indeed, Clinton was far more prescient than many of her Senate colleagues about the potential difficulty of rebuilding the country. In a number of private meetings with top Bush officials, according to people in the room, Clinton asked pointed and skeptical questions about how the administration planned to deal with the inevitable challenges of governing Iraq after the invasion.

But it's not clear that she was equally diligent when it came to the justifications for the war itself. So far, she has not discussed publicly whether she ever read the complete classified version of the National Intelligence Estimate, the most comprehensive judgment of the intelligence community about Iraq's W.M.D., which was made available to all 100 senators. The 90-page report was delivered to Congress on Oct. 1, 2002, just 10 days before the Senate vote. An abridged summary was made public by the Bush administration, but it painted a less subtle picture of Iraq's weapons program than the full classified report. To get a complete picture would require reading the entire document, which, according to a version of the report made public in 2004, contained numerous caveats and dissents on Iraq's weapons and capacities.

According to Senate aides, because Clinton was not yet on the Armed Services Committee, she did not have anyone working for her with the security clearances needed to read the entire N.I.E. and the other highly classified reports that pertained to Iraq.

She could have done the reading herself. Senators were able to access the N.I.E. at two secure locations in the Capitol complex. Nonetheless, only six senators personally read the report, according to a 2005 television interview with Senator Jay Rockefeller, Democrat of West Virginia and then the vice chairman of the intelligence panel. Earlier this year, on the presidential campaign trail in New Hampshire, Clinton was confronted by a woman who had traveled from New York to ask her if she had read the intelligence report. According to Eloise Harper of ABC News, Clinton responded that she had been briefed on it.

''Did you read it?'' the woman screamed.

Clinton replied that she had been briefed, though she did not say by whom.

The question of whether Clinton took the time to read the N.I.E. report is critically important. Indeed, one of Clinton's Democratic colleagues, Bob Graham, the Florida senator who was then the chairman of the intelligence committee, said he voted against the resolution on the war, in part, because he had read the complete N.I.E. report. Graham said he found that it did not persuade him that Iraq possessed W.M.D. As a result, he listened to Bush's claims more skeptically. ''I was able to apply caveat emptor,'' Graham, who has since left the Senate, observed in 2005. He added regretfully, ''Most of my colleagues could not.''

Nonetheless, I excuse her. She is not Biden. She had to deal with realpolitik, and I don't hold that against her. If you lived through 2002, and are honest with yourself, you know full well what the political situation was.


UPDATE: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/06/05/hillary-clinton-on-iraq-vote-i-still-got-it-wrong-plain-and-simple/?tid=sm_fb

Stuff

I've been lazy the past couple months and just posting noteworthy links to my del.icio.us links (tagged economics and politics).

Time Magazine on Bush

Wow, this really cuts into the man:

The NIE represented another promising opportunity missed. Imagine if the President had said, "This report means we don't want war. We want to talk, and everything — including lifting of the economic sanctions and our acknowledgment that you are a major regional power — is on the table so long as you put everything on the table too. That means not only your uranium-enrichment program but also your support for terrorist organizations." How could Iran have said no to that?

But that would have required some other President. This President appears to lack the desire, creativity and patience to engage in the most important diplomacy that a nation can face — with its enemies — over issues that could mean the difference between war and peace.

(from http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1691625-4,00.html)

Here's the entire article:

Thursday, Dec. 06, 2007
Iran's Nukes: Now They Tell Us?
By Joe Klein

The President looked awful. He stood puffy-eyed, stoop-shouldered, in front of the press corps discussing the stunning new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that Iran halted its nuclear-weapons program in 2003. He looked as if he'd spent the night throwing chairs around the Situation Room. A reporter noted that he seemed dispirited, and the President joked, "This is like — all of a sudden, it's like Psychology 101, you know?" He added, "No, I'm feeling pretty spirited, pretty good about life, and I made the decision to come before you so I can explain the NIE." And then, defiantly, "And so, kind of Psychology 101 ain't working. It's just not working. I understand the issues, I clearly see the problems, and I'm going to use the NIE to continue to rally the international community for the sake of peace." And then he walked out.

In truth, Bush seemed as befuddled as everyone else about how and why the nation's intelligence community — the 16 federal agencies charged with spying — had issued an NIE that so profoundly undermined his provocative rhetoric toward Iran. As recently as Oct. 17, the President had said Iran's bomb-building program could be a precursor to "World War III." It was a statement that was both outrageous in its extravagance and very strange. Bush acknowledged that he had first heard in August that a new intelligence analysis of Iran's nuclear-bomb program was imminent, but — and here comes the strange part — he hadn't bothered to ask the Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell, what it might contain. "If that's true," Senator Joe Biden opined soon after, "then this is ... one of the most incompetent Presidents in modern American history."

The moment certainly seemed historic. This was, quite possibly, the most assertive, surprising and rebellious act in the history of the U.S. intelligence community. The Administration seemed to have lost control of its secrets. Gone were the days when spymasters would come to the White House for morning coffee and whisper the latest intelligence to the President, and the rest of the world would find out decades later, only after numerous Freedom of Information requests had prized the buried treasure from the CIA vault. Now the latest intelligence evaluations were being announced worldwide, nearly in real time. "It's just mind-boggling," a former CIA officer told me. "The impact of the Iraq WMD fiasco is coming home to roost. The intelligence community was badly burned by that. And the various players never want it asked of them again, 'Why didn't you stand up to the Administration and tell it the truth?'''

The truth about Iran appeared to shatter the last shreds of credibility of the White House's bomb-Iran brigade — and especially that of Vice President Dick Cheney, who had been stumping haughtily for war. It was a political earthquake, reverberating through the presidential campaign. Within hours, Hillary Clinton was under renewed attack by her Democratic opponents for voting for a bellicose anti-Iran resolution in the Senate this year. But the unintended damage was to the credibility of the Republican presidential candidates, all of whom had noisily rattled sabers about Iran. Once again the black-and-white neoconservative view of the Middle East region had been proved wrong. At first the antique neocon Norman Podhoretz actually insisted, "The intelligence community, which has for some years now been leaking material calculated to undermine George W. Bush, is doing it again. This time the purpose is to head off the possibility that the President may order air strikes on the Iranian nuclear installations." Soon, even Podhoretz was in retreat.

But it wasn't just the intelligence community that had been trying to prevent the war hawks in the Administration from bombing Iran. The Secretaries of State and Defense and the leaders of the uniformed military had decided that diplomacy was the best way to deal with an admittedly hostile and dangerous foe in Tehran. Almost exactly a year ago, after the firing of Donald Rumsfeld, the President met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the "Tank," the Pentagon's secure facility. Bush asked the Chiefs about attacking Iran. He was told that a bombing campaign could do severe damage to Iran's military and nuclear facilities, but the Chiefs said they were opposed to such a strike because of the probable "blowback." The Iranians, Bush was told, could make life very difficult for the U.S. troops on the ground in Iraq. They could shut off the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz, thereby creating a global economic crisis. And they could use the threat of Iran-sponsored terrorist attacks on the American homeland

At about the same time, a new NIE on Iran was meandering through the intelligence community. A senior U.S. intelligence official told me last week that the report was prepared to say with a "moderate" degree of certainty that Iran had stopped its nuclear-weapons program, but the information wasn't very conclusive. That finding would have put the U.S. in the same camp as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) — deeply concerned about the Iranian efforts to enrich uranium but skeptical about the regime's efforts to fashion that uranium into a bomb.

The intricacies of nuclear proliferation can get very complicated very quickly, but under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), nations have the right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes but they must do it in a transparent manner, under international supervision. Iran was, and is, a matter of real concern to the IAEA because it had been caught hiding part of its enrichment program — and because it was widely believed that Iran had a secret bomb-building program (which indeed it had, as of 2003). Even after the new intelligence assessment, Iran's uranium-enrichment program remains troubling to the international community because enrichment is considered the most difficult part of building a nuclear bomb. Iran claims it is enriching the uranium for a peaceful nuclear-power program, but — given its ocean of oil — most international observers don't believe it.

Iran has an opaque and nearly impenetrable government structure, and it's hard to know who exactly controls the levers in that country. There are two of everything. There is a popularly elected President (Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) and a — more powerful — Supreme Leader (Ayatullah Ali Khamenei). There is an Iranian army and a — more powerful — Revolutionary Guard Corps. As recently as two years ago, a senior U.S. diplomat told me, "We don't know anything about what goes on inside that government." But that has changed fairly dramatically in the past year. A special CIA Iran-analysis group, which calls itself "Persia House," was split off from the agency's Middle East regional analysts. A major effort was made to recruit human intelligence sources inside Iran. And then, in June and July, the new Iran assets began to pay off. Some of the information may have come from an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps general named Ali Reza Asghari, who defected to Turkey in February. But a senior U.S. intelligence official assured me, "It was multiple collection streams. You don't get a 'high' degree-of-probability assessment without multiple sources."

In August, National Intelligence Director McConnell ordered CIA Director Michael Hayden to have ready by Labor Day a new intelligence estimate reflecting the latest information. Hayden said he needed more time. McConnell set a Nov. 30 deadline. Because some of the information sources were new, Hayden decided to launch a "red team" counter-intelligence operation to make sure that the U.S. wasn't falling for Iranian disinformation. In late October, the Persia House and red-team analysts offered their findings to Hayden and his deputy, Steve Kappes, around the coffee table in Hayden's office. The red team found that the possibility of Iranian disinformation was "plausible but not likely." That assessment led two of the 16 intelligence agencies, but not the CIA, to dissent from the final "high" degree of certainty that Iran had stopped its weapons program in 2003. On the other hand, there was general agreement on a "moderate" finding that Iran had not restarted the program. The National Intelligence Board met and reached its conclusions on Tuesday, Nov. 27. "The meeting took a little more than two hours," a senior intelligence official told me. "There have been times when it has taken multiple meetings that went on for hours and hours to reach a consensus, especially when dealing with one of Iran's neighbors."

Hayden and his senior Iran analysts briefed President Bush on the new NIE on Wednesday, Nov. 28. But it seems apparent the President made little effort to figure out how his Administration could leverage the shocking candor of the intelligence report to his advantage in dealing with Iran. "He could have said to the Iranians, 'This document shows that we're not rushing to war. We're not out to get you,'" said Kenneth Pollack, a National Security Council staff member during the Clinton Administration and author of The Persian Puzzle. "'But we — and the rest of the world — are very concerned about your uranium-enrichment program, and so let's sit down and talk about it.'"

Oddly, Bush didn't seem to ask for a delay in the release of the report. He could easily have requested a few weeks for his Administration to chew over the import of the NIE, discuss it with our allies, organize a new diplomatic initiative to negotiate with the Iranians. As it was, Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns briefed the U.N. Security Council members who had been considering a new round of sanctions against Iran about the same time that word of the NIE broke in the press. When it did, the Chinese, who had seemed surprisingly ready to approve the sanctions, started backing away from that position.

There was one key finding that the President didn't discuss and wasn't asked about during his White House press conference: that Iran had stopped its weapons program "in response to international scrutiny and pressure." Several intelligence sources told me they considered this the most important finding in the report. "Iran isn't impervious," said one. "Diplomatic pressure works. That's something we simply did not know before."

But diplomatic pressure has been embraced only reluctantly, if at all, by Bush and Cheney. Even when the President does get behind an initiative, as he did with the recent Annapolis conference to restart the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, there is an ad hoc, unprepared quality to the effort — a transparent, last-minute rush to cobble together a legacy. What the NIE makes plain is that diplomacy, combined with the threat of international sanctions, has much greater potential when applied to the Iranians than it has ever had in solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. To be sure, dealing with the Iranians isn't easy. In 2000, President Bill Clinton tried to stage a handshake at the United Nations with then President of Iran Mohammed Khatami — but at the last minute Khatami was ordered to back down by his superiors in Tehran. The truth is, the Iranian mullahs have often been as reluctant to negotiate with the U.S. as Bush has been to deal directly with them — although there may have been an Iranian initiative in 2003, when it appeared that U.S. armies would soon be perched on two of Iran's borders, in Afghanistan and Iraq. There is a dispute in the intelligence community about whether that démarche, which came to the U.S. via the Swiss embassy and promised broad-ranging negotiations, was a freelance effort by Iranian moderates or had been approved at the highest levels of the Iranian government.

The NIE represented another promising opportunity missed. Imagine if the President had said, "This report means we don't want war. We want to talk, and everything — including lifting of the economic sanctions and our acknowledgment that you are a major regional power — is on the table so long as you put everything on the table too. That means not only your uranium-enrichment program but also your support for terrorist organizations." How could Iran have said no to that?

But that would have required some other President. This President appears to lack the desire, creativity and patience to engage in the most important diplomacy that a nation can face — with its enemies — over issues that could mean the difference between war and peace.

Toys from China and Christmas Charity

Heard this morning on KJZZ that local charities (like Toys for Tots) is having problems sifting through donated toys because the likelihood that some of the donations are recalled products with lead in them. Seems like an impossible task. Remember, its not just what the toy looks like, because the recalls are specific to particular batches. They probably have to throw out any toy that resembles a recalled one.

The Salvation Army has even stopped accepting toy donations due to the enormity of this task.

Very sad.

The Middleton Family at the New York World's Fair (1939)

Contrasting wholesome capitalist versus sneaky socialist academic.

Gem on Jobs in the U.S.

Noni Mausa posted this on Angry Bear:

(Regarding the quote, )"There are more than enough jobs as evidenced by the want ads in 1000's of newspapers. And there is alway self-employment."

Here's the latest 50 from a local job search site. They are purely random listings, coming in the order they were added to the site.

Note the list is dominated by health aide, cleaning, waitering and gas station jobs. The pay for these runs from $8 to $12 / hour -- $15k to $22k per year if they were full time positions. Many of these in the list are part time.

There are a handful of higher paid jobs -- customer service clerk at $30k, RNs and LPNs at $25-35/hour (but the hours are limited, about half time).

I suppose someone has to do all these tasks, but none of them are anything to raise a family on, save for retirement with, or call a "career".

And as far as self-employment goes, here's a story: for decades a man worked for the town hall, polishing the brass cannon in the town square. He was very good at his work, and one day, emboldened by his prowess, he quit his job, bought a cannon and went into business for himself.


==== Fifty job ads, Nov 25 2007 ===

Automobile cleaner, Customer service agent, Moulded rubber products trimmer, Help desk technical agent,
Receptionist, Financial planner - personal finances, Customer service clerk, Customer service adviser, Custodian, Attendant for persons with disabilities - home care, Cleaning supervisor, House cleaner, Retail sales associate, Attendant for persons with disabilities - home care, Car wash attendant, Food and beverage server, Security guard, Pump attendant, Maintenance mechanic technician - industrial, Administrative assistant, Building maintenance worker, Restaurant counter attendant, Cashier, customer service, Line cook, Maid - cleaning services,
General labourer - manufacturing,
Registered nurse - public and community health, Fast-food preparer,
Waiter/waitress - food and beverage services, Propane gas attendant, Technical sales representative - wholesale, Canvasser - retail, Retail salesperson, Health aide, Cleaning services sales representative, Commercial construction painter, Floor cleaner,Registered Nurse, Licensed practical nurse, Health care aide,
Order picker, Delivery truck driver, Building exterior cleaner, Cnc (computer numerical control) programmer, Customer service cashier,
Automobile cleaner, Banquet server,
Security guard, Client care attendant - home care, Client care attendant - home care.

Bush Guilty of Felony: CIA Leak Case

Former press aide blames Bush in CIA leak case
Tue Nov 20, 2007 9:13pm EST

By JoAnne Allen

WASHINGTON, Nov 20 (Reuters) - Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan says in an upcoming book that he was misled by President George W. Bush and other high officials into misinforming the press about a CIA leak case that fueled debate about the Iraq war.

McClellan says he publicly exonerated former top White House aides Karl Rove and Lewis "Scooter" Libby because Bush had called on him to help restore his credibility after the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

"There was one problem. It was not true. I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president's chief of staff, and the president himself," McClellan said in an excerpt released on Tuesday.

McClellan, a long-time Bush aide, whose job as White House press secretary from 2003 to 2006 was to field questions from the press, was not available for comment.

His book "Inside the Bush White House and What's Wrong with Washington" is due out only in April, but the publisher, Public Affairs, posted the excerpt on its Web site as a teaser.

Asked about the excerpt, White House press secretary Dana Perino said: "The president has not and would not ask anyone to pass on false information."

A criminal investigation into who leaked the identity of former CIA analyst Valerie Plame reached into the ranks of top White House aides and resulted in the conviction of Libby on perjury and obstruction of justice charges in March.

Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, was sentenced to 2 1/2 year in prison. Bush commuted the sentence in July.

Plame's cover was blown after her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, accused the Bush administration of manipulating intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to build its case for war.

No one was charge with criminally disclosing Plame's identity.

Rove, Bush's former White House political adviser, was investigated but not charged, in the CIA leak probe.

On the day when Libby's verdict was announced, McCllelan was asked in an interview on CNN's "Larry King Live" whether he had been lied to by those involved.

He responded: I did speak directly with them and I was careful about the way I phrased it at the time, even though I believed what they had told me to be the truth." (Reporting by Joanne Allen, editing by Chris Wilson)