McGovern to Milbank + Joe Conason

Dear Dana,

It troubles me that you should find it “awkward” that I mentioned Israel and its interests as perceived by the “neocons” as a motivating factor in the Bush administration’s decision to launch an unprovoked war on Iraq. That, Dana, is a no-brainer. Let me suggest you simply familiarize yourself with the documents of the “neocon” Project for a New American Century.

I did not say that “Israel should not be considered an ally.” I think the transcript will show that I simply noted the fact that Israel is not an ally of the United States. It is a point of fact. And I, for one, object not only to the president’s repeated references to such an “alliance,” but to his behaving as though there were one. Is it possible that he actually believes there is one? If so, I doubt that any in his shrinking circle of advisers would take the risk of disabusing him of that notion, particularly if his father’s national security adviser, Gen. Brent Scowcroft, is correct in saying that our current president has been “mesmerized” by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

I am among the first to defend Israel’s right to exist within secure and internationally recognized borders, and to deplore our nation’s slowness in recognizing and doing something to stop the Holocaust. (And I deplore violence of all kinds … But, unless I am mistaken, an alliance requires a treaty ratified by the Senate. Have I missed something?

What is saddest of all is your willingness to be enlisted in the cabal against Rep. James Moran (D-VA). The record will show that Moran’s question to the panel did NOT, as you write, include “wondering whether the true motive [for the attack on Iraq] was Iraq’s threat to Israel.” The thought was all mine, and I stand by it.

What does merit the word “awkward” is that I have to write you this note. I used to look forward to reading your column. Until now, I had thought that your professional standards—like those of an intelligence analyst—ruled out the kind of slant reflected in your column today.

Were I not to have admired your past record, I might even think you are campaigning for a Gold Star from your editors, since your inaccurate, tendentious report dovetails so well with their torturous effort to play down the implications of the Downing Street Minutes. Those minutes are, indeed, a smoking gun. You’ll see.

Yours truly,

Ray McGovern

[……]

Only a very special brand of arrogance would permit … the New York Times, which brought us the mythmaking of Judith Miller, to insist that new documentary evidence of “intelligence fixing” about Saddam’s arsenal is no longer news. The same goes for the Washington Post, which featured phony administration claims about Iraq’s weapons on Page 1 while burying the skeptical stories that proved correct.

If you listen to those mooing most loudly, such as the editorial page editors of the Post, the Downing Street memo … doesn’t “prove” anything. (Only a Post editorial would refer to Sir Richard Dearlove, the chief of Britain’s MI6 intelligence service who reported the fixing of intelligence to fit Bush’s war plans, as merely “a British official.”) … Evidently the Post’s editorialists would rather not learn what else the memo might prove if its clues were investigated.

[…………]

A classified document recording deliberations … is always news. A document that shows those officials believed the justification for war was “thin” and that the intelligence was being “fixed” is always news. A document that indicates the president was misleading the world about his determination to wage war only as a last resort is always news.

And when such a document is leaked, whatever editors, reporters and producers may think “everyone” already knows or believes … does not affect whether that … is news. The journalists’ job is to determine whether it is authentic and then to probe into its circumstances and meaning. …

As striking as the bizarre redefinition of news … is its strange deficit of memory. Everyone did not know in the summer and fall of 2002 that Bush had reached a firm decision to wage war — not even if “everyone” really refers only to the readers of the Times and the Post.

[…………]

Consider Michael Kinsley, the L.A. Times editorial page editor [who] derided the memo’s importance … “you don’t need a secret memo” to know that “the administration’s decision to topple Saddam Hussein by force” had been reached … Anybody could tell that war was “inevitable. Just look at what was in the newspapers on July 23, 2002, and the day before.” …

[Here’s] what Kinsley himself wrote on July 12, 2002, after those war plans were leaked. On the Post’s Op-Ed page, he suggested that … “Bush may be bluffing … Or he may be lying, and the leak may be part of an official strategy of threatening all-out war in the hope of avoiding it, by encouraging a coup or persuading Hussein to take early retirement … getting him gone without a massive invasion.”

So Kinsley himself wasn’t quite certain … yet now he says we all knew.

[………….]

[A]n editorial in the Times had likewise lauded the president’s speech: “While Mr. Bush reserved the right to act independently to restrain Iraq, he expressed a preference for working in concert with other nations and seemed willing to employ measures short of war before turning to the use of force. …” So despite what Times reporters and analysts claim today, their newspaper clearly did not consider war inevitable … after July 23, 2002.