Ray McGovern: 'Axis of Evil' Report Card

[babylonsister]

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/030907a.html

'Axis of Evil' Report Card

By Ray McGovern
March 9, 2007



More than five years have passed since President Bush labeled Iraq, Iran and North Korea the ''axis of evil.'' It is imperative that we try to piece together what role U.S. intelligence played in supporting the ''axis'' idea and the misguided policies and actions that ensued.

For the ''axis of evil'' sobriquet morphed into axes for grinding by accomplices like then-CIA Director George Tenet, and the pandering was consequential. Here is the ''axis'' part of Bush's State of the Union address on Jan. 29, 2002:

``North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction. . . . Iran aggressively pursues these weapons. . . . The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax and nerve gas and nuclear weapons for over a decade. . . . States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil . . . posing a grave and growing danger. . . . I will not wait on events . . .''

Nor, apparently, wait on good intelligence, either.

It used to be that presidents made decisions based, at least in part, on the judgments of the intelligence community. It was a shock to see that process stood on its head, with the president asserting a ''grave and growing danger'' and then telling functionaries like Tenet to conjure up the ''intelligence'' to support his rhetorical flourishes. We are talking about untruths with tragic consequences.

• Iraq: Anyone who has been awake over the past five years is aware of how the intelligence process was corrupted to justify attacking Iraq. No thanks to the corporate media, but many have also learned of the ''Downing Street Memorandum,'' which provides documentary evidence of lying. That memo, acknowledged by the British to be authentic, contains the minutes of a meeting on July 23, 2002, at which the chief of British intelligence gave Prime Minister Tony Blair an update on Bush's plans for war.

Based on conversations with Tenet at CIA headquarters three days before, the UK intelligence chief told Blair and his advisors about the evidence that Bush intended to use to ''justify'' his decision to make war on Iraq. When the British foreign minister observed that the intelligence was ''thin,'' the intelligence chief famously said, ``But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.'

It does not get much clearer than that.

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[ray of light]

1. Ray McGovern knows what he's talking about.

He also understands what has turned our country upside down. As a member of the whistleblower's community, he has a deep understanding of the way they have altered the 'play book'.