Let’s all misspeak together, shall we?
From Steve over at the neighborhood No More Mister Nice Blog we get the ‘chance’ to read the partial transcript of Fox’s Hannity & Colmes. This is seriously scary shit. Ann Coulter was in fine form last night:
COLMES: He did say the IAEA reported that Iraq was six months away from a nuclear capability, which turned out not to be true. It's a scare tactic.
COULTER: He got the name of the institute wrong.
But did Bush really only (and simply) get the name of the institute wrong? Sadly, No! He actually got everything wrong. Let’s go to the transcript:
Q Mr. President, can you tell us what conclusive evidence of any nuclear -- new evidence you have of nuclear weapons capabilities of Saddam Hussein?
THE PRESIDENT: We just heard the Prime Minister talk about the new report. I would remind you that when the inspectors first went into Iraq and were denied -- finally denied access, a report came out of the Atomic -- the IAEA that they were six months away from developing a weapon. I don't know what more evidence we need.
The press conference was held on September 7, 2002. The International Institute for Strategic Studies released its report on September 9, 2002. Allowing for the possibility that Bush used his famous time travel machine to read the report, what would he have learned?
The Gulf War heavily damaged Iraq?s nuclear facilities. By the end of inspections in 1998, the IAEA was confident that Iraq?s indigenous nuclear weapons programme had not produced more than a few grammes of weapons useable nuclear material. [...]
Our net assessment of the current situation is that:
News reports about the IISS’ work had begun to surface by the time the press conference was held however, and is said to have been seen by Blair (who was first responsible for misspeaking as to the source.) But what did we know of the report at the time?
"If (Hussein) has revived his program, it would probably take Iraq a number of years to complete a production scale facility for producing fissile material and they would probably require a considerable amount of foreign equipment and expertise," said Gary Samore, a staff member on President Clinton's National Security Council who has overseen a new study of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction for the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies. [St. Petersburg Times (Florida) September 8, 2002]
But wait — let’s go back to what Bush said (which remains unsupported even by the IISS’ report:)
We just heard the Prime Minister talk about the new report. I would remind you that when the inspectors first went into Iraq and were denied -- finally denied access, a report came out of the Atomic -- the IAEA that they were six months away from developing a weapon. I don't know what more evidence we need.
Bush isn’t talking about the recent report at all — he is “reminding” us of an IAEA report. The IISS does not have weapons inspector who were denied, and then granted, access. Bush’s statement is all IAEA, all the time. And the IAEA had reported in 1998 that prior to the Gulf War Iraq had made significant progress in its efforts to develop nuclear weapons, having been six months to two years away from successful completion. And in the period since the Gulf War? Well, according to the British dossier released two weeks after the press conference quoted above:
The IAEA also destroyed the
infrastructure for Iraq's nuclear weapons programme and removed key nuclear
materials.
Asked about new evidence Bush had none, and chose to offer old evidence that was no longer consistent with reality instead. If this is what passes for honor and integrity these days, we’ll have to say no thanks.