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Schieffer, Wallace let Rice
lie
Media Matters
September 13, 2006
Summary: Both Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer and Fox News Sunday host
Chris Wallace allowed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to justify the Iraq
war by falsely suggesting that the 9-11 Commission report supports her claim
that Saddam Hussein's Iraq had "contacts" with Al Qaeda before the U.S.-led
invasion of that country in March 2003. Also, after Rice said she couldn't
think of any specific "failures" in the Bush administration's fight against
terrorism when asked by Wallace to identify one, Wallace failed to press her on
the fact that Osama bin Laden is still at large and his trail has reportedly
gone "stone cold."
On the September 10 edition of CBS' Face the Nation, host Bob Schieffer
allowed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to justify the Iraq war by falsely
suggesting that the 9-11 Commission report supports her claim that Saddam
Hussein's Iraq had "contacts" with Al Qaeda before the U.S.-led invasion of
that country in March 2003. Similarly, Fox News host Chris Wallace, on the
September 10 edition of Fox Broadcasting Co.'s Fox News Sunday, allowed Rice to
make the same claim. Neither Schieffer nor Wallace rebutted her suggestion --
in fact, the 9-11 Commission found that Iraq and Al Qaeda had no "collaborative
and operational relationship." In addition, on both programs, Rice again
attempted to justify the invasion of Iraq by linking Iraq with Al Qaeda via
now-dead terrorist leader Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi. Neither Schieffer nor Wallace
mentioned that just two days earlier, a Senate Intelligence Committee report
had concluded that Saddam's government "did not have a relationship, harbor or
turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi and his associates."
Also on Fox News Sunday, after Rice said she could not think of any specific
"failures" in the Bush administration's fight against terrorism when asked by
Wallace to identify one, Wallace failed to press her on the fact that Osama bin
Laden is still at large and, according to counterterrorism officials cited
earlier that day in a Washington Post article, leads on bin Laden's location
are "stone cold." Later in the broadcast, Wallace allowed Rice to claim that,
before the invasion of Iraq, the administration relied on intelligence
dissemination from the National Intelligence Office (NIO); in fact, no such
office existed before the Iraq war.
On Face the Nation, Schieffer began by referring to the conclusion of the
Senate Intelligence Committee's report that there was no connection between
Saddam and Al Qaeda, and then asked: "So, it begs the question, was this whole
thing [the Iraq war] a colossal mistake?" Rice responded by saying that "the
9-11 Commission itself talked about contacts" between Iraq and Al Qaeda. She
later mentioned that "Zarqawi ordered the killing of an American diplomat from
Iraq, that he ran a poisons network in Iraq," adding: "So, there were clearly
links between terrorism and Iraq."
On Fox News Sunday, Rice responded to questioning on the topic with the same
set of talking points that Wallace also failed to challenge. Wallace pressed
Rice to account for her claim in March 2003 that Iraq had "a very strong link
to training Al Qaeda in chemical and biological techniques," noting that the
Senate Intelligence Committee's recent report revealed that, in 2002, the
Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) found that link "unlikely." Rice responded by
claiming that, "in fact, there were ties going on between Al Qaeda and Saddam
Hussein's regime going back for a decade," adding that "the 9-11 Commission
talked about contacts between the two" and that "[w]e know that Zarqawi was
running a poisons network in Iraq [and] ordered the killing of an American
diplomat in Jordan from Iraq."
While the 9-11 Commission found that elements of Saddam's regime made
"contacts" with Al Qaeda at one time or another, as Rice asserted, neither
Schieffer nor Wallace noted that it also concluded that there was no
"collaborative and operational relationship" between the two. In addition,
while Schieffer did note that the Senate Intelligence Committee's report found
no link between Iraq and Al Qaeda before the U.S.-led invastion, neither he nor
Wallace mentioned that the report also concluded that Saddam's Iraq "did not
have a relationship, harbor, or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi and his
associates." Further, as Media Matters for America previously documented, the
claim that Saddam allowed Islamic terrorists to train in Iraq apparently
originated with then-Secretary of State Colin Powell's February 5, 2003,
remarks to the United Nations Security Council, in which he laid out a case for
military action against Iraq. Powell alleged that Zarqawi "helped establish [a]
poison and explosive training center camp ... located in northeastern Iraq."
But as the Los Angeles Times noted on June 15, 2003, the training camp,
operated by Kurdish Islamic fundamentalist group Ansar al-Islam, "was in an
autonomous Kurdish region not ruled by Hussein."
Also on Fox News Sunday, Wallace asked Rice about "the big picture" in the
fight against terrorism, and if there have been "any failures." When Rice
identified no specific "failures," Wallace did not follow up with specifics of
his own. He did not note that bin Laden has yet to be captured or killed, nor
did he refer to the September 10 Washington Post report stating that
intelligence officials believe the trail leading to bin Laden's whereabouts has
gone "stone cold.": From the Post report:
The clandestine U.S. commandos whose job is to capture or kill Osama bin
Laden have not received a credible lead in more than two years. Nothing from
the vast U.S. intelligence world -- no tips from informants, no snippets from
electronic intercepts, no points on any satellite image -- has led them
anywhere near the al-Qaeda leader, according to U.S. and Pakistani
officials.
"The handful of assets we have given us nothing close to real-time
intelligence" that could have led to his capture, said one counterterrorism
official, who said the trail, despite the most extensive manhunt in U.S.
history, has gone "stone cold."
Finally, Wallace continued to press Rice regarding her March 2003 assertion
that Iraq had trained Al Qaeda members in the use of chemical and biological
weapons, asking Rice if she was, at that time, aware of the DIA report
contradicting that claim. Rice stated that the administration had "relied on
reports of the National Intelligence Office, the NIO," presumably a reference
to the Office of the Director of National intelligence. She added, "There are
intelligence reports and conflicting intelligence reports all the time." Rice
then claimed: "That's why we have an intelligence system that brings those
together into a unified assessment by the intelligence community of what we're
looking at." In fact, the NIO did not exist until December 2004, when it was
created by Congress, so the administration could not have relied on its
intelligence dissemination capability and ability to provide "unified
assessment by the intelligence community."
From the September 10 edition of CBS' Face the Nation:
SCHIEFFER: Let me ask you this: After 9-11, we went to Iraq because we were
told Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and because Iraq was a
place that harbored terrorists. We've known for a long time now that Saddam did
not have weapons of mass destruction, and now in this bombshell report that the
Republican-controlled Senate Intelligence Committee released Friday, we find
that U.S. intelligence agencies concluded long ago that there was no connection
between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. So it begs the question: Was this whole
thing a colossal mistake?
RICE: Well, first of all, the overthrow of Saddam Hussein is very important
and better for the world. One cannot imagine a Middle East that would be
different, and would not be a place in which extremism thrives without Saddam
Hussein's removal and the chance for a different kind of Iraq. But at the time,
Bob, the intelligence services, in fact, did not say that there was no
connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq. That's simply not the case. George Tenet,
then the director of Central Intelligence, testified that there were multiple
contacts going back a decade between Osama bin Laden and Iraq. In fact, the
9-11 Commission itself talked about contacts.
What did we know? We know that Iraq was a state sponsor of terror, had been
-- of terrorism, had in fact been listed by the State Department as a state
sponsor of terrorism. We know that Zarqawi ordered the killing of an American
diplomat from Iraq, that he ran a poisons network in Iraq; that the Abu Nidal
organization, the terrorist organization, had operated out of Iraq. So there
were clearly links between terrorism and Iraq. But more importantly, we had
been at war with Iraq in 1991 because Saddam Hussein destabilized the region by
invading Kuwait. That brought us into the region, into places like Saudi
Arabia, with our forces in ways that were unprecedented. In 1998, President
Clinton ordered American forces against Saddam Hussein -- air power against
Saddam Hussein. For the entire period after the end of the Gulf War -- the
first Gulf War, our pilots were flying no-fly zones and being shot at by
Saddam's forces. The idea that somehow this was a peaceful relationship with
Saddam Hussein -- if we had just let him be, the world would have been fine --
I just find a not very sustainable argument.
SCHIEFFER: But you know, in his book, Fiasco, Tom Ricks writes that all of
what you say is true, but he says in a sense, we had contained Saddam Hussein,
that he wasn't posing, really, a threat to much of anybody.
[...]
SCHIEFFER: Well, let me ask you this, Madame Secretary: Have we created some
kind of a terrorist haven there? Because some would argue that there really was
no terrorist threat in those days, but now that there actually is.
RICE: Well, Saddam Hussein -- the State Department and the United States
government had said that Iraq was a state sponsor of terror going all the way
back to the 1990s. So he was a state sponsor of terror. He had terrorists
operating in his country, including Zarqawi, who had a poisons network in the
country. And I would just remind that at the time, the director of Central
Intelligence talked about these contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda, and in
fact, the 9-11 admission -- Commission talked about contacts.
There is, in retrospect, an attempt to somehow paint Saddam Hussein as just
sitting there calmly in the region -- yes, he was a bad guy, people didn't like
him, but he wasn't much of a threat. It's simply ahistorical, if you look at
the conflict into which he dragged that region, starting in the 1980s.
SCHIEFFER: Well, let me ask you, and let's shift to something else.
From the September 10 editon of Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace:
WALLACE: Any failures?
RICE: Well, certainly. I'm sure there are many things that could be done
better. We would like to make more progress. People would always like to make
more progress. But --
WALLACE: But anything specifically that you say that --
RICE: Well, I --
WALLACE: you know, five years later, the war on terror hasn't gone as
well?
RICE: Again, history will have to judge, Chris. I think that the record will
show that the last five years have been years of reorganizing the United States
government, reorganizing our international alliances for this long war, and
reorienting our strategic policy toward one that simply will not accept the
conditions in the Middle East and in other places that have allowed extremism
to flourish at the expense of moderation.
WALLACE: All right. Let's talk about some of the concerns that people
have.
[...]
WALLACE: I want to discuss just one area, the issue of whether Iraq helped
Al Qaeda with weapons of mass destruction. Here's what the president said in
October of 2002.
BUSH [video clip]: We've learned that Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in
bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases.
WALLACE: And in March 2003, just before the invasion, you said, talking
about Iraq, "and a very strong link to training Al Qaeda in chemical and
biological techniques." But, Secretary Rice, a Senate committee has just
revealed that in February of 2002, months before the president spoke, more than
a year, 13 months, before you spoke, that the Defense Intelligence Agency
concluded this -- and let's put it up on the screen.
"Iraq is unlikely to have provided bin Laden any useful CB" -- that's
chemical or biological -- "knowledge or assistance." Didn't you and the
president ignore intelligence that contradicted your case?
RICE: What the president and I and other administration officials relied on
-- and you simply rely on the central intelligence. The director of central
intelligence, George Tenet, gave that very testimony, that, in fact, there were
ties going on between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's regime going back for a
decade. Indeed, the 9-11 Commission talked about contacts between the two. We
know that Zarqawi was running a poisons network in Iraq. We know that Zarqawi
ordered the killing of an American diplomat in Jordan from Iraq. There were
ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda.
Now, are we learning more now that we have access to people like Saddam
Hussein's intelligence services? Of course we're going to learn more. But
Chris, the --
WALLACE: But, Secretary Rice, this report, if I may --
RICE: Yeah.
WALLCE: --This report wasn't now. This isn't after the fact. This was a
Defense Intelligence Agency report in 2002. Two questions: First of all, did
you know about that report before you made your statement?
RICE: Chris, we relied on the reports of the National Intelligence Office,
the NIO, and of the DCI. That's what the president and his central
decision-makers rely on. There are --
WALLACE: Did you know about this report?
RICE: -- intelligence reports and conflicting intelligence reports all the
time. That's why we have an intelligence system that brings those together into
a unified assessment by the intelligence committee -- community of what we're
looking at.
That particular report I don't remember seeing. But there are often
conflicting intelligence reports. I just want to refer you, though, to the
testimony of the DCI at the time about the activities --
WALLACE: That's the head of Central Intelligence.
RICE: Yes, the head of Central Intelligence -- that were going on between Al
Qaeda and between Iraq. But let me make a broader point. The notion, somehow --
and I've heard this -- the notion, somehow, that the world is better off --
would be better off -- with Saddam Hussein still in power seems to me quite
ludicrous.
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