128th in continuing blog series on the
administration push to war with
Jan.7, 2005 – Robert B. Zoellick is
nominated to be Deputy Secretary of State, replacing Richard Armitage. Marc
Grossman, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs since 2001, resigns,
to be succeeded by R. Nicholas Burns.
Unfortunately,
while the power bases are shrunk as such, most of their chief players keep
being promoted or at least transfer into lucrative and secure positions. The
White House may be loath to cut loose too many of the architects of the
“Go ahead, Jeff.
Q I wanted to go back to Rathergate for a minute. Four
people have been fired. There's a 224-page report and an eight-page statement
that's --
MR. MCCLELLAN: I see you have it there in your hand.
Q -- that's been released. Not a single word of apology
to the president for this episode. Is the White House disappointed in that? Or
was that what Andrew Heyward and Janet Leissner were doing over here two weeks
ago?”
Interestingly,
Gannon/Guckert is able to obtain the CBS report, presumably with the aid of his
White House press credentials. Therefore his ‘temporary pass’ or ‘day pass,’ as
his credentials are subsequently characterized, seem to have the weight of more
substantial press passes.
The
White House has thrown in the towel, but its spokespersons continue to defend
the decision to go to war, see below.
“Q The fact that the Iraq Survey Group
has now folded up its field operations, can you explain to us if there is any
sense of embarrassment or lack of comfort about the fact that after two years
of looking, these people found nothing that the President and others assured us
they would find?
MR.
McCLELLAN: I think the President already talked about this last October in
response to the comprehensive report that was released by Charles Duelfer at
that point. Charles Duelfer came to the White House in December; the President
took that opportunity to thank him for all the work that he had done. The two
discussed how Saddam Hussein's regime retained the intent and capability to
produce weapons of mass destruction, and they also discussed how he was
systematically gaming the system to undermine the sanctions that were in place,
so that once those sanctions were eliminated -- which was something he was
trying to do through the U.N. oil-for-food program -- then he could begin his
weapons programs once again. And I think the President talked about the other
issues back in October. Nothing has changed from that time period.
Q
He, at that point, even since then, during the campaign on a couple of
occasions, held out the possibility that something still might be found. Does
he still hold out some hope that something is going to be found?
MR.
McCLELLAN: Well, at this point, the members of the Iraq Survey Group that are
still there in Iraq -- I mean, obviously, if they hear additional reports about
anything, they will follow up on those reports. But I think Charles Duelfer has
made it pretty clear, and it's my understanding that the comprehensive report
he issued last year is essentially the completion of his work. He's going to have
an addendum that will be released at some point next month. But there are a
number of documents that Charles Duelfer talked about with the President that
some of the Iraq Survey Group continues to go through and learn more about the
regime, itself.
Q Minority
Leader Pelosi has just sent out a statement saying the President owes the
American people an explanation for how he was so wrong for so long. Is that --
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, what the President's focus is on is
looking at the recommendations from the independent commission on weapons of
mass -- on intelligence relating to weapons of mass destruction that he
appointed. That commission has
continued to do its work; they've been meeting with a number of people. And one
of the areas that they'll focus on is the intelligence from
So
the President looks forward to seeing the recommendations from the
Silberman-Robb commission when they release those recommendations. And he is
committed to acting on those recommendations, to make sure we take steps to
improve our intelligence.
Q
The President accepts that there were no weapons of mass destruction in
MR.
McCLELLAN: Well, he said back in October that the comprehensive report by
Charles Duelfer concluded what his predecessor had said, as well, that the
weapons that we all believed were there, based on the intelligence, were not
there. And now what is important is that we need to go back and look at what
was wrong with much of the intelligence that we accumulated over a 12-year
period and that our allies had accumulated over that same period of time, and
correct any flaws.
Q I
just want to make sure, though, because you said something about following up
on additional reports and learning more about the regime. You are not trying to
hold out to the American people the possibility that there might still be
weapons somewhere there, are you?
MR.
McCLELLAN: No, I just said that if there are -- if there are any other reports,
obviously, of weapons of mass destruction, then people will follow up on those
reports. I'm just stating a fact.”
Et cetera.
The new year has begun. Out with the old—Iraqi WMD—and in
with the new—Iraqi elections, scheduled for late January.
Stumble It!