Wow, do you think it was done on purpose?

/surprise

Can you post a link to the full transcript? I think we'll need it!

Thanks!

I'm seriously considering going down to the Indy's offices and throwing rotten fruit at the editors. This is lying, plain and simple.

LMAO! This is too funny. Why don't they just write what they feel instead of misleading their poor readers.

Oops -- forgot to link the full interview. It's there now; the link goes to the DoD's DefenseLink site, and contains the full transcript of the interview.

Already heard it repeated as fact on the BBC world service at 1:00 p.m. Central

Thanks, Charles -- I knew I'd get the straight story here at LGF. I originally saw this on AP, and it just didn't add up.

AP was headlining this as "Europeans stunned," which was a sideways way of slipping in these "quotes" in which an American official "admits" that the war was just a game of word-play. Gosh, that would stun Americans, too!

But the problem is that there really was concern for WMD, even by the coalition of the UNwilling (remember 1441?). And the UN inspections, of course, were of no help, since the same process failed so terribly in the early 90's. Given what everone knew about WMD (+ terrorism) in Iraq, any quotes by any US official that this was just some bogus excuse would probably be quite stunning to the Administration, too.

I guess I take solace in knowing that with the three-week deomolition of Al-Jazeera, CNN, ABC, NBC, and subsequently the New York Times, even non-LGF readers are probably taking all journalism with a greater dose of skepticism. I mean, these idiots study nothing but empty journalism classes in school and emerge with a C-average and big dreams of changing the world ... do we really trust what they report or care what they think? I don't.

The title is not an outright lie as much as it is misleading. In essence the chemical weapons angle was the most convinient to use publicly of the sooooooo many available. If all you here is the usual saound bite it sounds like they mad up the wmd issue to go to war. The quote taken in context allows you to see that is not a made up reason only the best reason from a political aspect to use.

MSNBC is on it:

Comments fuel doubts over weapons

In Singapore, where he was meeting with Asian leaders, Wolfowitz referred reporters Friday to a transcript of the interview posted on the Pentagon Web site.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/919535.asp?0cv=CB10

Damn, meant to includ this part:

Some of the quotations in the Vanity Fair article differ, sometimes significantly, from the versions offered by the Pentagon, which suggest that Wolfowitz meant to say withdrawal of U.S. troops from Saudi Arabia was an important outcome of the war, not an important reason for it.

Yahoo news has decided to change its headline for this story. (This is the same Yahoo news that ran a headline for about 6 hours that a 10:00PM LUNAR eclipse was going to cast a shadow on the the EARTH, but that's another story.) Now instead of saying that Europeans are stunned by Wolfowitz's "admissions," they say that "Wolfowitz sparks Iraq war motives debate." Given what he said, what's the debate?

I wish some day I could be a journalist and not have to work so hard for a living!

Really OT - I am having trouble here. One of my co-workers just sent around an email quoting from apparently some Christian site a woman discussing her list of favorites (song, food, person, etc..). Totally innocuous and, really, pretty boring stuff. But they all had a great leftists hoot over it over here: isn't making fun of Christians just grand? What fun! The lady even made, God forbid, a grammatical error. (Oh my, did I just say "God" -- sorry...) Really, when did the left become so mean-spirited and narrow and spiteful and... INTOLLERANT? I am no psychologist so I can't begin to explain it, but I do know that it just stinks to high heaven (oh no, did I just say "heaven"... maybe if I explain that it was in an uniquely non-western context they will understand, or *pretend* to understand --- they're reall good at that: pretending).

I am really getting sick of them. Thanks for letting me vent, lgf-land.

Well, lots of lefty media outlets have been getting hammered lately for outright lying; there's no reason to think that The Independent won't get hammered too.

Journalistic credibility is the current thing right now because of the NYT scandals; it was very stupid for the Independent to lie right when everybody is focused on...journalists lying.

It is very, very heartening how stupid leftists have become since they decided to stop learning about anything. They are their own worst enemy.

Hee hee ... Yahoo's pulled the story from their headlines. I guess we gotta at least give 'em an "atta boy" for picking up their garbage.

#12 Centaur

Really, when did the left become so mean-spirited and narrow and spiteful and... INTOLLERANT?

Check out this article Too Smart to be so Dumb.

centaur --

I can picture the scene. Bunch of self-loathing lefties from crappy families getting a chance to slam their Christian parents by snickering at all Christians while at the same time taking time off work to go protest in support of Islamic terrorists. Welcome to the Wasteland.

#12 centaur(via instapundit) The left as tolerent as some muslims:

A primer in discrimination against us GOPers

by Willy Stern

By the time we had ordered our second round of saki, the blind date was developing nicely, at least from my end. And all my instincts said the woman sitting opposite me at the hole-in-wall Japanese restaurant in Greenwich Village shared my sentiments. The year was 1992; a relatively unknown governor from Arkansas was running against George H. Bush. I was a walking, talking New York Magazine personal ad—SJM, 31, in NYC. My date—I'll call her Suzi—and I, it turned out, had oodles in common; she too was Jewish, age-appropriate, and a Manhattanite.

We ordered more saki, and the conversation flowed easily. Then she said something about "all those asshole Republicans."
[Link: www.metropulse.com...]

This from Islam Online today:

"Many of Arabs have been seething with anger as the U.S. and British forces launched attacks against Iraq under false pretexts, while acting with complacency to end Israeli occupation of Palestinian areas."

Man, the Arabs just love to "seethe with anger." What is it with those folks. I don't know of any other group of people who do so much seething. I think they must suffer from seething pains. As I recall from when my kids were young, they were always hard to deal with when they had teehing pain. Maybe it's a similar thing, just off by one letter.

SFGATE

"The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy, we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason," Wolfowitz was quoted as saying in a Pentagon transcript of an interview with Vanity Fair.

The magazine's reporter did not tape the telephone interview and provided a slightly different version of the quote in the article: "For bureaucratic reasons we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on."

Click here to reduce bandwidth consumption

We're too late - the meme is spreading, and there's no way to put the toothpaste back in the tube. Fred Kaplan, who should know better, uses the "quote" in a Slate article:

[Link: slate.msn.com...]

#16 --- Thank you. Exactly! You nailed it. #15 --- thanks for the link. The thing is, I really like these people, and I do consider them my friends, but sometimes...

It used to be you couldn't trust the government.
Now its the media you can't trust.

CHECK IT OUT!!! The leftists don't understand what Arab News can easily comprehend:

"Keeping away the Chinese because of fear that they might carry the fatal disease or subjecting Arabs to intense personal search because of fear of terrorism is justified."

The Boston Globe is especially despicable for their coverage.

Wolfowitz notes focus on weapons

Looks like the story was written around the phony quote.

Sorry not the Boston Globe.

Reuters.

The Globe just picked it up.

Thanks, abe. Y'know, someone really ought to do a sort of 'genetic tree of lies' with Wolf's mischaracterized comments in the Indy and all the various mainstream media that picked up and published them. Maybe I will and post it here Monday, but hopefully someone more in-tune than I and with more preciouse (smeagol) time will do the same, and we can compare notes.

Be back much, much later.

Daily KOS is tossing the same quote but crediting Vanity Fair magazine for it..

[Link: www.dailykos.com...]

When all the idiotic interruptions are removed, we are left with this:

"The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason, but -- hold on one second -- there have always been three fundamental concerns. One is weapons of mass destruction, the second is support for terrorism, the third is the criminal treatment of the Iraqi people. Actually I guess you could say there's a fourth overriding one which is the connection between the first two."

That hardly translates into the headline "WMD just a convenient excuse for war, admits Wolfowitz".

(PS: Glad this made the LGF front page, this type of "journalism" is unnacceptable.)
 

This DW-World article has Rumsfeld rebutting the phony quote:

Denials that false pretext led to war

29 That one compounds the stupidity even more.
BTW are you from Louisville?

Paul Wolfowitz is, of course, just describing how decisions get made in government. I believe his take would be that, of the 4 reasons for bringing down the Saddam regime, 1) WMD, 2) support for terrorism, 3) liberate Iraqis, and 4) the link between 1 and 2, it was 2 and 4 that presented the most compelling picture.

Wolfowitz is among the group of people like Laurie Mylroie, James Woolsey and Edward Jay Epstein, and to a lesser degree people like Richard Perle, Michael Ledeen and Bill Gertz, who believe that Saddam's Mukhabarat was the architect of a terror campaign against America in the 1990s leading up to 9/11. Iraq aided and directed Al Qaeda and other Islamist groups to attack America as a way of getting revenge for the Gulf War defeat.

I think polls demonstrate that deep down, the American people believed the battle of Iraq was about getting pay back for 9/11. This is the fundamental justification for the invasion of Iraq.

The problem has been, all along, that the people who were supposed to be establishing the connections between Iraqi and Islamist terror, like CIA, the FBI and the State Department, were not up to the job and not inclinded to see and accept the evidence that was there. A good example is George Tenet, who was one of the worst proponents of the "loose networks" nonsense in CIA.

Let's face it: without state sponsorship, global terror cannot exist, because terrorists need intelligence, safe havens and diplomatic assistance (passports, unsearchable diplomatic pouches, etc.) that can only come from states. The PLO, the IRA, the Red Brigades and others became a menace in the 1970s because they had help from the Soviet Bloc (see Ion Mihai Pacepa's book "Red Horizons"). Today, Al Qaeda, Hizb'allah and Hamas are dangerous because they are aided by Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia (and were helped in the past by Iraq and Afghanistan).

While WMDs definitely are worrisome, they are not the issue, because the terrorists keep killing Americans and Israelis whether or not the terrorists have WMDs. What we stopped in Afghanistan and Iraq was state support for terror. Now Iran's turn.

The WSJ has a verb for this..."dowding." I actually don't believe the dowded quote should bring someone to the conclusion professed in the headline. In the dowded quote, Wolfowitz makes the point that there was some disagreement on how best to put forth the case for intervention in Iraq but he makes no concession that the argument agreed on (in terms of primary reason) was phony, rather that it was most agreed on by the most people as to what should be presented as the most prominent reason, this is not what I'd define as "convenient." All he does is illustrate other people's need to view the case against Iraq minus any breadth. Comically, Wolfowitz seemed well aware that his comment could be taken out of context ("but hold on one second") in a dowd that would imply the administration never felt strongly about a threat of WMD's in Iraq.

This article makes no mention of Iraq’s illegal and continued obstruction of inspections (i.e. if Iraq genuinely didn’t have weapons, they gave the opposite impression), it editorially does not allow for credible possibilities other than fraud (possibilities that Iraq may have disguised, destroyed or moved its weapons (they had the notice and the experience and the available assistance), that weapons do exist but may not ever be found (Saddam's chameleon concealment, his concealment crew, the deception surrounding his programs were well documented by U.N. inspectors) it's not like we're searching someone's closet, and it certainly isnt easy to obtain useful intelligence from those in the know, who still may be afraid, or gone), that Iraqi officials duped Saddam and others into thinking there was a weapons program while embezzling money (an intelligent theory that was floated), that Iraq does have some weapons but not in the volume and magnitude we anticipated (if this is true and we will always be speculating since we can never know for sure that weapons aren’t hidden or weren’t moved somewhere, it still doesn’t change Saddam’s aggressive history and intentions (just his results) or his refusal to truly abide by inspections in compliance with the terms that ended the first Gulf War. And never mind his brutal regime and material support for Palestinian terror)

And frankly I’d dispute Wolfowitz’ big coup of the U.S. leaving Saudi Arabia. It may be unlikely but it could conceivably prompt the Saudis to build up their military. With their money, they’d have a huge head start in going nuclear. This isn’t to say the U.S. should have stayed in Saudi Arabia, it’s to cast doubt on the idea that the result will necessarily be a windfall of benefit.

I suppose I should be thankful that “Zionist cabal” didn’t enter the paragraph on Wolfowitz’ alleged alleged (yes, two alleges) shadow administration.

There is a genuine discussion to be had about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and I hope the administration will address it, even though they don’t have to (I don’t believe this is something most Americans will demand, as the majority, I believe, feel the war was entirely justified on the basis of Iraqi hostility (which showed a willingness to invade neighbors(Kuwait)and a willingness to actually USE chem weapons (Kurds)), U.N. inspections breaches, humanitarian grounds and towards the effort of helping promote and build a democratic Middle East, also a humanitarian endeavor, and arguably a necessity for our future security)

Does the Vanity Fair article misquote or does the Independant? All of the news stories report the quote from Vanity Fair.

#30 L

Nope, I'm posting from Nashville.

The EUnuch papers have all picked it up I bet. I just noticed it in der Spiegel.

You ignore the threat of chemical and biological weapons at your own peril.

Within 30 minutes of the evening raid those near the bombing site began vomiting,...
"Around 5 p.m. everyone was vomiting...
Michael told through tears how residents set fires to fight off some of the gases and children wrenched in paralytic pain. She and others tried to climb toward higher ground to escape the gas as "screams were tearing the silence and quietness of the night" and people struggled upward as blindness set in from the poisons. "I woke up on the fifth day to find out I had lost almost all my hair, but my eyes, to my surprise, were still open. I could still see"

This is why I'm assuming the UN was no where near lifting sanctions imposed against Saddam's Iraq.

And for those of you ready to say that these are old military uses of chemical weapons, I'd like you to remember the "crop dusters" that the 19 hijackers tried to get a loan for or the case of anthrax exposure one of them was treated for and then get back to me.

#31

and the Palestinian terrorism on the top of it all. Italy had "Red Brigades", Germany had Baader-Meinhoff group, Spain had ETA, Britain had IRA, France had "Action Direct", etc. Mind you, those groups were far more dangerous than Al Quaeda because most of them were trained, supplied and supported by the Soviet Union.
[Link: frontpagemag.com...]

Journalism 101
Day one
Page one: "Never let the facts get in the way."

And of course the NYTimes has the AP at 5:04 EST:

[Link: www.nytimes.com...]

I almost said "unbelievable", but, sadly, it's entirely believable. First MoDo's distorting Bush's quote, now this.

Actually, credit should be given to CNN's Jamie McIntyre for playing the story straight.

I posted on this nonsense this morning after hearing him last night say that he hadn't read the Vanity Fair article, but did read the transcript, and Wolfowitz clearly didn't say what they were claiming he said.

This should be interesting

[Link: www.nytimes.com...]

Where's RunnyBottom?

He'll have the straight goods on what his favourite 'jew warhawk' really said, and what he meant by it.

Maine's Michael, Are you talking about Gary Henderson, Nut?

#42

However, the remarks were widely published in Europe and were seen by skeptical Europeans as a tacit admission that the United States overstated Iraq's weapons threat.

Funny. The "skeptical European" response is the main story. And it's a response to a phony quote. The paper of record(sic) is way behind the curve. Charles had the misquote on his site 3 hours before.

Having just returned from Germany, I have to report that the "skeptical Europeans" are really not so skeptical. Hand-wringing and whining? yes; but hypothesis-testing and generally skeptical? no.

#47

gullible Europeans

Even if Wolfowitz wasn't stupid enough to say it, the headline is obviously true. The Bush administration needed to sell this war to the public, so the three-legged stool of 1. terrorist connections, 2. WMD, and 3. Saddam is scum was trotted out. No. 1 and No. 2 may not hold up under additional investigation; the jury is still out.

The ironic thing is that No. 3 alone turns out, with all the additional revelations of Saddam's evil regime, to be enough in my view to justify U.S. action. (Which I admittedly opposed before the launch) And don't forget the unstated fourth leg of the stool, the salutary effect the invasion has had on the remainder of the Middle East neighborhood. Syria has already backed down, because its rulers, while evil, are also at least nominally rational. It remains to be seen whether Iran's rulers are too besotted with their fundamentalist dogma to be similarly rational.

Even if we never find a single WMD in Iraq, even if we don't find any more terrorist connections other than the tenuous ones already found, we did the right thing in invading. Now we have to do the right thing in reconstructing.

Gordon, you ignorant misguided slut. Do you by chance have carpal tunnel syndrome from repeated typing of the same old tired rant?

The Oregonian was so excited about this that it made it its headline in the Street Final (afternoon) edition here in Portland.

This is bad news....it's going to become "the story" that is gospel truth no matter how factually inaccurate because it fits the overall big story (we were lied to by evil Republicans to get us in a war for oil) that they already believe.

AND, they will use it to discredit Wolfowitz....

Bad news.

Bush speaks at the UN September 2002:

If the Iraqi regime wishes peace, it will immediately and unconditionally forswear, disclose, and remove or destroy all weapons of mass destruction, long-range missiles, and all related material.

If the Iraqi regime wishes peace, it will immediately end all support for terrorism and act to suppress it, as all states are required to do by U.N. Security Council resolutions.

If the Iraqi regime wishes peace, it will cease persecution of its civilian population, including Shi'a, Sunnis, Kurds, Turkomans, and others, again as required by Security Council resolutions.

If the Iraqi regime wishes peace, it will release or account for all Gulf War personnel whose fate is still unknown. It will return the remains of any who are deceased, return stolen property, accept liability for losses resulting from the invasion of Kuwait, and fully cooperate with international efforts to resolve these issues, as required by Security Council resolutions.

If the Iraqi regime wishes peace, it will immediately end all illicit trade outside the oil-for-food program. It will accept U.N. administration of funds from that program, to ensure that the money is used fairly and promptly for the benefit of the Iraqi people.

If all these steps are taken, it will signal a new openness and accountability in Iraq. And it could open the prospect of the United Nations helping to build a government that represents all Iraqis -- a government based on respect for human rights, economic liberty, and internationally supervised elections.
[Link: www.whitehouse.gov...]

Gordon (50),

I'm assuming you mean really tenuous threads to terrorism like these?

Iraq pays suicide bonus to entice new bombers

The Chamber of Commerce hall was packed and the intake of breath was audible as a special announcement was made to the war widows of the West Bank - Saddam Hussein would pay $US25,000 ($A47,000) to the family of each suicide bomber as an enticement for others to volunteer for martyrdom in the name of the Palestinian people.

The men at the top table then opened Mr Saddam's chequebook and as the names of 47 "martyrs" were called, family representatives went up to sign for cheques in US dollars. Those of two suicide bombers were the first to be paid the new rate of $US25,000 - it used to be $10,000 - and those whose relatives had died in other clashes with the Israeli military were given $10,000 each.

The $500,000 doled out in the impoverished community of Tulkarm yesterday means the besieged Iraqi leader now has contributed more than $US10 million to Palestinian families since the new intifada started in September, 2000

Yeah, Its hard to connect canceled checks to the issuer.

Explain to me again whet you know about economics.

HotBrownSandwich, Is the capital of Kentucky pronounced "Louis" ville or "Lewie" ville?

who is Kellems? I thought the interview was between Wolfie and Sam Tannenhaus

Thanks, Charles -- I knew I'd get the straight story here at LGF.

I echo Ron's sentiments.

A couple of gloating Leftists came sidling into my office this afternoon telling me about Wolfowitz's "comments."

I said it sounded very strange, and even pointed out Dowd's recent (mis-)quoting of the Prez.

Can't wait to set 'em straight on Monday morning!

Nothing new here- Wolfy being honest, even candid. The left lib press twisting that to put it in the worst possible light. How can any of you be surprised?

media - You can't handle the truth!

I'm assuming you mean really tenuous threads to terrorism like these?

Or the al'Jazeera reporter who was paid to be carry messages between Saddam and bin Laden?

Fox News' Brett Baier, at the Pentagon, pointed out Vanity Fair's failure to quote Wolfowitz fully, early this morning, around 8 a.m. (Hawaii time) so by now this is old news. You sure can tell who plagarizes who in the media. The real journalists get the story straight before it goes to print or broadcast.

Well, after the NYT fiasco and the LA Times fiasco and now the rest of the print media, there will probably be a lot of egg on a lot of faces. From now on I am going to seriously question AP reports simply because I used to think that they got the news originally and passed it on to their customers -- now it looks like they just copy other people's stories without even remotely checking facts. After all, how hard would it have been for them to READ the transcript, for G-ds sake!

when did the left become so mean-spirited and narrow and spiteful and... INTOLLERANT?

I was in high school and college during the late 60s-early 70s. They were just as bad then. I agreed with some of their positions, but even as a teen I was turned off by the posturing, demonizing, patronizing, black-and-white politics of the SDS, Black Panthers, and their spawn.

In fact, the macho posturing was so offensive to radical women - who were relegated to typing and cleaning up by their revolutonary "brothers" - that their reaction led to the 70s wave of radical feminism. Which is where I came in. :-)

#55

I would cautiously say Lewie.

rabidfox (#62)

After all, how hard would it have been for them to READ the transcript, for G-ds sake!

Oh Man. That would be like... work. It's easier just to cut and past, it gives you more time to worry about where best to get reservations for lunch.

(Not that you can't just fake your expense report anyway.)

PS to post #63 - and you have to understand that the Left had and has just as much contempt for liberals as the Right does. 60s radicals made fun of liberals all the time - to be a liberal meant that you were spineless and wishy-washy, because you were willing to compromise to get things done. You weren't pure, you didn't check off all the boxes on the party platform, you were willing to talk with the Enemy (i.e. fellow Americans whose politics were different from the radicals) instead of shouting them down.

Just as much groupthink then as now. So if you mean Left, say Left, and don't lump liberals in with that.

Especially since Charles came out as a liberal last week.

Paladin (#38)

Journalism 101
Day one
Page one: "Never let the facts get in the way."

LOL!

HotBrownSandwich (#64)

I would cautiously say Lewie.

Mmmm. That's interesting, seeings how the capital of Kentucky is Frankfort ;-)

Is that what the "Indy" in "Indymedia" is for?

I think Paul ought to have been careful with what he said so that it'd take outright lying rather than distortion to get the headline he received.

"there have always been three fundamental concerns. One is weapons of mass destruction, the second is support for terrorism, the third is the criminal treatment of the Iraqi people. Actually I guess you could say there's a fourth overriding one which is the connection between the first two. Sorry, hold on again."

The listing of reasons by Paul reminded me of the "Spanish Inquisition" sketch from Monty Python.

When one takes Wolfowitz's 'bureaucratic logic' in conjunction with the 'noticeable' absence of "500 tons of chemicals and 38,000 litres of Anthrax" - the Independent's headline is more than legitimate.

Wasn't there a couple of polls conducted after the war had ended that said 77% of Americans dont' even care if we ever find the WMD? I know there were two polls that were in the upper 70% range.

Geepers

I knew there was an elephant in the room

You don't bury the survivors!

HotBrownSandwich (#72)

:-)

My terribly round about way of asking about your nick.

Rumsfeld said the same - there being three main reasons for war in Iraq, of which WMD and support for terrorism were the most prominent for US interests, etc. etc. - about three hundred times during press conferences before, during, and after the war.

Why is it that they only wait til Wolfowitz says it two months later to make it into some big shocker?

William Kristol writes in the Weekly Standard about the Vanity Fair article.

He asserts "But distorting an on-the-record interview with a Bush administration official in order to create a quasi-conspiratorial narrative of deceit and deception at the highest levels of the U.S. government is a disgrace."

I think he is 'right-on. Read the article

What Wolfowitz Really Said

FYI, here is the e-mail address of the Vanity Fair editor:

vfmail@vf.com
 

Abe, #53, you've disclosed the secret "neocon" conspiracy!

Shhhhhh, it's a secret!
 

Sacre bleu! An accurate paraphrase of Wolfowitz is a disgrace?

To risk the wrath of Dr. Paul, let me paraphrase his comments on the "motive" question based on the text of the Vanity Fair interview transcript.

There were three main reasons: 1) WMD, 2) links to terrorism, and 3) Saddam was bad for Iraq. Number three didn't justify an invasion. Number two was weak. Number one was something we could get people to rally around.

Also, the hidden agendas were to remove a threat to the "friendly governments" in the region, and to satisfy bin Laden's demand that we vacate Saudi Arabia.