politburo diktat 2.0

Krugman, (via Atrios) is hollering that Bush is Orwellian, and rewriting the past:

Whatever the reason, the fact is that the Bush administration continues to be remarkably successful at rewriting history. For example, Mr. Bush has repeatedly suggested that the United States had to invade Iraq because Saddam wouldn’t let U.N. inspectors in. His most recent statement to that effect was only a few weeks ago. And he gets away with it. If there have been reports by major news organizations pointing out that that’s not at all what happened, I’ve missed them.

It’s all very Orwellian, of course. But when Orwell wrote of “a nightmare world in which the Leader, or some ruling clique, controls not only the future but the past,” he was thinking of totalitarian states. Who would have imagined that history would prove so easy to rewrite in a democratic nation with a free press?

Oh? Let’s see what Bush actually said in his July 7, 2006 news conference

And so the choice was Saddam Hussein‘s choice. He could have, you know, not fooled the inspectors. He could have welcomed the world in. He could have told us what was going on. But he didn‘t and so we moved.

And, just to refresh Krugman’s memory, below the jump are excerpt’s from Han Blix27 January 2003 statement to the Security Council

Who is being Orwellian here and re-writing history? Bush’s words were an accurate, if ineloquent, summary of Iraqi non-cooperation, as described at length by Dr. Blix before the war. Krugman is the Orwellian liar and re-writer of history. I’ve been very critical of Bush of late, but Krugman’s lies do not help the debate.

(Note: Some moron is probably going to comment “But there were no WMDs!” That’s not what this post, nor Bush’s remarks, nor Krugman’s editorial, is about. The topic here is Iraq’s cooperation or noncooperation with the inspections regime and how that has been described.)

THE SECURITY COUNCIL, 27 JANUARY 2003:
AN UPDATE ON INSPECTION

Executive Chairman of UNMOVIC, Dr. Hans Blix

Resolution 687 (1991), like the subsequent resolutions I shall refer to, required cooperation by Iraq but such was often withheld or given grudgingly. Unlike South Africa, which decided on its own to eliminate its nuclear weapons and welcomed inspection as a means of creating confidence in its disarmament, Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance – not even today – of the disarmament, which was demanded of it and which it needs to carry out to win the confidence of the world and to live in peace.

As we know, the twin operation ‘declare and verify’, … too often turned into a game of ‘hide and seek’.

Resolution 1441 (2002) was adopted on 8 November last year and emphatically reaffirmed the demand on Iraq to cooperate. It required this cooperation to be immediate, unconditional and active.

I turn now to the key requirement of cooperation and Iraq’s response to it. Cooperation might be said to relate to both substance and process. It would appear from our experience so far that Iraq has decided in principle to provide cooperation on process, notably access. A similar decision is indispensable to provide cooperation on substance in order to bring the disarmament task to completion through the peaceful process of inspection and to bring the monitoring task on a firm course.

In this updating I am bound, however, to register some problems. Firstly, relating to two kinds of air operations. …

I am obliged to note some recent disturbing incidents and harassment. …

On a number of occasions, demonstrations have taken place in front of our offices and at inspection sites. …

The other day, a sightseeing excursion by five inspectors to a mosque was followed by an unwarranted public outburst. …

Shortly thereafter, we receive protests from the Iraqi authorities about an unannounced inspection and about questions not relevant to weapons of mass destruction.

Cooperation on substance

The substantive cooperation required relates above all to the obligation of Iraq to declare all programmes of weapons of mass destruction and either to present items and activities for elimination or else to provide evidence supporting the conclusion that nothing proscribed remains.

Paragraph 9 of resolution 1441 (2002) states that this cooperation shall be “active”. It is not enough to open doors. Inspection is not a game of “catch as catch can”. Rather, as I noted, it is a process of verification for the purpose of creating confidence. It is not built upon the premise of trust. Rather, it is designed to lead to trust, if there is both openness to the inspectors and action to present them with items to destroy or credible evidence about the absence of any such items.

The [Iraqi] declaration of 7 December

Regrettably, the 12,000 page declaration, most of which is a reprint of earlier documents, does not seem to contain any new evidence that would eliminate the questions or reduce their number. Even Iraq’s letter sent in response to our recent discussions in Baghdad to the President of the Security Council on 24 January does not lead us to the resolution of these issues.

I shall only give some examples of issues and questions that need to be answered

In the absence of evidence to the contrary, we must assume that these quantities [of chemical weapons]are now unaccounted for.

The discovery of a few rockets does not resolve but rather points to the issue of several thousands of chemical rockets that are unaccounted for.
The finding of the rockets shows that Iraq needs to make more effort to ensure that its declaration is currently accurate.

I might further mention that inspectors have found at another site a laboratory quantity of thiodiglycol, a mustard gas precursor.

Iraq has declared that it produced about 8,500 litres of this biological warfare agent, which it states it unilaterally destroyed in the summer of 1991. Iraq has provided little evidence for this production and no convincing evidence for its destruction.

There are strong indications that Iraq produced more anthrax than it declared, and that at least some of this was retained after the declared destruction date. It might still exist. Either it should be found and be destroyed under UNMOVIC supervision or else convincing evidence should be produced to show that it was, indeed, destroyed in 1991.

As part of its 7 December 2002 declaration, Iraq resubmitted the Amorim panel document, but the table showing this particular import of media was not included. The absence of this table would appear to be deliberate as the pages of the resubmitted document were renumbered.

In the letter of 24 January to the President of the Council, Iraq’s Foreign Minister stated that “all imported quantities of growth media were declared”. This is not evidence. I note that the quantity of media involved would suffice to produce, for example, about 5,000 litres of concentrated anthrax.

Yet no technical information has been produced about that programme or data on the consumption of the missiles.

Some of both types of [prohibited long range] missiles have already been provided to the Iraqi Armed Forces even though it is stated that they are still undergoing development. We were told that the final range for both systems would be less than the permitted maximum range of 150 km. These missiles might well represent prima facie cases of proscribed systems.

Iraq also declared the recent import of chemicals used in propellants, test instrumentation and, guidance and control systems. These items may well be for proscribed purposes. That is yet to be determined. What is clear is that they were illegally brought into Iraq, that is, Iraq or some company in Iraq, circumvented the restrictions imposed by various resolutions.

Which are the means at the disposal of Iraq to answer these questions? I have pointed to some during my presentation of the issues. Let me be a little more systematic. Our Iraqi counterparts are fond of saying that there are no proscribed items and if no evidence is presented to the contrary they should have the benefit of the doubt, be presumed innocent. UNMOVIC, for its part, is not presuming that there are proscribed items and activities in Iraq, but nor is it – or I think anyone else after the inspections between 1991 and 1998 – presuming the opposite, that no such items and activities exist in Iraq. Presumptions do not solve the problem. Evidence and full transparency may help. Let me be specific. …

Someone tell Billmon.