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January 11, 2009

Countdown Begins To Kenneth Pollack's Appointment In The Obama Administration

Kenneth Pollack, The Atlantic, January, 2004;

The U.S. intelligence community's belief that Saddam was aggressively pursuing weapons of mass destruction pre-dated Bush's inauguration...Other nations' intelligence services were similarly aligned with U.S. views...In sum, no one doubted that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

Kenneth Pollack, Brookings Institution event, December 12, 2002 (pdf):

POLLACK: ...there is a real risk in going down this path which is every time the inspectors go to a site and find Iraqis cooperative and find the site clean, it reinforces the notion of those people around the world and in the United States who want to believe that the Iraqis are coming clean, that they are coming clean. We've had [Israelis] come up to Martin [Indyk] in recent days and say to him maybe the Iraqis don't really have weapons of mass destruction...

And when you've got Israelis saying that it's clear Saddam's strategy is working. It is having an impact.

What a great racket this is. First you intimidate people from speaking up by smearing them as dupes. Then later you disappear them from history altogether.

—Jonathan Schwarz

Posted at January 11, 2009 11:31 AM
Comments

Same with torture. Those guys are not talking! Some are now suggesting maybe they have nothing to say. See, their silence is having an impact. Only shows we should torture them even harder.

Posted by: Bernard Chazelle at January 11, 2009 12:15 PM

It’s a good thing Obama will hide torture better than Bush and Cheney did! Out of sight, out of mind. Pelosi knew about the torture two years before the news came out but kept silent about it. The Democrats will put a nice smiley face on everything Bush did so everyone can be happy dappy. Well, at least until Obama cuts Medicaid, Medicare, and social security but we’ll be so happy maybe we won’t notice how Obama will make his rich friends even richer and thusly everyone else poorer.

Posted by: Rob Payne at January 11, 2009 03:14 PM

Today's hard working professional experts need better memory holes.

If anybody paid attention to this internet thing it could ruin it for everybody. And by everybody I of course mean specifically the select few who get to tell us what to think over the braindead megaphone.

Posted by: buermann at January 11, 2009 09:01 PM