Durbin's memory loss on Iraq
What am I missing here? I met Durbin at O'Hare back then. I shook his hand and told the him I'd say a prayer for him to make these decisions. What a fool I was.
Durbin in today's Washington Times,
The Senate's No. 2 Democrat says he knew that the American public was being misled into the Iraq war but remained silent because he was sworn to secrecy as a member of the intelligence committee.From Thomas,
"The information we had in the intelligence committee was not the same information being given to the American people. I couldn't believe it," Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, said Wednesday when talking on the Senate floor about the run-up to the Iraq war in 2002.
"I was angry about it. [But] frankly, I couldn't do much about it because, in the intelligence committee, we are sworn to secrecy. We can't walk outside the door and say the statement made yesterday by the White House is in direct contradiction to classified information that is being given to this Congress."
S.AMDT.4865Update: Powerline's take on our Senator from Illinois,
Amends: S.J.RES.45 , S.AMDT.4856
Sponsor: Sen Durbin, Richard [IL] (submitted 10/9/2002) (proposed 10/10/2002)
AMENDMENT PURPOSE:
To amend the authorization for the use of the Armed Forces to cover an imminent threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction rather than the continuing threat posed by Iraq.
TEXT OF AMENDMENT AS SUBMITTED: CR S10229
STATUS:
10/10/2002:
Amendment SA 4865 proposed by Senator Durbin to Amendment SA 4856. (consideration: CR S10265-10272; text: CR S10265)
10/10/2002:
Amendment SA 4865 not agreed to in Senate by Yea-Nay Vote. 30 - 70. Record Vote Number: 236.
Durbin accuses himself of cowardice, but it's hard to know what he would say about the other Democratic members of the Senate Intelligence Committee: as the Times notes, five of the nine Democrats on the committee voted for the war, and at least two of them, Levin and Rockefeller, specifically said before the war that Saddam was pursuing nuclear weapons. Apparently they didn't get access to the double-secret information Durbin now talks about, four years after the fact.Also check Flopping Aces.
On balance, I would acquit Durbin of cowardice and convict him of mendacity.
10 comments:
I think what you're missing is that Durbin voted against the resolution authorizing the use of military force in Iraq.
Now, I don't know exactly what information was disclosed to members of the Intelligence Committee, so the following is speculation. But let's take Durbin at his word that the information was contradicting White House claims. Durbin can't disclose or discuss it.
What he can do, though, is change the wording of the resolution so that the worst of the lies (or misprepresentations, if you will) become obvious. So, perhaps Durbin wanted to pin the White House on imminent threats, rather than allow the Administration to go to war based on general threats -- threats which were not supported by intelligence.
I see no contradiction because Durbin opposed the use of force from the beginning.
Point take anon... but man, it seems awfully strange amendment to offer...
Would he have voted for the authorization if his amendment accepted?
And would he have then offered some criteria for what consistutied imminent which would have set a higher standard than what he knew he was viewing and hearing in that vault they use for classified hearings?
The guy is just way to slick.
Here's is statement from 2002 on imminent threat. Why in the world didn't he just get up and say there was none in his opinion?
Yet when you ask them to put the words ``imminent threat'' in the resolution, watch them scatter and run when the vote comes to the desk here. There will be a handful of us voting for that, a handful of us who believe the foreign policy which has guided the United States for so many generations, so successfully, which has brought us peace and stability, should be honored and respected even on this resolution of great historic moment.
If he was trying to raise the bar here for the check they were writing Bush, I wish he could have been a little more up front about he was looking at stuff they didn't look very imminent while Rockefeller and Biden and some of the others were using just that word.
It was a hell of a time to be a cipher on threats.
Try it this way Other Anon, what is in his security clearance that forbid Durbin from saying just this:
We can't walk outside the door and say the statement made yesterday by the White House is in direct contradiction to classified information that is being given to this Congress.
Why in the world couldn't he have done just that without disclosing any secrets at all? Instead of this gymastics with imminent and continuing. He really let the country down if he means this in my opinion.
Rich, when are you going to bust Bill Baar for yet another post that has absolutely nothing to do with state or local politics?
Lemme see....Durbin's my Senator, he represents Illinois...I live in Illinois....
Seems relevant to me.
Lemme see....Iraq is outside of Illinois...this blog is suppose to feature local and state politics....
Seems irrelevant to me.
...Iraq is outside of Illinois..
Yes, but some of the best of Illinois is in Iraq now.
Wonder if that would have been the case if this wee man from Illinois in the Senate had said I'm being lied too then, instead of now.
Durbin was one of only two Democrats up for re-election that year who voted against the war in Iraq. Whatever you can else accuse him of, I think calling him a coward is unfair. It makes your post look like partisan sniping.
Read what powerline said of him again,
On balance, I would acquit Durbin of cowardice and convict him of mendacity.
I sat next to him at OHare. He didn't seem the coward then or now.
But if he knew he was bing lied too, and refused to tell America then, then mendacity seems to fit.
If he's untruthful about what he really believed then, then medacity still fits.
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