Iraq -- Rove's Revisionist History

December 3, 2007

by Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Satyam Khanna, Matt Corley, and Ali Frick

IRAQ

Rove's Revisionist History

A little over a week ago on PBS's The Charlie Rose Show, President Bush's former political adviser Karl Rove attempted to re-write the history of the lead-up to the Iraq war by claiming the Bush administration did not push war in the fall of 2002 for political purposes. It is widely believed that "the vote's timing" was part of an effort to increase pressure on the party's wavering senators to back the president. Yet Rove told Rose, "The administration was opposed to voting on it in the fall of 2002." "We didn't think it belonged in the confines of the election." Rove's version of events was disputed last Friday by former White House chief of staff Andrew Card, who told MSNBC, "that's not the way it worked." Direct contradiction by a senior member of the administration, however, did not deter Rove. He reiterated his claim in an interview with the Washington Post, saying that it is "disingenuous" for "Democrats to suggest they didn't want to vote on it before the election." Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer also discredited Rove's claims, flatly saying that "it was definitely the Bush administration that set it in motion and determined the timing, not the Congress." "Karl in this instance just has his facts wrong," added Fleischer. While multiple people have contradicted Rove in the days since he first made his comments, not a single individual has stepped forward to support his "far-fetched" claims.

THE WHITE HOUSE'S POLITICAL PUSH: Nine months before the war began, Rove and then-White House Political Director Ken Mehlman delivered a power-point presentation to California Republicans "about the outlook for the GOP in House and Senate races in November," in which they counseled that a "focus on war" should be the top priority of the party's electoral strategy. A top White House aide who was involved in pre-war discussions told Newsweek's Michael Isikoff that "the president's advisers wanted to use the upcoming election to pressure skeptical Democrats to back the president -- or face being portrayed as soft on national security." "The election was the anvil and the president was the hammer," the aide told Isikoff. Bush pollster Matthew Dowd told a group of Republicans that "the No.1 driver for our base motivationally is this war." "Weeks before the vote, Republican candidates across the country began running ads attacking their Democratic opponents on issues of war and national security, with some even using imagery of Saddam Hussein. When Bush was asked on Sept. 13, 2002, about Democrats who wanted to delay the vote until after the U.N. Security Council acted, he replied with political pressure. "If I were running for office," said Bush, "I'm not sure how I'd explain to the American people -- say, 'Vote for me, and, oh, by the way, on a matter of national security, I think I'm going to wait for somebody else to act." In a press conference days later, Bush exclaimed "we've got to move before the elections."

CONGRESS'S HESITATIONS: During a Sept. 4, 2002 meeting, Bush "made it clear" to congressional leaders that "he wanted Congress to vote before it adjourned." Then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD), said he tried to put the brakes on Bush's plans, asking "directly" if they "could delay" the vote until after the election" in order to "depoliticize it." Daschle later recounted that Bush just "looked at Cheney and he looked at me, and there was a half-smile on his face. And he said: 'We just have to do this now.'" Daschle conceded that he would go along with the President if Bush insisted on a vote before the election, saying on Sept. 10, "I don't think we have much choice but to respect the decision." But Daschle spoke ardently in public on multiple occasions against politicizing the vote. "We've got to be very careful about politicizing a war in Iraq or military efforts," Daschle told reporters. A vote too close to the election "could jeopardize a thoughtful and deliberative debate," he added. Daschle wasn't the only member of Congress speaking out against a rushed vote. "I do not believe the decision should be made in the frenzy of an election year," said Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA). "I know of no information that the threat is so imminent from Iraq" that Congress cannot wait until January to vote on a resolution, said then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)

ROVE'S DISINGENUOUS ARGUMENTS: On Fox News Sunday yesterday, Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) confronted Rove on his revisionist history, challenging him to "retract" his "outrageous comments." But Rove refused while changing his story in the process. On The Charlie Rose Show, Rove had said definitively that "the administration was opposed to voting on it in the fall of 2002." But after being confronted about this statement, Rove backtracked, claiming that he was just saying that it's "simply not true" that Bush "was the only person pushing the Congress to vote on the war resolution before the November election." Rove then cherry-picked old Daschle quotes that he claimed supported his point. In particular, Rove pointed to a Sept. 16, 2002 quote from Daschle, in which he said, "I think there will be a vote well before the election, and I think it's important that we work together to achieve it." Rove doesn't mention that at the time Daschle made his comment, he had already tried to stop Bush from pushing for an early vote, but had been rebuffed by the President.

SCIENCE -- STEM CELL BREAKTHROUGH INVESTIGATOR BLASTS BUSH IN OP-ED: Recently, researchers published a paper in Science Magazine stating that human skin cells could be reprogrammed into embryonic stem cells. The White House quickly heralded their work as a "scientific advancement within ethical boundaries." "President Bush is very pleased to see the important advances in ethical stem cell research reported in scientific journals today," White House spokesperson Dana Perino said. In a Washington Post op-ed today, American Association for the Advancement of Science President Alan Leshner and investigator James Thomson -- the first scientist to successfully isolate embryonic stem cells -- reveal that the breakthrough "depended entirely on previous embryonic stem cell research" and blasted Bush's restrictive stem cell policies. "U.S. stem cell policy runs counter to both scientific and public opinion. ... We hope Congress will override the president's veto of the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act." They add that researchers are uncertain "whether reprogrammed skin cells will differ in significant ways from embryonic stem cells."

ENVIRONMENT -- BUSH ADMINISTRATION IS 'BIGGEST OBSTACLE' TO CLIMATE PACT: Today, "thousands of government officials, industry lobbyists, environmental campaigners and observers" will meet in Bali, with the hopes of creating a new global treaty to combat global warming. Environmental analysts believe that "[b]y far, the biggest obstacle to forging a new accord by 2009 is the United States." Bush administration officials maintain they "will not agree to a new treaty with binding limits on emissions." In the past, President Bush has said he would agree only to "a long-term global goal," rather than mandatory caps. In contrast, the delegation from Australia -- the only developed nation besides the United States that had refused to sign the 1997 Kyoto agreement -- will arrive in Bali with a newfound determination to fighting climate change, after newly-elected Prime Minister Kevin Rudd signed the Kyoto Protocol immediately upon being sworn in to office today. "Anticipating the post-Bush diplomatic era, a shadow delegation of American business and political leaders" including former Vice President Al Gore and Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) "will advocate mandatory limits."

ETHICS -- RICE 'PLANTED' QUESTION WITH 'FRIENDLY JOURNAIST' TO 'HELP ERASE' PRE-WAR LEGACY: In 2003, then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice helped push America into war with Iraq. She disregarded at least two CIA memos and a personal phone call from CIA Director George Tenet stating that the evidence behind Iraq's uranium acquisition was weak. She infamously said, "[W]e don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." In an interview with C-SPAN's Washington Journal on Friday, Washington Post reporter Glenn Kessler, author of Confidante: Condoleezza Rice and the Creation of the Bush Legacy, revealed that after President Bush promoted her to Secretary of State, Rice mounted a "public relations" campaign to distance herself from the pre-war fiasco. A Rice aide "planted" a question with a "friendly journalist" asking whether Rice "would be interested in running for president -- to give her the aura of someone who might have presidential aspirations, make her seem more powerful than she was." In October, FEMA also clumsily staged a "fake" press conference where agency employees posed as journalists.

Don Imus's morning radio program returned to the air this morning on ABC Radio Networks, with a new cast featuring two black comedians, Karith Foster and Tony Powell. Republican presidential candidates Mike Huckabee and John McCain, as well as Democratic political consultant James Carville, were all slated to make appearances this morning.

56 percent: Percentage of likely Alabama voters who "believe it is somewhat likely or very likely that the prosecution of former Gov. Don Siegelman was politically motivated."

House Democratic leaders say they are "hopeful" that the full House will consider a motion of contempt against former White House counsel Harriet Miers and White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten before the end of the year.

$1 million: Amount the national debt expands per minute, totaling approximately $1.4 billion a day. The debt is up from $5.7 trillion when President Bush took office in January 2001 and it will top $10 trillion sometime right before or right after he leaves in January 2009."

The U.S. military is "join[ing] the green movement." On Dec. 17, the Air Force will dedicate the largest solar array in North America at Nevada's Nellis Air Force Base, on the same day that a C-17 transport plane makes the Air Force's first cross-country flight using a blend of synthetic fuel. Giant wind turbines rise from the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay."

As the U.N. conference on climate change gets underway, Bloomberg observes, "Seven years after he lost the U.S. election, Al Gore has more influence on U.S. global warming policy than the man who defeated him."

Reverend Canon Andrew White, an Anglican chaplain working in Iraq, says that although Christians have been in the country for 2,000 years, the current situation is "the most difficult [it has] ever been for Christians. Probably ever in history. They've never known it like now."

A Wall Street Journal analysis of subprime mortgages issued after 2000 shows that "an increasing proportion of them went to people with credit scores high enough to often qualify for conventional loans with far better terms." The study reveals "how far such mortgages have spread into the economy -- including middle-class and wealthy communities where they once were scarce."

"The Food and Drug Administration is so underfunded and understaffed that it's putting U.S. consumers at risk in terms of food and drug safety, an advisory panel to the FDA says in a report to be discussed Monday."

And finally: Hanukkah begins Tuesday at sunset, but the White House will be kicking off the festivities early with a party tonight. According to White House staff, President Bush is the first "to include a Hanukkah party among about two dozen holiday parties at the White House, as well as the first to light a menorah in the Executive Mansion." White House aide Jeremy Katz, who is in charge of the party, said that the guest list is a "challenge." "I have had to turn down relatives who have made creative pleas to get in," he said.

New Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's "first act after taking his oath of office was to sign the instrument of ratification" for the Kyoto Protocol.

NEW YORK: State lawmaker "will introduce legislation this week that will require the city medical examiner to provide a detailed description of the causes of death of rescuers who worked at Ground Zero after 9/11."

MASSACHUSETTS: Massachusetts program aids American-Indian veterans.

WASHINGTON: Activists push to make Mount St. Helens a national park.

FLORIDA: Former governor Jeb Bush may be wrapped up in a "government money market debacle unfolding in Florida."

THINK PROGRESS: Flashback: former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee claimed that Jesus "on the cross" supported the death penalty.

FRONT LINES: Over the weekend, gay rights groups held a three-day salute to the 12,000 men and women dismissed from the military under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

HUFFINGTON POST: Did a National Review reporter make up his inflammatory stories about the Middle East?

MATTHEW YGLESIAS: The National Review has a history of publishing writers with little concern for the validity of what they write.

"I told you the administration was opposed to voting on it in the fall of 2002."
-- Karl Rove, 11/22/07, on the pre-Iraq war vote

VERSUS

"It was definitely the Bush administration that set it in motion and determined the timing, not the Congress."
-- Former White House spokeperson Ari Fleischer, 12/1/07

Think Progress

Rove's Revisionist History

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