Corn on Hardball: Watching Matthews Eviscerate an Iraq War Hawk (Video)

I agree, Tekker. I felt the same way. A childish shouting match. Matthews is the culprit behind that. What is sad here is that, unlike on Fox, Matthews and Corn have the ethical upper hand in this argument, so those points could have been made with silken smoothness. Yelling looks desperate.

I like Chris Matthews, but I think he'd be a better political candidate than he is a TV commentator. Reason being, his populism and his loud, argumentative, give-no-quarter style would be more effective in debates than it is in a talk show, where a modicum of polite even-handedness is expected.

Rachel Maddow is just the opposite. Although strongly opinionated, she never interrupts her guests. She gives them all the time they need to state their cases and, in the case of the reactionaries, to hang themselves. And you can tell that her guests all love her, even the fascists like Pat Buchanan.

Watching this I cannot help but feel my blood curdle. Gaffney's statements in regards to Iraq's WMD are lies—simply read the findings of David Kay and it is crystal clear that Iraq posed a zero WMD threat to the US! That is Iraq's biological, chemical and nuclear weapons capabilities were non-existent. Below is my long winded reaction to precisely what is being discussed admirably by David Corn and dishonorably by Frank Gaffney. (But below was written in January of 2004)

Weapons of Mass Destruction

It is almost as though it were all a bad dream but it's not and this is the way things really are. The war on terrorism cannot operate on the present premise that only America and England knows best—because they have proven beyond all reasonable doubt that they don't know. Their leadership has failed us all. They built their case in the United Nations for war solely on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. They failed to convince the UN Security Council that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. The head of the UN weapons inspectors, Hans Blix said before the war;

"One must not jump to the conclusion that they exist. However, that possibility is not excluded."

In other words he kept an open mind. Unfortunately he was dealing with an American and English war party whose minds were already decided and bent on war long before they went to the UN. The logic of George Bush and Tony Blair is simply as follows: Either you let our military have access to your country or our military is going to take access of your country!

Thus Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and it is made crystal clear that this was more than an opinion in the speech made by President Bush on March 17, 2003:

"Intelligence gathered by this government and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised . . . The danger is clear: using chemical, biological or, one day nuclear weapons, obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country or any other."

Two days after this speech the coalition of the willing, invaded Iraq. Now with complete control over weapons inspections and no Saddam to blame for delays and using twenty times as many weapons inspectors as the UN had at their disposal they have reached the conclusion that there is no evidence of weapons of mass destruction.

In October of 2002 President Bush declared his unequivocal reason for war;

"Saddam Hussein must disarm himself—or for the sake of peace, we will lead a coalition to disarm him."

This same reasoning follows all speeches given until war is a fact. This is important to remember, because great efforts are being made to alter this and we the ignorant public are not suppose to remember this important fact.

The new lines of arguments for war are indeed entertaining as well as it is frightening. Thus we hear that the war was never about WMD but was to bring about democracy to Iraq and the Middle East. Or it was a direct response to 9/11 or it was due to Saddam's evils to his own people, and his defiance of the UN and because he was seeking out WMD. Thus we are supposed to believe that it wasn't because he actually had WMD but because he wanted them. Since the United States considers itself at war now and is going to be at war until some indefinite time out in the future I can't help but feel that the time has come that the forces of democracy take effect and that the people of the world and especially the voting populations in England and the United States let these democratic thugs in Washington and London know that their time is up and that they must be replaced due to their complete incompetence and because they no longer represent democracy—men like this have proven that they lack the conscience for what constitutes democracy. These leaders have been presented with the challenge of how democracy and diplomacy confront difficult and threatening tasks like removing the incentives for terrorism and making the world a safer place to live and have chosen instead the road of the rogues themselves—thus giving grounds for terrorists to exist.

When the UN Security Council Resolution 1441 was defeated in the United Nation Security Council by a no confidence vote it was because the intelligence evidence wasn't convincing and that the weapons inspectors should be given more time to reach more confident conclusions. As we know it was then that the leadership of the USA and England took the law between world states into their own hands and went to war anyway. They broke the covenant so to speak. Even today after they have been proven wrong in their reasons for war—weapons of mass destruction—and consequently are directly responsible for the senseless death of thousands of innocent lives they persist in claiming they have right. Such right must be made wrong for the simple reason that it is wrong—even if it means removing them from office—by impeachment or by vote of no confidence—for blatant abuse of power and misleading or misguiding the people of their respective nations. Unilateral actions involving preemptive warfare are primary ingredients to fascism especially when they are instigated in the name of an ideology— be it Nazism or Democracy. This kind of action cannot be tolerated by any state on this earth. It was specifically for this kind of reason that the United Nations was created—to prevent unilateral abuse of power.

As we know the US along with a UN mandated coalition force liberated Kuwait in 1991 and defeated the Iraqi military. At that point in time major stipulations were then placed on Iraq concerning its weapons of mass destruction. We can basically summarize the conclusions from the various intelligence agencies in early 2002 as follows:

• The 1991 Gulf War, UN inspections and various military actions destroyed most of Iraq's chemical, biological, nuclear and long-range missile capability.
• No direct evidence of any chemical or biological weapons remained in Iraq, but agencies judged some stocks could still remain and production could be renewed.
• As Iraq rebuilt its facilities, some equipment purchased for civilian use could also be used to manufacture chemical or biological weapons.
• Without inspection teams it was difficult to determine the status of these programs.

Without any declassified alteration in intelligence information the state of affairs with regards to Iraq's status changed in the middle of 2002 and the foam and saliva of war had begun to form. What ever was cooking inside top secret America it became verbalized through Congressional leadership, the mass media and by some experts. The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) produced in October 2002 and presented to Congress 10 days before authorization to use force to make Iraq comply to the UN resolutions is somewhat peculiar in that it:

1. The 1991 Gulf War, UN inspections and various military actions destroyed most of Iraq's chemical, biological, nuclear and long-range missile capability.
2. No direct evidence of any chemical or biological weapons remained in Iraq, but agencies judged some stocks could still remain and production could be renewed.
3. As Iraq rebuilt its facilities, some equipment purchased for civilian use could also be used to manufacture chemical or biological weapons.
4. Without inspection teams it was difficult to determine the status of these programs.

Without any declassified alteration in intelligence information the state of affairs with regards to Iraq's status changed in the middle of 2002 and the foam and saliva of war had begun to form. What ever was cooking inside top secret America it became verbalized through Congressional leadership, the mass media and by some experts. The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) produced in October 2002 and presented to Congress 10 days before authorization to use force to make Iraq comply to the UN resolutions is somewhat peculiar in that it:

• Was produced far quicker than is normal for such documents
• Went far beyond the consensus intelligence assessments of the preceding five years
• Contained far more serious dissents to its key findings than any other declassified NIE.
• Contained forty distinct caveats or conditions dropped by officials

Along with this NIE there were submitted two other documents; a letter, and summary information of Iraq's WMD capability assessments. These documents must be said to create a somewhat contradictory state of affairs where the CIA appears to want to cover its butt for precisely the present situation—they gave our not so enlightened leadership a choice—squeeze Saddam for all he's worth but know that we don't really have proof. I guess the head of the CIA is in the art business where his Iraqi assessment might be described as make your own picture boys. For example on aluminum tubing in the NIE we find that it was being imported for nuclear weapon production where only some specialist disagree on the specific purpose of the tubing, while the summaries inform the reader that whole agencies disagree as to their specific purpose. The letter contains information to the effect that Saddam would unlikely give terrorists WMD "fearing that the exposure of Iraq involvement would provide Washington with a stronger case for making war." and further that he might do so only "if sufficiently desperate."

David Kay seems to be of the opinion that his former employer the CIA is at fault and that it is the CIA that owes the public and the president an apology. It would seem that the CIA offered information that was of a take your pick kids sort. That it is muddled and contradictory. Where if you choose the NIE you sound like George Bush or Dick Cheney while if you take the summary information and listen to the UN weapon inspectors you would arrive at the same conclusion as Han Blix had—a position that was inconclusive concerning WMD.

Terrorists can thank the Hutton report because it has chosen to protect the Prime Minister meaning that the intelligence agencies in England must be viewed as unreliable. This would strike me as a severe blow to English national security and the statements of David Kay seem to achieve the same ends as the Hutton report—the CIA is out to lunch. The pun though is comical because one must conclude that at present both the United States of America and Great Britain are without Intelligence. I believe the dear Lord would have been wiser to admit that Tony Blair and his colleagues were stretching the evidence, or as the former Secretary of State Robin Cook put it,

"I think it would be fair to say there was a selection of evidence to support the conclusion. I fear we got into a position in which the intelligence was being used to inform and shape policy but to shape policy that was already settled."

But now that we have the good Lord Hutton's "truth", Tony Blair must be seen as lacking the necessary abilities to judge wisely information and assess acceptable policy—because he was willing to offer thousands of innocent lives to prove himself wrong.
The hypothesis for war was that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and he will use them or he can sell them to others who will use them. The test for this hypothesis was the war followed by large-scale searches for WMD and the findings are null. So Tony Blair and George Bush can claim a temporary triumph on the battlefield but they sacrificed the near future use of their respective Intelligence agencies as a means of proof for dubious states of affairs in the world and their respective abilities to judge the actions their countries ought to take in the war on terrorism must now be viewed as inept. Going to war is a serious matter, and to do so without UN compliance will not crush terrorism but rather encourage it as well as divide our world when we need unity so as to meet the global challenges of our present and future problems.

Apparently the leadership of England and the United States find that sending their citizens on a wild goose chase war was justified. Why? Because it wasn't just weapons of mass destruction they were after but rather for "the cause of Democracy"—to bring Democracy to the ignorant and deprived. Ain't that sweet of them to be so killer caring? Nonetheless this leadership did not feel confident in making this their original grounds for war. In conclusion to all this it is necessary to ask why France, Germany, Russia and China appear to have assessed the situation correctly or perhaps one ought to say while Great Britain and the USA got it 100% wrong they were willing to commit the atrocity of war without hard facts concerning the threat of Iraq to the US and the world as a whole when the respective intelligence agencies sat with almost exactly the same intelligence? This clearly defines the immoral and despicable state of our Union.