The promotion of failure in the Bush Administration

By
Keith Olbermann                                                               Read Spanish Version
MSNBC
Countdown

The
following is a transcript from TV’s Crooks and Liars of September
12, 2007.

To
this day, millions of Americans believe we invaded Iraq because of
9/11.   

Thirty-three
percent still believe there was some interconnection between Saddam
Hussein and the nightmares here and in Washington and in
Pennsylvania.

Iraq,
of course, had nothing to do with 9/11. Then. Six years later, that
has changed.   

Iraq
has distracted us from punishing those responsible for 9/11.   

If
another 9/11 comes, our focus on Iraq will surely have been central
to that nightmare.   

How
did we get here? What consequences have been paid by those who
brought us here?   

In
our number one story tonight, no one person is to blame. And only
some of those who are, recognize it.   

As
we reported yesterday, former Secretary of State Colin Powell tells
G-Q magazine he is "sorry" he gave the world wrong
information when he told the U-N of the threat Iraq supposedly posed.   

He
was not fired for doing so.   

He
paid no price we know of, other than the admitted "blot" on
his record, and whatever toll his conscience exacted.   

Unrepentant,
however, is former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, also talking to
G-Q; saying he does not lose sleep over the war… declining to
apologize for it… despite pushing for it… despite using 9/11 —
the day after 9/11 — for his own benefit, to pursue his goal of
bombing Iraq.   

Rumsfeld,
not fired for his performance, but for politics… now in private
life… reportedly trying to see how much he must tell, to make for a
profitable tell-all. Rumsfeld was served, and the nation ill-served,
by a flock of Pentagon hawks, bent on war, seeing 9/11 not as an
obligation to answer … but an opportunity to exploit.   

Deputy
Secretary Paul Wolfowitz who also tied Iraq to 9/11, who ridiculed
warnings we needed more troops to invade Iraq — not fired — named
head of the World Bank, until resigning in disgrace.   

Defense
Policy Board Chairman Richard Perle — not fired — forced to retire
not for pushing the war, but for allegedly profiting off it.   

Undersecretary
Doug Feith, who cherry-picked anti-Iraq intel — not fired — despite
a Pentagon report later refuting Feith’s claim that Iraq and al Qaeda
were in league.   

And
as you go higher in the administration, your reward for being wrong
on the war grows proportionately.   

Deputy
National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley — responsible for the
16-word lie about Iraqi pursuit of yellowcake from Niger — not fired
— promoted to National Security Advisor.   

His
boss, Condoleezza Rice, who threatened us with mushroom clouds — not
fired — promoted to America’s chief diplomat: Secretary of State.   

CIA
Director George Tenet, who called the case for war a "slam dunk"
— not fired — given the Presidential Medal of Freedom.   

And
within the president’s circle of advisors, marketing the war:   

Andy
Card and Dan Bartlett — neither fired. Card retired, Bartlett
promoted, then retired.   

Karen
Hughes — not fired — promoted, stunningly, to the task of winning
hearts and minds in the Muslim world.   

But
let us go higher still.   

Vice
President Dick Cheney, creator of his cherry-picking intel apparatus,
gave its poisoned fruit to the media and then fed the lie to us on
national television — even after truth, and shame, rendered its
mendaciousness, manifest. He continues to do so to this day. Not
fired.   

Cheney’s
aide, Lewis Libby, came closest of all to suffering genuine
consequences. Convicted of covering up Mr. Cheney’s role in sliming
critics of the war, his consequences nullified at the last minute.
When the president commuted his prison sentence — ensuring that no
one in his circle, least of all him — paid any price for selling us
the lie of Iraq; for failing to punish the bombing of the U-S-S Cole;
for neglecting the warnings pre-9/11; for turning back at Tora Bora;
for ultimately ensuring that while the rest of the world suffers
painful, deadly consequences for his actions, only he does not.   

Only
he and one other. Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of 9/11, his reach,
and recruiting, all benefiting from Mr. Bush’s war, his group’s
strength today at a six-year high. His Afghan allies, the Taliban, as
NBC reported tonight, also resurgent, planning the death of
Americans, just 25 miles from Kabul.   

All
while bin Laden himself operates freely, unmolested, with his own
media operation, thanks to a regional Pakistani truce endorsed by Mr.
Bush in a region where Mr. Bush will not go — cannot go even if he
chose to.   

Because
he has spent so much American blood and treasure, in the desert of a
nation that had neither means nor motive to threaten us, but that
tempted Mr. Bush and those around him who wished to transform the
Middle East, so much so that he forswore the vow he made, standing
here, literally atop New York’s dead… that their killers would hear
us soon.   

Six
years later, we still hear them, because now, finally, Iraq and 9/11
really are connected — by him.   

And
we suffer the consequences.

Taken
from the AlterNet. http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/62414/