The White House put extra time in to developing the strategy for rolling out the "evidence" against Iran. From today's NY Times report, it's pretty clear that they worked extra hard trying to figure out who would say what, when and where. But, doesn't matter. At the core, it's a Bush team production -- and that automatically raises doubts:
Three weeks after promising it would show proof of Iranian meddling in Iraq, the Bush administration has laid out its evidence — and received in return a healthy dose of skepticism.The Bush Administration has no credibility. None. No one believes them.
The response from Congressional and other critics speaks volumes about the current state of American credibility, four years after the intelligence controversy leading up to the Iraq war. To pre-empt accusations that the charges against Iran were politically motivated, the administration rejected the idea of a high-level presentation, relying instead on military and intelligence officers to make its case in a background briefing in Baghdad.
Even so, critics have been quick to voice doubts. Representative Silvestre Reyes of Texas, the Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, suggested that the White House was more interested in sending a message to Tehran than in backing up serious allegations with proof. And David Kay, who once led the hunt for illicit weapons in Iraq, said the grave situation in Iraq should have taught the Bush administration to put more of a premium on transparency when it comes to intelligence.
“If you want to avoid the perception that you’ve cooked the books, you come out and make the charges publicly,” Mr. Kay said.
Bush can mock those who say he wants war with Iran, which, in fact, he literally did yesterday on CNN. See it for yourself at Think Progress. He can mock his critics, but they're on to him. No one trusts Bush anymore.
