A convenient diversion

The latest orchestrated furor over Newsweek's bungled story about prison guards at Guantanamo flushing the Quran down the toilet comes at a convenient time for the White House.

So convenient that conspiracists might suspect the anonymous Pentagon official who fed the allegation to ace reporter Michael Isikoff yet recanted after rioting in Afghanistan deliberately set the magazine up for a fall.

But that would assume a level of planning and foresight of which the Bush administration frankly seems incapable.

What this White House is good at--all it's really good at--is deflecting blame for its own catastrophic blunders by diverting attention. How ironic that Isikoff, with a long-demonstrated weakness for single-source stories, turns out to be the stooge. (His book, "Uncovering Clinton," actually quotes an anonymous caller's smutty allegations against Bill Clinton exactly one page before condemning Internet gossip Matt Drudge as a "menace to ... responsible journalism.") It's amusing to see Linda Tripp and Lucianne Goldberg's hero during the Clinton impeachment made the latest right-wing bete noire. (That's French for a clay pigeon.)

Two things need to be said about Newsweek's error. (Disclosure: I once worked for the magazine and have friends there, none involved in this incident.) First, White House press spokesman Scott McClellan's attempt to blame Newsweek for deaths in the Afghan riots reeks of hypocrisy. No less an authority than Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, insisted that the disturbances stemmed from local politics, not the alleged desecration of the Muslim holy book at a faraway prison. Of course, that was before Isikoff's source recanted, so Myers may have been in CYA mode.

Second, Myers had to suspect that the Newsweek story might be accurate. Allegations by former prisoners that U.S. Army interrogators at Guantanamo abused the Quran have been published in The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer and several European newspapers. They've appeared in lawsuits filed in the United States and Britain.

Given that Army reports document female interrogators parading half-naked in front of detainees, touching them provocatively, even smearing fake menstrual blood on their faces in grotesque attempts to exploit fears of ritual impurity, mistreatment of the Quran seems quite likely. Indeed, the only news value in Newsweek's brief item was its seeming confirmation of an old tale.

Anyway, here's the story White House spin artists don't want you paying attention to. During the run-up to the British election, The Sunday Times of London published a previously top-secret government memorandum dated July 23, 2002. It reported on Prime Minister Tony Blair and other British officials' meetings with their American counterparts about Iraq.

Of particular interest were the findings of Sir Richard Dearlove, known as "C," the head of MI6, the British CIA. Here's the key paragraph: "C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. ... There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action."

Invading and occupying Iraq, in short, was a done deal months before President Bush began his sales campaign in September 2002. The war would be justified by claiming a link between terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.

"But the case was thin," the memo added. "Saddam was not threatening his neighbors, and his WMD capacity was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran."

Repeat: "(T)he intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

Now in British usage, "fixed" doesn't signify deliberate corruption; it's more like "arranged." A decision had been reached, and the "intelligence" was being shaped to fit it. Here's how Bush explained it during his 2003 State of the Union message:

"U.S. intelligence indicates that Saddam Hussein had upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents. ... (W)e know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs. These are designed to produce germ warfare agents, and can be moved from place to a place to evade inspectors. ... The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production. Saddam Hussein has not credibly explained these activities. He clearly has much to hide."

As the deaths keep mounting--at least 1,613 American soldiers, more than 300 allied troops and private contractors, not to mention tens of thousands of Iraqis--it's worthwhile remembering that none of that turned out to be true. Having given no thought to the aftermath of invasion, the White House now insists that all is well as Iraq spirals into a bloody civil war its U.S.-sponsored government appears powerless to prevent.

If it isn't all well, just blame the messenger.

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette columnist Gene Lyons is a national magazine award winner and co-author of "The Hunting of the President" (St. Martin's Press, 2000). You can e-mail Lyons at genelyons2@sbcglobal.net.