Once you've seen the conservative columnists on Brokaw and Koppel's "Meet the Press" spot, get a look at what the lefties said in three outraged letters to Editor and Publisher for the old anchor claims that Clinton, too, would have invaded Iraq after 9/11:
Chris Dodson: For example, I would reply, "If Clinton (or Gore) were president, 9/11 would not have happened, therefore, no invasion of Iraq. How? Clinton/Gore keeps Richard Clarke at the 'principal' level, allowing him constant access to cabinet members. 'Chatter' increases through the spring and summer. Clinton/Gore order a 'shaking of the trees,' which nets the Phoenix memo and brings Colleen Rowley's concerns to the highest levels of the FBI. The CIA informs the FBI about the two terrorists in San Diego. They are brought in and the plot is unraveled."
Eric Zuesse, author of "IRAQ WAR: The Truth": Clinton would have to have been inclined to order the U.N. weapons inspectors out so that the U.S. could invade, as Bush in fact did do -- he ordered them out. All the evidence indicates the exact contrary -- that Clinton would not have terminated those inspections, but would have continued them until they were completed. Bush was at war against the U.N., but Clinton never was -- that just wasn't his policy. These are the reasons why I believe that Tom Brokaw and Ted Koppel are part of a severe problem in American journalism: They know nothing else than to parrot what the President says; they served only as PR or propaganda agents for the White House line on any national security issue...
Roldo Bartimole: Hadn't the first Bush proved how much a paper tiger Saddam was in Desert Storm. Did we really need Shock and Awe? Hadn't we rendered, with over-flights, bombing and embargoes, Iraq militarily impotent. Hadn't Saddam and his forces and the Iraqi society been wracked by wars for years. Did the world's most powerful military really need a victory over such a depleted enemy to avenge 9/11? The truth is the American press didn't have the stomach to even attempt to test the truth of what they were being pitched before misinforming the American people. They simply lacked the courage.
Apparently, Zuesse has a very fervid imagination, according to a supportive Amazon.com reviewer of his opus:
Zuesse believes that if the International Criminal Court (ICC) does not act quickly to try Bush as a war criminal, then Bush will have successfully destroyed the court before it could get started. A trial of Bush, in absentia, without seizing or punishing him, and even failing to convict him, would be enough to save the court, Zuesse thinks. It's not clear to me, however, how much of such a trial the US media would report. Zuesse's plan, in fact, would be to try them next:
"People such as Rupert Murdoch (all 175 of whose newspapers editorially supported this illegal invasion and followed through with pro-invasion news reporting on it) can be tried for propagandizing war crimes and the internationally recognized 'crime of aggression' (i.e. illegal invasion), upon the same grounds for which Herr Goebbels is now universally detested, and for which the leading Nazi industrialists were likewise imprisoned." Now that's a strategy for Fox-bashing that I can get behind!
