RNC Grasps At Straws to Answer Dean

In a breakfast meeting yesterday with journalists hosted by the American Prospect, DNC Chairman Howard Dean called on President Bush to release or declassify the final Defense Intelligence Agency report on the existence of mobile biological weapons laboratories so Americans could determine if they were misled:

The onus is clearly on the President to clarify the situation surrounding this report. Was this incompetence, meaning that he did not know something that he clearly should have known, or is this an instance of dishonesty where information was misused or withheld to support a political agenda?

In typical Republican fashion, RNC Press Secretary Tracey Schmitt issued a press release last evening in response to Dean's statement. In typical Republican fashion, the release doesn't answer the question.

RNC Response to Howard Dean's Misguided Attacks

Howard Dean's eagerness to pounce on the headline of the day with total disregard for the facts, illustrates once again that the Democrats are more concerned with sensationalism than the truth. The President, like many democrats at the time, was operating with and communicating the best intelligence available. While the President is committed to winning the War on Terror, Democrats remain committed to exploiting the news cycle for short-term political gain."

I suppose the RNC feels that their only defense is to be offensive because the Republicans still lack a real-world link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida. Aside from the fact that the release does nothing to substantively respond to Dean's request, Schmitt reflexively falls back on standard Republican tactics to falsely accuse him of hypocrisy but the so-called evidence is weak:

DEMOCRAT WMD HYPOCRISY
(NB: Note the use of "Democrat" instead of "Democratic," implying that Democrats are not truly democratic. This succeeds only in making the RNC sound ignorant.)

Before The War In Iraq, DNC Chair Howard Dean Called Saddam Hussein A "Threat" And Believed He Had WMD:

Howard Dean: "Everything the President says about Saddam Hussein is true. He's evil. He's a liar. He gases his own people." (ABC's "This Week," 12/22/02)

-- Dean: "'I would be surprised if (Saddam Hussein) didn't have' chemical and biological weapons." (Mort Kondracke, "Is Howard Dean For Real? Well, Not Entirely," Roll Call, 1/27/03)

-- Dean: "I believe that Iraq does have chemical and biological weapons, and they are a threat to many nations in the region, but not to the United States." (PBS' "Newshour," 2/25/03) (emphasis mine)

-- Dean: "There are such a thing (sic) as international outlaws. I'm not sure China is one, but I am quite sure Iran and Iraq are." (CBC/PBS' "The Editors," 1/31/98) (Wow, that's a reach)

-- Dean: "There's no question that Saddam Hussein is a threat to the United States and to our allies. The question is, is he an immediate threat?" (CBS' "Face The Nation," 9/29/02) (Again, emphasis mine)

Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) Has Even Attacked Howard Dean On His WMD Flip Flop. KERRY: "The fact is ... Howard Dean said he thought there were weapons of mass destruction there. ... It's very easy to be outside of Washington and not have to vote." (CNBC's "Capital Report," 10/17/03)

The press release continues to pile on by adding quotes from other Democrats who agreed that Iraq had WMDs and considered Saddam Hussein a threat. If you can't convince `em, confuse `em, I guess.

I'm just going to bottom line this one: At the time Dean made many of these statements, he was relying on information from other people, including former Clinton administration officials, who he considered knowledgeable. (Source: Democracy Now) Nor was he in a position to review any intelligence--unlike John Kerry, who had served on the Senate Intelligence Committee, and other members of the Senate, like Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy, and Jay Rockefeller, all of whom participated in the debate and who heard the same lies the Bush Administration foisted on the entire nation about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.

Inconvenient for the RNC's "case" against Dean is that as far back as August 2002, Dean said he would support a unilateral invasion of Iraq if Bush presented evidence that Saddam Hussein had either atomic or biological weapons and can deliver.

Dean believed that Bush should have worked through the United Nations, should have given more consideration to the concerns of U.S. allies, and never should have claimed that Iraq presented an imminent biological or nuclear threat to the United States. (PBS' "Newshour," 2/25/03)

Dean has supported fighting wars which are truly necessary to defend the United States from imminent threats, but he never believed there was persuasive evidence that Saddam constituted a threat which justified the war. There is no disputing that Dean was right about virtually every prediction and claim he made, every warning that he issued about why invading Iraq was ill-advised and counter-productive.