This apparently slipped underneath our collective radar.
Tom Daschle was here in Chicago yesterday, giving a speech at Northwestern University. In it, he lashed out at the Bush administration's use of intelligence, accusing them of providing 'misleading information' on Iraq.
The Chicago Tribune gives more details:
Daschle: `Misleading information' on Iraq
Ex-senator says Bush `failed the country'
Headline. This is page 12 of the Trib, so it wasn't exactly given top billing by the editors, but that large, blunt, headline will attract attention. It certainly grabbed mine; 2 minutes later, I'm here writing this diary.
Adding his voice to the newly aggressive chorus of Democrats calling for changes in the U.S. conduct of the war in Iraq, former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle urged the withdrawal of 80,000 of the more than 150,000 American troops next year.
Speaking Wednesday at Northwestern University in Evanston, Daschle said he had been given "misleading information" by the Bush administration about Iraq's weapons before the war but said he could not go into specifics.
I like that lead sentence: "newly aggressive chorus of Democrats calling for changes". Slowly, ever so slowly, the Democratic party is beginning to shed the image of a bunch of spineless wusses afraid of their own shadows. We have a long way to go, but perception is beginning to change.
Perception aside, Daschle is saying that we need to get out as quickly as possible. His definition of ASAP is a 50% drawdown in the next year, with more later. I'd prefer something faster, but the fundamental point of "we need to get out of this mess" remains. Furthermore, the reason we're in this mess is that Bush lied, not just to the American people, but to Congress.
"Misusing intelligence to start a war in Iraq, failing to plan for its aftermath and refusing to level with the country or our troops about what it will now take to correct those failures is just the start," he said.
Earlier in an interview, Daschle applauded Democratic Senate leaders for holding an unusual secret session on Tuesday to force attention on whether intelligence information had been manipulated to drum up support for the war.
Drip. Drip. Drip. Erode the administration's (remaining) credibility bit by bit. Every time a previously pro-war Rep/Sen comes forward and says "we were lied to", BushCo's grave gets dug a little deeper.
A key component of the plan includes removing 80,000 American troops, including all of the Guard and Reserve forces still active in Iraq, following December's elections in Iraq.
"We learned the hard way with [Hurricane] Katrina that we do our homeland security a disservice if we keep the National Guard tied down in Iraq, when their governors--and their families--need them here at home," Daschle said.
Next, he said, 20,000 of those troops should be redeployed to Afghanistan to stop the flow of drugs out of that country--a move that he said would hamper the financing of terrorists such as Osama bin Laden.
"And those 20,000 troops ought to have one other mission: to find Osama bin Laden," Daschle said. "It is long past time that we bring this man who has taken thousands of American lives into American hands."
After Katrina, 'bring the Guard home' has a lot of appeal. Also, he notes that the war in Iraq has nothing to do with the guy that
actually attacked us. It's one small jump from that to saying that "Bush has actually made us
less safe by invading Iraq".
Daschle's 26 years in Congress came to an end after he lost to Republican John Thune, who had accused the then-Senate minority leader of being an obstructionist.
In losing, the three-term senator became the first Senate leader in 52 years to lose a re-election campaign.
Dear Bill Frist: Would you like to reconsider your decision to campaign against Daschle?
Tom Daschle is a genuinely nice guy, who actually tried to work with the other side. For his pains, he got stabbed in the back. Too bad the GOP got Harry Reid to deal with as a replacement.
In the interview before his speech, Daschle said he was not surprised by maneuvers Tuesday by Senate Democrats in holding the secret session on intelligence.
"I think [now] there is a recognition that a lot of the intelligence information we were given was grossly inaccurate," he said. "The question is: Was it inaccurate totally because of incompetence, or was it inaccurate, in part, by design?"
Most people
here can answer that question, but that it's being asked at all by a well-respected former Senator in a major newspaper....
In general, Daschle said he and other lawmakers received misleading information about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, terrorist connections to bin Laden in Iraq, the level of support American troops would receive and the nature of the coalition set up to fight the war in Iraq.
"So on many different fronts, we were misled, and I think that has caused the American people to take a vastly different view of the war than they initially had," he said.
Memo to Hillary Clinton, etc.: Want to change your stance on the war? Here's how to do it.
Finally, Tom Daschle proves to be the eternal optimist:
"The Bush administration will at some time next year acknowledge they cannot sustain the current level of troop commitment in Iraq, and that will necessitate a change in policy," he said.
-dms