Let’s see, how does it go?

“Bush lied, people died.” “We made a mistake.” “We now know there were no Iraqi WMDs.” The left has assidulously erected an imaginary alternative reality for itself, in which (just like anthropogenic Global Warming) the unlikely thesis that “Saddam had no WMD” has been elevated to the level of an accepted fact. These days, it’s even easy to find Republicans who happen to read the MSM or watch television too much, and who have consequently succumbed to accepting this on the basis of the endless repetition of the same Big Lie.

It’s been obvious enough all along, I would argue. Saddam moved his entire air force to the territory of his former adversary Iran, rather than lose it to US attacks during the first Gulf War. The precedent for cross-border withdrawal to safe asylum of precious Iraqi weapons is all too clear.

And I’m not the only one aware of all this, as we reported here in December, Israeli Lieutenant General Moshe Yaalon, former chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Force, told the New York Sun over dinner in New York that Saddam spirited his chemical weapons out of the country on the eve of the war. “He transferred the chemical agents from Iraq to Syria. No one went to Syria to find [them].”

And today the same New York Sun, reports that Iraqi former top military advisor to Saddam Hussein and second-in-command of the Iraqi Air Force, General Georges Sada reveals his own knowledge of the transfer of chemical WMD in his new book, Saddam’s Secrets.

two Iraqi Airways Boeings were converted to cargo planes by removing the seats, Mr. Sada said. Then Special Republican Guard brigades loaded materials onto the planes, he said, including “yellow barrels with skull and crossbones on each barrel.” The pilots said there was also a ground convoy of trucks.

The flights – 56 in total, Mr. Sada said – attracted little notice because they were thought to be civilian flights providing relief from Iraq to Syria, which had suffered a flood after a dam collapse in June of 2002.

“Saddam realized, this time, the Americans are coming,” Mr. Sada said. “They handed over the weapons of mass destruction to the Syrians.”

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I thought I was early on this one, but I find that Rick Moran has already responded at length, and is collecting comments by the Blogospheric Right.

Clarice Feldman predicts that members of the MSM who helped the Pouting Spooks play Gotcha! on conservative policy adversaries in the Bush Administration in L’Affaire Plame will soon be hauled into court via subpoenas by Scooter Libby’s defense team, and find themselves on the hot seat, where they will be forced to divulge independent knowledge of Valerie Plame’s occupation (Take that Nicholas Kristoff) and expose other information sources, or –like Judith Miller– face penalties for contempt.

Accidentally discovered compassionately tutoring minority kids, Larry Wilkerson (splendid in maroon suspenders) poses for the admiring camera of the Washington Post.

The occasion was a lengthy exercise in puffery establishing (Colin Powell’s former State Department chief of staff) retired Colonel Larry Wilkerson as a great man, after which the hero climbs down from his monument, and goes to work bashing the Bush Administration.

One former commander is quoted saying of Wilkerson:

He is the most principled individual I have ever met and ever worked with. He is a remarkable guy with essentially no ego.

No ego? It must have been somebody else who “offered tart and colorful opinions” on adversaries within the administration, and said Powell was tired “mentally and physically,” in a May 2004 GQ interview which went all sorts of places Secretary of State Powell was unwilling to go, and which left egg all over his boss’s face.

Does someone with no ego boast openly to the Washington Post of his Vietnam combat service nearly forty years ago, and indulge in (what even the Post refers to as) a “predictable aside on hawks like Dick Cheney, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and Paul Wolfowitz:”

“None of these guys ever heard a bullet go by their ears in combat.”

Do individuals with no ego commonly describe the President of the United States as “inept” and “unsophisticated?”

What we really find here is a preening snob whingeing bitterly about the unworthiness of his former superiors. And it’s always touching to observe the sterling character of those members of the liberal establishment who alert the media whenever they perform a charitable act.

All the admiring verbiage in the Post concerning Wilkerson’s alleged restraint since leaving the administration is more than a little disingenuous. Wilkerson has been on the war-path against the Bush Administration for months, making a wide round of public appearances and doing press interviews in which he has leveled any number of sensational and highly partisan charges.

Previously discussed Guardian interview.

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Hat tip to Reid Detchon (on my College Class email list).

Jack Kelly at Real Clear Politics reports a possible terrorism connection the MSM studiously overlooks:

Last month Italian authorities arrested three Algerians who were members of the al Qaida -linked terror group GSPC.

The three were plotting attacks on ships, railway stations and stadiums in the United States in a bid to outdo the casualties caused on 9/11, said Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu.

The arrests made front page news in newspapers in Italy, Britain and France. But apparently the only U.S. newspaper to mention them was the Philadelphia Inquirer, in a short AP dispatch on page A-6. The AP did not mention that the principal targets of the plotters were in the U.S.

The incuriosity of our news media about the plotters and their plots is curious, especially in light of the mysterious death of Joel Hinrichs, 21, a Muslim convert who, wearing a suicide vest, blew himself up Oct. 1 on a park bench outside the stadium in Norman where the university of Oklahoma football team was playing Kansas State. When Hinrichs’ apartment was searched after his death, the FBI found a plane ticket to Algeria.

Hat tip to AJStrata

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And Thomas Joscelyn has an article in the Standard backgrounding the same al Qaeda-affiliated Algerian terrorist group, the Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC).

Southeast Asia News quotes other, more recent sources, indicating that Depkafile and the certain portions of MSM may have been mistaken. Even if Zawahiri is ultimately firmly established not to have been present, the Friday gathering in Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier tribal district clearly did constitute the proverbial target rich environment, and US forces on the scene were clearly justified in firing on them.

Islamabad – Authorities in the Pakistani tribal region of Bajaur on Tuesday claimed that a controversial U.S. missile strike on the region last Friday killed ‘at least four’ foreign militants.

‘There is no doubt that 10 to 12 extremists including foreigners had been invited to a dinner,’ said a statement from Mohammad Faheem Wazir, senior official in Khar, the administrative centre of the Bajaur agency.

Based on the findings of a joint investigation team, the statement regretted the loss of civilian lives in the strike but said at least a dozen extremists including two Pakistani clerics wanted by the authorities were also present.

The Times originally posted this picture, captioned: “Pakistani men with the remains of a missile fired at a house in the Bajur tribal zone near the Afghan border ” The same photo with corrected caption is now here.

Skeptics on Free Republic and Reason noticed that the photo actually featured an (unfired) artillery round. Thomas Lifson of American Thinker supplies the whole story.

One more instance of MSM misreporting has been debunked by the Blogosphere, and this one demonstrates all too clearly the unbecoming eagerness of the MSM to publish, in time of war, when US forces are operating under fire overseas, reports damaging to the reputation of American forces, reports calculated to manipulate the emotions of its readers in favor of the enemy. So eager is the liberal MSM to engage in this kind of journalistic treason that it will consistently publish uncritically, not only staged propaganda photographs like the one above, but also the most hostile and partisan characterizations of US war actions , and evaluations of their results, by foreign adversaries.

Can one imagine British and American papers during WWII operating in the fog of war during the uncertain aftermath of necessarily secret military operations happily publishing characterizations of Allied efforts by enemy spokesmen and echoing the viewpoint of the German press? Not very easily, but in our modern, more enlightened age, the MSM in both Britain and the United States has evolved an internationalist perspective, unburdened by patriotic loyalties, characteristically anti-America, anti-Bush Administration, and anti-Iraq War, which treats any murderous outrage by the forces of barbarism in the manner it would treat a particularly successful soccer play by a prominent visiting team, which carefully studiedly ignores Allied successes, and which makes a policy of publishing enemy allegations as factual news.

Under 48 hours after the US attempt to eliminate Al Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri by missile fire in remote tribal regions of Pakistan, the Guardian and the Washington Post pretend to have all the answers. There was a “botched operation” based upon “flawed intelligence” which resulted in the deaths of innocent civilians, including women and children. They know all this on the basis of the testimony of a combination of irate Islamic villagers, who –of course– would be among the hosts of targetted Al Qaeda terrorist commanders, and sundry Pakistani officials representing a government obliged in the circumstances created by precisely this kind of reporting to assume a posture of indignation in order to avoid bringing down upon itself the wrath of its own domestic Islamofascist sympathisers by appearing too closely aligned with Western governments.

Regrettably, the CIA is not in the habit of playing “Gotcha!” with the MSM, but they may have a good opportunity on this occasion. Earlier reports mentioned five terrorist bodies being carried off for further investigation. And even the New York Times quotes a senior Pakistani official as admitting that

11 militants had been killed in the attack. Seven of the dead were Arab fighters, and another four were Pakistani militants from Punjab Province, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the news media.

Whether Zawahiri was killed or not is obviously, at present, unknown, whatever local Pashtoons, Pakistani officials, the WaPo or the Guardian claim.

Earlier report

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Today’s front-page coverage in the same papers, by some strange coincidence, accidentally overlooks the story of the rescue of a British free-lance journalist in Iraq by US forces.

The Anchoress takes on the Times leak theme. A lot of blogs, including this one, have commented on the obvious connection between yesterday’s news of large-scale disposable cell-phone purchases by suspicious persons in a variety of cities and last month’s New York Times’ story on secret NSA communications surveillance, but no matter how many of these you have already read, you’ll still want to take the time to read this one. I see 23 trackbacks already, but I’m adding another.

William Tate, writing in the American Thinker, notes the Times’ partisan double-standard on Executive branch electronic surveillance:

The controversy following revelations that U.S. intelligence agencies have monitored suspected terrorist related communications since 9/11 reflects a severe case of selective amnesia by the New York Times and other media opponents of President Bush. They certainly didn’t show the same outrage when a much more invasive and indiscriminate domestic surveillance program came to light during the Clinton administration in the 1990’s. At that time, the Times called the surveillance “a necessity.”

When you see one of these over Manhattan, Washington, or San Francisco, be sure to thank the New York Times for publishing its December expose of NSA surveillance of terrorist communications.

Terrorists read the papers too, and have responded to the Timely warning by switching to disposable cell phones. ABC News reports today:

(1/13/06) – Federal agents have launched an investigation into a surge in the purchase of large quantities of disposable cell phones by individuals from the Middle East and Pakistan, ABC News has learned.

The phones which do not require purchasers to sign a contract or have a credit card have many legitimate uses, and are popular with people who have bad credit or for use as emergency phones tucked away in glove compartments or tackle boxes. But since they can be difficult or impossible to track, law enforcement officials say the phones are widely used by criminal gangs and terrorists.

“There’s very little audit trail assigned to this phone. One can walk in, purchase it in cash, you don’t have to put down a credit card, buy any amount of minutes to it, and you don’t, frankly, know who bought this,” said Jack Cloonan, a former FBI official who is now an ABC News consultant.

Law enforcement officials say the phones were used to detonate the bombs terrorists used in the Madrid train attacks in March 2004.

“The application of prepaid phones for nefarious reasons, is really widespread. For example, the terrorists in Madrid used prepaid phones to detonate the bombs in the subway trains that killed more than 200 people,” said Roger Entner, a communications consultant.

The FBI is closely monitoring the potentially dangerous development, which came to light following recent large-quantity purchases in California and Texas, officials confirmed.

In one New Year’s Eve transaction at a Target store in Hemet, Calif., 150 disposable tracfones were purchased. Suspicious store employees notified police, who called in the FBI, law enforcement sources said.

In an earlier incident, at a Wal-mart store in Midland, Texas, on December 18, six individuals attempted to buy about 60 of the phones until store clerks became suspicious and notified the police. A Wal-mart spokesperson confirmed the incident.

The Midland, Texas, police report dated December 18 and obtained by ABC News states: “Information obtained by MPD [Midland Police Department] dispatch personnel indicated that approximately six individuals of Middle-Eastern origin were attempting to purchase an unusually large quantity of tracfones (disposable cell phones with prepaid minutes attached).” At least one of the suspects was identified as being from Iraq and another from Pakistan, officials said.

“Upon the arrival of officers, suspects were observed moving away from the registers appearing to evade detection while ridding themselves of the merchandise.”

Other reports have come in from other cities, including Dallas, and from authorities in other states. Authorities in Pennsylvania, New York and other parts of Texas confirmed that they were alerted to the cases, and sources say other jurisdictions were also notified.

John Hinderaker at Power Line quotes the article below, containing news you won’t find in the New York Times.

The mainstream U.S. media outlets have failed to report a major terrorist plot against the U.S. – because it would tend to support President Bush’s use of NSA domestic surveillance, according to media watchdog groups.

News of a planned attack masterminded by three Algerians operating out of Italy was widely reported outside the U.S., but went virtually unreported in the American media.

Italian authorities recently announced that they had used wiretaps to uncover the conspiracy to conduct a series of major attacks inside the U.S.

Italian Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu said the planned attacks would have targeted stadiums, ships and railway stations, and the terrorists’ goal, he said, was to exceed the devastation caused by 9/11.

Italian authorities stepped up their internal surveillance programs after July’s terrorist bombings in London. Their domestic wiretaps picked up phone conversations by Algerian Yamine Bouhrama that discussed terrorist attacks in Italy and abroad.

Italian authorities arrested Bouhrama on November 15 and he remains in prison. Authorities later arrested two other men, Achour Rabah and Tartaq Sami, who are believed to be Bouhrama’s chief aides in planning the attacks.

The arrests were a major coup for Italian anti-terror forces, and the story was carried in most major newspapers from Europe to China.

“U.S. terror attacks foiled,” read the headline in England’s Sunday Times. In France, a headline from Agence France Presse proclaimed, “Three Algerians arrested in Italy over plot targeting U.S.”

Curiously, what was deemed worthy of a worldwide media blitz abroad was virtually ignored by the U.S. media, and conservative media watchdog groups are saying that is no accident.

“My impression is that the major media want to use the NSA story to try and impeach the president,” says Cliff Kincaid, editor of the Accuracy in Media Report published by the grassroots Accuracy in Media organization.

“If you remind people that terrorists actually are planning to kill us, that tends to support the case made by President Bush. They will ignore any issue that shows that this kind of [wiretapping] tactic can work in the war on terror.”

“The mainstream media have framed the story as one of the nefarious President Bush ‘spying on U.S. citizens,’ where the average American is a victim not a beneficiary,” commented Brent Baker, vice president of the Media Research Center, a Washington, D.C.-based organization dedicated to encouraging balanced news coverage, “so journalists have little interest in any evidence that the program has helped save lives by uncovering terrorist plans.”

The Associated Press version of the story did not disclose that the men planned to target the U.S. Nor did it report that the evidence against the suspects was gathered via a wiretapping surveillance operation.

Furthermore, only one American newspaper, the Philadelphia Inquirer, is known to have published the story that the AP distributed. It ran on page A-6 under the headline “Italy Charges 3 Algerians.” The Inquirer report also made no mention of the plot to target the U.S. – although foreign publications included this information in the headlines and lead sentences of their stories. Nor did it advise readers that domestic wiretaps played a key role in nabbing the suspected terrorists.

One obvious question media critics are now raising: Did the American media intentionally ignore an important story because it didn’t fit into their agenda of attacking President George Bush for using wiretapping to spy on potential terrorists in the U.S.?

“It’s clear to me,” says AIM’s Kincaid, “that they’re trying their best to make this NSA program to be an impeachable offense, saying it is directed at ordinary Americans. That’s why they keep referring to this as a ‘program of spying on Americans’ – whereas the president keeps pointing out it’s a program designed to uncover al-Qaida operations on American soil.”

J. Peter Mulhern, at American Thinker, debunks the premises underlying the fabricated NSA Flap:

The NSA flap has very little potential to hurt President Bush and every serious player among his enemies must know that…

You can’t sustain a scandal by revealing the shocking truth that the President of the United States is doing his job. He isn’t ashamed of gathering intelligence on our deadly enemies and nobody who doesn’t already loathe President Bush will blame him for it. It takes some scandalous material to make a scandal. There may, for example, be a scandal when the President sodomizes an intern in the Oval Office. Whatever the President and the First Lady may do in the family quarters after hours, it isn’t going to cause a scandal.

But, but, I hear them sputter, the President violated the law. He bypassed the checks and balances Congress wisely provided when it established the secret FISA court. Isn’t that enough to get him in serious hot water?

No. All the arguments about whether FISA applies to wartime intelligence gathering are so much pettifogging pedantry. FISA is a model of opaque draftsmanship. Don’t take my word for it, try to read it yourself.

Good luck.

It is certainly possible to read FISA as attempting to limit President Bush’s power to intercept al Qaeda communications. It is also possible to read it more modestly. In the last analysis, however, FISA is beside the point.

If FISA tries to restrict the President’s power to spy on our enemies during a state of war that Congress itself proclaimed then FISA is blatantly unconstitutional. Only a fool or a traitor would suggest that Congress can constitutionally require that the President play “Mother-may- I” with a motley collection of judges before intercepting enemy communications in wartime.

Congress can no more empower judges to make decisions about how we gather intelligence than it could empower them to decide what targets our Air Force should bomb or what streets our troops should patrol.

There is nothing complicated about this. The President is Commander in Chief. He makes the military decisions. He decides, with the advice of his subordinate commanders, when and where the United States government should gather intelligence because that is a military decision…

FISA may instruct the President to consult a panel of judges before listening to enemy communications. If it does it is unconstitutional, null, void and asinine.

When Congress violates the Constitution by trying to hamper the legitimate exercise of executive authority the President has both the right and the duty to ignore it. Which brings us to the second reason that the NSA nonscandal will sink without a trace.

There won’t be any riveting hearings, trials or judicial decisions to keep the NSA pot boiling because the President’s determination about the scope of his own constitutional authority to gather military intelligence is not subject to any meaningful review. With the advice of the Attorney General and his other lawyers the President has decided that he is constitutionally empowered to authorize the NSA program which is currently under attack. For all practical purposes that decision is final.