June 5, 2005

The word "fixed"

Richard Bennett writes on the Downing Street Memo and takes issue with the word "fixed"
Downing St. memo no surprise
The Air America crowd is bleary-eyed with excitement over the minutes of a meeting of Tony Blair’s cabinet in 2002 where the pending liberation of Iraq was discussed. Their claim that the memo is some sort of "smoking gun" on secret plans to falsify intelligence is a testament to their illiteracy. Here’s the passage that gets their hearts pounding:
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. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime’s record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.
The term "fixed" is understood by Franken’s minions as meaning "fabricated", but it should be properly understood in its British sense as "placed", this being a British document and all. The document is saying that Bush will furnish the evidence of Saddam’s misbehavior. There was, of course, general consensus around the world in the late 90s and early 00s that Saddam’s government would likely arm terrorist groups at some point with deadlier weapons than they could come up with on their own. This was the predicate for the Iraq Liberation Act the US Congress passed in 1998, and the basis of some vigorous anti-Saddam campaigning from Blair during the Clinton Administration. So there was no reason to believe that evidence supporting the liberation of Iraq would be anything but genuine.
Very good point... It was more of an "it's time to go do this" statement than "we need to cook the books" one... Posted by DaveH at June 5, 2005 9:47 PM
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