Daniel writes “The office of Rep. Henry Waxman, Ranking member on the House Committee on Government Reform has put out a report and a searchable database entitled: Iraq on the record: The Bush Administration’s Public Statements on Iraq.
According to the web site, available at
http://www.house.gov/reform/min/features/iraq_on_
The Report:
The Iraq on the Record Report, prepared at the request of Rep. Henry A. Waxman, is a comprehensive examination of the statements made by the five Administration officials most responsible for providing public information and shaping public opinion on Iraq: President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice.
The Database:
This database identifies 237 specific misleading statements about the threat posed by Iraq made by these five officials in 125 public appearances in the time leading up to and after the commencement of hostilities in Iraq. The search options on the left can be used to find statements by any combination of speaker, subject, keyword, or date.
The authors of the report and database used five sources to check statements: (1) the portions of the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate that have been released to the public, (2) the February 5, 2004, statement by Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet entitled Iraq and Weapons of Mass Destruction, (3) the recent report of the nonpartisan Carnegie Endowment for International Peace entitled WMD in Iraq: Evidence and Implications, and (4) news and other reports quoting U.S. officials regarding the intelligence available to the Administration on Iraq. Unfortunately, refutations of misleading statements are not specifically sourced, only by reference to one of the sources listed above.
With the anniversary of the Iraq War coming up, this is sure to be useful in sorting what was and was not said.”
Daniel writes “The office of Rep. Henry Waxman, Ranking member on the House Committee on Government Reform has put out a report and a searchable database entitled: Iraq on the record: The Bush Administration’s Public Statements on Iraq.
According to the web site, available at
http://www.house.gov/reform/min/features/iraq_on_
The Report:
The Iraq on the Record Report, prepared at the request of Rep. Henry A. Waxman, is a comprehensive examination of the statements made by the five Administration officials most responsible for providing public information and shaping public opinion on Iraq: President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice.
The Database:
This database identifies 237 specific misleading statements about the threat posed by Iraq made by these five officials in 125 public appearances in the time leading up to and after the commencement of hostilities in Iraq. The search options on the left can be used to find statements by any combination of speaker, subject, keyword, or date.
The authors of the report and database used five sources to check statements: (1) the portions of the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate that have been released to the public, (2) the February 5, 2004, statement by Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet entitled Iraq and Weapons of Mass Destruction, (3) the recent report of the nonpartisan Carnegie Endowment for International Peace entitled WMD in Iraq: Evidence and Implications, and (4) news and other reports quoting U.S. officials regarding the intelligence available to the Administration on Iraq. Unfortunately, refutations of misleading statements are not specifically sourced, only by reference to one of the sources listed above.
With the anniversary of the Iraq War coming up, this is sure to be useful in sorting what was and was not said.”
Interesting…but not terribly objective
If you run a search, it gives the quote and then it gives an explanation of why it was misleading. The explanation is Waxman’s spin. Although it is from the House Committee on Government Reform, it is presented by Waxman and it is from the Minority Office (the D’s) of the House Committee on Government Reform.
Not the most objective thing but that is not the purpose of this database.
Waxman is certainly not a partisan Democrat (this is a sarcastic statment and therefore it isn’t my real opinion about Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), in fact I have the opposite opinion).
Waxman’s DB
Please put political items in your journal/blog.
Bias Detector
This is libbural biased and unbalanced! Not an appropriate story for LISNEWS! We need more stories about how filters and Milton Friedman are great!
Wascally Waxman
First, kudos to Waxman’s staff of “techie wonks”. Boolean searching no less. Any mention of MARC 856 or authority control and I would begin to smell an ALA rat ; – )
“Why Waxman Hate’s Bush” on his own site fine. But “Iraq on the record: The Bush Administration’s Public Statements on Iraq” on a House Committee site is partisan politics under the guise of some sort of legislative inquiry. (I see no mention of this being a part of an Congressional investigation or hearing) I do see a reference to the Special Investigations Division which I’m surprised no one has yet linked to our Attorney General.
Any chance the ranking member would accept the following for his database?
And yes fellow LIBLISNewzees, tit for tat.
(4/24/99)
Pursuant to section 585(c) of the Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 1999, as contained in the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 1999 (Public Law 105-277) (the “Act”), I hereby transmit a report concerning Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs.
The report is comprised of three sections that provide the information required by section 585(c) of the Act, to the extent that such information is available: assessment of Iraq’s nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction programs and its efforts to move toward procurement of nuclear weapons and the means to deliver weapons of mass destruction; assessment of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) action team reports, and other IAEA efforts to monitor the extent and nature of Iraq’s nuclear program; and an opinion on the value of maintaining the ongoing inspection regime rather than replacing it with a passive monitoring system.
William Jefferson Clinton
Re:Waxman’s DB
If I thought it was purely political, rest assured I would have.
The database has problems in that the proposed “corrections” are not well sourced. However, the statements themselves are. If someone is interested in seeing what was said before, during, and after the war, this is a decent place to go.
I give you my solemn assurance that if I had run across a Republican member of Congress who had placed a database clearly citing every vote that John Kerry had made while a member of congress which was searchable by topic (tax increases, defense cuts,etc) I would have posted THAT to the main news site as well.
It was the raw information, not the commentary I commended to LISNews readers.