Michael Ledeen Lies During FOX News/White House Iran War Push
Reported by Ellen - September 5, 2007 -
As I posted Monday, The New Yorker’s George Packer wrote that the White House was reportedly planning a post-Labor Day PR blitz to promote a war against Iran. According to Packer’s source, FOX News was to be part of the co-ordinated effort. Sure enough, following Bill Kristol’s morning warmongering on FOX & Friends, chickenhawk Michael Ledeen was the sole guest in a Hannity & Colmes discussion devoted to the war effort. Alan Colmes confronted Ledeen with his flip-flop on the war in Iraq and Ledeen told an outright lie by way of “explanation.” With video.
Ledeen told Sean Hannity during the first part of the discussion, “It could be almost any day now” until we have to make a choice whether to attack Iran militarily or allow them to have nuclear capability “with all that implies.” It was very reminiscent of the "mushroom cloud" argument during the run-up to the Iraq war.
“Forgetting” that by removing Saddam Hussein we removed an enemy of Iran and installed an Iranian-friendly government in its place, Ledeen complained, “We have yet to respond seriously to Iran in anyplace except Afghanistan and Iraq where it’s basically defending our people and our friends against them.”
Chickenhawk Hannity, of course, was all ears. He resurrected his concern for women’s rights, (rarely, if ever, seen except during his demagoguery against Islam) and praised Ledeen’s warmongering book as “terrific.”
During Colmes’ portion, he mentioned that in 2006, Ledeen wrote in the National Review that he had opposed the war in Iraq before it happened. Then Colmes put up a 2002 quote from Ledeen about Iraq, “One can only hope that we turn the region into a cauldron.”
Caught in his contradiction, Ledeen told a bald-faced lie. “Well, if you read it in context, Alan, you’ll see that the cauldron I was talking about was political, not military. And what I was arguing for and what I have argued for all along is that we started in the wrong place. It should have been Iran, not Iraq. And the methods used should have been political, not military.”
Colmes noted that the use of the word “cauldron” did not sound like a political solution. But, unfortunately, he did not seem to have the rest of Ledeen’s words at hand. Because they couldn’t have been more clear that Ledeen was NOT referring to any political solution:
So it's good news when (Brent) Scowcroft comes out against the desperately-needed and long overdue war against Saddam Hussein and the rest of the terror masters. As usual, Scowcroft has it backwards: He's still pushing Saudi Arabia's Prince Abdullah's line that you've just got to deal with the Palestinian question. Blessedly, President Bush knows by now that the Palestinian question can only be addressed effectively once the war against Saddam and his ilk has been won.… Scowcroft has managed to get one thing half right, even though he misdescribes it. He fears that if we attack Iraq "I think we could have an explosion in the Middle East. It could turn the whole region into a caldron and destroy the War on Terror."
One can only hope that we turn the region into a cauldron, and faster, please. If ever there were a region that richly deserved being cauldronized, it is the Middle East today. If we wage the war effectively, we will bring down the terror regimes in Iraq, Iran, and Syria, and either bring down the Saudi monarchy or force it to abandon its global assembly line to indoctrinate young terrorists.
By the way, Ledeen has been implicated in the forgery of documents claiming Saddam Hussein bought yellowcake in Niger.
