Given Cheney’s silly attempt at bait-and-switch last night attacking Edwards for not including Iraqi casualties in his statement about America “having taken 90 percent of coalition casualties”, I thought I’d dig a bit.
Though Edwards said “coalition casualities” clearly all three times he used the phrase, it didn’t stop Cheney from using a strawman attack on Edwards’ stating that his comments were “beyond the pale” because he didn’t count Iraq amongst the coalition casualties apparently.
So does the White House themselves now count Iraq as part of the “coalition of the willing”?
Checking the White House website’s own report on “RENEWAL IN IRAQ: The Coalition” is revealing!
The report (linked above) offers several links to several supporting documents/pages. Strangely enough however, the link on that page to “Who Are the Coalition Members?” now leads to a “The file you have attempted to access cannot be found.” error page!
All the other links on the page work fine. But the list of “Coalition Members” has seemingly been scrubbed from the website.
Thanks to the Wayback Machine, we can check the originally linked file however.
That file, apparently last updated and archived by the Wayback on February 2, 2004, but still dated “April 3, 2003” lists a coalition of 49 countries. Needless to say, several of them have since pulled out of the coaltion (Spain, Costa Rica, etc.)
I understand why they might wish to update the page at the White House website as coaltion members come and go. But deleting it entirely certainly raised my eyebrow.
I don’t know when the page officially came down, if it was before last night’s sleight-of-hand about coalition casualties or not. But isn’t it a bit deceptive and/or cynical to simply disappear the page entirely from the historic record?
There is a “Press Release” I found that is still on the site dated “March 21, 2003” which lists 48 countries as part of the coaltion. But the page from their “Policies in Focus > Iraq: Special Report” is gone.
I’m sure the folks in Blogistan will correct me if any of the information above is somehow inaccurate. But in the meantime, I’m left wondering what other official pieces of information once posted to the White House website (theoretically owned by the people of the United States of America) have been scrubbed as well from the historical record?
UPDATE 10/22/04: Hooray! Mainstream media finally picks up on this story!
If you click on "statements of support from coalition members," there is nothing from Irag. I guess they do not appreciate the efforts of the U.S.
>So does the White House themselves now count Iraq as part of the "coalition of the willing"?
I think it’s very important to answer that question you posed. When we look at that list of coalition members, we find that the White House does NOT include Iraq as a coalition member.
So essentially we see yet another demonstrable lie from Chaney.
Someone needs to set up a website showing EVERYTHING regarding the debate "garbage" at one easy memorable URL.
TR
If Iraqis fighting for the coalition aren’t "willing" they must just be stupid. No one’s holding a gun to their head if they choose not to fight, but they become a target by participating. It certainly must be easier to lay low than to take up arms and risk decapitation. Iraqis that are fighting with the coalition must be driven by a sense of righteousness as strong as their opponents desire to mire the country in a state of anarchy.
So, now with Iraq as part of the coalition, They now are taking about 50% of the Casualties, ( inflicted by the US?) , and the US is taking about 50% of the Casualties, ( Inflicted by Iraq?). Damn, someone would have thought we were fighting eachother. I”m just glad that we’re sharing the burden of blood and bullets.
– Chuck
Bush/Cheney will never come clean with the American people…this evidence (along with the Duelfer Report) makes it very clear that this administration has been dishonest from the very beginning…if we re-elect them, then we are saying to them that we like being lied to and we are giving them a blank check to do it some more…more importantly, we are saying to the world that we are not a very smart or well-informed nation…both scenarios are bad for America.
Interesting… Your text above which reads:
“All the other links on the page work fine. But the list of “Coalition Members” has seemingly been scrubbed from the website.
“Thanks to the Wayback Machine, we can check the originally linked file however.”
has a link attached to the bolded text I include. That link takes me to the Wayback Machine page which says, “Failed Connection.
“We’re sorry. Your request failed to connect to our servers. We may be experiencing technical difficulties and suggest that you try again later.”
I don’t know if it is temporary or what, but if it isn’t…they got to the Wayback Machine, too. Or… It’s just too old? Do they delete these?