The White House Iraq Group (WHIGS) -- An Historic Group

You had better read this story. It will probably determine what happens politically in the US for the next 2 years. Skip past the Cheney parts -- that's not so interesting. [Raw Story]

Ever hear of the White House Iraq Group, or Whigs? Me neither. But, we will be hearing a lot about them from now on. Better bone up:

The Whigs were formed in August 2002 by Cheif of Staff Andrew Card for the express purpose of developing, coordinating and deploying political strategy to sell the Iraq war --- which began with invasion in March 2003 -- to the American People. Let's repeat that -- the war which Bush was claiming could lhave been avoided the night before it occurred was being pushed politicallly by this group beginning eight months before.

It's membership included: Special Assistant to the President Karl Rove (Chairman), Chief of Staff to the Vice president Scooter Libby, National Seciruty Advisor Condoleezza Rice (now Secretary of State), external advisor Karen Hughes (now Deputy Secretary of State), Deputy National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley (now National Security Advisor), Deputy Director of Communications James Wilkinson, Assistant to the President and Legislative Liaison Nicholas Calio.

There were meetings, conferences, group emails. They set about writing reports to put together all the "information" we received through the press about Iraq's WMD. They coordinated the propoganda effort within the whitehouse -- which includes, everything.

They fed Judith Miller her first story on the aluminum tubes they alleged were for centerfuges (they weren't technically capable of being centerfuge parts); Miller took her information from them, anonymously sourcing them -- and then quoting them explicitly too, as if they were independent sources (these were the stories which the NYTimes has now disavowed as being wrongly sourced).