Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
| Messages 1 - 7 of total 7 in this topic |
WoodyS
Trad climber
Riverside
|
|
|
Topic Author's Original Post - Nov 20, 2005 - 06:24pm PT
|
For those who care: Factcheck.org has some comments on what congress knew about Iraq intel. I realize that it won't change any minds about the war; however, it shows how much BS is being thrown around.
|
|
Spinmaster K-Rove
Trad climber
Stuck Under the Kor Roof
|
|
|
Nov 20, 2005 - 11:45pm PT
|
Woo! Raj is cooking oversimplification stew! Everyone dig in!
|
|
Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
|
|
|
Nov 20, 2005 - 11:51pm PT
|
From the summary of that cited article:
"In fact, before the war Bush and others often downplayed or omitted any mention of doubts about Saddam's nuclear program. They said Saddam might give chemical, biological or even nuclear weapons to terrorists, although their own intelligence experts said that was unlikely. Bush also repeatedly claimed Iraq had trained al Qaeda terrorists in the use of poison gas, a story doubted at the time by Pentagon intelligence analysts. The claim later was called a lie by the al Qaeda detainee who originally told it to his US interrogators."
|
|
10b4me
Trad climber
On that V2 problem at the Happies
|
|
|
Nov 20, 2005 - 11:56pm PT
|
remember when bush said saddam tried to kill my daddy?
I could be mistaken, but I strongly believe a personal vendetta is one of the reasons that bush went to war. it's a hell of way to start a war, but I wouldn't put it past bush to do that.
|
|
Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
|
|
|
Nov 21, 2005 - 02:31am PT
|
The Neocons (and Bush doesn't think enough to be one) were rabid about invading Iraq before Bush even got elected. We're talking about Rummy, Cheney, Wolfy, and Crew.
Now many of those guys were in Bush 1's posse so it might all be related.
Who knows how the guys behind the scence pulled the puppet strings? "He tried to kill your daddy, you'll go down in history, you'll pave the way for Jesus, we need the oil, Saddam will eventually get WMDs since oil will make Iraq rich someday, etc"
Peace
karl
|
|
Hootervillian
climber
Shady Acres behind Kmart®
|
|
|
Nov 21, 2005 - 11:47am PT
|
Thanks for the link. Didn't happen to read the whole article did you? LOL Classic! for some fun read the articles 'sources' also...
But the only committee investigating the matter in Congress, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has not yet done its inquiry into whether officials mischaracterized intelligence by omitting caveats and dissenting opinions. And Judge Laurence H. Silberman, chairman of Bush's commission on weapons of mass destruction, said in releasing his report on March 31, 2005: "Our executive order did not direct us to deal with the use of intelligence by policymakers, and all of us were agreed that that was not part of our inquiry."
But Bush does not share his most sensitive intelligence, such as the President's Daily Brief, with lawmakers. Also, the National Intelligence Estimate summarizing the intelligence community's views about the threat from Iraq was given to Congress just days before the vote to authorize the use of force in that country.
In addition, there were doubts within the intelligence community not included in the NIE. And even the doubts expressed in the NIE could not be used publicly by members of Congress because the classified information had not been cleared for release. For example, the NIE view that Hussein would not use weapons of mass destruction against the United States or turn them over to terrorists unless backed into a corner was cleared for public use only a day before the Senate vote.
Even within the Bush administration, not everybody consistently viewed Iraq as what Hadley called "an enormous threat." In a news conference in February 2001 in Egypt, then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said of the economic sanctions against Hussein's Iraq: "Frankly, they have worked. He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction."
Bush, in his speech Friday, said that "it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began." But in trying to set the record straight, he asserted: "When I made the decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power, Congress approved it with strong bipartisan support."
The October 2002 joint resolution authorized the use of force in Iraq, but it did not directly mention the removal of Hussein from power.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/11/AR2005111101832_pf.html
FACT: SENATE INTEL REPORT SHOWED MANIPULATION OF THE EVIDENCE: Bush claimed that "a bipartisan Senate investigation found no evidence of political pressure to change the intelligence community's judgments related to Iraq's weapons programs." That argument is wrong on at least two counts. First, "the only committee investigating the matter in Congress, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has not yet done its inquiry into whether officials mischaracterized intelligence by omitting caveats and dissenting opinions." The so-called Phase II of the pre-war intel investigation is not expected to be completed this year. Second, the Senate Intelligence Committee's Phase I report found, according to the Los Angeles Times (7/10/04), that the unclassified public version of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) was manipulated. "[C]arefully qualified conclusions [in the classified NIE] were turned into blunt assertions of fact." For example, the classified version of the NIE said, "Although we have little specific information on Iraq’s CW stockpile, Saddam Hussein probably has stocked at least 100 metric tons" of certain poisons. The phrase "although we have little specific information" was deleted from the unclassified version. Instead, the public report said, "Saddam probably has stocked a few hundred metric tons of CW agents."
http://levin.senate.gov/newsroom/release.cfm?id=248339
As we've seen, that was wrong. Department of Energy and State Department intelligence analysts did not agree with the Vice President's claim, which turned out to be false. Cheney may have felt "absolute certainty" in his own mind, but that certainty wasn't true of the entire intelligence community, as his use of the word "we" implied.
Similarly, the President himself said this in a speech to the nation, just three days before the House vote to authorize force:
Bush, Oct. 7, 2002: We've learned that Iraq has trained al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases . And we know that after September the 11th, Saddam Hussein's regime gleefully celebrated the terrorist attacks on America.
Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists. Alliance with terrorists could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving any fingerprints.
That statement is open to challenge on two grounds. For one thing, as we've seen, the intelligence community was reporting to Bush and Congress that they thought it unlikely that Saddam would give chemical or biological weapons to terrorists – and only "if sufficiently desperate" and as a "last chance to exact revenge" for the very attack that Bush was then advocating.
http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=914257&ct=1603133#3
According to newly declassified documents, the Defense Intelligence Agency said in February 2002 – seven months before Bush's speech – "it is . . . likely this individual is intentionally misleading the debriefers. Ibn al-Shaykh has been undergoing debriefs for several weeks and may be describing scenarios to the debriefers that he knows will retain their interest. . . . Saddam’s regime is intensely secular and is wary of Islamic revolutionary movements. Moreover, Baghdad is unlikely to provide assistance to a group it cannot control." The DIA's doubts were revealed Nov. 6 in newly declassified documents made public by Democratic Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, a member of the Intelligence Committee.
http://levin.senate.gov/newsroom/supporting/2005/DIAletter.102605.pdf
You two might want to evaluate where you get your 'opinions'.
http://www.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/6.13.05.pdf
|
|
| Messages 1 - 7 of total 7 in this topic |
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!