From the Bipartison Senate No Duh Committee on Intelligence: NYT: Report Says Key Assertions Leading to War Were Wrong "Today, we know these assessments were wrong, and as our inquiry will show, they were also unreasonable and largely unsupported by the available intelligence," Senator Pat Roberts, the Kansas Republican who heads the panel, said at a briefing on the 511-page report. The report zeroed in on the crucial October 2002 national intelligence estimate in which analysts concluded that Iraq already had chemical and biological weapons and was reconstituting its nuclear program. "Now, these are very emphatic statements," Mr. Roberts said. "Simply put, they were not supported by the intelligence which the community supplied to the committee."
Bush is verbally masturbating with this report all over today's news. The pundits are claiming that it was written with a slant to exonerate Bush of any liability, putting it all on the CIA. Critics are claiming that some of the blacked out portions of the report were blacked out for being critical of Bush. The same committee is supposedly working on a new investigation, looking at White House pressure on the intelligence community to give them a justification for war. Repubs are seeking to keep that eventual report under wraps until after the election.
Ian, Watch the talking heads shows over the weekend. We'll all find out soon enough. Is there any end to the stupidity of this Administration? Leave aside the issue that the intelligence reports were crap. Where was the Administration when it came to providing critical analysis? There has to be some sort of political "due dligence" standard here. Let the recriminations begin! And the 911 report hasn't been issued, yet.
A random assortment of TV folks, ranging from network, cable and local news in the Metro/DC area. I was at my cousins house earlier this week so I was able to watch some national news (I only get 2 channels at home, so I don't get the opportunity very often. As a result, I'm not positive who the actual names were). They showed Bush mentioning the report in a speech at what looked to be a rally of some sort.
quote from the CNN article: Conservatives on the panel successfully blocked Democratic efforts to finish the second part of the report -- how the administration used the information from the intelligence community -- until after the November elections. http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/07/10/senate.intelligence/index.html I guess we'll have to deal with an impeachment early next year. Otherwise, why the need for blocking the second half of the report? What am I missing?
another quote: "Over and over, the report noted that the analysts exaggerated what they knew and left out, glossed over or simply dismissed dissenting views. Regarding Secretary of State Colin Powell's February 5, 2003, speech to the United Nations -- in which he presented the U.S. case for war -- the report said that "much of the information" included in the speech from the CIA "was overstated, misleading or incorrect." Adding to the problems, the report said, was further analysis based on the initial flawed analysis, creating what it called "a layering effect" and what Roberts called "the intelligence assumption train." The report does not, however, speculate about why the intelligence community might have chosen to ignore reports that, for example, Iraq's military capability had "steadily degraded after 1990" or that Iraq had not reconstituted its nuclear weapons program." So the CIA decided all by themselves that we were going to war with Iraq? Has anyone heard Bush in the wake of this, simply repeating over and over and over that the world is a better and safer place without Saddam? It seems that is the best he has. And apparently this report has left it wide open for him to lay all blame on faulty intelligence reports. He'll get away clean.
I wouldn't be so sure that this can be glossed over. One thing the Reeps did was release this on a Friday - to minimize coverage. Still, this will dominate this news cycle. The Senate Report (NYT Editorial) http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/10/opinion/10SAT1.html?hp The report is a condemnation of how this administration has squandered the public trust it may sorely need for a real threat to national security. Panel Describes Long Weakening of Hussein Army http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/11/international/middleeast/11MILI.html?hp The Senate's report on prewar intelligence about Iraq, which asserts that warnings about its illicit weapons were largely unfounded and that its ties to Al Qaeda were tenuous, also undermines another justification for the war: that Saddam Hussein's military posed a grave threat to regional stability and American interests. As Rationales for War Erode, Issue of Blame Looms Large http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39833-2004Jul9.html Bush's distancing of himself from the flawed allegations may well be aided by the departure this week of CIA director George J. Tenet, who was criticized in the Senate report for not always being informed about dissenting views when he met almost daily with Bush. (My comment on this: How long will Tenet allow himself to be the punching bag? Yes, he has stepped down, but everyone has their pride. I think he will join a growing chorus of snipers and finger-pointers.) OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM: THE RIGHT WAR ANYWAY (NY Post editorial) http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/editorial/26949.htm (My comments: While the Post goes on to say that they still support the war effort, the editorial begins with this President Bush took a hard hit yester day when the Senate Intelligence Committee released its scathing re port on the CIA's erroneous pre- war assertions about Iraq's weap ons of mass destruction. As he should have. Bush is the commander-in-chief; the buck stops with him. The CIA's assertions — that Iraq had stockpiles of banned weapons and was well on its way to making nukes — were wrong, the report said. Those claims were based on false or overstated analyses, it said. The committee's Republican chairman, Sen. Pat Roberts, termed the CIA conclusions "unreasonable" and "unsupportable." And yesterday's report was unanimous: Both Republican and Democratic committee members approved it. So, no doubt about it: The report deals a body blow to Bush's — and America's — credibility. And when folks like Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a Democrat, say, as he did yesterday, that much of the Senate wouldn't have backed the war "if we knew what we now know," they may well be right. Analyst Questioned Sources' Reliability Warning Came Before Powell Report to U.N. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39770-2004Jul9.html A few days before Secretary of State Colin L. Powell gave his 2003 presentation to the U.N. Security Council on Iraq's purported weapons of mass destruction -- with its startling allegation that four individuals had confirmed that Iraq had mobile biological weapons laboratories -- a government analyst who had read a draft of the speech sent an urgent e-mail to his boss. All those sources are suspect or unreliable, especially the key one nicknamed "Curve Ball," warned the analyst, the only U.S. intelligence official who had met Curve Ball. The analyst received a dismissive reply. "This war's going to happen regardless of what Curve Ball said or didn't say, and . . . the Powers That Be probably aren't terribly interested in whether Curve Ball knows what he's talking about," replied the deputy chief of the CIA's Iraq task force. The warning was never passed on to Powell or his top aides. and finally this from the NYT:
The best editorial, by far, is from the Moonie paper - Wash Times. They blame the Senate Select Committee for not providing any oversight in the run-up the war. However, the editorial doesn't even bother to mention the culpability of the White House. I'd provide a link, but in general, I wouldn't go across the street to spit on their building if it were on fire.
Better watch that Moonie thing. I got yelled at in a thread on the DC United board when I referred to the Moonie paper. Which it, undeniably, is. I digress. This is nothing but good news for President Bush unless the Dems on the panel get the rest of the report completed before the election. If it's not bad news for Republicans, why supress it? It's unfair to the American public (like any of them really care about the American public) to not tell us and let us make an informed decision in November. No, better to hide the ugly truth and release it when there's nothing to lose. And if you guys think that there would be an impeachment then you're living in fantasyland.
This will depend on who controls capitol hill. At least I would imagine that to be so, after November's elections. At least this is the great hope that this fantasyland resident is currently clinging to.