Can someone who is at home today report on Tenet's speech as he gives it? There's a good chance that he's going to come out swinging against the WH / DoD in defense of his agency.
Ok, it's on now. C-span's streaming video is much better than CNN's: http://www.c-span.org/watch/cspan_wm.asp?Cat=TV&Code=CS
Can't get a steady feed. I'll have to watch it later - I'm sure CSpan will have the video up after it's over. I thought I did hear him say, however, that the CIA did NOT indicate to the administration that Hussein presented an imminent threat. I think that's what I heard, but don't hold me to it - the feed was touch and go.
He told the whackos to sit down and shut up. In particular, he took a question from a Freshman student who cited the in depth analysis of Mother Jones. While the student was asking the question a smile broke across the director's face. Towards the end of the question, the student brought up the myriad of charges we've all seen on these boards but then threw up a softball and asked what can the CIA director do to stop independent intelligence groups, specifically the Office of Special Intelligence (?) at the Pentagon, from forming. The Director was clear. He first said that it had been a long time since he read Mother Jones. That drew a laugh. He then said they he and he alone was responsible for the intelligence the GWB received and that he met with GWB every day, six days a week. He said that GWB requested and received clear unambiguous answers. He then dismissed the questioner. Now let's tie this in to the Dean phenomena. Both the 'GWB lied' and the strength of the Dean candidacy are fictitious subjects that have been created on the internet. They have as much truth behind them as UFO theories in that they self-referential and only taken seriously by people that want to believe. The chatter of the internet can only last for so long in the face of the facts and the reputation of responsible people like the CIA director. The story will now change. Who knows what the story will be tomorrow. Maybe it will be about why the Dems make things up to attack GWB. Who knows?
Re: Re: George Tenet speech play-by-play request Your assertions don't correspond to the evidence: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/05/i...l=1&adxnnlx=1075996922-r/+HU3dMMXR3gXVP4+zBBw In other words, the White House was given an uncertain picture of what was going on in Iraq. The statements coming out of the White House at that time did not reflect that uncertainty. They reflected political expediency and the preconceived desire to go to war as a means of foreign policy, not as a response to threat.
Summary Here Also, Tenet was a Clinton appointee, so I'm not sure he'd be circling the wagons for anybody. I think he is doing this more to protect the intelligence services and legitimize their intelligence gathering after they took a small hit from Kay last week. It sounded more like a rebuttal than a defense of the President, but what he had to say does strengthen Bush's position.
Re: Re: Re: George Tenet speech play-by-play request Yes they do and you are the liar that you accuse GWB of being. No one can make you believe anything. Fine. I accept that. But the facts here are that the CIA Director took direct responsibility for briefing GWB on Iraqi intelligence and stands behind the National Intelligence Estimate that stated Iraq had WMD's and was in pursuit of increasing it's WMD capabilities. The CIA director was adamant that the NIE is an ESTIMATE and is neither wholly correct or incorrect. He was adamant that the Administration had clear reason to believe it's statements were true. Get over it. Move on. Find another topic because the 'GWB lied' one is done with the exception in the minds of whackos who don’t want to believe.
Re: Re: Re: Re: George Tenet speech play-by-play request Right, they had a clear reason to believe the intel they were given was accurate, but not necessarily to believe the intel confirmed the presence of WMD or of ongoing programs to develop same. This is NOT what the White House then turned around an presented as a basis for going to war. Their statements reflected none of the internal debate among the intel professionals or the possible other interpretations because it would have been politically inexpedient for them to do so.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: George Tenet speech play-by-play request How do you know this? There is no evidence for this. Just because you want to believe that what you said is true doesn’t make it so.
Re: Re: Re: Re: George Tenet speech play-by-play request Tenet did not say today that the CIA believed that Iraq had WMDs prior to the war. If fact, it's pretty clear that he went to great strides to avoid using any language that said as such. He said they had "plans", and that they wanted WMDs, not that they had actual weapons. From CNN.com: Keep in mind that "prohibited weapons" has traditionally meant the Scud-style conventional weapons that were used in 1991, not WMDs. Now, compare these statements to the litany of statements from Admin officials about the existence of actual weapons... It happens not to be the area where weapons of mass destruction were dispersed. We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat. - Don Rumsfeld on not finding WMD, ABC's This Week, 3/30/03 The threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction will be removed. - Rumsfeld, 3/25/03 The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder. - Dubya, 3/19/03 The dictator of Iraq and his weapons of mass destruction are a threat to the security of free nations. - Dubya, 3/16/03 This is about imminent threat. - Scott McClellan, 2/10/03 While we were here in this council chamber debating Resolution 1441 last fall, we know, we know from sources that a missile brigade outside Baghdad was disbursing rocket launchers and warheads containing biological warfare agents to various locations, distributing them to various locations in western Iraq. - Colin Powell at the UN, 2/5/03 Saddam Hussein possesses chemical and biological weapons. -- Rumsfeld, 1/20/03 The world is also uniting to answer the unique and urgent threat posed by Iraq whose dictator has already used weapons of mass destruction to kill thousands. -- Dubya, 11/23/02 Iraq is busy enhancing its capabilities in the field of chemical and biological agents, and they continue to pursue an aggressive nuclear weapons program. These are offensive weapons for the purpose of inflicting death on a massive scale, developed so that Saddam Hussein can hold the threat over the head of any one he chooses. -- Cheney, 8/29/02 Basically, what Tenet didn't say today is just as important, if not more important, than what he did. He didn't say that the CIA believed prior to the war that Iraq was an imminent or urgent or looming threat. He didn't say that Iraq actually had weapons. The Administration did, and now the Admin is saying that their statements were based on bad CIA intelligence. Somebody's leaving out a huge chunk of truth. Take your pick as to which. How can something be believed to be true by the White House if Tenet is admitting that the CIA itself was conflicted in what it all meant? We will never know if "GWB lied". We do know, however, that virtually all of the statements about Iraq's weapons leading up to the war were inaccurate. Whether they were deliberately inaccurate or just a consistent bad reading of disputed conclusions from murky CIA intel is what the new commission will be expected to find out.
Here is a link to the full transcript and in particular I quote the 'Mother Jones" question for all those on this forum who think that Mother Jones is a serious news source, http://www.latimes.com/news/nationw...,5755060.story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: George Tenet speech play-by-play request There is nothing I can do to help you. The Director ws clear. The lengths you go to find wiggle room in his statements amaizes me. Here is a quote just for you obie,
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: George Tenet speech play-by-play request You know what? I agree with you totally. He said the CIA concluded that Iraq wanted WMDs, and had plans to re-establish some development programs. He did not say that Iraq had built weapons, and he explicitly said that Iraq was not an "imminent thereat" in the opinion of CIA experts. The Adminstration says that they did have actual weapons. So the big question is: Where (if anywhere) did the Admin get the belief that Iraq had actual weapons? Did the CIA lie then but is telling the truth now? Did the CIA tell the truth then and is lying now? Or did the Admin draw conclusions from the CIA briefings that the CIA itself, with all its experts, explicitly said today it could not draw? It has to be one of those three, and I'd appreciate an answer. If you have a fourth answer, go ahead and give it.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: George Tenet speech play-by-play request Yes he did say the CIA had sources stating that Iraq had WMD's. He was clear. As clear as he can be. Get your outside and breath some fresh air. George Bush said that the US must get rid of Saddam before the became an iminent threat. It's in last January's SOTU. ONLY YOU and the likes of Mother Jones says otherwise.
I think I see the problem right here. Attacking...go back and look at the Mother Jones section again. He doesn't deny the existence of the OSP.
Once again, with your superficial analysis, you show the problem of the BigSoccer politics board. Dave people don’t speak in terms that are beyond misinterpretation. You can misinterpret the Director's remarks anyway you want. Reading the question it was clear that the question was "Does such a group exists and how can you stop such groups from affecting intelligence?" The Director was clear in his response. Such groups always exist in any organization. There were different views of the intelligence. In this case, the intelligence presented to GWB came from the CIA Director and was the consensus of opinion of the CIA and the rest of the international intelligence community. You want to believe in some conspiracy. Fine. No one can stop you. But the Director did his best to tell you and the rest of America that there was no conspiracy.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: George Tenet speech play-by-play request Oh no, not this again. http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=24970 "Absolutely." • White House spokesman Ari Fleischer answering whether Iraq was an "imminent threat," 5/7/03 "Well, of course he is.” • White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett responding to the question “is Saddam an imminent threat to U.S. interests, either in that part of the world or to Americans right here at home?”, 1/26/03 "The world is also uniting to answer the unique and urgent threat posed by Iraq whose dictator has already used weapons of mass destruction to kill thousands." • President Bush, 11/23/02 "Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists." • President Bush, 10/7/02 "The Iraqi regime is a threat of unique urgency." • President Bush, 10/2/02 "Some have argued that the nuclear threat from Iraq is not imminent - that Saddam is at least 5-7 years away from having nuclear weapons. I would not be so certain. And we should be just as concerned about the immediate threat from biological weapons. Iraq has these weapons." • Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 9/18/02 "What we must not do in the face of this mortal threat is to give in to wishful thinking or to willful blindness." • Vice President Dick Cheney, 8/29/02 So, the White House claimed that the Iraqi threat was "grave,", mortal", and "of unique urgency" - all of which seem pretty synonymous with "imminent." Donald Rumsfeld suggested that Iraq's nuclear capability might pose an "imminent threat," and stated outright that the threat from Iraq's biological weapons was "immediate." Bush claimed that Iraq was currently able to give WMD to terrorists "on any given day," - I'm not sure what could be more imminent than "any given day." And, both the White House communications director and the official spokesman have publicly and explicitly confirmed that the administration considered the Iraqi threat to be "imminent." And yet, you're still claiming that the administration never depicted the threat from Iraq as imminent? Please explain.