Kay's Commentary to the Senate Armed Svcs Comm.
Kay has spoken to the Committee.
1. He says that the Intelligence Community unintentionaly mislead the President.
a. The trend of intelligence for the last ten(?) years indicated that the Hussein Regime had WMD.
b. There is still controversy within the intelligence community on a number of issues.
1. Sen Sessions pointed out that the CIA is still telling the world (and VP Cheney) that Saddam had mobile WMD production vans. Kay disagrees - says the vans were to produce hydrogen for either weather balloons or for rocket fuel... he thinks. Dr. Kay said that they STILL aren't sure what the damn things are for.
c."The reality on the ground did not match [the intelligence assessment]".
1. Dr. Kay stated that there are no stockpiles of WMD.
2. The Iraqis were trying to reconsititute their missile program.
2. He says that the war was still the right thing to do.
a. SH had used WMD before.
b. SH was actively seeking them.
1. SH's scientists lied to him on their progress.
i. Based upon that and domestic political considerations, SH defied the UN and the UN resolutions.
3. The general chaos after SH went underground provided an opportunity for the Regime to destroy WMD documentation.
4. One of the reasons that he resigned was that the resources (Arabic speakers, etc.) of the ISG (Iraq Survey Group) were indeed being pulled away for 'other purposes'.
a. Senator HR Clinton stated that this issue speaks to the administration's 'misplaced priorities' and recommended an investigation.
b. The Committee Chairman, John Warner, told everyone (while eliciting agreement from Dr. Kay) that the reason that resources were pulled from Dr. Kay's ISG was so that they could be employed to fight the insurgency that is killing American and Coalition personnel and to capture Saddam Hussein.
5. No intelligence analysts were forced to 'cook the books' for or against the war according to Dr. Kay.
All in all, an interesting morning on CSPAN and CNN.
Bill Clinton will be leading a Democratic Strategy Meeting this weekend. Oh to be a fly on the wall.
Aries 1B
1. He says that the Intelligence Community unintentionaly mislead the President.
a. The trend of intelligence for the last ten(?) years indicated that the Hussein Regime had WMD.
b. There is still controversy within the intelligence community on a number of issues.
1. Sen Sessions pointed out that the CIA is still telling the world (and VP Cheney) that Saddam had mobile WMD production vans. Kay disagrees - says the vans were to produce hydrogen for either weather balloons or for rocket fuel... he thinks. Dr. Kay said that they STILL aren't sure what the damn things are for.
c."The reality on the ground did not match [the intelligence assessment]".
1. Dr. Kay stated that there are no stockpiles of WMD.
2. The Iraqis were trying to reconsititute their missile program.
2. He says that the war was still the right thing to do.
a. SH had used WMD before.
b. SH was actively seeking them.
1. SH's scientists lied to him on their progress.
i. Based upon that and domestic political considerations, SH defied the UN and the UN resolutions.
3. The general chaos after SH went underground provided an opportunity for the Regime to destroy WMD documentation.
4. One of the reasons that he resigned was that the resources (Arabic speakers, etc.) of the ISG (Iraq Survey Group) were indeed being pulled away for 'other purposes'.
a. Senator HR Clinton stated that this issue speaks to the administration's 'misplaced priorities' and recommended an investigation.
b. The Committee Chairman, John Warner, told everyone (while eliciting agreement from Dr. Kay) that the reason that resources were pulled from Dr. Kay's ISG was so that they could be employed to fight the insurgency that is killing American and Coalition personnel and to capture Saddam Hussein.
5. No intelligence analysts were forced to 'cook the books' for or against the war according to Dr. Kay.
All in all, an interesting morning on CSPAN and CNN.
Bill Clinton will be leading a Democratic Strategy Meeting this weekend. Oh to be a fly on the wall.
Aries 1B
Comments
There was no WoMDs BUT
The war was justified because:
Bush was mislead by the intelligence community
The Intellignce community was not to blame for the misleading, partly because its "confused"
The Iraqy sciencetists fear of Saddam confused them
Saddam is evil and wants to destroy us and needs to be blown up.
In even shorter:
We are not to blame because we are innoncent and confused.
How convienient
Originally posted by Anders
So in short.
There was no WoMDs BUT
The war was justified because:
Bush was mislead by the intelligence community
The Intellignce community was not to blame for the misleading, partly because its "confused"
The Iraqy sciencetists fear of Saddam confused them
Saddam is evil and wants to destroy us and needs to be blown up.
In even shorter:
We are not to blame because we are innoncent and confused.
How convienient
Why are you sulking?
yea daily show
People who still like bush are dumbasses, imho. This was causes by "stovepiping" ie selectively hearing intelligence.
Originally posted by Anders
So in short.
There was no WoMDs BUT
The war was justified because:
Bush was mislead by the intelligence community
The Intellignce community was not to blame for the misleading, partly because its "confused"
The Iraqy sciencetists fear of Saddam confused them
Saddam is evil and wants to destroy us and needs to be blown up.
In even shorter:
We are not to blame because we are innoncent and confused.
How convienient
The President and everyone else were mislead by the intelligence community.
My apologies
V/R,
Aries 1B
Originally posted by Aquatic
"Show me on this doll where the intelligence community touched you"
For real? I like to see that clip!
And
Originally posted by Aries 1B
The President and everyone else were mislead by the intelligence community.
Since when did the Office of Special Plans and the Vice President's Office become the 'intelligence community?'
Originally posted by Aries 1B
The President and everyone else were mislead by the intelligence community.
My apologies
Well the administration DID make a new agency thingy because the ordinary one (CIA) wouldn´t mislead them.
Click here especially part two
Originally posted by giant
Since when did the Office of Special Plans and the Vice President's Office become the 'intelligence community?'
Ask Dr. Kay?
V/R,
Aries 1B
Originally posted by Aquatic
"Show me on this doll where the intelligence community touched you"
yea daily show
People who still like bush are dumbasses, imho. This was causes by "stovepiping" ie selectively hearing intelligence.
Exactly! Anyone who didn't read Seymour Hersh's excellent New Yorker article, "The Stovepipe," must.
Originally posted by Anders
Well the administration DID make a new agency thingy because the ordinary one (CIA) wouldn´t mislead them.
Click here especially part two
Interesting, but I don't have 90 minutes to see the shows on your links.
The part three link, about WMDs and the 'growing divergence' between what the Administration and what 'the intelligence community' was saying was also addressed by Dr. Kay.
Sen Carl Levin imperatively asked what the 'consensus' of the intelligence community was in regard to WMD. Dr. Kay stated that (hold on to your remaing foreskins)there was and is no consensus!.
I could draw conclusions from that statement both Left and Right, but I'm trying to find the truth. Believe me, if President Bush had lied about WMD to bring about regime change in Iraq, I'd vote for Dean just to punish the Republican party.
But, according to The Man on WMD, that does not seem to be the case. Dr. Kay says that it was an international intelligence community screw up and that we may never know what actually occurred wrt WMD.
If someone could work this internet thing and post the URL to Dr. Kay's Senate Armed Services Committee testimony, I'd appreciate it.
V/R,
Aries 1B
Originally posted by Anders
Well the administration DID make a new agency thingy because the ordinary one (CIA) wouldn´t mislead them.
Click here especially part two
I don't have time *right now* to look at your URLs, but it's on my To Do List.
Aries 1B
How do you explain Powells speech then? Mobile and stationary "WoMD factories dismissed within two days! Niger Uran dismissed just as quickly (a rumour dismissed by CIA and everybody else years ago)! Powell throwing papers around saying "I can´t defend this crap" when presented with the speech"!
The only Intelligence screw up was they didn´t stand the pressure from the administration.
Originally posted by ShawnJ
Not exactly, Aries. Read what Hersh has to say.
That is one large article. I found this particularly interesting:
In late February, the C.I.A. persuaded retired Ambassador Joseph Wilson to fly to Niger to discreetly check out the story of the uranium sale. Wilson, who is now a business consultant, had excellent credentials: he had been deputy chief of mission in Baghdad, had served as a diplomat in Africa, and had worked in the White House for the National Security Council. He was known as an independent diplomat who had put himself in harm?s way to help American citizens abroad.
Wilson told me he was informed at the time that the mission had come about because the Vice-President?s office was interested in the Italian intelligence report. Before his departure, he was summoned to a meeting at the C.I.A. with a group of government experts on Iraq, Niger, and uranium. He was shown no documents but was told, he said, that the C.I.A. ?was responding to a report that was recently received of a purported memorandum of agreement??between Iraq and Niger??that our boys had gotten.? He added, ?It was never clear to me, or to the people who were briefing me, whether our guys had actually seen the agreement, or the purported text of an agreement.? Wilson?s trip to Niger, which lasted eight days, produced nothing. He learned that any memorandum of understanding to sell yellowcake would have required the signatures of Niger?s Prime Minister, Foreign Minister, and Minister of Mines. ?I saw everybody out there,? Wilson said, and no one had signed such a document. ?If a document purporting to be about the sale contained those signatures, it would not be authentic.? Wilson also learned that there was no uranium available to sell: it had all been pre-sold to Niger?s Japanese and European consortium partners.
Wilson returned to Washington and made his report. It was circulated, he said, but ?I heard nothing about what the Vice-President?s office thought about it.? (In response, Cathie Martin said, ?The Vice-President doesn?t know Joe Wilson and did not know about his trip until he read about it in the press.? The first press accounts appeared fifteen months after Wilson?s trip.)
I found this particularly appalling:
"He learned that any memorandum of understanding to sell yellowcake would have required the signatures of Niger?s Prime Minister, Foreign Minister, and Minister of Mines. ?I saw everybody out there,? Wilson said, and no one had signed such a document. ?If a document purporting to be about the sale contained those signatures, it would not be authentic.? "
1. The article doesn't seem to entertain the possiblity that Niger?s Prime Minister, Foreign Minister, and Minister of Mines -if Mr. Wilson spoke to them- might have lied to him.
2. ?If a document purporting to be about the sale contained those signatures, it would not be authentic.? seems to indicate a mind-set determined not to find... anything.
This thread's topic is Dr. Kay's testimony today. I sorta thought that we AI-er's had beaten Mr. Wilson's mission to death much like the smart hominids in 2001 had beaten the un-smart hominid to death.
I will print up and read the New Yorker article, though. Bear in mind that Mr. Hersh, after his defense of the shoot-down of KAL 007 by the Soviet Union, does not have much credibilty with me.
Aries 1B
Originally posted by ShawnJ
Not exactly, Aries. Read what Hersh has to say.
You just cost me 25 PAGES OF PAPER AND INK!
The cost of freedom...
Aries 1B
PS: I HIT PRINT TWICE! AUUUUUGGGGGH!
Originally posted by Anders
A Intelligence screw up?
How do you explain Powells speech then? Mobile and stationary "WoMD factories dismissed within two days! Niger Uran dismissed just as quickly (a rumour dismissed by CIA and everybody else years ago)! Powell throwing papers around saying "I can´t defend this crap" when presented with the speech"!
The only Intelligence screw up was they didn´t stand the pressure from the administration.
Dr. Kay stated this morning that there was no pressure from the administration.
According to Senator Levin (D) Mich, a week ago the VP was referring to Mobile WMD factories a week ago. A Republican senator said that the CIA was still referring to Mobile WMD factories on its web sites and that the VP's morning intelligence brief contained references to the same.
I'm just telling you what I saw on CNN (and later on CSPAN, which I went to when Wolf Blitzer started speaking over Dr. Kay's testimony by interviewing a Brookings Institution Analyst. I rather thought that bad form, to cover a Senate Hearing live and then talk over the hearing with a discussion on something else).
V/R,
Aries 1B
Originally posted by Aries 1B
I found this particularly appalling:
Try reading it again. If you need to, do a nice meta-analysis.
I will print up and read the New Yorker article, though.
Print this up and read it, too.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/052803H.shtml
Of course, it's a little odd that this is the first time you are really coming into all of this. These Hersh articles are just the tip of the iceberg.
Bear in mind that Mr. Hersh, after his defense of the shoot-down of KAL 007 by the Soviet Union, does not have much credibilty with me.
Really? That's too bad, because I have an e.mail here through intelforum with Mike Levin, formerly of the NSA throughout the 80s and early 90s, saying that it was the most thorough coverage of the KAL 007 incident he saw.
Originally posted by Aries 1B
This thread's topic is Dr. Kay's testimony today. I sorta thought that we AI-er's had beaten Mr. Wilson's mission to death much like the smart hominids in 2001 had beaten the un-smart hominid to death.
I will print up and read the New Yorker article, though. Bear in mind that Mr. Hersh, after his defense of the shoot-down of KAL 007 by the Soviet Union, does not have much credibilty with me.
Aries 1B
We get the feeling from Dr. Kay's testimony that the administration will try to blame the intelligence community for the administration's overblown WMD rhetoric. In reality, it's the administration that manipulated intelligence in an attempt to prove whatever it wanted to prove. The Seymour Hersh article deals specifically, if you actually read the sub-headline, with "how conflicts between the Bush Administration and the intelligence community marred the reporting on Iraq?s weapons." Now, Hersh's article accounts for why the intelligence was so wrong concerning Saddam's WMD. It contradicts Dr. Kay's testimony that "no analysts were forced to cook the books," "that the intelligence community unintentionally misled the President," and surely on other levels as well.
We had a good discussion, the Foreign Minister and I and the President and I, had a good discussion about the nature of the sanctions -- the fact that the sanctions exist -- not for the purpose of hurting the Iraqi people, but for the purpose of keeping in check Saddam Hussein's ambitions toward developing weapons of mass destruction. We should constantly be reviewing our policies, constantly be looking at those sanctions to make sure that they are directed toward that purpose. That purpose is every bit as important now as it was ten years ago when we began it. And frankly they have worked. He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors. So in effect, our policies have strengthened the security of the neighbors of Iraq.
-Powell, Feb 2001