however, there is so much evidence stacked up in advance, evidence that has been there before the war, that points to a very clear interest in doing exactly what was done, and at all costs, and under any pretext.
Its out there, and in their own words in print. Members of the admnistration practically said that all they needed was a reason to "establish a military presence" in the middle east . . .. in fact, there are documents on which these members are signatories, which state exactly that.
There are even ex-admin members who acknowledge that Bush wanted this war as soon as he took office.
The lame excuse that some have come out with, saying that Clinton too wanted this war, is plain silly, it also overlooks the fact that it admits to the innitial statement: bush wanted the war before 911.
I would admit it either way, but, there is so much evidence to the contrary, slowly bubbling to the surface, that I would have to be a blind ideologue to not, at least, wonder
And if the report clearly shows doubts about the honesty and prior intent of this administration,
Bush will just hire new 'intelligence analysts' who whitewash doubts and selective stovepipe 'good news' instead. Or he'll name Chalabi to the commission.
Fits the spin pattern. Truth can be so damn inconvenient.
As you can see from the book description I quoted...
the hawks were upset with the intelligence community before the war... and why is that?
Because they wanted to go to war and they weren't getting what they wanted from intelligence to justify it.
So you push the analysts aside and g digging for yourself. Or you get dissidents that tell you what you want to hear.
If they didn't need the WMD justification to go into Iraq... why did they go to such great lengths to make the case?
Because without it there was no reason to end the UN inspections and monitoring... you have to say that it's not working in order to go to the next step.
I say again: There is ZERO evidence that Bush lied or twisted the intel community's arm. Show me even a SHRED of evidence....go ahead. Oh, but I forgot, you have "articles" that say he lied. I forgot about those.
i think it's perfectly fine the report won't be published until 2005, president bush will have plenty of leisure time in crawford to read it.
but from what i gather he doesn't like reading memos and reports.
Hehehe. I hope you're right. I couldn't vote for him again(sorry guys : ) or even worse, his little radical friends. Oh McCain, wherefore art thou?
rageous:
Quote:
Hmmm.. interesting point. I do often have trouble looking past the barriers my party has set up... wait a sec I'm not Republican. That can't work.
It's not the barriers any party has set up. It's the barriers you yourself have set up. More like blnders actually. Come on, you know you're in the group of people that Karl Rove simply adores.
Does anyone know of that ex-CIA officers organization that has very interesting things to say about the administration's dealings with the intelligence services?
Didn't the Democrats also vote for the war based on the same intelligence that Bush was shown? Yet somehow these same Democrats blame Bush for believing this "bad" intelligence as if he created it when they believed the same intelligence. Isn't this the same intelligence that Clinton believed?
Amen.
Listen, Bakka... if he does NOT investigate, you would say "coverup"
Now that he is asking for an independent investigation, you say "coverup." There is no way for Bush to win with a Bush-Basher.
And THAT'S the bottom line, cause Jubelum SAID SO.
Listen, Bakka... if he does NOT investigate, you would say "coverup"
Now that he is asking for an independent investigation, you say "coverup." There is no way for Bush to win with a Bush-Basher.
And THAT'S the bottom line, cause Jubelum SAID SO.
No, there's no way to talk sense to a robo-republican.
Look, the choices aren't "no investigation" or "investigation by hand-picked Bush commission". The obvious alternitive is "investigation by genuinely independent commission". Since one of the questions on the table is "Did the Bush Administration spin the intel to make the case for war?", it kind of makes sense that folks might have their doubts abouta hand-picked Bush commission . That would be true of any entity that was allowed to name the investigators into a matter possibly involving the entity itself.
The rhetorical device of pretending that finding flaws in a given course of action equals wanting to do nothing is tiresome and overused.
Does anyone know of that ex-CIA officers organization that has very interesting things to say about the administration's dealings with the intelligence services?
There are quite a few former CIA folks that talk about it (though not always in the press), but this is the group I believe you are asking about.
simple solution...the president assigns a committee and congress assigns a committee (similar to the military where redundancy is king)...now both committees will work hard to find out everything so they don't look bad (can't let that other committee show us up), but neither committee would feel safe to either make stuff up or hide stuff...the committees might actually not only find the truth, but it might also be a truth that is believed by the people...and the world can then move forward...
unlike currently in britian where 90% of the public don't believe the Blair assigned committee finding and are using not nice words like "whitewash"
2 independent and separetly assigned committees..."and the truth shall set you free"
Don't expect much good to come of it. As John Young of cryptome.org recently stated on one of the intelligence lists:
Quote:
Bear in mind that Tenet's career has not been in intelligence but in staffing for notable persons, that is, seeing that his employer's career is advanced. This subservient skill has been exhibited in service to Clinton and Bush.
Tenet's suppression of independent thinking makes him appealing to employers, especially those who are sensitive to rank and lack themselves an independet mind and prefer consensus action...
Tenet has proven to be adept at pleasing his employers, hardly unique in government, and a failure at leadership, hardly unique among senior government officials. Firing him is a no-brainer, though that is a favorite method of exculpating others complicit in a national disaster...
It's just a bunch of interviews with people from the CIA, state dept and UN inspection teams.
Thanks Giant. That's the one I was looking for. I'm gonna try to make a "screening" of that movie here in my area. There's one on Friday. I'm gonna try to bring a couple other Reps(more like "robo-reps" to use the expression someone just used)by bribing them with beers on me after the movie.
Iraq intelligence efforts led by Cheney magnified errors, officials say
BY JONATHAN S. LANDAY, WARREN P. STROBEL AND JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY
Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON - (KRT) - What went wrong with intelligence on Iraq will never be known unless the inquiry proposed by President Bush examines secret intelligence efforts led by Vice President Dick Cheney and Pentagon hawks, current and former U.S officials said Monday.
The officials said they feared that Bush, gearing up his fight for re-election, would try to limit the inquiry's scope to the CIA and other agencies, and ignore the key role the administration's own internal intelligence efforts played in making the case for war.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, didn't dispute that the CIA failed to accurately assess the state of Iraq's weapons programs. But they said that the intelligence efforts led by Cheney magnified the errors through exaggeration, oversights and mistaken deductions.
Chu_bakka and others: How do you know Bush lied? How do you know he exaggerated? How do you know the intel WASN'T totally wrong? Members of Congress DID see much of the intel....you do know that, right?
And now, it's "Bush lied and mislead everyone". What amazes me is NOT that you think Bush lied, but that you cannot even accept the POSSBILITY that he didn't. It's insane.
Wait a minute! As you said, correctly, the intelligence wasn't bad. Actually it was pretty accurate re. the WMD in Iraq...too bad the Bush administration ignored the accurate parts, and cherrypicked the rest to bolster its case for war. SDW, if you want some real insight into what the CIA really knew, watch Robert Greenwald's awesome documentary "Uncovered: The truth behind the Iraq War". In it, numerous 20 and 30 year veterans of the intelligence and security services go on the record to state that Iraq used to have weapons of mass destruction, but that was up until the 1991 Gulf war, shortly after which they were ordered to be destroyed by Saddam's deceased brother-in-law. The testimony in the documentary also systematically trashes Colin Powell's Feb 5 (2003) UN presentation point by point.
Only this morning, CIA director Tenet said the "Iraq was not an imminent threat". http://news.yahoo.com/fc?tmpl=fc&cid...world&cat=iraq Whether Bush lied knowingly, or was misled is now moot. He is commander in chief, and if he sent the country to war based on false premise, then he should take the can for it and resign.
On virtually every single important claim made by the Bush administration in its case for war, there was serious dissension. Discordant views - not from individual analysts but from several intelligence agencies as a whole - were kept from the public as momentum was built for a congressional vote on the war resolution.
Precisely because of the qualms the administration encountered, it created a rogue intelligence operation, the Office of Special Plans, located within the Pentagon and under the control of neo-conservatives. The OSP roamed outside the ordinary inter-agency process, stamping its approval on stories from Iraqi exiles that the other agencies dismissed as lacking credibility, and feeding them to the president.
At the same time, constant pressure was applied to the intelligence agencies to force their compliance. In one case, a senior intelligence officer who refused to buckle under was removed.
Bruce Hardcastle was a senior officer for the Middle East for the Defence Intelligence Agency. When Bush insisted that Saddam was actively and urgently engaged in a nuclear weapons programme and had renewed production of chemical weapons, the DIA reported otherwise. According to Patrick Lang, the former head of human intelligence at the CIA, Hardcastle "told [the Bush administration] that the way they were handling evidence was wrong." The response was not simply to remove Hardcastle from his post: "They did away with his job," Lang says. "They wanted only liaison officers ... not a senior intelligence person who argued with them."
Comments
however, there is so much evidence stacked up in advance, evidence that has been there before the war, that points to a very clear interest in doing exactly what was done, and at all costs, and under any pretext.
Its out there, and in their own words in print. Members of the admnistration practically said that all they needed was a reason to "establish a military presence" in the middle east . . .. in fact, there are documents on which these members are signatories, which state exactly that.
There are even ex-admin members who acknowledge that Bush wanted this war as soon as he took office.
The lame excuse that some have come out with, saying that Clinton too wanted this war, is plain silly, it also overlooks the fact that it admits to the innitial statement: bush wanted the war before 911.
I would admit it either way, but, there is so much evidence to the contrary, slowly bubbling to the surface, that I would have to be a blind ideologue to not, at least, wonder
but from what i gather he doesn't like reading memos and reports.
Bush will just hire new 'intelligence analysts' who whitewash doubts and selective stovepipe 'good news' instead. Or he'll name Chalabi to the commission.
Fits the spin pattern. Truth can be so damn inconvenient.
the hawks were upset with the intelligence community before the war... and why is that?
Because they wanted to go to war and they weren't getting what they wanted from intelligence to justify it.
So you push the analysts aside and g digging for yourself. Or you get dissidents that tell you what you want to hear.
If they didn't need the WMD justification to go into Iraq... why did they go to such great lengths to make the case?
Because without it there was no reason to end the UN inspections and monitoring... you have to say that it's not working in order to go to the next step.
Originally posted by SDW2001
I say again: There is ZERO evidence that Bush lied or twisted the intel community's arm. Show me even a SHRED of evidence....go ahead. Oh, but I forgot, you have "articles" that say he lied. I forgot about those.
Article
This guy was appointed by... You know who ;-)
Originally posted by superkarate monkeydeathcar
i think it's perfectly fine the report won't be published until 2005, president bush will have plenty of leisure time in crawford to read it.
but from what i gather he doesn't like reading memos and reports.
Hehehe. I hope you're right. I couldn't vote for him again(sorry guys
rageous:
Hmmm.. interesting point. I do often have trouble looking past the barriers my party has set up... wait a sec I'm not Republican. That can't work.
It's not the barriers any party has set up. It's the barriers you yourself have set up. More like blnders actually. Come on, you know you're in the group of people that Karl Rove simply adores.
Does anyone know of that ex-CIA officers organization that has very interesting things to say about the administration's dealings with the intelligence services?
Originally posted by Mike
Didn't the Democrats also vote for the war based on the same intelligence that Bush was shown? Yet somehow these same Democrats blame Bush for believing this "bad" intelligence as if he created it when they believed the same intelligence. Isn't this the same intelligence that Clinton believed?
Amen.
Listen, Bakka... if he does NOT investigate, you would say "coverup"
Now that he is asking for an independent investigation, you say "coverup." There is no way for Bush to win with a Bush-Basher.
And THAT'S the bottom line, cause Jubelum SAID SO.
Originally posted by Jubelum
Amen.
Listen, Bakka... if he does NOT investigate, you would say "coverup"
Now that he is asking for an independent investigation, you say "coverup." There is no way for Bush to win with a Bush-Basher.
And THAT'S the bottom line, cause Jubelum SAID SO.
No, there's no way to talk sense to a robo-republican.
Look, the choices aren't "no investigation" or "investigation by hand-picked Bush commission". The obvious alternitive is "investigation by genuinely independent commission". Since one of the questions on the table is "Did the Bush Administration spin the intel to make the case for war?", it kind of makes sense that folks might have their doubts abouta hand-picked Bush commission . That would be true of any entity that was allowed to name the investigators into a matter possibly involving the entity itself.
The rhetorical device of pretending that finding flaws in a given course of action equals wanting to do nothing is tiresome and overused.
Originally posted by Gilsch
Does anyone know of that ex-CIA officers organization that has very interesting things to say about the administration's dealings with the intelligence services?
There are quite a few former CIA folks that talk about it (though not always in the press), but this is the group I believe you are asking about.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VIPS
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
BTW: you should check out the documentary Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War.
http://www.truthuncovered.com/
It's just a bunch of interviews with people from the CIA, state dept and UN inspection teams.
unlike currently in britian where 90% of the public don't believe the Blair assigned committee finding and are using not nice words like "whitewash"
2 independent and separetly assigned committees..."and the truth shall set you free"
g
where does it say the commission is going to investigate the President's actions and that of his secretaries of state, defense and vice president?
Sounds like the commission will be investigating only PART of the problem...
uh oh...
http://drudgereport.com/mattgt1.htm
Looks like Tenet will have something to say about it tomorrow perhaps.
Bear in mind that Tenet's career has not been in intelligence but in staffing for notable persons, that is, seeing that his employer's career is advanced. This subservient skill has been exhibited in service to Clinton and Bush.
Tenet's suppression of independent thinking makes him appealing to employers, especially those who are sensitive to rank and lack themselves an independet mind and prefer consensus action...
Tenet has proven to be adept at pleasing his employers, hardly unique in government, and a failure at leadership, hardly unique among senior government officials. Firing him is a no-brainer, though that is a favorite method of exculpating others complicit in a national disaster...
Originally posted by giant
There are quite a few former CIA folks that talk about it (though not always in the press), but this is the group I believe you are asking about.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VIPS
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
BTW: you should check out the documentary Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War.
http://www.truthuncovered.com/
It's just a bunch of interviews with people from the CIA, state dept and UN inspection teams.
Thanks Giant. That's the one I was looking for. I'm gonna try to make a "screening" of that movie here in my area. There's one on Friday. I'm gonna try to bring a couple other Reps(more like "robo-reps" to use the expression someone just used)by bribing them with beers on me after the movie.
why did it take the Department of Justice over 2 months to start an investiagtion after the CIA informed them that the law had probably been broken?
Did he bipartisan Attorney General drop the ball? hehe
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/plame.cia.letter.pdf
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/san...cs/7859310.htm
Iraq intelligence efforts led by Cheney magnified errors, officials say
BY JONATHAN S. LANDAY, WARREN P. STROBEL AND JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY
Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON - (KRT) - What went wrong with intelligence on Iraq will never be known unless the inquiry proposed by President Bush examines secret intelligence efforts led by Vice President Dick Cheney and Pentagon hawks, current and former U.S officials said Monday.
The officials said they feared that Bush, gearing up his fight for re-election, would try to limit the inquiry's scope to the CIA and other agencies, and ignore the key role the administration's own internal intelligence efforts played in making the case for war.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, didn't dispute that the CIA failed to accurately assess the state of Iraq's weapons programs. But they said that the intelligence efforts led by Cheney magnified the errors through exaggeration, oversights and mistaken deductions.
cont.
Originally posted by SDW2001
Wow. Just, WOW.
Chu_bakka and others: How do you know Bush lied? How do you know he exaggerated? How do you know the intel WASN'T totally wrong? Members of Congress DID see much of the intel....you do know that, right?
And now, it's "Bush lied and mislead everyone". What amazes me is NOT that you think Bush lied, but that you cannot even accept the POSSBILITY that he didn't. It's insane.
Wait a minute! As you said, correctly, the intelligence wasn't bad. Actually it was pretty accurate re. the WMD in Iraq...too bad the Bush administration ignored the accurate parts, and cherrypicked the rest to bolster its case for war. SDW, if you want some real insight into what the CIA really knew, watch Robert Greenwald's awesome documentary "Uncovered: The truth behind the Iraq War". In it, numerous 20 and 30 year veterans of the intelligence and security services go on the record to state that Iraq used to have weapons of mass destruction, but that was up until the 1991 Gulf war, shortly after which they were ordered to be destroyed by Saddam's deceased brother-in-law. The testimony in the documentary also systematically trashes Colin Powell's Feb 5 (2003) UN presentation point by point.
Only this morning, CIA director Tenet said the "Iraq was not an imminent threat". http://news.yahoo.com/fc?tmpl=fc&cid...world&cat=iraq Whether Bush lied knowingly, or was misled is now moot. He is commander in chief, and if he sent the country to war based on false premise, then he should take the can for it and resign.
"But we told them it was false and they didn't want to hear it."
"They were looking at raw data and intel and not listening to our doubts."
"That's not what I told them."
Stuff like that...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story...141401,00.html
On virtually every single important claim made by the Bush administration in its case for war, there was serious dissension. Discordant views - not from individual analysts but from several intelligence agencies as a whole - were kept from the public as momentum was built for a congressional vote on the war resolution.
Precisely because of the qualms the administration encountered, it created a rogue intelligence operation, the Office of Special Plans, located within the Pentagon and under the control of neo-conservatives. The OSP roamed outside the ordinary inter-agency process, stamping its approval on stories from Iraqi exiles that the other agencies dismissed as lacking credibility, and feeding them to the president.
At the same time, constant pressure was applied to the intelligence agencies to force their compliance. In one case, a senior intelligence officer who refused to buckle under was removed.
Bruce Hardcastle was a senior officer for the Middle East for the Defence Intelligence Agency. When Bush insisted that Saddam was actively and urgently engaged in a nuclear weapons programme and had renewed production of chemical weapons, the DIA reported otherwise. According to Patrick Lang, the former head of human intelligence at the CIA, Hardcastle "told [the Bush administration] that the way they were handling evidence was wrong." The response was not simply to remove Hardcastle from his post: "They did away with his job," Lang says. "They wanted only liaison officers ... not a senior intelligence person who argued with them."