Wilkerson Speech

[Guest Biggles]

Anyone else read this? http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/...%20--%20WEB.htm

 

Interesting, interesting stuff. Pretty much puts to bed any notion of "Bush lied" regarding WMD as historical wishful thinking (everybody who was anybody in the world of international intelligence -- including the French -- were convinced Saddam had at least chem and bio weapons, and most believed he had an active nuke program), but it certainly is a strong indictment of the foreign policy decision-making process in W's administration. Wilkerson says all decisions were essentially, and probably still are, made by a cabal of Rumsfeld and Cheney, without much input from qualified experts.

[2GOLD 0]

The only thing Bush is guilty of in that situation was believing in his intelligence. Just turns out that was either wrong or not up to date. But everyone on both sides before we hit Iraq believed they had weapons, not because of what Bush said but because that is what everyone was told by the CIA, FBI and all those.

 

They were wrong, Bush is blamed. Truthfully, that's the end of the story.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

The only thing Bush is guilty of in that situation was believing in his intelligence.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Some have claimed that the Administration put pressure on the intelligence gathering process to produce the "right" results. The second half of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's report on intel failures was supposed to investigate this, but chairman Pat Roberts simply called it off.

[2GOLD 0]

The only thing Bush is guilty of in that situation was believing in his intelligence.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Some have claimed that the Administration put pressure on the intelligence gathering process to produce the "right" results. The second half of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's report on intel failures was supposed to investigate this, but chairman Pat Roberts simply called it off.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Even during the Clinton years, he said Hussein had WMDs. There is no pressure, it was the same story that Bill and Bush Sr. got. Bush was just the first to actually test their theory and they were wrong. So Bush was wrong, but he wasn't a liar.

[Guest Biggles]

The only thing Bush is guilty of in that situation was believing in his intelligence. Just turns out that was either wrong or not up to date. But everyone on both sides before we hit Iraq believed they had weapons, not because of what Bush said but because that is what everyone was told by the CIA, FBI and all those.

 

They were wrong, Bush is blamed. Truthfully, that's the end of the story.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

And Bush should take the blame because he was voted in to make the decisions. He decided to let others make determinations.

 

What I liked about this speech is that you had someone who now dislikes the current administration but is not foaming at the mouth and accusing everyone of lieing, including Cheney. I liked this quote:

 

But I think – if I had to put my finger on it and I was having to bet on it or something I would say that Dick Cheney saw 9/11, saw the potential for another 9/11, particularly one with a nuclear weapon or some other mass destruction device, and suddenly became so fixated on that problem, not without some legitimacy, that it skewed and bent some of the other approaches and decisions that he made. That’s my interpretation.

 

Fear is a dangerous and most of the time irrational emotion. Fear made Cheney believe in bad intelligence and bad managing on Bush's part allowed that fear to guide policy. Bush didn't lie, but he's guilty of not taking his responsibility to the American people seriously.

[2GOLD 0]

Yes, he is guilty of being wrong. That's it. He listened to the smartest people he had and they were all wrong. The simple fact is everyone, from the UN to the entire US government, was wrong.

 

He didn't lie though and hearing "BUSH LIED" just makes everyone look like a tool. "BUSH WAS WRONG" is the accurate answer whereas "BUSH LIED" is even with "BUSH IS HITLER" and all those other bullshit ones.

 

The guy is a bad president, but he isn't a liar or the great Satan.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

There is no pressure

 

Well that clears that up then.

 

An article published June 5, 2003, by the Washington Post quoted a “senior [CIA] official” as saying the visits by Cheney and Libby “sent signals, intended or otherwise, that a certain output was desired from here.”

 

The same article went on to say: “Former and current intelligence officials said they felt a continual drumbeat, not only from Cheney and Libby, but also from Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, Feith, and, less so from CIA Director George J. Tenet to find information or write reports in a way that would help the administration make the case that going into Iraq was urgent.

 

“‘They were the browbeaters,’ said a former defense intelligence official who attended some of the meetings in which Wolfowitz and others pressed for a different approach to the assessments they were receiving. ‘In interagency meetings,’ he said, ‘Wolfowitz treated the analysts’ work with contempt.’”

 

Cheney’s visits created a “chill factor” to “get the analysts on the same page,” former CIA analyst Pat Edwards told the New Republic magazine (“The Operator, George Tenet Undermines the CIA,” by Spencer Ackerman and John B. Judis, September 22, 2003). Edwards continued: “I will tell you that, in my time there, I never saw anything in the way of the kind of radical pressure that clearly existed in 2001 and 2002 and on into 2003.”

 

Another testimonial appeared in a New Yorker article...published October 27, 2003: “The Administration eventually got its way, a former CIA official said. ‘The analysts at the CIA were beaten down defending their assertions. And, they blame George Tenet for not protecting them. I’ve never seen a government like this.’”

 

The study, released Thursday, was conducted by the Carnegie Endowment...a nonpartisan, respected group that opposed the war in Iraq.

 

The United States used the threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction as a justification for launching the war against the regime of Saddam Hussein, according to the report.

 

<snip>

 

"We looked at the intelligence assessment process, and we've come to the conclusion that it is broken," author Joseph Cirincione said Thursday on CNN's "American Morning."

 

"It is very likely that intelligence officials were pressured by senior administration officials to conform their threat assessments to pre-existing policies."

 

I don't know if it's lying so much as what I would call biased research. The Administration just wanted to go to war so intensely that they refused to acknowledge any evidence that contradicted their pre-existing views.

 

I tend to be less harsh on the Administration over the WMD snafu than the complete bullshit that was the Iraq/Al Qaeda connection. A fucking *majority* of Americans thought that Iraq was involved with 9/11 when the war began.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

The guy is a bad president, but he isn't a liar...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Betcha I can disprove this. He got caught in a lie just the other day...

 

Bush, 9/03

Listen, I know of nobody -- I don't know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action.

 

whitehouse.gov

 

2/04

[bush] added that he did not know of "anybody in my administration who leaked classified information."

 

http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/09/30/wilson.cia/

 

And then this...he knew all about Rove's actions back when he was saying these things.

 

10/05

An angry President Bush rebuked chief political guru Karl Rove two years ago for his role in the Valerie Plame affair, sources told the Daily News.

"He made his displeasure known to Karl," a presidential counselor told The News. "He made his life miserable about this."

 

 

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/357107p-304312c.html

 

The "presidential counselor" was trying to make Bush look good for chastising Turdblossom Rove, but he/she ended up exposing a big fat lie.

[CanadianGuitarist 0]

They were wrong, Bush is blamed. Truthfully, that's the end of the story.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

That's a fair point, and I tend to agree, and I'm not exactly know for defenind Bush.

 

And Bush should take the blame because he was voted in to make the decisions. He decided to let others make determinations.

 

All bias aside, he's right here.

[Art Sandusky 0]

Whoever it was who made the decision to "fix the facts" around the Iraqi intelligence as revealed in the Downing Street Memo is who needs to be blamed, not Bush. He should be blamed for not being more cautious about it and championing the cause at the very least.

 

Ah well, they'll get the American people to forget all about this terrible situation by invading Syria or something. At least the UN would be behind that.

[Justice 0]

There is no pressure

 

Well that clears that up then.

 

An article published June 5, 2003, by the Washington Post quoted a “senior [CIA] official” as saying the visits by Cheney and Libby “sent signals, intended or otherwise, that a certain output was desired from here.”

 

The same article went on to say: “Former and current intelligence officials said they felt a continual drumbeat, not only from Cheney and Libby, but also from Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, Feith, and, less so from CIA Director George J. Tenet to find information or write reports in a way that would help the administration make the case that going into Iraq was urgent.

 

“‘They were the browbeaters,’ said a former defense intelligence official who attended some of the meetings in which Wolfowitz and others pressed for a different approach to the assessments they were receiving. ‘In interagency meetings,’ he said, ‘Wolfowitz treated the analysts’ work with contempt.’”

 

Cheney’s visits created a “chill factor” to “get the analysts on the same page,” former CIA analyst Pat Edwards told the New Republic magazine (“The Operator, George Tenet Undermines the CIA,” by Spencer Ackerman and John B. Judis, September 22, 2003). Edwards continued: “I will tell you that, in my time there, I never saw anything in the way of the kind of radical pressure that clearly existed in 2001 and 2002 and on into 2003.”

 

Another testimonial appeared in a New Yorker article...published October 27, 2003: “The Administration eventually got its way, a former CIA official said. ‘The analysts at the CIA were beaten down defending their assertions. And, they blame George Tenet for not protecting them. I’ve never seen a government like this.’”

 

The study, released Thursday, was conducted by the Carnegie Endowment...a nonpartisan, respected group that opposed the war in Iraq.

 

The United States used the threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction as a justification for launching the war against the regime of Saddam Hussein, according to the report.

 

<snip>

 

"We looked at the intelligence assessment process, and we've come to the conclusion that it is broken," author Joseph Cirincione said Thursday on CNN's "American Morning."

 

"It is very likely that intelligence officials were pressured by senior administration officials to conform their threat assessments to pre-existing policies."

 

I don't know if it's lying so much as what I would call biased research. The Administration just wanted to go to war so intensely that they refused to acknowledge any evidence that contradicted their pre-existing views.

 

I tend to be less harsh on the Administration over the WMD snafu than the complete bullshit that was the Iraq/Al Qaeda connection. A fucking *majority* of Americans thought that Iraq was involved with 9/11 when the war began.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

*Points out the first one is grossly out of date*

 

Another point to be made is that the Bi-Partisan Senate Intelligence Committee found no proof that the Bush Administration pressured people for the 'right' intelligence.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

*Points out the first one is grossly out of date*

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

How does that matter? It's from the era when this was taking place and it's about the topic at hand.

 

Another point to be made is that the Bi-Partisan Senate Intelligence Committee found no proof that the Bush Administration pressured people for the 'right' intelligence.

 

There was also an evident division over the matter of political pressure on analysts to provide the correct information. The [senate Intelligence Committee] report released Friday clearly states, "The Committee did not find any evidence that administration officials attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to change their judgments related to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities ... (or) links to terrorism." However, Democrats on the committee emphasized their dissatisfaction with that section of the report.

 

"We had major disagreements on pressure," said [Jay] Rockefeller.

 

"The definition of pressure was very narrowly drawn in the final report," he said.

 

He referred to George Tenet, who he said, spoke of analysts going to his office "to relieve the pressure" and the ombudsman of the CIA, who said that the "hammering on analysts" was greater than he had seen in his 32 years of service.

 

http://www.upi.com/inc/view.php?StoryID=20...09-050626-3922r

 

Furthermore, the second part of the report, scuttled by Roberts, was supposed to address "whether the Bush administration manipulated pre-war intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction."

 

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4530810

[Guest Fishyswa]

BUSH IS THE PRESIDENT. When the government fails, it's on him. His intelligence failing is the same as him failing. His staff failing is the same as him failing.

 

I don't understand how that goes over some people's heads. He didn't take the job so he could randomly pass off blame, he took it to be fall guy #1, first in line for candy or first in line for a kick in the ass. That's the job.

 

If Bush tells me a guy has WMD's, and then it turns out he didn't, I don't care what intelligence failed and where, it's misinformation regardless. If a president is misinforming the people, he's failed.

[Stephen Joseph 0]

The President MUST rely on advisors. One man can't do it all.

 

The problem was and still is within our intelligence apparatus.

 

Sure, Bush is a frat boy who just says Yeah HA! and all, but come on already! There's bigger and easier target to get ole bushie than OMGFOXNEWZWMDWMD!

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

[Art Sandusky 0]

Nevermind that the British government didn't deny the authenticity of the Downing Street Memo. It gets press in Britain, but damned if I saw anyone on American media outlets mention it. Fuckin' pussies.

 

How this country can let the wool be pulled over its eyes so easily is baffling. I wouldn't trust any Senate Intelligence Committee either, because if they find that they were mislead it makes them look retarded for voting for the war in the first place.

 

Oh hell, I've lost all confidence in our lawmakers and executives and media, who am I kidding. Shit needs an overhaul, big time.

[SuperJerk 0]

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

(Not relevant, but funny.)

[snuffbox 0]

Funny, as in not funny....

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Well, the Senate is going to finally undertake the second part of the intelligence investigation thanks to some dramatics from Sen. Reid today:

 

Democrats Force Senate Into Closed Session Over Iraq Data

 

By BRIAN KNOWLTON,

International Herald Tribune

Published: November 1, 2005

WASHINGTON, Nov. 1 - Democrats invoked a rarely used rule today that sent the Senate into a two-hour closed session, infuriating Republicans but producing an agreement for a bipartisan look at whether the Republican leadership was dragging its feet on a promised inquiry into the Bush administration's use of prewar intelligence on Iraq.

 

The Senate minority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, caught Republicans by surprise when, with only minutes' warning, he invoked Rule 21 - a move that Republicans said had not been taken in more than 20 years.

 

After the session, the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, Republican of Tennessee, emerged to announce that he and Mr. Reid would each appoint three senators to investigate the Senate Intelligence Committee's schedule for completing its investigation. The panel is to report back by Nov. 14. It was not immediately clear what use would be made of the report.

 

Senator Reid said that while the Republican chairman of the intelligence committee, Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, had promised a thorough inquiry into prewar intelligence, including the way the White House had used or misused it, he had not followed through.

 

"I demand on behalf of the American people that we understand why these investigations aren't being conducted," Senator Reid said from the Senate floor before the session, "and in accordance with Rule 21, I now move that the Senate go into closed session."

 

Senator Frist appeared furious over the maneuver, which took place against a backdrop of rising political acrimony here.

 

"The resort to this, this, this stunt - this political stunt - this scare tactic, is really deeply disappointing," he told reporters . But "if they want to get in the gutter, I guess that's what they'll do."

 

The closed session meant that only senators were to be allowed in Senate chambers. Television coverage was blacked out, and journalists, staff members, aides, visitors and others were excluded. Senators were not allowed even to carry cell phones or personal-data devices into the chamber.

 

After the floor was reopened, a clearly angry Senator Roberts insisted his committee had not dallied on the second part of its inquiry - the part dealing with administration use of intelligence. "We will look into Phase 2 and see what we can do and finish that product," he said. "I said a long time ago we would let the chips fall where they may."

 

He grumbled that the closed session "was not needed, not necessary."

 

But the committee's vice chairman, Senator Jay Rockefeller, Democrat of West Virginia, took pointed exception to that. "It is clear that only token work, at best, has been done on Phase 2 since it was authorized," he said. "That's unacceptable."

 

Senator Charles Schumer, Democrat of New York, said that the special session was needed to press Senator Roberts and the Republican leadership about the investigation. "This is very serious," he told reporters outside the Senate's closed doors. "It's about how our government and our country ought to work."

 

Mr. Schumer said that Republicans had it in their hands to end the extraordinary session quickly: "If we get an agreement with proceeding on the investigation, there won't have to be any closed sessions."

 

(snip)

 

Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan and a member of the intelligence committee, told reporters that Rule 21 had been invoked because the Senate Intelligence Committee had never completed the phase of its inquiry into whether administration officials had manipulated or exaggerated intelligence in an effort to mislead the country on the need to go to war in Iraq in March 2003.

 

"There's nothing but foot-dragging relative to the investigation," Mr. Levin said. "There's a lot of evidence that the administration went way beyond the intelligence that was provided to them."

 

In July 2004, the Senate committee issued a scathing report about intelligence on Iraq, saying that prewar assertions that Baghdad possessed chemical and biological weapons were made without information to back them. It was the failure to carry out the promised follow-up inquiries to this report, Democrats said, that prompted today's action.

 

Republicans suggested that the Democrats' motives were political - aimed partly at keeping attention on Mr. Libby's troubles and the continued investigation of President Bush's top political aide, Karl Rove, who has been implicated in the case.

 

"The Libby indictment provides a window into what this is really all about, how this administration manufactured and manipulated intelligence in order to sell the war in Iraq and attempted to destroy those who dared to challenge its actions," Senator Reid said.

 

To some Democrats, the unmasking of the C.I.A. officer, Valerie Plame Wilson, was part of an administration effort to undercut Plame's husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, for his having asserted that the White House had "twisted" prewar intelligence.

 

Senator Frist ended the impromptu news conference by turning to stride back onto the closed Senate floor, saying, "I've got to go figure out what we're going to do."

 

The closed session lasted a little over two hours, but, at least to Republican sensibilities, it violated Senate traditions of courtesy and consent, and the high emotions it engendered appeared unlikely to soon be forgotten.

 

Never before, said Mr. Frist, "have ever I been slapped in the face with such an affront to the leadership of this grand institution."

 

http://nytimes.com/2005/11/01/politics/01c...artner=homepage

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issue...0630selling.htm

 

In the late summer of 2002, Graham had requested from Tenet an analysis of the Iraqi threat. According to knowledgeable sources, he received a 25-page classified response reflecting the balanced view that had prevailed earlier among the intelligence agencies--noting, for example, that evidence of an Iraqi nuclear program or a link to Al Qaeda was inconclusive. Early that September, the committee also received the DIA's classified analysis, which reflected the same cautious assessments. But committee members became worried when, midway through the month, they received a new CIA analysis of the threat that highlighted the Bush administration's claims and consigned skepticism to footnotes. According to one congressional staffer who read the document, it highlighted "extensive Iraqi chem-bio programs and nuclear programs and links to terrorism" but then included a footnote that read, "This information comes from a source known to fabricate in the past." The staffer concluded that "they didn't do analysis. What they did was they just amassed everything they could that said anything bad about Iraq and put it into a document."

 

Graham and Durbin had been demanding for more than a month that the CIA produce an NIE on the Iraqi threat--a summary of the available intelligence, reflecting the judgment of the entire intelligence community--and toward the end of September, it was delivered. Like Tenet's earlier letter, the classified NIE was balanced in its assessments. Graham called on Tenet to produce a declassified version of the report that could guide members in voting on the resolution. Graham and Durbin both hoped the declassified report would rebut the kinds of overheated claims they were hearing from administration spokespeople. As Durbin tells TNR, "The most frustrating thing I find is when you have credible evidence on the intelligence committee that is directly contradictory to statements made by the administration."

 

On October 1, 2002, Tenet produced a declassified NIE. But Graham and Durbin were outraged to find that it omitted the qualifications and countervailing evidence that had characterized the classified version and played up the claims that strengthened the administration's case for war. For instance, the intelligence report cited the much-disputed aluminum tubes as evidence that Saddam "remains intent on acquiring" nuclear weapons. And it claimed, "All intelligence experts agree that Iraq is seeking nuclear weapons and that these tubes could be used in a centrifuge enrichment program"--a blatant mischaracterization. Subsequently, the NIE allowed that "some" experts might disagree but insisted that "most" did not, never mentioning that the DOE's expert analysts had determined the tubes were not suitable for a nuclear weapons program. The NIE also said that Iraq had "begun renewed production of chemical warfare agents"--which the DIA report had left pointedly in doubt. Graham demanded that the CIA declassify dissenting portions.