BS: WMD Commission: Fact or Fiction?...

Subject: BS: WMD Commission: Fact or Fiction?...
From: Bobert
Date: 31 Mar 05 - 12:31 PM

Well, well, well....

As if it comes as any surprise a commission appointed by the Bush administration has exonerated Bush in putting 100% of the blame for the invasion of Iraq squarely on the backs of the intellegence community...

I'z sniffin' a good ol' fashioned cover-up, myself, especially in light of the conflicting stories that we have all been witness to over the last 3 or so years.

But then again I don't trust Bush or the folks he has surrounded himself with...

What or your thoughts about the report? And it's accuracy?

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: WMD Commission: Fact or Fiction?...
From: Don Firth
Date: 31 Mar 05 - 12:47 PM

Blaming the whole thing on lack of good intelligence.

Well, yeah, I guess you could say that. . . .

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: WMD Commission: Fact or Fiction?...
From: artbrooks
Date: 31 Mar 05 - 12:50 PM

I haven't seen the report, and I really don't know what it says other than what the media has reported. I also don't think that they have seen it either. However, I'd be real surprised if it says anywhere that they (the "intelligence" agencies) were told what to report. My own guess is that the Bushies grabbed bits and pieces of information, put their own spin on it, and then called that 'intelligence.'

Subject: RE: BS: WMD Commission: Fact or Fiction?...
From: Don Firth
Date: 31 Mar 05 - 01:32 PM

Art, what I've heard so far is that the report itself blames faulty intelligence for misleading the White House. It points up some genuine flaws in the intelligence system that need to be corrected.

Those in the intelligence community are willing to admit that many of the criticisms are valid--however--they say that the intelligence reports sent to the White House were full of caveats which the White House ignored. Such statements as "we have reason to suspect" were changed to "we have absolute proof."

It's still shaking out, but although much of the report is valid, it should in no way exonerate the White House for taking us into an unnecessary war.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: WMD Commission: Fact or Fiction?...
From: CarolC
Date: 31 Mar 05 - 02:15 PM

Does it mention the fact that the intelligence agency from which Bush got most of the information that was used in justifying the invasion was given to him by his own secret, "special", intelligence gathering agency, and not any of the legitimate intelligence agencies?

I can't remember the name of that little shadow outfit, but I'm pretty sure the word "special" is a part of the name.

Subject: RE: BS: WMD Commission: Fact or Fiction?...
From: Bobert
Date: 31 Mar 05 - 05:32 PM

I haven't read the text of it but it's all at washingtonpost.com...

Yeah, i wonder why we don't hear anything about Scott Ritter, who was publicly debunkin' the Bush claims during the run up to the invasion. Scott was so ignored by the media that one would think was carrying radiation around in his pockets...

Then there was Joe Wilson who debunked Bush on the "nuclear" aspect of the *Big Three* (Links to al Quida, Nukes and WMD's). How much press did he get? Like none... Still ain't...

Then there was Cheney camped out over at the George Bush (????) Center for Intellegence during the days in the run up... Like, what was that all about??? Oh yeah, we ain't allowed to know about that since Bush continues to shield Cheney using "executive priviledge"... LIke whats that all about???

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: WMD Commission: Fact or Fiction?...
From: GUEST,Paul Burke
Date: 01 Apr 05 - 06:53 AM

Hans Blix? The French government? By the way, who posted the anthrax?

Subject: RE: BS: WMD Commission: Fact or Fiction?...
From: kendall
Date: 01 Apr 05 - 05:50 PM

Come on folks, this isn't the first whitewash in our history.

Subject: RE: BS: WMD Commission: Fact or Fiction?...
From: DougR
Date: 01 Apr 05 - 06:25 PM

I don't think it's a whitewash. The Intelligence Community obviously screwed up. Read the report.

Of course Bobert wants to blame Bush, but what else is new?

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: WMD Commission: Fact or Fiction?...
From: GUEST,Guy Who Thinks
Date: 01 Apr 05 - 06:28 PM

A "whitewash" would say, "Our intelligence was good. The weapons just haven't been found yet. They could be in Syria."

Several of the commissioners themselves have appeared on TV news to say that intelligence gathering and analyzing capabilities are a mess and have been for years. They also say that the Administration was insufficiently skeptical of the digests it received. That doesn't sound like a whitewash of anybody. The classified version of the report is said to be even more scathing.

The published version says the Administration was "dead wrong" in its
beliefs about Iraqi WMDs. People familiar with bureaucratic reports will know that language that blunt is nearly unheard of. It's like saying, "You idiots."

Subject: RE: BS: WMD Commission: Fact or Fiction?...
From: Bobert
Date: 01 Apr 05 - 06:29 PM

Yeah, just two days after Bush's hand picked commission exonerated him another hand picked commison has now but the blame on the Pentagon for mis-estimating the insurgency in Iraq??? Like what ever happened to those stories about Don Rumsfeld micr-managing the invasion? He and the militayr have been ar odds since the run up to war but now that it has turned into a quagmire, Rumsfeld gets his misjudegments expunged from the record...

These Bush folks screw up leaft and right and then appoint hand picked comissions to blame other folks...

This is a very disturbing pattern...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: WMD Commission: Fact or Fiction?...
From: Don Firth
Date: 01 Apr 05 - 06:42 PM

Lack of intelligence on all levels of government.

(Except, of course, remarkable cunning when it comes to finding someone else to blame when people start tumbling to the fact that they've been had.)

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: WMD Commission: Fact or Fiction?...
From: CarolC
Date: 01 Apr 05 - 06:56 PM

Here's a timeline of the events leading up to the Iraq invasion, and it definitly puts the responsibility squarely on the shoulders of the "Office of Special Plans", under the direction of Donald Rumsfeld, Douglas Feith, David Wurmser, and other Pentagon neocons...

Complete timeline of the 2003 Invasion of Iraq

Here's a sample:

2001-2003

The US intelligence community—most notably the intelligence gatherers working in the Pentagon offices under Douglas Feith (see September 2002) —bases several of its intelligence assessments concerning Iraq on information offered by the Iraqi National Congress (INC) and by Iraqi defectors provided by the INC, despite warnings from the State Department and some CIA analysts that the lobbying group cannot be trusted. [Inter Press Service, 8/7/03; Guardian, 7/17/03; Salon, 7/16/03; New Yorker, 5/5/03; Independent, 9/30/03; Mother Jones, 1/04 Sources: Unnamed administration official, Greg Thielmann] Some of the INC's intelligence on Iraq's alleged arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and Saddam's supposed ties to terrorists are reportedly funneled directly to the office of Vice President Dick Cheney by Francis Brooke, the DC lobbyist for the group. [Newsweek, 12/15/03 Sources: Francis Brooke, Memo] Brooke will later acknowedge that the information provided by the INC was driven by an agenda. "I told them [the INC], as their campaign manager, 'Go get me a terrorist and some WMD, because that's what the Bush administration is interested in.' " [Vanity Fair, 5/2004, pg 230] Brooke had previously worked for the Rendon Group, "a shadowy CIA-connected public-relations firm." [Mother Jones, 1/04]

Subject: RE: BS: WMD Commission: Fact or Fiction?...
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 01 Apr 05 - 08:49 PM

"Dead worng" confuses two concepts: The Administration was wrong. The troops and the Iraqis are dead.