Iraq intel failings back in spotlight (I wonder why....)

[PaceAdvantage]

Those mischievous Democrats in Congress, instead of addressing this horrific recession (cough, cough), sky-high gas prices and tons of home foreclosures, have decided to revisit the question of whether or not Bush "deliberately misrepresented" secret intelligence prior to the war (whatever that means).

You'd think that with Iraq going relatively well these days, the Senate would have more pressing issues to tackle....after all, everyone is telling me we are in a recession (even though the data doesn't support such nonsense).

But then again, John McCain (Mr. Iraq) is going to be the competition this fall, so it's probably smart for them to try and get some air time and paint John McClane (errr. I mean McCain) with a dirty brush.

I thought the most interesting part of this article about this new Senate "report" was the following:

"These reports are about holding the government accountable and making sure these mistakes never happen again," said the committee's chairman, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va.

According to Rockefeller, the problem was the Bush administration concealed information that would have undermined the case for war. "We might have avoided this catastrophe," he said.Hmmmmmm......Jay Rockefeller....where have I seen that name before recently....hmmmmmmm....let me think for a moment.....

Oh yeah, THAT Jay Rockefeller.....the one talking here in this video around the 1:14 mark about IRAQ and how they are GOING TO NUKE US IF WE DON'T ACT:

_1q9Q0OtJ4g

There you have it folks. Unmistakable VIDEO EVIDENCE that Sen. Jay Rockefeller LIED THE UNITED STATES INTO A WAR WITH IRAQ!

Link to the story about this so called "report":

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24994710

[juanepstein]

the bilderberg gang

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Byed3cIWgZQ

[hcap]

Your video is irrelevant. There were doubts in the intel community.
The resolution was to bring back the UN inspectors
To answer the first question....

1-How large the STOCKPILE of WMDs?

But these still were open.....

2-The strength of collaborative ties to terrorist organizations?
3-Was the threat imminent?

The UN inspectors had been out of Iraq for a few years.
Intel agencies assumed Saddam continued his WMD activities.
But the UN was not sure, and was reporting before the war most WMDs were gone.

No one knew for sure.

From the MSNBC article

"The Senate report, however, found that intelligence supported most of the administration's statements about Iraq before the war. But officials often did not mention the level of dissension or uncertainty in the intelligence agencies about the information they were presenting"

The answer to at least the WMd question was bring back the inspectors and let them continue inspecting. Of course when WE give them sites to investigate and they find nothing substanstial, and then continue on for a number of months and still find nothing it certainly makes you wonder why bush did not wait for them to finish and rushed to war. We all know now there were none, and the inspectors were right.

Was the threat imminent?

The UN Security council did not believe the level of threat posed by Saddam that the threat was imminent Nor required military action. The argument "the whole world knew Saddam was an imminent threat 'cause he had stockpiles of WMDs" is bogus.

"The Bush administration faced unprecedented opposition on the UN Security Council, and threats of veto by France, Russia and China, while UN weapons inspectors, in a series of reports to the Security Council, found no evidence that Iraq possessed either banned weapons or the production facilities to make them"

( BTW, the 911 attackers used box cutters and not WMDs. Maybe the UN inspectors should have searched for box cutters? ) :confused:

See this for site.....
http://www.americanprogress.org/kf/priraqclaimfact1029.htm


Confirmation from first Richard Clarke
Then Paul O'Neil
Now we have Scott McClelan.
And the Senate report.

[Tom]

Pretty sorry group, that dem congress.
Afraid to do anything of any substance.
Quit-o-crats now afraid to even try.

Remeber that come November - a vote for a dem is worth a hanging chad!

[lamboguy]

boy those democrats are sure bad, thanks for pointing this out!

[ddog]

given both parties records i call again for a 5 year halt to any new spending and/or laws, at least 5 years!
no good can come from either of them on a natl level anymore.

Freeze all spending and tax rates, everything.
No cost of living increase, nothing.



stay out of the way on all fronts.

just go on vacation and don't come back.
take the fed with you.

now where's my Dc buster, the air force must have some laying around.

[pktruckdriver]

Bossman you're doing it again, and again and again, now we all know How much you love bashing those dimwits, sorry Dem's , but you always leave out those even worse repugnant, oops republicans, that also said and did the same things, wonder why you leave them out, you're not biased are you, oh not Bossman.



Hcap wonderful post, really it was great, shows some sense of reason in this somewhat ridiculous world we live in, yes the rest of the world knew better, but we couldn't listen, Afghan ok, Iraq no, but who listen's anymore, we're too bullheaded.

Whatever happened to the days of the peace-pipe negotiations, oh yeah we killed them off to, or tried very hard to, didn't we. God we were so nice to those redskins.

[delayjf]

Whatever happened to the days of the peace-pipe negotiations, oh yeah we killed them off to, or tried very hard to, didn't we. God we were so nice to those redskins.
What do you mean "We". I nor anyone I know did anything to the Indians.

[jballscalls]

What do you mean "We". I nor anyone I know did anything to the Indians.

Don't get me started on this subject!!! Here in Washington, they can have slots, roulette, and craps, while us non-tribal casino's can only have card games (bj, pai gow, etc)

Also here in Washington State we have a smoking ban, except for the tribal casino's, so guess where all the smokers go to play now??

[bigskyguy]

jballs-

tribal casinos use their profits to benefit its membership whereas non-tribal gaming establishments profits go just to the owners. also, tribal casinos nationwide employ about 85% non-tribal members...and they benefit the surrounding communities as evidenced here

http://http://www.indianz.com/IndianGaming/2008/009140.asp

and here

http://http://www.indianz.com/IndianGaming/2008/009149.asp

tribes are using their limited sovereignty to help themselves and others.

[jballscalls]

jballs-

tribal casinos use their profits to benefit its membership whereas non-tribal gaming establishments profits go just to the owners. also, tribal casinos nationwide employ about 85% non-tribal members...and they benefit the surrounding communities as evidenced here

http://http://www.indianz.com/IndianGaming/2008/009140.asp (http://http//www.indianz.com/IndianGaming/2008/009140.asp)

and here

http://http://www.indianz.com/IndianGaming/2008/009149.asp (http://http//www.indianz.com/IndianGaming/2008/009149.asp)

tribes are using their limited sovereignty to help themselves and others.

Thanks for the reply. i never said or have contended they shouldnt be allowed to do business. And i've been to a couple of the tribal casino's, and they do employ many many members of their tribes.

That being said, the only part i dont like is that they are allowed so many things that we (non-tribals) are not. the smoking one is the one that has effected us the most. Non-tribals across the state took a 10 to 12 percent hit across the board when we were forced to go non-smoking while they were allowed to continue smoking.

[pktruckdriver]

JB I feel your pain a little in Washington


I use to smoke and was bummed, living in the Lynnwood area, where heck a casino is on every other street almost, aand I love them all , but no smoking, well guess what I quit smoking, saving over 10-15$$ a day , I adapted to the situation, An yes the Idians derserve what they are now getting, yet they still share with non-indians, and contribute considerably to the communities, do these tracks, well lets not go there ok.

By the way I love Pai-Gai Poker, yes sir, LOVE IT

Now my dis-claimer, ok, if I offended you by stating "we",(I mean caucasin,white europeans) ,who slaughtered the indians, and you're not one of them, please forgive me, no offense meant, its just a saying, and I really think you know what I mean, but maybe not, so this should clear that up, ok.


The Royal Rules

[Tom]

boy those democrats are sure bad, thanks for pointing this out!

No problem.
:ThmbUp:

[Tom]

[QUOTE=jballscallsAlso here in Washington State we have a smoking ban, except for the tribal casino's, so guess where all the smokers go to play now??[/QUOTE]

Then this should tell you how much your moronic government is doing for you. They are imposing thier will on the people, and most people prefer to smoke so they go where they are not crushed by Big Brrohter's Jack boots. You shouod be campaigning against everyone one of the airheads who voted for smoking band that no one wanted.

[JustRalph]

Your video is irrelevant. There were doubts in the intel community.

Funny how you dismiss the video so easily. "There were doubts in the Intel Community? Apparently nobody in the video thought there were?????????


Hysterical the way you just gloss over the things that prove you wrong

[jballscalls]

Then this should tell you how much your moronic government is doing for you. They are imposing thier will on the people, and most people prefer to smoke so they go where they are not crushed by Big Brrohter's Jack boots. You shouod be campaigning against everyone one of the airheads who voted for smoking band that no one wanted.

The smoking ban WAS voted for by the people. It won overwhelmingly as it should, nobody wants to be inside around a bunch of smoke. However, I'm just curious as to why the tribal casinos were allowed to continue having smoking. Either change for all, or dont change at all.

[Tom]

Point is, the "people" do not support what they voted for.
They go where they can smoke and you can't get enough who are against smoke to support your casinos. So stop legislating what other people do. Obviously, they do want to sit in smoke filled casinos or don't want to sit in casinos at all.

[Hank]

This is like ground hog's day......same shit over n over n over..Neoconderthal say... Dem baaaad neocon goood.:lol:

[jballscalls]

Point is, the "people" do not support what they voted for.
They go where they can smoke and you can't get enough who are against smoke to support your casinos. So stop legislating what other people do. Obviously, they do want to sit in smoke filled casinos or don't want to sit in casinos at all.

That makes no sense LOL The only change is in the smokers themselves. If your a smoker and want to go play Blackjack, are you going to go where you can smoke or where you cant?? duh, they are going to drive up the hill to the tribal casino.

The tribal casino's generally offer a non-smoking section as well, so they can offer both areas, we can't.

I understand your post is about Big Brother, and "dont tell me what i can or can't do" and for the most part i agree with you. But smoking is a different ball of wax. It is so obviously bad for not only the smoker, but the people around them as well. And i'm sure the response will be "well you know if you go to a bar, it will be smokey" bullfeathers, smokers can go outside!!

[jballscalls]

This is like ground hog's day......same shit over n over n over..Neoconderthal say... Dem baaaad neocon goood.:lol:

I said that a few weeks ago. Thats all this is generally, the fab five ridicule the left, and the fearsome foursome ridicule the right, no matter what the issue.

[PaceAdvantage]

Bossman you're doing it again, and again and again, now we all know How much you love bashing those dimwits, sorry Dem's , but you always leave out those even worse repugnant, oops republicans, that also said and did the same things, wonder why you leave them outI leave them out because there are plenty of others here who will document every little thing a Republican says or does. Somebody has to point out the other side's hypocrisy. That is my job.

So, you have no problem with Jay Rockefeller scaring the shit out of us, telling us IRAQ is basically going to NUKE either US or one of our allies someday soon, but if Bush says it, he's lying just to make his oil buddies richer.

OK. Got it.

[pktruckdriver]

Bossman, man you're getting it

So, you have no problem with Jay Rockefeller scaring the shit out of us, telling us IRAQ is basically going to NUKE either US or one of our allies someday soon, but if Bush says it, he's lying just to make his oil buddies richer

Ok so you let others get on the big R and R's, and you get on the big D's

Ok got it


When was the last time anyone paid attention Rockefeller, really?

[wonatthewire1]

So, you have no problem with Jay Rockefeller scaring the shit out of us, telling us IRAQ is basically going to NUKE either US or one of our allies someday soon, but if Bush says it, he's lying just to make his oil buddies richer. OK. Got it.

PA - I think you're on to something!

If one of Bush's oil buddies is going to make a lot of money - there are no bigger oil guys than a Rockefeller! It is a brilliant strategy! Go over to the "other" party and pretend that you are "one of them". But in reality, as an oil buddy, you secretly push the price of oil upwards by invading Iraq then crying about it happening!

No wonder those rich guys keep getting so rich! :ThmbUp:

[PaceAdvantage]

The whole point of this thread was to contrast what Rockefeller said a few days ago:


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24994710 (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24994710)


to what he said a few years ago, BEFORE the war in Iraq began.

Did anyone bother to read the article, and then watch the video. It's kinda fun.

[Marshall Bennett]

Whats with the Neil Young pic Hank ?

[riskman]

Colin Powell, U.S. Secretary of State, in his remarks to Egyptian Foreign Minister Amre Houssa, stated:

"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."
02/24/01 Colin Powell

[juanepstein]

http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0oGkyUKOkpIllMBEXpXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTEyNHBsZ3R oBHNlYwNzcgRwb3MDMgRjb2xvA3NrMQR2dGlkA0Y4MjJfODg-/SIG=13acgh97v/EXP=1212910474/**http%3a//www.jesus-is-savior.com/False%2520Religions/Illuminati/rockefeller_fortunes.htm

[hcap]

http://www.upi.com/Emerging_Threats/2008/05/30/Commentary_Tower_of_Babble_Rabble/UPI-77051212158319/

United Press International journalist Arnaud de Borchgrave

"This reporter first heard about the inevitability of war a year before the invasion at a party given by Dick Cheney -- "the magic man," writes McClellan -- and his wife, Lynne, to celebrate the publication of Chief of Staff Scooter Libby's paperback edition of his book "The Apprentice."

The capital's top neocons were on hand and convinced dubious listeners war with Iraq was now inevitable. They were persuasive when they corrected me for saying, "If there is a war … " The decision had been made for a shock-and-awe blitz against Saddam's Republican Guard divisions, they said. "What about the U.N.?" I asked. That, I was told, was the obligatory charade we had to go through for world public opinion.

So McClellan is correct when he writes senior administration officials began a campaign in 2002 to "aggressively sell the war," even as he and other officials insisted all options were on the table. Of course, it was a war of choice, not of necessity, as he writes. The Bush administration's main motive for invading Iraq was to introduce "coercive democracy."

.................................................. ........

That's why bush didn't wait for the UN to finish inspecting.

[Tom]

News flash.....Roosevelt "sold" WWII.
So did Churchill.

What's your point, assuming you have one?

http://www3.eou.edu/hist06/WWIIPropaganda.html

pjLfyooJQEc&feature=related

[ddog]

second news flash

WWII ENDED.

nothing the like between the 2 or the people makng the calls.

all wars require demons.

all the more reason to not do a war when a police action/pr campaign is really what's needed.

just another in long line of brain dead decisions from this bunch.

[Tom]

When did WWII end? Was it really WWII of or was it WWI flaring up agian?
A similarity betwen WWI and The GUlf War....Germany/Iraq both ignored the restrictions placed on them by the victors, in lieu of outright destruction and permenant occupation. Hotler got away with it, Sadaam did not.
Once Germany was destroyed and occupied long term ( much like Iraq today) they never posed another threat.

Did WWII end? VietNam, N Korea, the cold war, eastern Europe conquered....decades of hostilities and brinksmanship.

And they had the gall to declare VE Day an d VJ Day! The 1945 version of Mission Accomplished.

Wars never end. They morph.

[robert99]

When did WWII end? Was it really WWII of or was it WWI flaring up agian?
A similarity betwen WWI and The GUlf War....Germany/Iraq both ignored the restrictions placed on them by the victors, in lieu of outright destruction and permenant occupation. Hotler got away with it, Sadaam did not.
Once Germany was destroyed and occupied long term ( much like Iraq today) they never posed another threat.

Did WWII end? VietNam, N Korea, the cold war, eastern Europe conquered....decades of hostilities and brinksmanship.

And they had the gall to declare VE Day an d VJ Day! The 1945 version of Mission Accomplished.

Wars never end. They morph.

Good points Tom and shows why you can't presume that GW has defeated terrorism in US just because a major event has not happened and hopefully won't happen. Negotiation by warfare need both sides to feel in the end that they have at least won something to save face, even if not very much.

[Tom]

I don't think the terrorists care about face. This is not like fighting the Nazi's, where at least the civilians were civilized.

[hcap]

Please, no more comparisons in any shape, form, or free wheeling association, stream of consciousness, or in your case Tom, stream of UNCONSCIOUSNESS, between our invasion of Iraq and WWII.

Saddam=Hitler=False
Iraq=Nazi Germany=False
Tom=Clear historical analogy=FALSE
George W Churchill=Winston Churchill=False!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Tom]

hcap, you really should learn how to read.
Then, you can focus on comprehension.

Be all you can be.
Hopefully, there is more.:rolleyes:

[hcap]

Tom you and a few others are guilty of the logical fallacy Ad Hitleritum.

Ad Nuseum.

Any similarities between this war of choice and WWII are purely coincidental and require a suspension of reality and understanding of history.

Oh yeah, Neville Chamberlain analogies are also fluff and bogus.

[Tom]

hcap, you sound like 46 - have no clue what you are talking about.
The comparison was that during WWII, there was a country, with borders, with civilians, and after the war, we were dealing with a society.

The muslim facists are not country-organized, and therefore we do not have the same situation after the war. We are dealing with a whole set of circumstances.

Hcap, ideas are not always on the surface, which is why I suggested you learn to read and focus instead of just react. Go ahead and ignore the advice. I guess you already are all that you can be.

[46zilzal]

Those two wars were as much alike as oranges and prions.

[ddog]

I don't think the terrorists care about face. This is not like fighting the Nazi's, where at least the civilians were civilized.

i am not sure about face, but that part of the world sure seems to care about repect(face?).
hell they kill over cartoons!!!

Your war never ending is a fair point.

But, there is always a but , I believe we had a strategy to get to a cease fire from time to time and try to go to containment, a time of rebuilding our side.

I just do not see the strategic end to Iraq coming on this course and I really think we have other areas that need OUR strong action.

The real problem is that the longer we stand in there I think the masses elsewhere are not being won to our side or even to a neutral ground.

Even though we may well tame AQ in iraq and thus clear the field for a different set of milita/terrorists to take over, the AQ movement doesn't need the main old guard AQ anymore.


they have stood up to us in Iraq, that's all they needed to accomplish, doesn't matter if we kill them all in 3-4 more years there, they have shown they can play with us in the area, just like the Ruskies.

Basically we are fighting with the wrong force/tools.

It takes so few of them to tie up so many of us.
and always will playing this kind of game it seems.

[hcap]

Funny how you dismiss the video so easily. "There were doubts in the Intel Community? Apparently nobody in the video thought there were?????????


http://intelsuss.wordpress.com/2005/11/20/sen-bob-graham-what-i-knew-before-the-invasion/

Sen. Bob Graham: “What I Knew Before the Invasion


"In the past week President Bush has twice attacked Democrats for being hypocrites on the Iraq war. “[M]ore than 100 Democrats in the House and Senate, who had access to the same intelligence, voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power,” he said.

The president’s attacks are outrageous. Yes, more than 100 Democrats voted to authorize him to take the nation to war. Most of them, though, like their Republican colleagues, did so in the legitimate belief that the president and his administration were truthful in their statements that Saddam Hussein was a gathering menace — that if Hussein was not disarmed, the smoking gun would become a mushroom cloud.""As chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence during the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001, and the run-up to the Iraq war, I probably had as much access to the intelligence on which the war was predicated as any other member of Congress.

I, too, presumed the president was being truthful — until a series of events undercut that confidence.

In February 2002, after a briefing on the status of the war in Afghanistan, the commanding officer, Gen. Tommy Franks, told me the war was being compromised as specialized personnel and equipment were being shifted from Afghanistan to prepare for the war in Iraq — a war more than a year away. Even at this early date, the White House was signaling that the threat posed by Saddam Hussein was of such urgency that it had priority over the crushing of al Qaeda.

In the early fall of 2002, a joint House-Senate intelligence inquiry committee, which I co-chaired, was in the final stages of its investigation of what happened before Sept. 11. As the unclassified final report of the inquiry documented, several failures of intelligence contributed to the tragedy. But as of October 2002, 13 months later, the administration was resisting initiating any substantial action to understand, much less fix, those problems.

At a meeting of the Senate intelligence committee on Sept. 5, 2002, CIA Director George Tenet was asked what the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) provided as the rationale for a preemptive war in Iraq. An NIE is the product of the entire intelligence community, and its most comprehensive assessment. I was stunned when Tenet said that no NIE had been requested by the White House and none had been prepared. Invoking our rarely used senatorial authority, I directed the completion of an NIE."

More.......

[hcap]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/08/AR2008060801819.html

Records Could Shed Light on Iraq Group
Waler Pincus

"One obvious target for such an expanded inquiry would have been the records of the White House Iraq Group (WHIG), a group set up in August 2002 by then-White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr.

The group met weekly in the Situation Room. Among the regular participants (many have since left or changed jobs)"

......As former White House press secretary Scott McClellan wrote in his recently released book, "What Happened," the Iraq Group "had been set up in the summer of 2002 to coordinate the marketing of the war to the public."

"The script had been finalized with great care over the summer," McClellan wrote, for a "campaign to convince Americans that war with Iraq was inevitable and necessary."

In an interview with the New York Times published Sept. 6, 2002, Card did not mention the group, but he hinted at its mission. "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August," he said.


Two days later, WHIG's product placement was on display. It began with a front-page story in the Times describing Iraq's clandestine purchase of aluminum tubes that, the story said, could be used to produce weapons-grade uranium. The story said that information came from "senior administration officials."

[Tom]

Those two wars were as much alike as oranges and prions.

Do you have a clue what we are talking about?

[lsbets]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/08/AR2008060801687.html
"
But dive into Rockefeller's report, in search of where exactly President Bush lied about what his intelligence agencies were telling him about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, and you may be surprised by what you find.

On Iraq's nuclear weapons program? The president's statements "were generally substantiated by intelligence community estimates."

On biological weapons, production capability and those infamous mobile laboratories? The president's statements "were substantiated by intelligence information."

On chemical weapons, then? "Substantiated by intelligence information."

On weapons of mass destruction overall (a separate section of the intelligence committee report)? "Generally substantiated by intelligence information." Delivery vehicles such as ballistic missiles? "Generally substantiated by available intelligence." Unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to deliver WMDs? "Generally substantiated by intelligence information."

.....

But the phony "Bush lied" story line distracts from the biggest prewar failure: the fact that so much of the intelligence upon which Bush and Rockefeller and everyone else relied turned out to be tragically, catastrophically wrong.

And it trivializes a double dilemma that President Bill Clinton faced before Bush and that President Obama or McCain may well face after: when to act on a threat in the inevitable absence of perfect intelligence and how to mobilize popular support for such action, if deemed essential for national security, in a democracy that will always, and rightly, be reluctant.

For the next president, it may be Iran's nuclear program, or al-Qaeda sanctuaries in Pakistan, or, more likely, some potential horror that today no one even imagines. When that time comes, there will be plenty of warnings to heed from the Iraq experience, without the need to fictionalize more.

[Snag]

Isbets, becareful, hcap and 46 will "disregard" your comments and disregard the facts as they always do.

[hcap]

Curious that all the other REPORTERS covering the story focus on the administrations' exaggerations and misrepresentations.


Hiatt is doing more than reporting he is editorializing

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/photo/2007/09/09/PH2007090901664.gif


Same day, same paper has Walter Pincus. Hiatt was and still is a war supporter. Pincus was one of the few REPORTERS who published many links to the dubious intel before the war. He was right then and Hiatt is wrong now.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/08/AR2008060801819.html

"There is an important line in last week's Senate intelligence committee report on the Bush administration's prewar exaggerations of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. It says that the panel did not review "less formal communications between intelligence agencies and other parts of the Executive Branch."

More important, there was no effort to obtain White House records or interview President Bush, Vice President Cheney or other administration officials whose speeches were analyzed because, the report says, such steps were considered beyond the scope of the report.

One obvious target for such an expanded inquiry would have been the records of the White House Iraq Group (WHIG), a group set up in August 2002 by then-White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr.

The group met weekly in the Situation Room. Among the regular participants (many have since left or changed jobs) were Karl Rove, the president's senior political adviser; communications strategists Karen Hughes, Mary Matalin and James R. Wilkinson; legislative liaison Nicholas E. Calio; and policy aides led by national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and her deputy, Stephen J. Hadley, as well as I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's chief of staff.

As former White House press secretary Scott McClellan wrote in his recently released book, "What Happened," the Iraq Group "had been set up in the summer of 2002 to coordinate the marketing of the war to the public."

"The script had been finalized with great care over the summer," McClellan wrote, for a "campaign to convince Americans that war with Iraq was inevitable and necessary."

Two days later, WHIG's product placement was on display. It began with a front-page story in the Times describing Iraq's clandestine purchase of aluminum tubes that, the story said, could be used to produce weapons-grade uranium. The story said that information came from "senior administration officials."

The story also spoke of "hardliners" in the Bush administration being "alarmed that American intelligence underestimated the pace and scale of Iraq's nuclear program before Baghdad's defeat in the gulf war." They "argue that Washington dare not wait until analysts have found hard evidence that Mr. Hussein has acquired a nuclear weapon. The first sign of a 'smoking gun,' they argue, may be a mushroom cloud," the Times story said.

That same morning, the message was carried on three network news shows. Cheney appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press" and, referring to the Times story, said that intelligence showed that Hussein "has reconstituted his nuclear program to develop a nuclear weapon." The Iraqi leader was "trying, through his illicit procurement network, to acquire the equipment he needs to be able to enrich uranium to make the bombs," Cheney said.

That same day, on CNN's "Late Edition," Rice said, "There will always be some uncertainty" in determining how close Iraq may be to obtaining a nuclear weapon but, "we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."


"

[lsbets]

Gee, imagine an editorial on the editorial page. Who woulda thunk it?

So Hcap, does the report say what Hiatt says it does? I didn't read the report, but I assume it says what he did, or else that would be a pretty big oops on his part. Does the report say that? Did you read the report? Or do you just stick to reading things you like to hear?

Hcap, download the report and do a search for this phrase:

"Substantiated by intelligence information."

Please let me know how often it occurs and in what context. I know you're curious, you'll check, won't you?

[Tom]

Ala Scarlette O'Hara, hcap has always relied on the opinions of others.

[hcap]

This latest report phase II, was blocked and stalled repeatedly when the repugs controlled the Senate committee. Pat Roberts et al.

So the question is... if Bond, Chambliss, and Hatch believed evidence pointed to the contrary of the majority opinion (as noted in their rebuttal), why didn't they get the report out while they were still the majority and in control?

Press release key points. From Rockefellers' office. Not the opinion of "others" as youse guys bought into at the beginning of the Iraq fiasco

Did Hiatt mention these? Maybe cherry picking runs in the blood of all war supporters?

--Statements and implications by the President and Secretary of State suggesting that Iraq and al-Qa'ida had a partnership, or that Iraq had provided al-Qa'ida with weapons training, were not substantiated by the intelligence.

--Statements by the President and the Vice President indicating that Saddam Hussein was prepared to give weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups for attacks against the United States were contradicted by available intelligence information.

--Statements by President Bush and Vice President Cheney regarding the postwar situation in Iraq, in terms of the political, security, and economic, did not reflect the concerns and uncertainties expressed in the intelligence products.

--Statements by the President and Vice President prior to the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate regarding Iraq's chemical weapons production capability and activities did not reflect the intelligence community's uncertainties as to whether such production was ongoing.

--The Secretary of Defense's statement that the Iraqi government operated underground WMD facilities that were not vulnerable to conventional airstrikes because they were underground and deeply buried was not substantiated by available intelligence information.

--The Intelligence Community did not confirm that Muhammad Atta met an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in 2001 as the Vice President repeatedly claimed.

[hcap]

There's Fred Hiatt and the NY Times.....

"The report on the prewar statements found that on some important issues, most notably on what was believed to be Iraq's nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs, the public statements from Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney and other senior officials were generally 'substantiated' by the best estimates at the time from American intelligence agencies. But it found that the administration officials' statements usually did not reflect the intelligence agencies' uncertainties about the evidence or the disputes among them."

"The report shows that there was no intelligence to support the two most frightening claims Mr. Bush and his vice president used to sell the war: that Iraq was actively developing nuclear weapons and had longstanding ties to terrorist groups. It seems clear that the president and his team knew that that was not true, or should have known it—if they had not ignored dissenting views and telegraphed what answers they were looking for.... The report documents how time and again Mr. Bush and his team took vague and dubious intelligence reports on Iraq's weapons program and made them sound like hard and incontrovertible fact."

"According to the Senate report, there was no evidence that Mr. Hussein intended to use weapons of mass destruction against anyone, and the intelligence community never said there was." This fact need not be attributed to the recent Phase II report. The 2002 NIE key judgments on Iraqi WMD have long been declassified, and it makes it perfectly clear that it was well recognized that it was unlikely Saddam would use WMD against the US unless in response to being attacked

[Tom]

See what I mean? :D:D:D

[hcap]

See what I mean? :D:D:DYour a real riot Alice. Ls brought up the editorializing of Fred Hiatt. (HINT OPINION) I quote the chairman of the committee. And counter as well with a NYTimes editorial.

Press release key points. From Rockefellers' office. Not the opinion of "others" as youse guys bought into at the beginning of the Iraq fiasco

[hcap]

Gee Tom, you hardly quote or link. Almost 100% of your 27,473 (so far :jump: ) posts are pure opinion. What makes you think your verbose opinions are in fact anything but? :cool:

Later.

[hcap]

More from the Press Release of The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence chairman John Rockefeller. Maybe you gentlemen can spin this into what a brave preznit did to save the free world from commies and pinkos?
Calling Fred Hiatt!!!!!

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/007493.html

"The Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, John D. (Jay) Rockefeller IV, and a bipartisan majority of the Committee (10-5), today unveiled the final two sections of its Phase II report on prewar intelligence. The first report details Administration prewar statements that, on numerous occasions, misrepresented the intelligence and the threat from Iraq. The second report details inappropriate, sensitive intelligence activities conducted by the DoD’s Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, without the knowledge of the Intelligence Community or the State Department.

“Before taking the country to war, this Administration owed it to the American people to give them a 100 percent accurate picture of the threat we faced. Unfortunately, our Committee has concluded that the Administration made significant claims that were not supported by the intelligence,” Rockefeller said. “In making the case for war, the Administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when in reality it was unsubstantiated, contradicted, or even non-existent. As a result, the American people were led to believe that the threat from Iraq was much greater than actually existed.”

“It is my belief that the Bush Administration was fixated on Iraq, and used the 9/11 attacks by al Qa’ida as justification for overthrowing Saddam Hussein. To accomplish this, top Administration officials made repeated statements that falsely linked Iraq and al Qa’ida as a single threat and insinuated that Iraq played a role in 9/11. Sadly, the Bush Administration led the nation into war under false pretenses.

“There is no question we all relied on flawed intelligence. But, there is a fundamental difference between relying on incorrect intelligence and deliberately painting a picture to the American people that you know is not fully accurate.

“These reports represent the final chapter in our oversight of prewar intelligence. They complete the story of mistakes and failures – both by the Intelligence Community and the Administration – in the lead up to the war. Fundamentally, these reports are about transparency and holding our government accountable, and making sure these mistakes never happen again,” Rockefeller added.


......Additionally, the Committee issued a report on the Intelligence Activities Relating to Iraq conducted by the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group and the Office of Special Plans within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. The report found that the clandestine meetings between Pentagon officials and Iranians in Rome and Paris were inappropriate and mishandled from beginning to end. Deputy National Security Advisor Steve Hadley and Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz failed to keep the Intelligence Community and the State Department appropriately informed about the meetings. The involvement of Manucher Ghobanifer and Michael Ledeen in the meetings was inappropriate. Potentially important information collected during the meetings was withheld from intelligence agencies by Pentagon officials. Finally, senior Defense Department officials cut short internal investigations of the meetings and failed to implement the recommendations of their own counterintelligence experts."

[lsbets]

Hcap - you still have not answered my question to you in the earlier post:

Does the report or does it not say the things Hiatt quoted? You said Hiatt is wrong in the post before that, should I take that to mean that the report does not say what Hiatt quoted from it? Can (or will) you answer the question about whether Hiatt's quotes from the report are accurate? You're trying to distract instead of answering a direct question. That tells me you're not serious about wanting to know the truth, you're more interested in feeding your Bushhate.

[hcap]

Does the phrase "cherry picking" ring a bell?
I quote from the CONCLUSIONS of the report issued by Rockefellers' office, other reporters and other editorials and you ask me to download 2 pdfs to verify lone disenter Fred Hiatt. I have no doubt Hiatt did his damnedest to take us down a journey thru' spin avenue, but the fact remains the conclusion of the phase II report is the sentiment of the report.

Why don't you download the 2 pdfs and do a scholarly analysis? If you cherry pick you too can write editorials for the Wash Post. Meanwhile I'll accept the press release from the Chairmans office stating exactly the conclusions-which is what every other reporter OTHER than Hiatt has shown in their analysis.

Face it, bush lied and youse guys bought it, and for some reason tragically still believe those misbegotten war justifications. Oh well, being among the dwindling number of die hard 25 percenter bushite war lovers must be lonely.

[hcap]

I made this point earlier. So the question is... if Bond, Chambliss, and Hatch believed evidence pointed to the contrary of the majority opinion (as noted in their rebuttal), why didn't they get the report out while they were still the majority and in control?Phase I was issued by the republican controlled committee and congress. There were disenters among the dems as to be expected. Phase I dealt with failures of the intel. OK, granted there were.
But Phase II was designed to determine if the intel was misused or used properly by the administration. Phase II was repeatedly stalled and blocked by the repugs under chairman Pat Roberts. Why, if in fact the overall evidence supports the case made by Fred Hiatt and you?

Why obfuscate the truth?

[Tom]

Yeah, hcap. Now you're getting it. My opinions. That is what people do when they interact on forums. Any FOOL can sit and post polls and links to other articles all day long. People that are shallow and boring and not worth reading. Like You. Just because you find a link doesn't mean it is true. You think anything you find that agrees with your opinion is the iron clad truth. All too often, it smell like perch. And jsut as many links that contradict yours show up, so give me people's opinion any day. You should ask DNC for one.

You are nothing more than a biased Google, hcap.

Try acting like a human and maybe people will stop laughing at you and ignoring you. As it is, your contributiuon here is about zip. A grumpy, frustrated internet troll looking to get attention and insult people.

I'd rather listen to to the opinion of a fool than read links from a genius.

[lsbets]

You talk about cherry picking? Holy crap - that's all you do. You won't even acknowledge facts that go contrary to your opinions. Cite everything you want, that doesn't change the facts contained within Hiatt's editorial (the quotes from the report). As usual you resort to distraction and insults because you cannot handle anything contrary to your programming. Most people are smart enough to realize that the truth is not black and white and has a lot of shades of gray vis a vis what happened with the intel. Once again you have proven yourself to be incapable of objective analysis. And you still failed to answer my question. I guess the answer is too inconvenient for you.

[hcap]

I am not insulting anyone. Both of you have got your panties bunched too tightly.

Tom you are welcome to any unsubstantiated ( oops there's that word again ) opinions you chose, but telling me I am a troll or ignored or laughed at, or not acting human is really ducking the issue at hand. The latest conclusions by the Phase II Senate committee. Yes people have opinions but most try to have educated opinions.

BTW, I think people are laughing at you


LS, you accuse me of disregarding Hiatts' snippets of so-called factual statements from the report, yet you disregard the conclusions. To see if in fact he took things out of context or LEFT OUT contradictory statements would require us to read the actual reports. Have you? Why not accept other accounts from many other reporters who have already done just that?

And why not accept the stated conclusions? What exactly is your agenda, as if I didn't know

[lsbets]

You can always tell when Hcap is getting flustered - he uses the bold button. Next will be a cartoon. :lol: :lol:

To see if in fact he took things out of context or LEFT OUT contradictory statements would require us to read the actual reports.

I think you should, if you really care about the issue. If not let others think for you as you have been.

Why not accept other accounts from many other reporters who have already done just that?

Because I have met and interacted with many reporters in my life and 95% of them are idiots with little or no understanding of the subject matter they speak of.


And why not accept the stated conclusions?

Let's see, its an election year, Rockefeller has a history which should have had him removed from any committee having anything to do with intel, sorry, I just can't accept what he has to say at face value. He's as unreliable as Jason Leopold and Larry Johnson.


What exactly is your agenda, as if I didn't know

No agenda, I found the editorial to be a good read because of what has been left out of most of the reporting regarding the matter and I happen to agree with his conclusion - there is enough stuff to be fixed and figured out without making something up for partisan reasons.

You call the quotes from the report "so called factual snippets". Does that mean they are not in the report as quoted? Are you ever going to answer that question?

[Tom]

Here's a newsflash, hcap.....I couldn't care LESS about what you post, think, believe, or spin. You are a nothing. You have the same status a little kid whinining and crying all the time. All you do is look for things to support Bush=Bad and frankly, your song is old at and boring. Whatever happened, whoever lied, we are there, and should be looking forward. All you do is look backwards and try to blame people. You are insignificant. Funny, you say my opnonis are half baked, yet about all you do here is post un-traceable opinions by unkown people that agree with your delusions. Strange, none of those opines get questioned. And as soon as liars and crooks, as you called them, change thier tunes, they suddenly have credibility with you. Hmmmmm.:confused:


Begone, troll.:lol:

[delayjf]

The latest conclusions by the Phase II Senate committee
Hcap, what you fail to address is that the conclusions are political. How do you reconcile "were generally substantiated by intelligence community estimates." with Bush lied??

[hcap]

You all are in denial. There has been a regular and constant stream of facts, from independent sources, bush insiders and the congress disclosing the royal cluster**** that is the bush war and administration.

And Tom you summed it up nicely
BUSH=BAD

Ls yeah I will post a cartoon when I find one that captures the idiocy. Meanwhile bolding will have to do

So if I don't deny that snippets in the report say "were generally substantiated by intelligence community estimates", and stipulate to the same, will you gentlemen admit to and stipulate to the conclusions reached by the committee?



--Statements and implications by the President and Secretary of State suggesting that Iraq and al-Qa'ida had a partnership, or that Iraq had provided al-Qa'ida with weapons training, were not substantiated by the intelligence.

--Statements by the President and the Vice President indicating that Saddam Hussein was prepared to give weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups for attacks against the United States were contradicted by available intelligence information.

--Statements by President Bush and Vice President Cheney regarding the postwar situation in Iraq, in terms of the political, security, and economic, did not reflect the concerns and uncertainties expressed in the intelligence products.

--Statements by the President and Vice President prior to the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate regarding Iraq's chemical weapons production capability and activities did not reflect the intelligence community's uncertainties as to whether such production was ongoing.

--The Secretary of Defense's statement that the Iraqi government operated underground WMD facilities that were not vulnerable to conventional airstrikes because they were underground and deeply buried was not substantiated by available intelligence information.

--The Intelligence Community did not confirm that Muhammad Atta met an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in 2001 as the Vice President repeatedly claimed.

[delayjf]

Hcap,

Deal, the intell was not perfect, but after 9/11 (not to mention other terrorists attacks) President Bush made a call. You disagree and that's fine.

[hcap]

You always can dig up dickhead cheneys Meet The Press interviews for supporting the Praque-Atta meetting.

Yeah now there's the final proof BUSH=GOOD

[hcap]

Hcap,

Deal, the intell was not perfect, but after 9/11 (not to mention other terrorists attacks) President Bush made a call. You disagree and that's fine.

Hey maybe if we let the UN inspectors finish and demonstrate bushs' case for WMDs it would have made more sense? After all that would have played out the case for whether or not the intel was correct in real time and shown bush to be a real leader guided by facts and not ideology.

[lsbets]

Hcap - here is a relevant quote regarding more time and evidence, do you know who said this:

There has been some debate over how 'imminent' a threat Iraq poses. I do believe Iraq poses an imminent threat. I also believe after September 11, that question is increasingly outdated. . . . To insist on further evidence could put some of our fellow Americans at risk. Can we afford to take that chance? I do not think we can.

Was this statement generally substantiated by the available intelligence?

[hcap]

Rockefeller may be spineless most of the time-he did vote for the war but maybe he has rehabilitated himself. Or maybe he was mislead as many others were.

This is one of the conclusions of the committee....

--Statements by the President and Vice President prior to the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate regarding Iraq's chemical weapons production capability and activities did not reflect the intelligence community's uncertainties as to whether such production was ongoing.


So if the intel was manipulated by the bushies and presented to the congress and the American people spun by exaggeration, Rockefeller and others were mislead when he made that statement back in 2002. At least the many who voted for the authorization of the war had the sense to demand bush get the UN inspectors back in.



Bob Graham, one of the Senators who voted against the war said this....

"The president’s attacks are outrageous. Yes, more than 100 Democrats voted to authorize him to take the nation to war. Most of them, though, like their Republican colleagues, did so in the legitimate belief that the president and his administration were truthful in their statements that Saddam Hussein was a gathering menace — that if Hussein was not disarmed, the smoking gun would become a mushroom cloud.

The president has undermined trust. No longer will the members of Congress be entitled to accept his veracity. Caveat emptor has become the word. Every member of Congress is on his or her own to determine the truth.

As chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence during the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001, and the run-up to the Iraq war, I probably had as much access to the intelligence on which the war was predicated as any other member of Congress.

I, too, presumed the president was being truthful — until a series of events undercut that confidence.

In February 2002, after a briefing on the status of the war in Afghanistan, the commanding officer, Gen. Tommy Franks, told me the war was being compromised as specialized personnel and equipment were being shifted from Afghanistan to prepare for the war in Iraq — a war more than a year away. Even at this early date, the White House was signaling that the threat posed by Saddam Hussein was of such urgency that it had priority over the crushing of al Qaeda.

In the early fall of 2002, a joint House-Senate intelligence inquiry committee, which I co-chaired, was in the final stages of its investigation of what happened before Sept. 11. As the unclassified final report of the inquiry documented, several failures of intelligence contributed to the tragedy. But as of October 2002, 13 months later, the administration was resisting initiating any substantial action to understand, much less fix, those problems.

At a meeting of the Senate intelligence committee on Sept. 5, 2002, CIA Director George Tenet was asked what the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) provided as the rationale for a preemptive war in Iraq. An NIE is the product of the entire intelligence community, and its most comprehensive assessment. I was stunned when Tenet said that no NIE had been requested by the White House and none had been prepared. Invoking our rarely used senatorial authority, I directed the completion of an NIE.

[hcap]

All you do is look for things to support Bush=Bad and frankly, your song is old at and boring. Whatever happened, whoever lied, we are there, and should be looking forward. All you do is look backwards and try to blame people.Looking forward eh? Remember the George Santayana Quote: Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.I seem to remember the first King George, the one we fought a war against back around 1776.

.................................................. .....................................

From The Times
June 11, 2008
President Bush regrets his legacy as man who wanted war

....President Bush has admitted to The Times that his gun-slinging rhetoric made the world believe that he was a “guy really anxious for war” in Iraq. He said that his aim now was to leave his successor a legacy of international diplomacy for tackling Iran.

.................................................. .............................

February 7 (broadcast on 8th), 2004, hour-long Oval Office interview with Tim Russert............."I'm a war president. I make decisions here in the Oval Office in foreign-policy matters with war on my mind.

.................................................. ..................................

What have we learned oh great looking-forward one, the same looking forward
historically challenged arm chair general that just attempted lame comparisons between WWII and the MESSUP-UTANIA WAR? :D

[hcap]

Calling Fred (never met a war I didn't like ) Hiatt.......

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/06/sen_wyden_rumsfeld_should_be_h.php


"Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), a member of the authoring Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, called today for a review of whether then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's testimony to Congress was true, given the information in the report.

Specifically cited are quotes from Rumsfeld's testimony to the House Armed Services Committee on September 18 and 19, 2002:

They now have massive tunneling systems... They've got all kinds of thing that have happened in the period when the inspectors have been out. So the problem is greater today. And the regime that exists today in the U.N. is one that has far fewer teeth than the one you are describing.
-- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Testimony before the House Armed Services Committiee, September 18, 2002

Even the most intrusive inspection regime would have difficulty getting at all of [Saddam Hussein's] weapons of mass destruction. Many of his WMD capabilities are mobile; they can be hidden from inspectors no matter how intrusive. He has vast underground networks and facilities and sophisticated denial and deception techniques
-- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Testimony before the House Armed Services Committiee, September 18, 2002

[W]e simply do not know where all or even a large portion of Iraq's WMD facilities are. We do know where a fraction of them are. . .[O]f the facilities we do know, not all are vulnerable to attack from the air. A good many are underground and deeply buried. . .
-- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Testimony before the House Armed Services Committiee, September 19, 2002.

On page 50 the report states it's conclusion after investigating these statements from Rumsfeld:

The Secretary of Defense's statement that the Iraqi government operated underground WMD facilities that were not vulnerable to conventional airstrikes because they were underground and deeply buried was not substantiated by available intelligence information. [Emphasis ours.]

Wyden had a thing or two to say about Rumfeld's "not substantiated" testimony:

This is stunning: the Secretary of Defense, testifying before Congress about whether or not ground forces would be strategically necessary in a war against Iraq, said that the Executive Branch "knew" something that it did not know.

The intelligence available at the time made this clear, and two months later a report prepared specifically for Secretary Rumsfeld directly contradicted what he told the Committee. As far as I know, neither Rumsfeld nor anyone else from his office made any attempt to contact the Committee and correct the public record, and the result was that Congress and the American people were misled on a question of the utmost importance. I do not think that this is a matter that Congress can afford to ignore and I hope that the Armed Services Committee will take a serious look at Secretary Rumsfeld's statements.

[hcap]

"The gap between September, 2002 and May 2003 is the crucial time period for what the administration knew and when it knew it. The weapons inspectors re-entered Iraq in January 2003 and found nothing. No US information was confirmed."

The false understanding about WMD may have been plausible in September 02; by May 03 it wasn't.

Hans Blix checked out the CIA's intelligence, conducted no-notice inspections of these sites in Iraq, and found nothing. bush, instead of saying "Gee, I could wait a bit longer before declaring unilateral war" flexed his fist literally on national TV and said some shit about "Feels good" and launched the war that night.

Salon article entitled "What George Tenet Really Knew About Iraq":

Between late November and mid-March 2003, Blix reports, the U.N. inspectors made 700 separate visits to 500 sites. About three dozen of those sites had been suggested by intelligence services, many by Tenet's CIA, which insisted that these were "the best" in the agency's database. Blix was shocked. "If this was the best, what was the rest?" he asked himself. "Could there be 100 percent certainty about the existence of weapons of mass destruction but zero-percent knowledge about their location?"


Also the UN inspectors checked everything in Powell's speech and got nothing.

Tom Ricks: Interviewed the US Officer in charge of finding Saddam's weapons in his book Fiasco. Before the war, the officer had to prepare his team so he went to the DIA and the CIA and got the list of suspected WMD sites. It was something like 928 sites. He realized there was no way to get to them all quickly and he didn't want loose WMD floating around, so he asked the intelligence guys to prioritize the list. There wasn't a single site on the list that they gave more than 50% chance of there being WMD. The officer decided to look at the actual intelligence that got a site put on the list and it was all weak. He described his heart as sinking at that moment, realizing that the reason for going to war was a mirage.

[lsbets]

So Hcap - answer my question. Are you saying that the quotes from the report Hiatt used are not actually in the report? Yes or no. You can't seem to answer that question.

[hcap]

So Hcap - answer my question. Are you saying that the quotes from the report Hiatt used are not actually in the report? Yes or no. You can't seem to answer that question.I did answer it. You obviously are not paying attentionSo if I don't deny that snippets in the report say "were generally substantiated by intelligence community estimates", and stipulate to the same, will you gentlemen admit to and stipulate to the conclusions reached by the committeeNow answer mine. Will you admit to the conclusions?

[hcap]

I also answered your "gotcha" question about Rockefeller.
Now, can you answer why bush did not wait until the UN inspectors finished?
They were not finding anything of consequence.
No Collin Powell stockpiles. No nukes. No bogeymen.

Why did George W Churchill flex his fist on national TV the night he pulled the switch and say off camera "I feel good"? Too bad he did not have that attitude while serving in the Guard during 'Nam