U.S., Iraq Scale Down Negotiations Over Forces
Long-Term Agreement Will Fall to Next President
By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 13, 2008; Page A01
U.S. and Iraqi negotiators have abandoned efforts to conclude a comprehensive agreement governing the long-term status of U.S troops in Iraq before the end of the Bush presidency, according to senior U.S. officials, effectively leaving talks over an extended U.S. military presence there to the next administration.
In place of the formal status-of-forces agreement negotiators had hoped to complete by July 31, the two governments are now working on a "bridge" document, more limited in both time and scope, that would allow basic U.S. military operations to continue beyond the expiration of a U.N. mandate at the end of the year.
The failure of months of negotiations over the more detailed accord -- blamed on both the Iraqi refusal to accept U.S. terms (100 years of occupation) and the complexity of the task -- deals a blow to the Bush administration's plans to leave in place a formal military architecture in Iraq that could last for years.
Although President Bush has repeatedly rejected calls for a troop withdrawal timeline, "we ARE talking about dates," acknowledged one U.S. official close to the negotiations. Iraqi political leaders "are all telling us the same thing. They need something like this in there. . . . Iraqis want to know that foreign troops are not going to be here forever."
(sounds like they aren't really OK with McCain's 100 year plan...)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/12/AR2008071201915.html?wpisrc=newsletter
Showing posts with label Bush Lied. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bush Lied. Show all posts
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Friday, June 6, 2008
Bush Lied and Cheney told him to do it.
From CBS News,
June 6, 2008
Two reports issued by the Senate Intelligence Committee Thursday leveled harsh criticism at both the White House and Pentagon for their handling of intelligence concerning Iraq and Iran. One report examined statements by top Bush administration officials between October 2002 and March 2003, when the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq began, about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's regime. These officials, from President Bush on down, deliberately misled the American public about Saddam's relationship with al Qaeda and "led the nation to war on false premises," according to Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va.
According to the report, officials erroneously linked Saddam to the Sept. 11 attacks and al Qaeda; claimed Iraq would give terrorist groups chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, and said Iraq was developing drones to spread chemical or biological agents over the United States. None was borne out by intelligence. "These reports are about holding the government accountable and making sure these mistakes never happen again," Rockefeller said Thursday. Bush's press secretary, Dana Perino, said the problem was flawed intelligence heading into the war. "We had the intelligence that we had, fully vetted, but it was wrong. And we certainly regret that," she said.
According to Rockefeller, the problem was that the Bush administration concealed information that would have undermined the case for war. "We might have avoided this catastrophe," he said. However, the report found that intelligence substantiated 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. Two Republicans, Sens. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Olympia Snowe of Maine, endorsed the report. The committee's five other Republicans, however, assailed it as a partisan exercise. They accused Democrats of covering for their own members, including Rockefeller and Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., who made similar statements about Iraq based on the same intelligence the Bush administration used.
A report released earlier Thursday concluded that Pentagon officials concealed from U.S. intelligence agencies potentially useful tips from Iranian agents in 2001 and 2002, including one that Tehran allegedly sent hit teams to Afghanistan to kill Americans. The Iranians also told two Pentagon employees at a December 2001 meeting in Rome of a purported tunnel complex used to store weapons and covertly move personnel out of Iran after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the U.S., according to the Senate Intelligence Committee. In addition, the Iranians told of a long-standing relationship with the Palestine Liberation Organization and the growth of anti-government sentiment inside Iran. The information was questionable, the report suggests, citing the sources: a discredited former arms dealer who was peddling a plan to overthrow the Iranian government and a former U.S. official whose leads had failed to yield any substance for the CIA.
Nonetheless, the report sheds new light on the mistrust and lack of cooperation by Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld with the CIA and the State Department after 9/11. Committee Republicans, in a dissent, said the report had nothing to do with the original scope of the review prewar intelligence on Iraq. They said it would be a "disappointment" to people looking for evidence of Pentagon wrongdoing. The Iran-related report focuses on the series of meetings in Rome held over three days in December 2001. The U.S. was fighting in Afghanistan and working on initial planning for the Iraq war. Then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley authorized the meetings. Two Pentagon employees, one of whom worked for then-Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Doug Feith, went to Rome to meet with two Iranians - one a current member of the security service, the second a former member. Manucher Ghorbanifar, an Iranian middleman already dismissed by the CIA as untrustworthy, also attended, as did a representative from an unspecified foreign government's intelligence service.
Michael Ledeen, a former Pentagon official and an analyst with the conservative American Enterprise Institute, arranged the meeting and attended. In one meeting, Ghorbanifar pressed for a change of government in Iran and, on a napkin, outlined a plan to do that, saying he would need $5 million to set it in motion, according to the report. The report said Hadley failed to fully inform then-CIA Director George Tenet and then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage about the meeting. But Hadley and the Pentagon were within their rights to conduct the meeting, the report said. White House spokesman Tony Fratto said Hadley notified all parties concerned appropriately. But the report said Defense Department officials refused to allow "potentially useful and actionable intelligence" to be shared with intelligence agencies, even in the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz briefed the head of the DIA on the Iranian intelligence but would not let him discuss it, the report said. Ledeen said Thursday that the meetings were not kept secret from U.S. intelligence, and said he had briefed the U.S. ambassador to Italy twice about them. "Any time the CIA wanted to find out what was going on all they had to do was ask," he said. One of the two Pentagon representatives, Larry Franklin, now faces jail time after pleading guilty to espionage-related charges unrelated to the Rome meeting. Franklin told the committee he believed the intelligence gathered at the meetings "saved American lives." He passed word of the alleged hit teams to a special operations forces commander in Afghanistan.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/06/05/national/main4158427.shtml
June 6, 2008
Two reports issued by the Senate Intelligence Committee Thursday leveled harsh criticism at both the White House and Pentagon for their handling of intelligence concerning Iraq and Iran. One report examined statements by top Bush administration officials between October 2002 and March 2003, when the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq began, about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's regime. These officials, from President Bush on down, deliberately misled the American public about Saddam's relationship with al Qaeda and "led the nation to war on false premises," according to Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va.
According to the report, officials erroneously linked Saddam to the Sept. 11 attacks and al Qaeda; claimed Iraq would give terrorist groups chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, and said Iraq was developing drones to spread chemical or biological agents over the United States. None was borne out by intelligence. "These reports are about holding the government accountable and making sure these mistakes never happen again," Rockefeller said Thursday. Bush's press secretary, Dana Perino, said the problem was flawed intelligence heading into the war. "We had the intelligence that we had, fully vetted, but it was wrong. And we certainly regret that," she said.
According to Rockefeller, the problem was that the Bush administration concealed information that would have undermined the case for war. "We might have avoided this catastrophe," he said. However, the report found that intelligence substantiated 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. Two Republicans, Sens. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Olympia Snowe of Maine, endorsed the report. The committee's five other Republicans, however, assailed it as a partisan exercise. They accused Democrats of covering for their own members, including Rockefeller and Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., who made similar statements about Iraq based on the same intelligence the Bush administration used.
A report released earlier Thursday concluded that Pentagon officials concealed from U.S. intelligence agencies potentially useful tips from Iranian agents in 2001 and 2002, including one that Tehran allegedly sent hit teams to Afghanistan to kill Americans. The Iranians also told two Pentagon employees at a December 2001 meeting in Rome of a purported tunnel complex used to store weapons and covertly move personnel out of Iran after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the U.S., according to the Senate Intelligence Committee. In addition, the Iranians told of a long-standing relationship with the Palestine Liberation Organization and the growth of anti-government sentiment inside Iran. The information was questionable, the report suggests, citing the sources: a discredited former arms dealer who was peddling a plan to overthrow the Iranian government and a former U.S. official whose leads had failed to yield any substance for the CIA.
Nonetheless, the report sheds new light on the mistrust and lack of cooperation by Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld with the CIA and the State Department after 9/11. Committee Republicans, in a dissent, said the report had nothing to do with the original scope of the review prewar intelligence on Iraq. They said it would be a "disappointment" to people looking for evidence of Pentagon wrongdoing. The Iran-related report focuses on the series of meetings in Rome held over three days in December 2001. The U.S. was fighting in Afghanistan and working on initial planning for the Iraq war. Then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley authorized the meetings. Two Pentagon employees, one of whom worked for then-Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Doug Feith, went to Rome to meet with two Iranians - one a current member of the security service, the second a former member. Manucher Ghorbanifar, an Iranian middleman already dismissed by the CIA as untrustworthy, also attended, as did a representative from an unspecified foreign government's intelligence service.
Michael Ledeen, a former Pentagon official and an analyst with the conservative American Enterprise Institute, arranged the meeting and attended. In one meeting, Ghorbanifar pressed for a change of government in Iran and, on a napkin, outlined a plan to do that, saying he would need $5 million to set it in motion, according to the report. The report said Hadley failed to fully inform then-CIA Director George Tenet and then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage about the meeting. But Hadley and the Pentagon were within their rights to conduct the meeting, the report said. White House spokesman Tony Fratto said Hadley notified all parties concerned appropriately. But the report said Defense Department officials refused to allow "potentially useful and actionable intelligence" to be shared with intelligence agencies, even in the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz briefed the head of the DIA on the Iranian intelligence but would not let him discuss it, the report said. Ledeen said Thursday that the meetings were not kept secret from U.S. intelligence, and said he had briefed the U.S. ambassador to Italy twice about them. "Any time the CIA wanted to find out what was going on all they had to do was ask," he said. One of the two Pentagon representatives, Larry Franklin, now faces jail time after pleading guilty to espionage-related charges unrelated to the Rome meeting. Franklin told the committee he believed the intelligence gathered at the meetings "saved American lives." He passed word of the alleged hit teams to a special operations forces commander in Afghanistan.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/06/05/national/main4158427.shtml
Friday, May 23, 2008
HJC issues subpoena for Rove to testify about Siegelman
By Carrie Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 23, 2008; Page A03
The House Judiciary Committee subpoenaed former presidential adviser Karl Rove yesterday to testify about his alleged meddling in Justice Department operations, escalating a long fight over lawmakers' authority to question Bush administration aides.
Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) wants to ask Rove about alleged politicization of the Justice Department, including the firings of U.S. attorneys and any role Rove may have played in the prosecution of former Alabama governor Don Siegelman. Siegelman, a Democrat, was convicted on fraud charges but was released from prison in March pending the results of his appeal.
In recent weeks, Siegelman has intensified his accusations that the Bush administration targeted him for political reasons.
Separately, Conyers disclosed yesterday that the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility has opened an investigation of possible selective prosecution of Siegelman and at least three others, at the request of the House Judiciary panel.
Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey has vigorously rejected allegations of political motivation by department lawyers.
Rove's lawyer, Robert D. Luskin, accused House Democrats of "provoking a gratuitous confrontation" and of refusing reasonable offers in which Rove would have provided written answers to questions. (since when did the defendant get to name the terms of his own testimony?)
"The decision about when, where and what a former assistant to the President (remember when Karl Rove was a walking Hatch Act violation?) may testify about raise issues of Executive Privilege and separation of powers (I think the term he's grasping for is "lawlessness") that Mr. Rove does not control," Luskin wrote in a letter dated May 21 that was released yesterday.
"It is unfortunate that Mr. Rove has failed to cooperate with our requests," Conyers said in his own statement. "Although he does not seem the least bit hesitant to discuss these very issues weekly on cable television and in the print news media, Mr. Rove and his attorney have apparently concluded that a public hearing room would not be appropriate."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/22/AR2008052203563.html
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 23, 2008; Page A03
The House Judiciary Committee subpoenaed former presidential adviser Karl Rove yesterday to testify about his alleged meddling in Justice Department operations, escalating a long fight over lawmakers' authority to question Bush administration aides.
Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) wants to ask Rove about alleged politicization of the Justice Department, including the firings of U.S. attorneys and any role Rove may have played in the prosecution of former Alabama governor Don Siegelman. Siegelman, a Democrat, was convicted on fraud charges but was released from prison in March pending the results of his appeal.
In recent weeks, Siegelman has intensified his accusations that the Bush administration targeted him for political reasons.
Separately, Conyers disclosed yesterday that the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility has opened an investigation of possible selective prosecution of Siegelman and at least three others, at the request of the House Judiciary panel.
Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey has vigorously rejected allegations of political motivation by department lawyers.
Rove's lawyer, Robert D. Luskin, accused House Democrats of "provoking a gratuitous confrontation" and of refusing reasonable offers in which Rove would have provided written answers to questions. (since when did the defendant get to name the terms of his own testimony?)
"The decision about when, where and what a former assistant to the President (remember when Karl Rove was a walking Hatch Act violation?) may testify about raise issues of Executive Privilege and separation of powers (I think the term he's grasping for is "lawlessness") that Mr. Rove does not control," Luskin wrote in a letter dated May 21 that was released yesterday.
"It is unfortunate that Mr. Rove has failed to cooperate with our requests," Conyers said in his own statement. "Although he does not seem the least bit hesitant to discuss these very issues weekly on cable television and in the print news media, Mr. Rove and his attorney have apparently concluded that a public hearing room would not be appropriate."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/22/AR2008052203563.html
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Bush lies and people die...
Sunni Arab extremists have begun a systematic campaign to assassinate police chiefs, police officers, other Interior Ministry officials and tribal leaders throughout Iraq, staging at least 10 attacks in 48 hours. Eight policemen have been killed, among them the police chief of Baquba, the largest city in Diyala Province. Two other police chiefs survived attacks, though one was left in critical condition, and about 30 police officers were wounded, according to reports from local security officers.
“We warned the government just a few days ago that there is a new plan by terrorist groups to target senior governmental officials, and particularly Interior Ministry officials,” said Maj. Gen. Hussein Kamal, the deputy interior minister for information and national investigations. The Interior Ministry is dominated by Shiites.
One group, the Islamic State of Iraq, took responsibility on Tuesday for the attack in Diyala, which killed at least 18 people on Monday. The group has ties to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a homegrown extremist group whose leadership has foreign ties, according to American intelligence officials.
The latest outbreak of violence closely follows the concerted efforts of President Bush and Gen. David H. Petraeus to portray the American troop “surge” as having succeeded in bringing more stability to Iraq. Iraqi officials said Tuesday that the attacks might well have been intended to blunt that message.
“The main reason behind all these attacks are the signs of improvement of the security situation mentioned in the Crocker-Petraeus report,” said Tahseen al-Sheikhly, the Iraqi spokesman for the security plan, in a reference to the recent Congressional testimony of General Petraeus and the American ambassador to Iraq, Ryan C. Crocker. “The terrorist groups are just trying to say to the world that the report did not reflect the reality of the security situation in Iraq.” (Bush lied, people died... Are we seeing a pattern here?)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/26/world/middleeast/26iraq.html
“We warned the government just a few days ago that there is a new plan by terrorist groups to target senior governmental officials, and particularly Interior Ministry officials,” said Maj. Gen. Hussein Kamal, the deputy interior minister for information and national investigations. The Interior Ministry is dominated by Shiites.
One group, the Islamic State of Iraq, took responsibility on Tuesday for the attack in Diyala, which killed at least 18 people on Monday. The group has ties to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a homegrown extremist group whose leadership has foreign ties, according to American intelligence officials.
The latest outbreak of violence closely follows the concerted efforts of President Bush and Gen. David H. Petraeus to portray the American troop “surge” as having succeeded in bringing more stability to Iraq. Iraqi officials said Tuesday that the attacks might well have been intended to blunt that message.
“The main reason behind all these attacks are the signs of improvement of the security situation mentioned in the Crocker-Petraeus report,” said Tahseen al-Sheikhly, the Iraqi spokesman for the security plan, in a reference to the recent Congressional testimony of General Petraeus and the American ambassador to Iraq, Ryan C. Crocker. “The terrorist groups are just trying to say to the world that the report did not reflect the reality of the security situation in Iraq.” (Bush lied, people died... Are we seeing a pattern here?)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/26/world/middleeast/26iraq.html
Friday, September 14, 2007
The half truth, and nothing but the half truth, so help me Cheney!
from a Washington Post Editorial:
PRESIDENT BUSH'S explanation of his latest plans for Iraq last night was marred by a couple of important omissions. First, the president failed to acknowledge that, according to the standards he himself established in January, the surge of U.S. troops into Iraq has been a failure -- because Iraqi political leaders did not reach the political accords that the sacrifice of American lives was supposed to make possible. Instead he focused on the real but reversible military gains achieved in and around Baghdad and on the unexpected decision of Sunni tribes to take up arms against al-Qaeda, a development facilitated but not caused by the surge.
Mr. Bush also failed to mention one of the principal reasons for the drawdown of troops he announced. The president said that the tactical military successes meant that American forces could be reduced in the coming year to pre-surge levels. What he didn't say is that the Pentagon has no choice other than to carry out the withdrawals, unless Mr. Bush resorts to politically explosive steps such as further extending deployments. Another way of describing Mr. Bush's plan is that it leaves every available Army and Marine unit in place in Iraq for as long as possible.
If the war were going worse than it is, the deployment schedule probably couldn't have been much different.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/13/AR2007091302342.html?wpisrc=newsletter
So, what's it really all about?
Why are we still in Iraq?
Here's half of the equation, the other half is still buried underground as fossil fuel.
THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION IS A WEAPONS DEALER OF HISTORIC PROPORTIONS, IT IS THE TRUE LEGACY OF THIS PROFANE ERA, AND HAS BEEN SINCE ITS INCEPTION!
THEY ARE THE CONGRESSIONAL/MILITARY/INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX!
from Gary Kamiya at Salon.com
When it comes to dealing with countries in the Middle East, the Bush administration knows only two approaches. It either tries to blow them up or bribe them. God forbid that Washington should try to find out what the people in the region actually want -- or what might actually work.
Bush tried the blowing-up approach in Iraq. With the results now in, he has returned to the more traditional approach of bribery. After the bizarre neocon aberration of Iraq, with its highfalutin talk of democratization and its ostentatious hand-wringing over Washington's past support for autocratic regimes, Team Bush has returned to the tried-and-true path: propping up dubious allies with vast arms deals and using them as proxies to fight an evil empire. Belatedly, the Bush administration has embraced a Cold War paradigm in the Middle East, with the good guys -- Egypt, the Gulf states and Saudi Arabia -- being paid off to contain the bad guys -- al-Qaida, Iran, Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah.
The Bush administration's proposed $60 million to $70 billion Mideast arms deal takes us back to the cynical realpolitik of traditional great power politics, with puppet-master America jerking around half-willing strongmen with billion-dollar strings. Washington (N0, ITS REALLY CHENEY) is offering to sell $20 billion of high-tech weaponry to Saudi Arabia, and also sell arms to the Gulf States of Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman and the United Arab Emirates. To ensure that Israel maintains its military superiority over its neighbors, the U.S. will increase the already vast amount of annual military aid it gives the Jewish state by 30 percent, offering $30 billion over 10 years. And Egypt will also wet its beak, with a $14 billion 10-year arms deal. (...these 10-year arms deals certainly do suggest that our neocons and theirs expect to be killing their neighbors for a long time to come. Sure gives creedence to Kucinich'c call for a Secretary of Peace...)
http://www.salon.com/opinion/kamiya/2007/08/14/bush_arms_deal/
PRESIDENT BUSH'S explanation of his latest plans for Iraq last night was marred by a couple of important omissions. First, the president failed to acknowledge that, according to the standards he himself established in January, the surge of U.S. troops into Iraq has been a failure -- because Iraqi political leaders did not reach the political accords that the sacrifice of American lives was supposed to make possible. Instead he focused on the real but reversible military gains achieved in and around Baghdad and on the unexpected decision of Sunni tribes to take up arms against al-Qaeda, a development facilitated but not caused by the surge.
Mr. Bush also failed to mention one of the principal reasons for the drawdown of troops he announced. The president said that the tactical military successes meant that American forces could be reduced in the coming year to pre-surge levels. What he didn't say is that the Pentagon has no choice other than to carry out the withdrawals, unless Mr. Bush resorts to politically explosive steps such as further extending deployments. Another way of describing Mr. Bush's plan is that it leaves every available Army and Marine unit in place in Iraq for as long as possible.
If the war were going worse than it is, the deployment schedule probably couldn't have been much different.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/13/AR2007091302342.html?wpisrc=newsletter
So, what's it really all about?
Why are we still in Iraq?
Here's half of the equation, the other half is still buried underground as fossil fuel.
THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION IS A WEAPONS DEALER OF HISTORIC PROPORTIONS, IT IS THE TRUE LEGACY OF THIS PROFANE ERA, AND HAS BEEN SINCE ITS INCEPTION!
THEY ARE THE CONGRESSIONAL/MILITARY/INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX!
from Gary Kamiya at Salon.com
When it comes to dealing with countries in the Middle East, the Bush administration knows only two approaches. It either tries to blow them up or bribe them. God forbid that Washington should try to find out what the people in the region actually want -- or what might actually work.
Bush tried the blowing-up approach in Iraq. With the results now in, he has returned to the more traditional approach of bribery. After the bizarre neocon aberration of Iraq, with its highfalutin talk of democratization and its ostentatious hand-wringing over Washington's past support for autocratic regimes, Team Bush has returned to the tried-and-true path: propping up dubious allies with vast arms deals and using them as proxies to fight an evil empire. Belatedly, the Bush administration has embraced a Cold War paradigm in the Middle East, with the good guys -- Egypt, the Gulf states and Saudi Arabia -- being paid off to contain the bad guys -- al-Qaida, Iran, Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah.
The Bush administration's proposed $60 million to $70 billion Mideast arms deal takes us back to the cynical realpolitik of traditional great power politics, with puppet-master America jerking around half-willing strongmen with billion-dollar strings. Washington (N0, ITS REALLY CHENEY) is offering to sell $20 billion of high-tech weaponry to Saudi Arabia, and also sell arms to the Gulf States of Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman and the United Arab Emirates. To ensure that Israel maintains its military superiority over its neighbors, the U.S. will increase the already vast amount of annual military aid it gives the Jewish state by 30 percent, offering $30 billion over 10 years. And Egypt will also wet its beak, with a $14 billion 10-year arms deal. (...these 10-year arms deals certainly do suggest that our neocons and theirs expect to be killing their neighbors for a long time to come. Sure gives creedence to Kucinich'c call for a Secretary of Peace...)
http://www.salon.com/opinion/kamiya/2007/08/14/bush_arms_deal/
Thursday, September 6, 2007
BUSH KNEW BEFORE THE WAR THAT SADDAM HAD NO WMD!!!
(My personal commentary is in blue type.)
"the information that might have stopped the invasion of Iraq was twisted in order to justify it."
"The intelligence" wasn't bad. But Bush's selective version of it was really just a big fat lie, not just another stupid mistake!!!
THIS IS UNQUESTIONABLY IMPEACHABLE, FOLKS, NO IFS ANDS OR BUTS! ARGUE ALL YOU WANT, YOU CAN'T CHANGE REALITY, BUSH LIED TO ALL OF US IN HIS STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS ABOUT MUSHROOM CLOUDS, HE DIDN'T JUST "GET IT WRONG" BECAUSE OF BAD INTELLIGENCE! THAT WAS THEIR DESIGNATED RUSE FROM DAY ONE, TO CLAIM THE CIA "GOT IT WRONG", WHEN THEY ACTUALLY GOT IT RIGHT, BUT THEIR PROOF WAS IGNORED TO FIT THE PLAN!!!!
BUSH LIED!
...ABOUT SADDAM HUSSEIN'S WMD!
He didn't just "get it wrong!"
And if you read between the lines, (follow the trail of smoking guns that suggests quite graphically that there was a concerted effort to manage the information, not study it) you can see that Bush joined others in a Cheney-driven conspiracy to hide this information from our own active intelligence agents and even from Collin Powell and Congress, and from the public in general, all for one reason alone: To get the unprecedented executive power to start an undeclared "war" on Saddam Hussein, while the memory of 9-11 was still a fresh wound in the American psyche.
How many have died because of it!?!
EXCLUSIVE FROM SIDNEY BLUMENTHAL AT SALON
"On Sept. 18, 2002, CIA director George Tenet briefed President Bush in the Oval Office on top-secret intelligence that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, according to two former senior CIA officers. Bush (guided by Cheney)dismissed as worthless this information from the Iraqi foreign minister, a member of Saddam's inner circle, although it turned out to be accurate in every detail.
Tenet never brought it up again. (There's "conspiracy theory" smoking gun #1)
Nor was the intelligence included in the National Intelligence Estimate of October 2002, which stated categorically that Iraq possessed WMD. (There's "conspiracy theory" smoking gun #2)
No one in Congress was aware of the secret intelligence that Saddam had no WMD as the House of Representatives and the Senate voted, (There's "conspiracy theory" smoking gun #3) This is an absolutely crucial factor leading up to the "war", Cheney was in full-spin mode to accomplish this "hide the truth" feat!) a week after the submission of the NIE, on the Authorization for Use of Military Force in Iraq. The information, moreover, was not circulated within the CIA among those agents involved in operations to prove whether Saddam had WMD. (This is "conspiracy theory" smoking gun #4, when intelligence agencies are deliberately denied access to the whole picture, it certainly constitutes a conspiracy within the administration to deceive the public)
On April 23, 2006, CBS's "60 Minutes" interviewed Tyler Drumheller, the former CIA chief of clandestine operations for Europe, who disclosed that the agency had received documentary intelligence from Naji Sabri, Saddam's foreign minister, that Saddam did not have WMD. "We continued to validate him the whole way through," said Drumheller. "The policy was set. (By Cheney) The war in Iraq was coming, and they were looking for intelligence to fit into the policy, to justify the policy." (Downing Street memo?)
Now two former senior CIA officers have confirmed Drumheller's account to me and provided the background to the story of how
the information that might have stopped the invasion of Iraq was twisted (by Cheney) in order to justify it.
They described what Tenet said to Bush about the lack of WMD, and how Bush responded, and noted that
Tenet never shared Sabri's intelligence with then Secretary of State Colin Powell. ("conspiracy theory" smoking gun #5)
According to the former officers, the intelligence was also never shared with the senior military planning the invasion, which required U.S. soldiers to receive medical shots against the ill effects of WMD and to wear protective uniforms in the desert.
Instead, said the former officials, the information was distorted in a report written to fit the preconception that Saddam did have WMD programs. That false and restructured (by Cheney, and this is "conspiracy theory" smoking gun #6) report was passed to Richard Dearlove, chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), who briefed Prime Minister Tony Blair on it as validation of the cause for war. (Downing Street memo!) And behind the scenes throughout this story, is the sub-plot of Cheney racing back and forth to the CIA HQ, sticking his manipulative fingers into the intelligence pie, and outing Valerie Plame, all to get his no-bid, book-cooker's war for profit underway, consequences be damned! This was a conspiracy at the highest levels to deceive the public and the Democrats, it was a desperate and profanely successful leap into an era of "War at all Cost!" LITERALLY!!!
http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2007/09/06/bush_wmd/
"the information that might have stopped the invasion of Iraq was twisted in order to justify it."
"The intelligence" wasn't bad. But Bush's selective version of it was really just a big fat lie, not just another stupid mistake!!!
THIS IS UNQUESTIONABLY IMPEACHABLE, FOLKS, NO IFS ANDS OR BUTS! ARGUE ALL YOU WANT, YOU CAN'T CHANGE REALITY, BUSH LIED TO ALL OF US IN HIS STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS ABOUT MUSHROOM CLOUDS, HE DIDN'T JUST "GET IT WRONG" BECAUSE OF BAD INTELLIGENCE! THAT WAS THEIR DESIGNATED RUSE FROM DAY ONE, TO CLAIM THE CIA "GOT IT WRONG", WHEN THEY ACTUALLY GOT IT RIGHT, BUT THEIR PROOF WAS IGNORED TO FIT THE PLAN!!!!
BUSH LIED!
...ABOUT SADDAM HUSSEIN'S WMD!
He didn't just "get it wrong!"
And if you read between the lines, (follow the trail of smoking guns that suggests quite graphically that there was a concerted effort to manage the information, not study it) you can see that Bush joined others in a Cheney-driven conspiracy to hide this information from our own active intelligence agents and even from Collin Powell and Congress, and from the public in general, all for one reason alone: To get the unprecedented executive power to start an undeclared "war" on Saddam Hussein, while the memory of 9-11 was still a fresh wound in the American psyche.
How many have died because of it!?!
EXCLUSIVE FROM SIDNEY BLUMENTHAL AT SALON
"On Sept. 18, 2002, CIA director George Tenet briefed President Bush in the Oval Office on top-secret intelligence that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, according to two former senior CIA officers. Bush (guided by Cheney)dismissed as worthless this information from the Iraqi foreign minister, a member of Saddam's inner circle, although it turned out to be accurate in every detail.
Tenet never brought it up again. (There's "conspiracy theory" smoking gun #1)
Nor was the intelligence included in the National Intelligence Estimate of October 2002, which stated categorically that Iraq possessed WMD. (There's "conspiracy theory" smoking gun #2)
No one in Congress was aware of the secret intelligence that Saddam had no WMD as the House of Representatives and the Senate voted, (There's "conspiracy theory" smoking gun #3) This is an absolutely crucial factor leading up to the "war", Cheney was in full-spin mode to accomplish this "hide the truth" feat!) a week after the submission of the NIE, on the Authorization for Use of Military Force in Iraq. The information, moreover, was not circulated within the CIA among those agents involved in operations to prove whether Saddam had WMD. (This is "conspiracy theory" smoking gun #4, when intelligence agencies are deliberately denied access to the whole picture, it certainly constitutes a conspiracy within the administration to deceive the public)
On April 23, 2006, CBS's "60 Minutes" interviewed Tyler Drumheller, the former CIA chief of clandestine operations for Europe, who disclosed that the agency had received documentary intelligence from Naji Sabri, Saddam's foreign minister, that Saddam did not have WMD. "We continued to validate him the whole way through," said Drumheller. "The policy was set. (By Cheney) The war in Iraq was coming, and they were looking for intelligence to fit into the policy, to justify the policy." (Downing Street memo?)
Now two former senior CIA officers have confirmed Drumheller's account to me and provided the background to the story of how
the information that might have stopped the invasion of Iraq was twisted (by Cheney) in order to justify it.
They described what Tenet said to Bush about the lack of WMD, and how Bush responded, and noted that
Tenet never shared Sabri's intelligence with then Secretary of State Colin Powell. ("conspiracy theory" smoking gun #5)
According to the former officers, the intelligence was also never shared with the senior military planning the invasion, which required U.S. soldiers to receive medical shots against the ill effects of WMD and to wear protective uniforms in the desert.
Instead, said the former officials, the information was distorted in a report written to fit the preconception that Saddam did have WMD programs. That false and restructured (by Cheney, and this is "conspiracy theory" smoking gun #6) report was passed to Richard Dearlove, chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), who briefed Prime Minister Tony Blair on it as validation of the cause for war. (Downing Street memo!) And behind the scenes throughout this story, is the sub-plot of Cheney racing back and forth to the CIA HQ, sticking his manipulative fingers into the intelligence pie, and outing Valerie Plame, all to get his no-bid, book-cooker's war for profit underway, consequences be damned! This was a conspiracy at the highest levels to deceive the public and the Democrats, it was a desperate and profanely successful leap into an era of "War at all Cost!" LITERALLY!!!
http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2007/09/06/bush_wmd/
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