From the WMD report:Originally posted by: conjur
I don't think you do. You see, NEITHER of those was looked into. Not in the level of detail that is necessary to conduct a proper investigation. Come on, TLC. Chalabi had people dealing with Feith and Libby DIRECTLY! You're telling me no pressure was exerted?? :roll:
After a thorough review, the Commission found no indication that the Intelligence Community distorted the evidence regarding Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. What the intelligence professionals told you about Saddam Hussein's programs was what they believed. They were simply wrong.
They DID look into it. It's right there in the fvcking report and your continued denial to recognize that fact is doing you absolutely no favors, conjur.The Intelligence Community did not make or change any analytic judgments in
response to political pressure to reach a particular conclusion, but the pervasive
conventional wisdom that Saddam retained WMD affected the analytic
process
LOL. Trying a new tack because the old one ran out of wind.]Why should the American public be concerned? Their commander-in-chief wasn't. Or, are you saying the WH engaged in propagandizing the war?? Are you finally coming out of your fog??
Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
My blind Independent Party rhetoric?Originally posted by: RightIsWrong
Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
Puhleeze. You been brainwashed by Michael Moore.Originally posted by: prominance
Saddam was put in power thanks to the US.
Bush Sr. created a million excuses to go to war with Iraq in the 90s
Bush Jr. Created one that turned out to be bull
The Bush family built their wealth from Saudi Bussiness relationships
Do some actual research, find out some facts first, then come back.
Can you dipute the accusations with anything other than your party-blind loyalty and rhetoric?
In case you didn't know, I'm not a Republican. Surprise.
But, hey. I'm used to the poor assumptions and assertions in here that come from those who assume that because I argue against the Left that I must be of the Right.
iow, I'm not of the Right, and you're wrong.
As far as the assertions made above concerning Bush. Do YOU believe they are true?
In the mid-1980s, Miles Copeland, a veteran CIA operative, told UPI the CIA had enjoyed "close ties" with Qasim's ruling Baath Party, just as it had close connections with the intelligence service of Egyptian leader Gamel Abd Nassar. In a recent public statement, Roger Morris, a former National Security Council staffer in the 1970s, confirmed this claim, saying that the CIA had chosen the authoritarian and anti-communist Baath Party "as its instrument."
According to another former senior State Department official, Saddam, while only in his early 20s, became a part of a U.S. plot to get rid of Qasim. According to this source, Saddam was installed in an apartment in Baghdad on al-Rashid Street directly opposite Qasim's office in Iraq's Ministry of Defense, to observe Qasim's movements.
Adel Darwish, Middle East expert and author of "Unholy Babylon," said the move was done "with full knowledge of the CIA," and that Saddam's CIA handler was an Iraqi dentist working for CIA and Egyptian intelligence. U.S. officials separately confirmed Darwish's account.
The CIA/Defense Intelligence Agency relation with Saddam intensified after the start of the Iran-Iraq war in September of 1980. During the war, the CIA regularly sent a team to Saddam to deliver battlefield intelligence obtained from Saudi AWACS surveillance aircraft to aid the effectiveness of Iraq's armed forces, according to a former DIA official, part of a U.S. interagency intelligence group.
This former official said that he personally had signed off on a document that shared U.S. satellite intelligence with both Iraq and Iran in an attempt to produce a military stalemate. "When I signed it, I thought I was losing my mind," the former official told UPI.
A former CIA official said that Saddam had assigned a top team of three senior officers from the Estikhbarat, Iraq's military intelligence, to meet with the Americans.
According to Darwish, the CIA and DIA provided military assistance to Saddam's ferocious February 1988 assault on Iranian positions in the al-Fao peninsula by blinding Iranian radars for three days.
The Saddam-U.S. intelligence alliance of convenience came to an end at 2 a.m. Aug. 2, 1990, when 100,000 Iraqi troops, backed by 300 tanks, invaded its neighbor, Kuwait. America's one-time ally had become its bitterest enemy.
I know what it says. They found nothing because they weren't looking for anything along those lines!Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
From the WMD report:Originally posted by: conjur
I don't think you do. You see, NEITHER of those was looked into. Not in the level of detail that is necessary to conduct a proper investigation. Come on, TLC. Chalabi had people dealing with Feith and Libby DIRECTLY! You're telling me no pressure was exerted?? :roll:
After a thorough review, the Commission found no indication that the Intelligence Community distorted the evidence regarding Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. What the intelligence professionals told you about Saddam Hussein's programs was what they believed. They were simply wrong.
Answer the questions.LOL. Trying a new tack because the old one ran out of wind.Why should the American public be concerned? Their commander-in-chief wasn't. Or, are you saying the WH engaged in propagandizing the war?? Are you finally coming out of your fog??
You're so predictable.
Oh, I'm quite relaxed. :beer:Originally posted by: Czar
could you two just relax and have a beer, its friday, the hostility is way too much for a friday
Originally posted by: RightIsWrong
Let's address them one by one.
1. Saddam was put in power thanks to the US.
FACT.
In the mid-1980s, Miles Copeland, a veteran CIA operative, told UPI the CIA had enjoyed "close ties" with Qasim's ruling Baath Party, just as it had close connections with the intelligence service of Egyptian leader Gamel Abd Nassar. In a recent public statement, Roger Morris, a former National Security Council staffer in the 1970s, confirmed this claim, saying that the CIA had chosen the authoritarian and anti-communist Baath Party "as its instrument."
According to another former senior State Department official, Saddam, while only in his early 20s, became a part of a U.S. plot to get rid of Qasim. According to this source, Saddam was installed in an apartment in Baghdad on al-Rashid Street directly opposite Qasim's office in Iraq's Ministry of Defense, to observe Qasim's movements.
Adel Darwish, Middle East expert and author of "Unholy Babylon," said the move was done "with full knowledge of the CIA," and that Saddam's CIA handler was an Iraqi dentist working for CIA and Egyptian intelligence. U.S. officials separately confirmed Darwish's account.
This old salt?The CIA/Defense Intelligence Agency relation with Saddam intensified after the start of the Iran-Iraq war in September of 1980. During the war, the CIA regularly sent a team to Saddam to deliver battlefield intelligence obtained from Saudi AWACS surveillance aircraft to aid the effectiveness of Iraq's armed forces, according to a former DIA official, part of a U.S. interagency intelligence group.
This former official said that he personally had signed off on a document that shared U.S. satellite intelligence with both Iraq and Iran in an attempt to produce a military stalemate. "When I signed it, I thought I was losing my mind," the former official told UPI.
A former CIA official said that Saddam had assigned a top team of three senior officers from the Estikhbarat, Iraq's military intelligence, to meet with the Americans.
According to Darwish, the CIA and DIA provided military assistance to Saddam's ferocious February 1988 assault on Iranian positions in the al-Fao peninsula by blinding Iranian radars for three days.
The Saddam-U.S. intelligence alliance of convenience came to an end at 2 a.m. Aug. 2, 1990, when 100,000 Iraqi troops, backed by 300 tanks, invaded its neighbor, Kuwait. America's one-time ally had become its bitterest enemy.
Look at the time lines. "The CIA/Defense Intelligence Agency relation with Saddam intensified after the start of the Iran-Iraq war in September of 1980." Erm, great. Saddam was already in power by that time.
Saddam got into power by aligning with Michel Aflak and by backdooring and backstabbing Bakr. Long before, the CIA had supported the Ba'ath party and Bakr as the lesser of two evils. However, they did not ever put Saddam in power. Claiming so is completely wrong and is a distortion of the actual historical facts in the matter.
It's not at all accurate. Bush didn't need to make excuses. Saddam handed valid reasons to him on a silver platter.2. Bush Sr. created a million excuses to go to war with Iraq in the 90s
This one I think is not very accurate.
Do you mean like the quotes about WMD programs? Didn't the ISG report that Saddam still had programs stashed away and ready to be reconstituted rlatively quickly? But I'm sure you'll whine about the "WMD program" stuff because acknowledging anything beyond the narrow twig the left has whittled the entire WMD issue down to is akin to heresy these days.3. Bush Jr. Created one that turned out to be bull
FACT. Don't let the ever-changing reasons trick you into forgetting that there was one and only one reason for the initial invasion....Saddam has WMD and he is intent on supplying terrorist with them to attack the U.S. Exactly, how many have we found?
Do I really need to dig out the quotes?
But according to the left, the Bush family made their forune from the Nazis. So which is it?4. The Bush family built their wealth from Saudi Bussiness relationships
FACT. There is a long and storied past of the Bush family and the Saudis. Including a couple of instances of the Saudis bailing out W's failing companies.
Using your logic above, just because they haven't found any WMDs yet doesn't mean they weren't there. Would you agree with that assessment?Oh, and regarding your little spat with Conjur.....
Just because they didn't find the intel community "guilty" of distorting doesn't in any way, shape or form mean that the Bush administration didn't do that. There are many reports of doubts that were raised by the intel community as to what Iraq's true capabilities were. Did anyone in the Bush administration let on to that fact or did they all speak with absolute certainty to the fact that they, Iraq, were in possession of WMD?
How fvcking long are you going to remain in denial despite the evidence to the contrary staring you directly in the face?Originally posted by: conjur
I know what it says. They found nothing because they weren't looking for anything along those lines!Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
From the WMD report:Originally posted by: conjur
I don't think you do. You see, NEITHER of those was looked into. Not in the level of detail that is necessary to conduct a proper investigation. Come on, TLC. Chalabi had people dealing with Feith and Libby DIRECTLY! You're telling me no pressure was exerted?? :roll:
After a thorough review, the Commission found no indication that the Intelligence Community distorted the evidence regarding Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. What the intelligence professionals told you about Saddam Hussein's programs was what they believed. They were simply wrong.
Jeez! Wake up!
Get a clue, son. You're wrong. For once in this forum act like a damn man and admit you are wrong.The Commission has found no evidence of ?politicization? of the Intelligence
Community?s assessments concerning Iraq?s reported WMD programs. No
analytical judgments were changed in response to political pressure to reach a
particular conclusion.831 The Commission has investigated this issue closely,
querying in detail those analysts involved in formulating pre-war judgments
about Iraq?s WMD programs.
These analysts universally assert that in no instance did political pressure
cause them to change any of their analytical judgments. Indeed, these analysts
reiterated their strong belief in the validity and soundness of their prewar
judgments at the time they were made.832 As a former Assistant Secretary
of State for Intelligence and Research put it, ?policymakers never once
applied any pressure on coming up with the ?right? answer on Iraq.?833
Moreover, the CIA?s Ombudsman for Politicization conducted a formal
inquiry in November 2003 into the possibility of ?politicization? with
respect to assessments of Iraqi WMD. That inquiry involved the (perceived)
delay in CIA?s reassessment of its position on WMD in Iraq. The Ombudsman
also found no evidence, based on numerous confidential interviews
with the analysts involved, that political pressure had caused any analyst to
change any judgments.834
Answer the questions.[/quote]LOL. Trying a new tack because the old one ran out of wind.Why should the American public be concerned? Their commander-in-chief wasn't. Or, are you saying the WH engaged in propagandizing the war?? Are you finally coming out of your fog??
You're so predictable.
<ahem>Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
How fvcking long are you going to remain in denial despite the evidence to the contrary staring you directly in the face?Originally posted by: conjur
I know what it says. They found nothing because they weren't looking for anything along those lines!
Jeez! Wake up!
From the report:
Get a clue, son. You're wrong. For once in this forum act like a damn man and admit you are wrong.The Commission has found no evidence of ?politicization? of the Intelligence
Community?s assessments concerning Iraq?s reported WMD programs. No
analytical judgments were changed in response to political pressure to reach a
particular conclusion.831 The Commission has investigated this issue closely,
querying in detail those analysts involved in formulating pre-war judgments
about Iraq?s WMD programs.
These analysts universally assert that in no instance did political pressure
cause them to change any of their analytical judgments. Indeed, these analysts
reiterated their strong belief in the validity and soundness of their prewar
judgments at the time they were made.832 As a former Assistant Secretary
of State for Intelligence and Research put it, ?policymakers never once
applied any pressure on coming up with the ?right? answer on Iraq.?833
Moreover, the CIA?s Ombudsman for Politicization conducted a formal
inquiry in November 2003 into the possibility of ?politicization? with
respect to assessments of Iraqi WMD. That inquiry involved the (perceived)
delay in CIA?s reassessment of its position on WMD in Iraq. The Ombudsman
also found no evidence, based on numerous confidential interviews
with the analysts involved, that political pressure had caused any analyst to
change any judgments.834
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/14/politics/14inte.html?hpThe headlines from the report are likely to come from lines such as: "The committee found no evidence that the [intelligence community's] mischaracterisation or exaggeration of the intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) capabilities was the result of political pressure."
That was, however, not what the Democrats on the commission believed, nor is it necessarily what the investigation proved. In the body of its report the senate committee reported that the CIA ombudsman had talked to 24 CIA officers about pressure from administration officials.
The ombudsman told the committee that about half a dozen mentioned "pressure" from the administration; several others did not use that word, but spoke in a context that implied it.
At its core, the row over the Bush administration's role in persuading the country into the Iraq war came down to a single semantic question about the meaning of "pressure". Like much else, it was a question left unresolved by yesterday's report.
Both sides agreed that CIA analysts came to the wrong conclusions over Iraq's possession of WMD. They also agreed that before coming to those conclusions they were subjected to intense questioning and "repetitive tasking" (being asked to do their work over again) from senior administration officials.
The Republicans called that rigorous and conscientious leadership, pointing out that CIA analysts are trained to respond to vigorous questioning.
The dissenting Democrats argued that the questioning from the White House was almost exclusively in one direction. Analyst assessments that were generally sceptical were much more likely to be sent back with queries scrawled in the margins than assessments that found that there were indeed weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and links between Baghdad and al-Qaida.
According to Mr Rockefeller, George Tenet had told the inquiry that analysts had come to him complaining about pressure. Another intelligence veteran had testified that "the hammering of analysts was greater than any he had seen in 32 years at the CIA".
Yet when the analysts came before the committee, as the report points out, none "stated that the questions were unreasonable, or that they were encouraged by the questioning to alter their conclusions regarding Iraq's links to al-Qaida".
Critics of the investigation have put that reticence down to the fact that CIA minders were present at the questioning and to the fact that, in purely career terms, it would be worse to admit changing analysis in response to political pressure, than getting the analysis wrong in the first place.
Whether or not the analysts who spoke to the committee felt they could speak freely or not, none implicated the administration.
However, the senate committee found that Doug Feith, the undersecretary of defence for policy, had set up an Iraq "intelligence cell" inside the Pentagon to forage through old reports about links between Baghdad and al-Qaida, which Mr Feith's boss, Donald Rumsfeld, and the vice-president, Dick Cheney, used to second guess the CIA's scepticism on the matter. Much of the intelligence it processed came from the Iraqi National Congress (INC) and its leader, Ahmad Chalabi.
But as Mr Rockefeller put it yesterday, the committee felt it had only scratched the surface. "We've done a little bit of work on the number three guy in the defence department, Douglas Feith, part of his alleged efforts to run intelligence past the intelligence community altogether, his relationship with the INC and Chalabi, who was very much in favour with the administration. And was he running a private intelligence failure, which is not lawful?"
It was a rhetorical question the senator could not answer. Judgment on the role of Mr Feith and Mr Chalabi was put off until phase two of the investigation.
The White House and the Central Intelligence Agency have refused to give the Senate Intelligence Committee a one-page summary of prewar intelligence in Iraq prepared for President Bush that contains few of the qualifiers and none of the dissents spelled out in longer intelligence reviews, according to Congressional officials.
[...]
"In determining what the president was told about the contents of the N.I.E. dealing with Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, qualifiers and all, there is nothing clearer than this single page," Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, said in a 10-page "additional view" that was published as an addendum to the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on Friday.
A separate white paper summarizing the National Intelligence Estimate was made public in October 2002. The Senate report criticized the white paper as having "misrepresented'' what the Senate committee described as a "more carefully worded assessment" in the classified intelligence estimate. For example, the white paper excluded information found in the National Intelligence Estimate, like the names of intelligence agencies that had dissented from some of the findings, most importantly on Iraq's nuclear weapons program. That approach, the Senate committee said, "provided readers with an incomplete picture of the nature and extent of the debate within the intelligence community regarding these issues."
Among the specific dissents excluded from the public white paper on Iraq's weapons was the view of the State Department's intelligence branch, spelled out in the classified version of the document, that Iraq's importation of aluminum tubes could not be conclusively tied to a continuing nuclear weapons program, as other intelligence agencies asserted. Also left out of the white paper was the view of Air Force intelligence that pilotless aerial vehicles being built by Iraq, seen by other intelligence agencies as designed to deliver chemical or biological weapons, were not suited for that purpose.
[...]
Mr. Bush and his advisers had full access to the classified 90-page intelligence estimate, "Iraq's Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction," which provided a more detailed and qualified account of the intelligence agencies' views, the Senate Republican official noted.
The main body of the 511-page report that was approved unanimously by the Senate Intelligence Committee made no mention of the summary sent to Mr. Bush. In interviews, Democratic officials said that Republicans on the panel, which meets in closed session, had blocked their efforts to formally request the document from the White House. They also said that Democrats on the panel had tried and failed to persuade Republicans to include in the committee report a description of the one-page summary as
having been an inadequate reflection of the full intelligence estimate.
:roll:But in an hourlong interview on Wednesday morning in his office, Mr. Roberts said he was "not too sure" that the administration would have invaded if it had known how flimsy the intelligence was on Iraq and illicit weapons. Instead, the senator said, Mr. Bush might well have advocated efforts to maintain sanctions against Iraq and to continue to try to unearth the truth through the work of United Nations inspectors. "I don't think the president would have said that military action is justified right now," Mr. Roberts said. If the administration had been given "accurate intelligence," he said, Mr. Bush "might have said, 'Saddam's a bad guy, and we've got to continue with the no-fly zones and with inspections.'
*You* are the one that brought up the point. Now answer the questions.You mean - 'Answer my diversionary attempt at creating a strawman argument.'Answer the questions.LOL. Trying a new tack because the old one ran out of wind.Why should the American public be concerned? Their commander-in-chief wasn't. Or, are you saying the WH engaged in propagandizing the war?? Are you finally coming out of your fog??
You're so predictable.
Sorry. Your transparent ploy of strawman redirection doesn't work on me, conjur.
Here. Let me change your bolded parts to emphasize that which you apparently felt was not important:Originally posted by: conjur
<ahem>
And from the actual report itself, here are some relevant things the Guardian somehow mysterously ommitted.The headlines from the report are likely to come from lines such as: "The committee found no evidence that the [intelligence community's] mischaracterisation or exaggeration of the intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) capabilities was the result of political pressure."
[That was, however, not what the Democrats on the commission believed, nor is it necessarily what the investigation proved. In the body of its report the senate committee reported that the CIA ombudsman had talked to 24 CIA officers about pressure from administration officials.
The ombudsman told the committee that about half a dozen mentioned "pressure" from the administration; several others did not use that word, but spoke in a context that implied it.
At its core, the row over the Bush administration's role in persuading the country into the Iraq war came down to a single semantic question about the meaning of "pressure". Like much else, it was a question left unresolved by yesterday's report.
Both sides agreed that CIA analysts came to the wrong conclusions over Iraq's possession of WMD. They also agreed that before coming to those conclusions they were subjected to intense questioning and "repetitive tasking" (being asked to do their work over again) from senior administration officials.[/b]
The Republicans called that rigorous and conscientious leadership, pointing out that CIA analysts are trained to respond to vigorous questioning.
The dissenting Democrats argued that the questioning from the White House was almost exclusively in one direction. Analyst assessments that were generally sceptical were much more likely to be sent back with queries scrawled in the margins than assessments that found that there were indeed weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and links between Baghdad and al-Qaida.
According to Mr Rockefeller, George Tenet had told the inquiry that analysts had come to him complaining about pressure. Another intelligence veteran had testified that "the hammering of analysts was greater than any he had seen in 32 years at the CIA".
Yet when the analysts came before the committee, as the report points out, none "stated that the questions were unreasonable, or that they were encouraged by the questioning to alter their conclusions regarding Iraq's links to al-Qaida".
Critics of the investigation have put that reticence down to the fact that CIA minders were present at the questioning and to the fact that, in purely career terms, it would be worse to admit changing analysis in response to political pressure, than getting the analysis wrong in the first place.
Whether or not the analysts who spoke to the committee felt they could speak freely or not, none implicated the administration.
Where is Feith now?However, the senate committee found that Doug Feith, the undersecretary of defence for policy, had set up an Iraq "intelligence cell" inside the Pentagon to forage through old reports about links between Baghdad and al-Qaida, which Mr Feith's boss, Donald Rumsfeld, and the vice-president, Dick Cheney, used to second guess the CIA's scepticism on the matter. Much of the intelligence it processed came from the Iraqi National Congress (INC) and its leader, Ahmad Chalabi.
But as Mr Rockefeller put it yesterday, the committee felt it had only scratched the surface. "We've done a little bit of work on the number three guy in the defence department, Douglas Feith, part of his alleged efforts to run intelligence past the intelligence community altogether, his relationship with the INC and Chalabi, who was very much in favour with the administration. And was he running a private intelligence failure, which is not lawful?"
It was a rhetorical question the senator could not answer. Judgment on the role of Mr Feith and Mr Chalabi was put off until phase two of the investigation.
I also changed the bolding on the linked text above.http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/14/politics/14inte.html?hpThe White House and the Central Intelligence Agency have refused to give the Senate Intelligence Committee a one-page summary of prewar intelligence in Iraq prepared for President Bush that contains few of the qualifiers and none of the dissents spelled out in longer intelligence reviews, according to Congressional officials.
[
[...]
"In determining what the president was told about the contents of the N.I.E. dealing with Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, qualifiers and all, there is nothing clearer than this single page," Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, said in a 10-page "additional view" that was published as an addendum to the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on Friday.
A separate white paper summarizing the National Intelligence Estimate was made public in October 2002. The Senate report criticized the white paper as having "misrepresented'' what the Senate committee described as a "more carefully worded assessment" in the classified intelligence estimate. For example, the white paper excluded information found in the National Intelligence Estimate, like the names of intelligence agencies that had dissented from some of the findings, most importantly on Iraq's nuclear weapons program. That approach, the Senate committee said, "provided readers with an incomplete picture of the nature and extent of the debate within the intelligence community regarding these issues."
Among the specific dissents excluded from the public white paper on Iraq's weapons was the view of the State Department's intelligence branch, spelled out in the classified version of the document, that Iraq's importation of aluminum tubes could not be conclusively tied to a continuing nuclear weapons program, as other intelligence agencies asserted. Also left out of the white paper was the view of Air Force intelligence that pilotless aerial vehicles being built by Iraq, seen by other intelligence agencies as designed to deliver chemical or biological weapons, were not suited for that purpose.
[...]
Mr. Bush and his advisers had full access to the classified 90-page intelligence estimate, "Iraq's Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction," which provided a more detailed and qualified account of the intelligence agencies' views, the Senate Republican official noted.
The main body of the 511-page report that was approved unanimously by the Senate Intelligence Committee made no mention of the summary sent to Mr. Bush. In interviews, Democratic officials said that Republicans on the panel, which meets in closed session, had blocked their efforts to formally request the document from the White House. They also said that Democrats on the panel had tried and failed to persuade Republicans to include in the committee report a description of the one-page summary as having been an inadequate reflection of the full intelligence estimate.
*You* are the one that brought up the point. Now answer the questions.[/quote]You mean - 'Answer my diversionary attempt at creating a strawman argument.'Answer the questions.LOL. Trying a new tack because the old one ran out of wind.Why should the American public be concerned? Their commander-in-chief wasn't. Or, are you saying the WH engaged in propagandizing the war?? Are you finally coming out of your fog??
You're so predictable.
Sorry. Your transparent ploy of strawman redirection doesn't work on me, conjur.
You bolded the first paragraph but ignored the reasoning in the 2nd paragraph. I didn't bold either of those as it's a wash and, if anything, lends more credence to the idea they were pressured.Yet when the analysts came before the committee, as the report points out, none "stated that the questions were unreasonable, or that they were encouraged by the questioning to alter their conclusions regarding Iraq's links to al-Qaida".
Critics of the investigation have put that reticence down to the fact that CIA minders were present at the questioning and to the fact that, in purely career terms, it would be worse to admit changing analysis in response to political pressure, than getting the analysis wrong in the first place.
There. I bolded some more because "critics" tend to make up all kinds of sh!t these days to suit their agenda.Originally posted by: conjur
Nice of you to do the same.
You bolded the first paragraph but ignored the reasoning in the 2nd paragraph. I didn't bold either of those as it's a wash and, if anything, lends more credence to the idea they were pressured.Yet when the analysts came before the committee, as the report points out, none "stated that the questions were unreasonable, or that they were encouraged by the questioning to alter their conclusions regarding Iraq's links to al-Qaida".
Critics of the investigation have put that reticence down to the fact that CIA minders were present at the questioning and to the fact that, in purely career terms, it would be worse to admit changing analysis in response to political pressure, than getting the analysis wrong in the first place.
No. I brought up the point that bin Laden enraged the American people and that allowed Bush to garner public support to march into Iraq. You asked how OBL had a connection with Iraq and I answered it. Your further reply was an attempt to divert the discussion to a claim I never even made.Feith has resigned and will likely be subpoenaed at one point re: the AIPAC spy scandal. I'm sure if and when this Senate investigation picks up the next phase, they will focus greatly on Feith (and the PNAC influence).
If he's guilty then I hope he goes down.
And, *you* brought up the point that the American people should be concerned with bin Laden. I am asking you why since the President isn't. Why should we be concerned? Answer the question.
I don't have to answer a ridiculously posed and contrived question where you take a Bush statement out of context to fabricate a faulty relationship with public opinion to create true or false scenario. Bush's statement in this case has nothing to do with public opinion at the time of going into Iraq and you damn well know it. There is no relationship between the two. So please stop posing idiotic questions. It doesn't deserve an answer. Besides that, I am not going to apologize for Bush's stupid public speaking gaffs, which are numerous and no secret whatsoever.Originally posted by: conjur
Answer the question. If the President was no longer concerned with bin Laden, why should the American public have been concerned? Or, are you saying they were worried for no reason? Who's right, the President or the public?
As I already stated, I answered the question on the topic I brought up. Your twisting of the scope of that question in a foolish manner doesn't deserve an answer, so stop yammering on about it.Originally posted by: conjur
So, iow, you're going to avoid the question on a topic *you* brought up? Thought so.
Originally posted by: Infohawk
Originally posted by: AnyMal
Impeached? On what grounds?
High crimes.
Originally posted by: Warpirate
Originally posted by: Infohawk
Originally posted by: AnyMal
Impeached? On what grounds?
High crimes.
Do you even know what high crimes consist of?
Originally posted by: conjur
Originally posted by: AnyMal
what crimes?
http://www.downingstreetmemo.com for starters.
Also, Rep. Conyers is asking for investigation into crimes of torture and abuse condoned and sponsored by this administration.
"did not dispute the document's authenticity."
Originally posted by: Forsythe
Originally posted by: Warpirate
Originally posted by: Infohawk
Originally posted by: AnyMal
Impeached? On what grounds?
High crimes.
Do you even know what high crimes consist of?
Pancakes?
TREASON would be a good start. All we need for that is to find out which Bushwhacko outed the identity of top CIA covert operative, Valerie Plame. That information could only have been leaked to Robert Novack (and possibly Whitehous plant and admin friendly gay whore, Jeff Gannon/Guckert) by someone in the Whitehouse.Originally posted by: AnyMal
Impeached? On what grounds?
Originally posted by: Pabster
Christ, Zebo, you're a Bush hater too?
Bush isn't going anywhere...except down in the history books as the greatest President since Reagan.