Downing Street Memo
 

I know it was briefly touched on in another topic, but I felt it deserved its own. It's been out for a month now, I believe, yet has been largely ignored by the so-called liberal media. There is a petition online to get President Bush to answer questions about it, and last time I heard, they had over 100,000 signatures. It has the potential to be quite damaging, but I personally would like to withhold judgement on it until it's addressed by the administration(and I hope it is). Should the administration address it? Why do you think it has been ignored stateside?

For those that haven't read it, here it is:

SECRET AND STRICTLY PERSONAL - UK EYES ONLY

DAVID MANNING
From: Matthew Rycroft
Date: 23 July 2002
S 195 /02

cc: Defence Secretary, Foreign Secretary, Attorney-General, Sir Richard Wilson, John Scarlett, Francis Richards, CDS, C, Jonathan Powell, Sally Morgan, Alastair Campbell

IRAQ: PRIME MINISTER'S MEETING, 23 JULY

Copy addressees and you met the Prime Minister on 23 July to discuss Iraq.

This record is extremely sensitive. No further copies should be made. It should be shown only to those with a genuine need to know its contents.

John Scarlett summarised the intelligence and latest JIC assessment. Saddam's regime was tough and based on extreme fear. The only way to overthrow it was likely to be by massive military action. Saddam was worried and expected an attack, probably by air and land, but he was not convinced that it would be immediate or overwhelming. His regime expected their neighbours to line up with the US. Saddam knew that regular army morale was poor. Real support for Saddam among the public was probably narrowly based.

C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.

CDS said that military planners would brief CENTCOM on 1-2 August, Rumsfeld on 3 August and Bush on 4 August.

The two broad US options were:

(a) Generated Start. A slow build-up of 250,000 US troops, a short (72 hour) air campaign, then a move up to Baghdad from the south. Lead time of 90 days (30 days preparation plus 60 days deployment to Kuwait).

(b) Running Start. Use forces already in theatre (3 x 6,000), continuous air campaign, initiated by an Iraqi casus belli. Total lead time of 60 days with the air campaign beginning even earlier. A hazardous option.

The US saw the UK (and Kuwait) as essential, with basing in Diego Garcia and Cyprus critical for either option. Turkey and other Gulf states were also important, but less vital. The three main options for UK involvement were:

(i) Basing in Diego Garcia and Cyprus, plus three SF squadrons.

(ii) As above, with maritime and air assets in addition.

(iii) As above, plus a land contribution of up to 40,000, perhaps with a discrete role in Northern Iraq entering from Turkey, tying down two Iraqi divisions.

The Defence Secretary said that the US had already begun "spikes of activity" to put pressure on the regime. No decisions had been taken, but he thought the most likely timing in US minds for military action to begin was January, with the timeline beginning 30 days before the US Congressional elections.

The Foreign Secretary said he would discuss this with Colin Powell this week. It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force.

The Attorney-General said that the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action. There were three possible legal bases: self-defence, humanitarian intervention, or UNSC authorisation. The first and second could not be the base in this case. Relying on UNSCR 1205 of three years ago would be difficult. The situation might of course change.

The Prime Minister said that it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the UN inspectors. Regime change and WMD were linked in the sense that it was the regime that was producing the WMD. There were different strategies for dealing with Libya and Iran. If the political context were right, people would support regime change. The two key issues were whether the military plan worked and whether we had the political strategy to give the military plan the space to work.

On the first, CDS said that we did not know yet if the US battleplan was workable. The military were continuing to ask lots of questions.

For instance, what were the consequences, if Saddam used WMD on day one, or if Baghdad did not collapse and urban warfighting began? You said that Saddam could also use his WMD on Kuwait. Or on Israel, added the Defence Secretary.

The Foreign Secretary thought the US would not go ahead with a military plan unless convinced that it was a winning strategy. On this, US and UK interests converged. But on the political strategy, there could be US/UK differences. Despite US resistance, we should explore discreetly the ultimatum. Saddam would continue to play hard-ball with the UN.

John Scarlett assessed that Saddam would allow the inspectors back in only when he thought the threat of military action was real.

The Defence Secretary said that if the Prime Minister wanted UK military involvement, he would need to decide this early. He cautioned that many in the US did not think it worth going down the ultimatum route. It would be important for the Prime Minister to set out the political context to Bush.

Conclusions:

(a) We should work on the assumption that the UK would take part in any military action. But we needed a fuller picture of US planning before we could take any firm decisions. CDS should tell the US military that we were considering a range of options.

(b) The Prime Minister would revert on the question of whether funds could be spent in preparation for this operation.

(c) CDS would send the Prime Minister full details of the proposed military campaign and possible UK contributions by the end of the week.

(d) The Foreign Secretary would send the Prime Minister the background on the UN inspectors, and discreetly work up the ultimatum to Saddam.

He would also send the Prime Minister advice on the positions of countries in the region especially Turkey, and of the key EU member states.

(e) John Scarlett would send the Prime Minister a full intelligence update.

(f) We must not ignore the legal issues: the Attorney-General would consider legal advice with FCO/MOD legal advisers.

(I have written separately to commission this follow-up work.)

MATTHEW RYCROFT

(Rycroft was a Downing Street foreign policy aide)

http://johnconyers.campaignoffice.com/

Is where the petition is if someone wanted to sign it.

Why is the liberal media not reporting this memo?

That's a good question, one to which I have no answer. You'd think if there were such an extreme liberal bias in the media, they'd be all over it.

Interesting, before the Downing Street Memo, liberals have found CNN, NYT, LA Times, CBS, NBC, ABC, Reuters, AP, BBC very agreable. Has that opinion changed because of this?

And conservatives haven't. Has that opinion changed because of this?

The memo is very old news. I remember reading about it around a year ago.

Um, I believe it was first published just before the parliamentary elections in Britian.

That may be, but I believe it's existence and contents were known quite a while ago.

I had never heard or seen anything about it until a few weeks ago, so I think it just came out. I could be wrong, but I don't think I am...

My guess is that it appears to some to possibly be as big a fake as the Rathergate "memo". When a "smoking gun" is too good to be true, it usually is.

Maybe we should Snopes it?

I know when asked about it, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said something to the effect of it being a non story, but neither him nor Tony Blair have denied its authenticity to the best of my knowledge.

If it were real it would be all over the British news, so I doubt it is genuine.

The memo was first published by the Times of London on May 1 and has been reported on everywhere. You can read the memo and all the press on it here: http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/index.html

Or you can delude yourself into believing whatever you want to believe. Who cares.

I hate America as as much as the next guy, but I don't see how this is particularly damning to anyone. Sounds like it's just relating perceptions about the Bush administration's policies that most people already accept as fact.

Have any of the inmates at Guantanamo verified this memo yet?

I'm totally confused. As far as I know there is no doubt about the authenticity of the memo. This is not like Rathergate at all. I'm especially confused by Ryan S.'s comment because this story was all over the British media right before the elections. I must have read a dozen stories about it in the British newspapers online. St. Cronin's comments are also a little weird, because although there have long been allegations that the Bush administration "massaged" the information to reach a pre-determined policy option, the memo was not even rumored about before April of this year.

I think the memo is a pretty good piece of evidence, but I guess I concluded a long time ago that the Bush administration was dead set on a course of action and was fine fixing the facts to do it. Of course, I thought Clarke was pretty credible, so that may be why. And given the administration's policy architect's beliefs in Straussian government, lying to acheive foreign invasion is pretty much a moral obligation for them.

So, for me, the memo is more of the same. I believe the US media isn't picking up because (contrary to Dutch and other's belief) the story is boring and not that the media is liberally biased. Rather, the media is sensationally biased and this story feels stale. Even though it is a "good" story, it just won't sell newspapers. Foxnews has shown flag-waving makes money and Rathergate has chilled most of the press from really criticizing the administration. Instead they resort to pot shots and small stories with no real investigative journalism. It's sad really.

WTF do you mean by that?

I had all the same thoughts that you did. I can't believe that so many people have never heard of this thing, and I agree that it is because everyone either already knows that the Bush administration (either purposefully or as a part of confirmation bias) massaged the intelligence, or believes that every anti-Bush thing is made up. You can see the knee-jerk reaction of people thinking that it has to be a fake, even though it doesn't really make sense for someone to forge a British memo to provide incriminating evidence against an American president.

The media isn't picking it up because there is no evidence for the conclusion reached. Perhaps if there was some basis for this conclusion in the memo, people would give it more credence:
This just one person's opinion on how Bush handled the leadup to the Iraq war. I have no doubt there are many others in the state department and other spots of the US government that feel the same way. Yet, it doesn't make it anymore true.

Perhaps if evidence or information was provided showing that Bush "fixed" facts, people would take it a little more seriously. As it stands now, it just looks like someone who didn't like the US policy sounding off in a memo - Shocking, I know.

As to addressing it, what specific charges are here? Which facts were fixed and what evidence does Mr. Rycroft have? If he has none, the president would be trying to address a general charge with no factual basis - no different from answering the perverbial "when did you stop beating your wife".

For this to be taken seriously, some specifics need to be provided by Rycroft to form some legitimate questions to be answered.

As sad as it sounds, I was very aggravated (and vocal) by the whole Iraq war lead up and the effect on the election (as well as the Abu Graib, etc.), but I have moved on. Bush has only 3 1/2 years left, and the majority of the US public was ok with the deceit, obviously believing the ends justify the means. Summer is here, and frankly I am now more interested in some good trips to the beach. Sad, really. But, I can't help it.

:) You're a hoot, John.

The point of using a Guantanamo Terror Suspect and the Downing Street Memo was satirical (poking fun at modern day left-wing sensationalism).

So, for example, if Newsweek were to get a hold of a terror suspect in say....Guantanamo, and that person were to say, "The US is pure evil and everything in the Memo surely is true."

I wouldn't put it past Newsweek to assume they have enough information to write a story.

Well, that's the only "facts" they could come up with, so the rest would have to be filler designed to incite both sides of the argument so they would want to read more. It's Modern Day Journalism 101.

Huh????

Yeah, that was an odd quote. I haven't been keeping up with this story very much, but here's a conservative who's writing about it.

hxxp://www.nationalreview.com/robbins/robbins200506060801.asp

This pretty much hits my thoughts on the issue to a tee. There is no evidence of any sort of "intelligence tampering or fixing" and appears to be no different than an OP-Ed in a local paper. From a substance stanpoint, this memo offers very little and is inciting outcries because of the seriousness of its accusations, not the content behind them.

Move along, nothing to see here...

here it comes, now the media is starting to ask the questions...it just pisses me off. If the Admin. had simply stuck to the humanitarian angle I think less people would object today. I was/am for the war on this merit but damnit, why'd he have to go the WMD route? and perhaps someone should've considered, "what if they're not there...maybe we shouldn't hanf our hat on this WMD thing entirely.:

Report: British had doubts on U.S. postwar plan in Iraq

Sunday, June 12, 2005 Posted: 9:26 AM EDT (1326 GMT)


British Prime Minister Tony Blair and President Bush said they viewed military action in Iraq as a last resort.



WASHINGTON (AP) -- A staff paper prepared for British Prime Minister Tony Blair eight months before the invasion of Iraq concluded that U.S. military officials were not planning adequately for a postwar occupation, The Washington Post reported.

"A postwar occupation of Iraq could lead to a protracted and costly nation-building exercise," authorities of the briefing memo wrote, according to the Post. "As already made clear, the U.S. military plans are virtually silent on this point. Washington could look to us to share a disproportionate share of the burden."

The eight-page memo was written in advance of a July 23, 2002, meeting at Blair's Downing Street offices, the Post said in Sunday editions.

It said the memo and other internal British government documents were originally obtained by Michael Smith of the London Sunday Times and that excerpts made available to Post were confirmed as authentic by British sources who sought anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.

The Post said the introduction to the memo -- "Iraq: Conditions for Military Action" -- said U.S. "military planning for action against Iraq is proceeding apace," but that "little thought" has been given to, among other things, "the aftermath and how to shape it."

The July 21 memo was produced by Blair's staff in preparation for a meeting with his national security team two days later that has become controversial since last month's disclosure of official notes summarizing the session.

According to those minutes -- known as the Downing Street memo -- British officials who had just returned from Washington said the Bush administration believed war was inevitable and was determined to use intelligence about weapons of mass destruction to justify the ouster of Saddam Hussein.

why'd he do this when it wasn't 100% and the humanitarian stuff was is beyond me...a marketing decision, I guess.

Blair denied at a news conference with President Bush last week that intelligence was manipulated to justify the war. (Full story)

I've always maintainted that it was a mistake to make WMDs the primary reason for the invasion, but anyone who says that the other reasons for war weren't mentioned are wrong. The humanitarian concerns and others were routinely mentioned by the administration and President leading up to and after the war. Those statements simply aren't as sexy as the WMD angle. That is, almost certainly, why they decided to give the WMD center stage, I too have come to the conclusion that it was purely a PR decision. I do also believe that the Administration wouldn't have gone out nearly so far on the WMD limb, if they weren't 100% sure we would find the WMDs in Iraq.

http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/1998/02...22006_tpo.html


Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Secretary of Defense Bill
Cohen, and National Security Advisor Sandy Berger elaborating on U.S.
goals in Iraq, February 18, 1998.

# of times Clinton invaded Iraq: 0

You can't really equate wrong rhetoric with wrong actions.

I don't think the majority of folks would consider it wrong rhetoric. Hell I'm not sure a majority would right now consider it a wrong action.

I can think of about 1700 families that might beg to differ with you.

Regardless of right or wrong, those families raised men and women of action. Most people who are opposed to the war are more likely to be men and women of rhetoric. So you are wrong to think that.

Hmmm, couldn't stomach requoting a democratic admin agreeing word for word with the Bush admin? Hurts huh? After all that left-wing media had you thinking otherwise? ;)

Found those WMDs - check
Capture Osama - check
Short stay in Iraq - check



oh wait, that's only in bizarro world. I mean, I sure am glad we came out with that Iraqi deck of cards because who the hell would really want to get Osama... with all the updates on our progress there we surely must be close :rolleyes:

Sorry but there's a huge difference between 1 admin relying on faulty intel and going the diplomatic route vs another admin relying on faulty intel and starting a needless war over it.

glen - care to find the latest poll numbers regarding support for the war to back up your claim?

On the other hand, Clinton has said his biggest foreign policy mistake was NOT using military force to remove Saddam from power.

Yeah, but we all know Clinton was a man of public opinion polls. So did Clinton say this in 2002 when everyone in the democratic party except Dean was all about the war on terror or 2004 when everyone in the democratic party suddenly was opposed to the war in Iraq?

The real indictment is against our information gathering, not Clinton or Bush.

We have winner!

As to the memo, I'm still waiting for any shred of evidence or information that led the author to make the claim that the US admin was "fixing" intel. It's all fine and dandy to jump to these type of conclusions on a private memo. But if people are going to actually use this memo as evidence against the administration the emphasis needs to shift from the seriousness of the charge to the evidence supporting the claim.

Heck, I bet if you dug through every email in the state department and CIA you could fine memos declaring everything from WMDs being found to the war being a sham to Saddam being caught in lady's underwear. But writing a memo doesn't make any of these claims any more valid without having some sort of corroborating evidence from which to base them on.

I think it was known privately at least 6 mos. before Gulf 2.

Then tell Sen. Roberts that he should fulfill his promise of investigating pre-war intelligence usage.

Well then you haven't been following the latest polls.

This might be the most inane statement I've read in a good while. People of action are good, when they have good actions. Fabricating a war? Not so much. (here is the latest evidence of that: hxxp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/11/AR2005061100723.html ) To use an extreme example, Hitler was a man of action, but I wouldn't admire what he accomplished. But it's easy to see how an otherwise sane country supported him, isn't it?

Nevermind, this is the most inane. Try hitting the quote button on your post with those quotes and see what comes up.

I'm not a blind nationalist. I disagreed with a lot of Clinton's positions. But here is a short list of things he didn't do:

- Invade Iraq on trumped up charges

I don't think you can argue that that did not happen. Under Clinton we worked through the UN in Iraq, and it worked out splendidly: Saddam had no WMD capability and no ties to international terrorism.

How about the fact that there were no WMD's in Iraq? That nobody now supports the Iraq-Al Q link? Nobody has investigated the White House's use of pre-war intelligence.

So now the minutes of a highest-level meeting for our closest military ally have absolutely no credibility to them? You think that analysis was based on Bush's misinterpreted body language or something? I mean really, what evidence would you need to consider the obvious fact that something was wrong? Here we have our closest ally not insinuating it, but outright saying that the facts were being fixed around the policy. And all of the circumstancial evidence points to that being correct (no WMD's). Does Drudge have to admit to it before it becomes anything less than an insidious plot of the liberal media which seems more concerned with the location of missing pretty white women?

I wouldn't convict Bush and his administration on the information that we have, but I would certainly impeach him and find out everything there is to find out, this was the biggest fuck-up since Pearl Harbor at least and it would be nice to know how it happened. But our congress is only concerned about doing that if it has to do with blowjobs.

You would impeach a president over a third party memo in which the most explosive claim is subjective and based on the author's opinion, not fact?

Good lord. You talk about a flimsy pretext for going to war... so the answer to that is to use a flimsy pretext to impeach the man responsible? The people of England saw this story a month before the elections and they didn't feel it was worthy of getting Labor (and Blair) out of office. Yet you're ready to impeach a president over this?

BTW, before you start up with the inane blowjob comparisons, Clinton was impeached for lying under oath. He could've been getting rimjobs from the Rockettes and I doubt Congress would have said anything. Well, Santorum would've said something, but he wasn't there at the time.

One more thing before I get out of this thread. Chubby, you don't speak for the families of those who've lost their lives in this war any more than I do. I'd appreciate it if you'd quit speaking as if every person who's lost someone is of the same mind you are.

This memo is not in a vaccuum. This is not the only piece of evidence. This is just another brick in the foundation of a pretty good case. There is the fact that there were no WMD's (and the curious fact that the war plans did not call for troops to guard suspected WMD facilities, and hence why hundreds of tons of high explosives went missing), that the highest levels of British government thought they were fixing the facts around the policy, that Richard Clarke has asserted the same things, that Bush's own treasury secretary Paul O'Neill says the same thing, that Bush illegally allocated $700 million away from Afghanistan towards Iraq without congressional knowledge, that the Niger Uranium memos were falsified, that CIA and FBI analysts at the time complained that senior administration officials were exaggerating info to politically bolster their case, that the meeting between Atta and the Iraqi agent in Prague that was used as an obvious tie between Iraq and 9/11 appears to be fabricated, that the high end aluminum tubes that Iraq was purchasing for WMD production that Bush mentioned to the UN Security Council and then in his SOTU speech were found to be artillery rockets weeks before his SOTU speech, etc., I could go on and on about statements made by the administration that turned out to be B.S. Taken as a whole, it is a pretty strong case that something was not right. I believe it is enough to impeach. You may disagree, but I think you would even agree that an investigation should be conducted to find the source of the failure, but congress has little if any interest in that.

MrBigglesworth,

I strongly encourage you to get in touch with Howard Dean to push for impeachment because of that "evidence". If it's not just a bunch of BS, do something about it, or are the Democrats living up to their image of inactive politicians that can only spout rhetoric?

The facts are slowly seeping out, and the momentum of this is slowly growing. It's tough to get past the nationalism and the psychological blockings people have against thinking that their elected leaders would do something like this (like we saw with Nixon), especially when the 'news' networks are giving round the clock coverage to Michael Jackson and missing white women. But new evidence is emerging all the time now it seems, Bush's approval ratings are plummeting, 6 out of 10 people now think we should bring some or all troops home from Iraq (the congressman that coined the term "freedom fries" is about to introduce a bill to set a timetable to bring the troops home) and eventually the whole house of cards will come tumbling down.

The Dems are unwilling to start anything because of the incorrect, media-created image that Bush is a popular President, and I agree with you that they are being huge pusses. It makes me sad that I have to choose between crooks and vag's right now. But maybe when the President's approval ratings dip below 40% they will challenge him, and by that point I bet the GOPers that have eyes on the Presidency will start distancing themselves from the lame duck as well.

Isnt everything written by a 3rd party....Even the closest thing the Gitmo Torture memo came from the main guy and people discount that as coming from someone outside the circle. I mean you could take it down the slippery slope and say you will not believe it until Bush sits in front of you personally and admits to it (over TV a liberal could edit the picture and possibly dub over the verbage). At some point, like it usually bears out in my threads (it pans out in almost all of my topics - eventualy), the truth comes out. It just take a while before those Deep Throats get people's ears....but then someone has to write it and then youre destined to say it's crap...because it was written down. Entrenched, you are....maybe I am too, but the paper and evidence start over there and eventually ends up settling down over here...just takes time.

or maybe it's just the subjective opinion of an intelligence analyst that's completely contradicted by another memo, by another intelligence analyst, written the VERY SAME WEEK.

somehow I doubt this 2nd memo is going to be pushed by the folks that brought you downingstreetmemo.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/13/po...3downing.html?


Is this where you claim that this second memo is clearly a fake designed to take the heat off the REAL memo?

you prove my point....you're going to write off what doesn't fit your mindset and extoll those that do. One of them is right....

just turns out that over time the evidence mounts up and even people like, Glen become to soften their stance...but some don't, like your stance. Years later you'll figure out another way to write off stuff, like by blaming whatever current Democrat administration is in office.

In the meantime though, papers come out, they do. And all of them are written by someone other than the actual Chief. He will NEVER write an article timely enough about this stuff, so it'll all be 3rd person and the right can throw it in the trash saying the journalist is a hack, unless of course some right winger journalists flips sides (like the republican senator noted above) and then writes...but then you'll call them something too to minimize what they say too. and circle goes on and on....

but it keeps coming.

Two things. First, this second memo puts the adminitration into MORE hot water by saying what has been obvious for some time to people that have been paying attention, that they had no plan for the post-war period in Iraq.

Secondly, when the memo talks about the 'political decision' to go to war, it doesn't mean the actual decision to go to war. Rather, it had to do with the British government's belief that the war would be unpopular and illegal, and the 'political decision' was how to sell the war. Consider the way that the word 'political' was used throughout the document:

Page 1: "The US Government’s military planning for action against Iraq is proceeding apace. But, as yet, it lacks a political framework. In particular, little thought has been given to creating the political conditions for military action, or the aftermath and how to shape it."

Page 2: "An international coalition is necessary to provide a military platform and desirable for political purposes."

And finally, the place where the phrase 'no political decision' comes from, which was not included in the NY Time piece: "Although no political decisions have been taken, US military planners have drafted options for the US Government to undertake an invasion of Iraq."

Clearly, taken in context, 'political' means the politics of the situation, or how the government will sell it to the public. That is most clear in the final statement I quoted from the memo, which basically reads: "The decision to go to war has been made, now they just have to figure out how to convince the American people."

Most people feel that not finding WMD was the result of poor intelligence gathering (going back to Clinton) not this administration "cooking the books". Do you have evidence that cites otherwise?

If there is truth to this accusation then cite some specifics. Which intel was changed by the Bush administration - was it satellite photos? Was it information gathered from informants? If Bush did indeed fix all this intel, there should be some specific examples to ask about.

Right now, there is no specific charge. It's just that Bush "fixed the books". Which books were fixed? What intel did Bush change to support his cause? Until someone comes up with some support for these specific questions the larger question is useless and has no value.

It appears you already have.

What intel group, specifically, did Bush change to support the war? Can you even provide an area of intelligence gathering and show Bush changed the information to support the war? If you cannot, then all this is what you "hope" will be and not what the facts support.

So using that solid logic, there are a lot of families who believe that WW2 was wrong, the civil war, the revolutionary war.... I guess you can't lose someone in a war and believe the war was the right thing to do? Weak, very weak.

I've never seen a post involving more reaches and odd word parsings to try and eventually get to a conclusion.

The reality is neither memo is all that compelling unless people come up with specific examples and evidence to back up each charge. Without them, we are simply looking at one person's opinion. Finally, for those of you stating that we have not investigated the administration in reference to Iraq and intelligence, I will point you again to the report made back in July of 2004:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/....intelligence/

So, until people can start citing examples that contradict this report, there is little to be gained by continuing to insinuate foul play by the Bush administration.

of all the things you could've relied on you actually pulled out the old faithful, Clinton. Need I remind all the observers of what you left out. That the current admin. threw out everything that the Previous (a democrat) administration handed him intelligence wise and laughed the hold over advisors out of the meetings when they said Bin Laden was our greatest threat. Arles, THAT is FACT...reiterated by Rice's testimony before Congress. Just thought you'd want that to follow your spin attempt. Why don't you see both sides to coinage? Im for the war...why can't you be able to be open minded?

Am I taking crazy pills? Didn't I just provide the examples that you desire in post #46 in this very thread? The blind faith in the administration is at this point just looking like willful ignorance.

On a side note...I don't think that Arles was making any statement at all about Clinton, but rather the intelligence he was basing his statements on, apparently in addition to his polling data.

More directly on topic...I don't believe at all that Bush and company laughed any of Clinton's advisors out of the room, when they said that Bin Laden was our greatest threat. They certainly didn't throw out any intelligence. Bush and company threw out the plan of attack assembled by the Clinton team and advisors because they didn't agree with the approach. They felt a more direct approach was warranted, specifically because of the threat posed by Bin Laden. If you buy all of what Richard Clark(e) was selling, then you believe that Condi Rice practically didn't know who Bin Laden was. That just doesn't seem too likely. There are two sides to that coin as well.

As for the memo...It seems I was off base to suggest questioning its authenticity... I was just as wrong to call it a smoking gun. After actually reading it, and not just excerpts, it reads as an opinion piece. If that is the case, then it was likely one of many to be evaluated together. There certainly isn't anything damning in it, just that the author makes a number of points that coincide with criticisms of the Admin.

As for softening my stance...I believe my position has always been that it was a mistake for the administration to make WMD the poster child for their case for war. I think that was even back when I was certain that we'd find the WMDs once we were there. So no softening there. I don't believe any intel was fabricated, nor that anyone in the Admininstration forced Intel folks to suppress or exaggerate intelligence regarding WMDs.




I think if you had a poll that simply asked if people supported the war even with all of the complications we've seen, I think you might be surprised how narrow the margin would be. A helluva large majority supported the war leading up to and during the invasion. I think a number of those people have changed their opinion based on the clusterfuck that ensued once Bagdhad fell. So I do agree that a majority of folks will not believe that the Admin has properly managed the conflict or its aftermath, I do think they still believe that the decision to remove Saddam from power with force was a sound one.

I was heavilly on the Pro-Invasion bandwagon before the war, and I still am. I believe that the admin seriously screwed the pooch when it came to their planning, or lack thereof, for post-war Iraq. I think they jumped the gun, and cost U.S. troops lives by moving out earlier than necessary.


Well again, you seem to be confusing facts with opinions or politically motivated statements. There were reporters embedded with units tasked with taking and guarding suspected WMD facilities, In the end there just wasn't much for them to guard. The hundreds of tons of High Explosives that El Barredei(sp) declared missing in the days leading up to the U.S. election were determined to have been destroyed or relocated. I will agree that there were no WMDs though...that much you have right. The rest of your "evidence" just doesn't amount to much though.

I do agree that there were intelligence shortcomings leading up to Iraq. I don't think those short comings have been fundamentally addressed, at least not publicly. I don't think the ramifications of intelligence failures on Bush's doctrine of pre-emption have been sufficiently discussed or addressed either. I'm not happy with everything this admin does...I just don't think they are anywhere near as deceitful or disingenuous as the left makes them out to be.

Well, you certainly have softened your stance since the leadup to war, IMO. AND, your statement above contradicts everyone in DC that disagreed with BUSH which basically means almost 100% of the people who have stated that the handover of Admins. was as I've descirbed, which is basically all of the outgoing people AND condi on the hill AND the CIA director at the time (who had served for over 15 years) of the handover AND Albright AND Clarke AND the UN and now the London politics which led to the Downing MEMO (which Ive already stated is the only way journalism exists, someone hears/sees/gathers info and writes it down cuz your not going to see Bush writing [at least without typing it in Word first for the advantage of spellcheck]) The evidence IS overwhelming that the Bush clan did NOT see Bin as a grave threat or as Clinton had said America's greatest threat. Bush was focused on Iraq as our greatest threat. I think that that was a mistake in judgement HOWEVER Like Bosnia, the War in Iraq was and has been justified based on humanitarian efforts (we agree on this).

EDIT: It is not fair to discount ALL journalism which is what the RIGHT has done by painiting journalism with this broad liberal swatch. It is simply a ruse to be able to then filter out what they dont agree with as farce and unintelligent and lies. That is scary and backdoor censorship in that even if stuff is true, you begin to polarize the country so much that people only will listen to their sides Pundits which look more and more like news channels and stooges thus swerving the group for another 4 years, no matter the side. In cases where a falsehood is exposed than the journalists are exposed with it and the heads roll (Rather) but unlike these cases which are few and far between in the mainstream media what the right has tried to do (succesfully) is bring ll of their supporters into the room, close the doors, draw the curtains, wheel a TV into the corner and then show only what they want to show.....this is scary IMO, and shown again when you say, "at least one Aide." You dont know!! It couldve come from Blair himself and his intel people BUT unless it agreed with the right, you place those little seeds of doubt so that the people who gather their info from ALL places, including this one, never really see anything.

All this information was looked at during the July 04 hearings and none of it was compelling enough to lead the senate committee to put any fault on either the Clinton or Bush administration. You keep citing either hearsay ("officials" complaining) and poor intelligence gathering practices (much of which started in the late 90s). While both of these are necessary to look at in hopes of improving our intelligence agencies, none implicate the administration in any meaningful manner.

The intelligence gathering process was a disaster on many fronts, but that occurred long before Bush was even notified of the info or briefed. It's not like Bush told the CIA to interview someone in the late 90s or to investigate the aluminum tubing. He was simply briefed by the CIA after their own investigations and information was gathered. If the head of the CIA tells the president that Iraq is talking to Niger about nuclear materials and trying to gather tubing for WMD, is he supposed to not believe them and do his own independent investigation? You're making it seem like Bush was some CIA field agent.

Both Bush and Clinton were only as accurate as the information presented to them by the CIA and FBI. And, unfortunately, much of that data had issues neither were aware of when each made their comments and actions.

Your blind accusations against Bush for everything from field CIA ops to data gathered under Clinton shows a great deal of ignorance as well. Remember, everything you listed was looked at by a bi-partisan committee in the senate and no fault was given to either the Clinton or Bush administrations.

I am also waiting for you guys trumpeting this memo to start providing specifics on which intel this "smoking gun" shows the president had "fixed'.

You're making an association that isn't there.

What was the latest poll on the front page of USA Today yesterday? 60% of Americans think we should pull back either some or all of our fources out of Iraq.

No, support for the war is huge :rolleyes:

Thats my point, Arles, is that unless you are handed an actual paper, like the torture memo, spelling stuff out, you wont believe it IF it doesnt support your stance. Unless Bush or Cheney admit to it, you wont believe it...I certainly doubt that Rush will report the truth if it disparrages one of his idols. While I take ALL the information, sometimes changing my stance multiple times, based on the evidence as it comes in. In this case more and more, in some cases damning, evidence comes in to state the following:

Bush did not see Bin LAden as the threat that Clinton said he was
Bush viewed Saddam as our biggest threat
After 9/11 Bush DID direct intel to pursue evidence involving Saddam
A push to war against Saddam was inevitable in the eyes of the WH
The case for war was "sold" to the people based on WMD (it was the most sexy rock to place it upon)
This intel, a "slam dunk", was incorrect, persuaded, spun, and in some cases lies....many times not the WH's fault, but why question a good thing.



ALL of these things lead intelligent people who aren't staunch republicans to see that there is some fishy stuff going on. IMO, the war good based on humanitarian means / the Bush bad for lying (based on the faulty/spun/filtered intel) to get us in it. He should've just been honest. If he had been I doubt his approval ratings would be so low.

I saw earlier someone setup a petition to have Bush answer questions about the memo, I can see that press conference now:

What a valuable press conference that would be :rolleyes:

Arles: A few points.

The Senate hearing specifically didn't look at how Bush/Clinton used/manipulated the intelligence. Sen. Roberts and Se. Rockefeller agreed to postpone that question until after the 2004 election and now Sen. Roberts has said that there will be no further investigation. That doesn't prove that Bush did anything, but you can't say that the Senate cleared him of wrongdoing either.

Don't forget that the DOD created the OSP, a group designed to reinterpret intelligence data because they thought the CIA was not reaching damning enough conclusions about Iraq. There is really no doubt that the OSP pushed a number of bogus claims.

According to documents released in the past year or two we relied heavily on one intelligence source for much of our most damning info. This source turned out to be a member of the INC and a tool of Chalabi. This source and Chalabi were routinely used as 'proof' of Saddam's WMD capability. Needless to say both the source and Chalabi have been discredited.

The WMD angle should be looked at in two parts, chemical/biological and nuclear. There was little doubt that Saddam had retained either stockpiles of bio/che weapons or maintained facilities to create bio/chem weapons. It turns out we were wrong, but there was an almost global consensus and I don't fault the admin there. Bio/chem weapons are dangerous, but the killing potential is at most a few thousand and the range is small. The threat from bio/chem probably wasn't enough to get support for war.

There was very little evidence that Saddam had the capablity to produce nuclear weapons. This is where I believe the admin was dishonest. The uranium, the tubes, the rhetoric about mushroom clouds, etc. had little to no supporting evidence at the time of the claims. What the admin did was conjoin the WMD threat to make the case for war. A real threat of chem/bio weapons was used to sell a hyped threat of nuclear weapons. They believed that the threat of a nuclear attack after 9/11 would galvanize the public to support the war and they were right. Its also notable that the Clinton admin never pushed the nuclear angle as hard as the Bush admin.

See, anyone who reads this will interpret your play as "left" instead of "media". DOnt you think that's a bit slanted?

Again, there are no smoking Guns, Im going to use this term lightly, OPEN YOUR F'in' EARS when I say something. Gather your Wits, and read this:

THERE IS NO SMOKING GUN

THERE IS A PREPONDERANCE OF EVIDENCE


After all of the evidence over the past few YEARS it certainly points to a one track mindset to go towar with Iraq. Can you UNDERSTAND THE WORDS THAT ARE COMING OUT OF MY MOUTH!!??

PLUS, i doubt Bush would have been so succinct or intelligible.

Instead of lamenting what I may or may not do once I am shown real evidence showing the administration fixing intelligence, why not actual post some and see how I behave?

What's your fixation with Rush? Do you enjoy trying to make your claims more believable by inserting contraversial talk show hosts to try and discredit my argument? Is your argument really that flimsy?

OK, let's look at this evidence...

Is there anything outside of the now discredited Richard Clarke to support this assertion? And, if Clinton was so worried about Bin Laden, why didn't he do more to try and catch him when we had numerous chances in the 90s. It seems that no one felt Bin Laden was the threat he ended up being on 9-11.

As did Clinton and Bush I before him. Why is this a big deal? Unless, of course, you have evidence that shows Clinton felt Bin Laden was a bigger threat than Saddam (something not backed up by Clinton's actions - bombing of Iraq or rhetoric).

I suppose you think he should have had all that intel hushed up? Maybe Bush should have not look at anything involving Saddam shown to him by the CIA. Is that what you are recommending? Of course, Bush decided to pursue intel setup by Clinton and continued by himself to look more into Saddam. At the time, we had no clue if Saddam was involved or what he was up to.

Perhaps because of the change in policy due to 9/11 and the intel provided. But, again, I don't see what that shows. Nothing you have shown relates to fixing intelligence gathering processes yet.

Again, it was the most damning aspect of the case. It just happened that the intel used by the admin on some of their conclusions turned out to be incorrect.

Again, you are unable to cite direct intel that Bush "changed" or "fixed" to make the case. You want to believe they did - you want to very badly. Yet, when pressed on specifics, all you can do go ad-hominem against the White House and bow out with a snippy comment like above.

I don't disagree with much of what you stated. Bush did view Saddam as a major threat. He did rely on some bad intel when making his case for WMD and Bush probably did not view Bin Laden as the threat he rose to at 9/11 when he entered office in 2000. Yet, I don't see how any of thise implicated the White House on fixing intelligence or "lying" about info presented to them.

For someone who is "open-minded", you sure have a low threshhold for actual evidence needed to indict this White House on fixing Intel.

But there's a difference between "something fishy" and stating the White House fixed intelligence. Again, this is the same tactic. You don't have the evidence to stated the White House fixed intelligence, so you resort to the "something fishy" comment in hopes that people will believe the accusation without actually getting specific examples of the crime.

I think Bush certainly should have played up the humanitarin angle more in the leadup as well. But, I also think Bush honestly believed Saddam had WMD. If you don't think he did, then you are forced to believe that he would invade Iraq on false pretenses that would eventually be discovered leading up to an election year. I don't see that as very likely.

I was specifically responding to the petition gathered by a senator on the left and was setting the scenerio where he would ask the question.

We went through that evidence and it amounts to nothing more than "Bush wanted to go to war with Saddam". All this info was looked at by a bi-partisan congressional committee and found to not implicate Bush in any way.

But, again, the feeling from the White House that Saddam was a major threat does NOT equal fixing intelligence or lying about intel provided by the CIA/FBI. Can you UNDERSTAND THE WORDS THAT ARE COMING OUT OF MY MOUTH!!??

ok

All the evidence, I cant go back years nor do I want to shows that CLinton's people handed over and recited all the evidence that BIN LADEN was their biggest threat.

Clarke was smeared so that the Pres. and admin. would look better. What were they going to do, Laud him?

Rush. you do the same thing, with your "Left" media thing except you say ALL media is Left so you can then pick and choose what works best for you and the rest is "garbage".

I think NOTHING should be hushed up and ALL evidence should be put out there. Your boy does not hence his disdain for the 9/11 commission and exposing Saudi ties. the commission also thinks things should change b ut your boy is against that too...only when pressured by America did he coalesce.

Cheney said, "Find me evidence tying Al Qaeda to Iraq and 9/11 to Iraq." Remember the bogus meeting in Brussels, and the continuing statements regarding "iraq and Al Qaeda". Even when pressed in the debate Cheney stood by that when there is NOTHING to suport that but to unread American's it sure sounded good. Good salesmanship.

NOT TRUE!

The committe specifically did not answer this question and now Sen. Roberts has said that they will not conduct an investigation into this question.

That's not true either. The WH was has been completely uncoopertaive and all investigations and committees have said so including mountains of paperwork the WH refuses to turn over even under Freedom of Info. directives. There have been no conclusions made to implicate or absolve. More spin from you.

But it did look at the intelligence gathered from which the comments by Bush and Clinton were made. That intel was not found to be tampered with. So, it comes down to how it was presented - but the data gathering (ie, evidence that Saddam had WMD stockpiles and the intel on nuclear/WMD) was found to be not impacted by either administration. That's the key point as the data was shown in the hearings to imply serious WMD activity by Saddam - regardless of how it was presented. Plus, that same data was referenced by both Clinton and Bush to support Iraq's nuclear activity. So, either both "fixed the intel" or neither did. I'm leaning towards the latter. It appears you believe the former.

Then I would state that the CIA and FBI should have done their homework and ruled out this source before presenting the information to the White House. Again, the White House must assume that this info is legit when the CIA presents it. What other course of action could Bush take? He does not have the resources to go out and lead his own investigations.

I think the above is fair, but I think the WMD angle was enough to go to war given Saddam's past and the chance that he could sell this info to terrorists. But that's a debateable point.

Much of the nuclear evidence was gathered in the late 90s or by foreign intel groups. The fault here again lies with the CIA for not doing a better job at vetting the sources or following up on old conclusions. But, again, George Tenet presented information on nuclear gathering by Saddam to the president no fewer than three times with a high level of confidence. Is Bush not supposed to use this data if the head of the CIA presents it to him in this manner?

Actually Clinton made even more compelling arguments for Saddam and athe nuclear angle (probably because Tenet was his head as well).


http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stori...s/clinton.html

It was such a given to the Clinton administration that Saddam was going after nuclear capability that they often didn't even cite the information for the source of their data when making such claims. It certainly appears that Tenet was telling Clinton the same intel about Iraq's nuclear capability in 1998 and 1999 that he told Bush in 2000 and 2001.

The CIA has said, through whistle blowers, and Cheney pressured them to present evidence to support a war on Iraq...here is just one of the stories from back then:

Some Iraq Analysts Felt Pressure From Cheney Visits

By Walter Pincus and Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, June 5, 2003; Page A01

Vice President Cheney and his most senior aide made multiple trips to the CIA over the past year to question analysts studying Iraq's weapons programs and alleged links to al Qaeda, creating an environment in which some analysts felt they were being pressured to make their assessments fit with the Bush administration's policy objectives, according to senior intelligence officials.

With Cheney taking the lead in the administration last August in advocating military action against Iraq by claiming it had weapons of mass destruction, the visits by the vice president and his chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, "sent signals, intended or otherwise, that a certain output was desired from here," one senior agency official said yesterday.



Other agency officials said they were not influenced by the visits from the vice president's office, and some said they welcomed them. But the disclosure of Cheney's unusual hands-on role comes on the heels of mounting concern from intelligence officials and members of Congress that the administration may have exaggerated intelligence it received about Iraq to build a case for war. thought youd harp on that particular paragraph and ignore the rest.

While visits to CIA headquarters by a vice president are not unprecedented, they are unusual, according to intelligence officials. The exact number of trips by Cheney to the CIA could not be learned, but one agency official described them as "multiple." They were taken in addition to Cheney's regular attendance at President Bush's morning intelligence briefings and the special briefings the vice president receives when he is at an undisclosed location for security reasons.

A spokeswoman for Cheney would not discuss the matter yesterday. "The vice president values the hard work of the intelligence community, but his office has a practice of declining to comment on the specifics of his intelligence briefings," said Cathie Martin, the vice president's public affairs director.

Concern over the administration's prewar claims about Iraq has been growing in Congress and among intelligence officials as a result of the failure to uncover any weapons of mass destruction two months after the collapse of the Iraqi government. Similar ferment is building in Britain, where Prime Minister Tony Blair is under pressure from within the Labor Party to explain whether British intelligence may have overstated the case of Iraq's covert weapons programs. Blair pledged yesterday to cooperate with a parliamentary probe of the government's use of intelligence material.

In a signal of administration concern over the controversy, two senior Pentagon officials yesterday held a news conference to challenge allegations that they pressured the CIA or other agencies to slant intelligence for political reasons. "I know of no pressure," said Douglas J. Feith, undersecretary for policy. "I know of nobody who pressured anybody."

Feith said a special Pentagon office to analyze intelligence in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks did not necessarily focus on Iraq but came up with "some interesting observations about the linkages between Iraq and al Qaeda."

Officials in the intelligence community and on Capitol Hill, however, have described the office as an alternative source of intelligence analysis that helped the administration make its case that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat.

Government sources said CIA analysts were not the only ones who felt pressure from their superiors to support public statements by Bush, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and others about the threat posed by Hussein.

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

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

Others saw the intervention of senior officials as being more responsible. Libby, who helped prepare intelligence analysis for the vice president, made several trips to the CIA with National Security Council officials during preparations for Powell's Feb. 5 presentation to the U.N. Security Council, officials said. He was described by one senior analyst as "an avid consumer of intelligence and the asker of many questions."

Such visits permitted Cheney and Libby to have direct exchanges with analysts, rather than asking questions of their daily briefers, who direct others to prepare responses that result in additional papers, senior administration sources said. Their goal was to have a free flow of information and not to intimidate the analysts, although some may well have misinterpreted questions as directives, said some sources sympathetic to their approach.

A senior defense official also defended Wolfowitz's questioning: "Does he ask hard questions? Absolutely. I don't think he was trying to get people to come up with answers that weren't true. He's looking for data and answers and he gets frustrated with a lack of answers and diligence and with things that can't be defended."

A major focus for Wolfowitz and others in the Pentagon was finding intelligence to prove a connection between Hussein and Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist network.

On the day of the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center,Wolfowitz told senior officials at the Pentagon that he believed Iraq might have been responsible. "I was scratching my head because everyone else thought of al Qaeda," said a former senior defense official who was in one such meeting. Over the following year, "we got taskers to review the link between al Qaeda and Iraq. There was a very aggressive search."

In the winter of 2001-02, officials who worked with Wolfowitz sent the Defense Intelligence Agency a message: Get hold of Laurie Mylroie's book, which claimed Hussein was behind the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, and see if you can prove it, one former defense official said.

The DIA's Middle East analysts were familiar with the book, "Study of Revenge: The First World Trade Center Attack and Saddam Hussein's War Against America." But they and others in the U.S. intelligence community were convinced that radical Islamic fundamentalists, not Iraq, were involved. "The message was, why can't we prove this is right?" said the official.

Retired Vice Adm. Thomas R. Wilson, then director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, directed his Middle East analysts to go through the book again, check all the allegations and see if they could be substantiated, said one current and one former intelligence official familiar with the request. The staff was unable to make the link.

This recounting of the book incident was disputed by a defense official who, like many others interviewed, requested anonymity.

Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.), chairman of the House intelligence committee, said there is no indication that analysts at the DIA or CIA changed their analysis to fit what they perceived as the desire of the administration officials. Goss and other members of the intelligence oversight panels said they have received no whistle-blower complaints from the CIA or other intelligence agencies on the issue.

Tenet has asked four retired senior CIA analysts to review all the major prewar intelligence analyses of Hussein's weapons of mass destruction distributed to top policymakers before March 20, when the fighting began. They plan to compare what was written with postwar intelligence data.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John W. Warner (R-Va.) reiterated his desire to hold hearings on the administration's handling of the intelligence on Iraq despite divisions among congressional Republicans over whether an investigation, including public hearings, is necessary. Cheney privately briefed GOP senators on the weapons intelligence Tuesday.

Warner is discussing a joint probe with intelligence committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.).

If you object to the way Bush and Blair made the case for war, it makes a lot more sense to accuse them of 'lawyering' - arguing only their side of the case, and not looking at opposing viewpoints - then to accuse them of lying or fixing evidence. It just doesn't ring as credible with centrists or independents.

I think there was an aspect of 'lawyering' in their argument - not a bad thing in itself, except that when you turn out to be wrong, you lose credibility. Which is what happened to both of them.

how's about a little more pressure:

By Edward Alden for The Financial Times.


The Bush administration's exposure of a clandestine Central Intelligence Agency operative was part of a campaign aimed at discrediting US intelligence agencies for not supporting White House claims that Saddam Hussein was reconstituting Iraq's nuclear weapons programme, former agency officials said yesterday.

In a rare hearing called by Senate Democratic leaders, the officials said the White House engaged in pressure and intimidation aimed at generating intelligence evidence to support the decision to make war on Iraq...

Vince Cannistraro, former CIA operations chief, charged yesterday: "She was outed as a vindictive act because the agency was not providing support for policy statements that Saddam Hussein was reviving his nuclear programme."

The leak was a way to "demonstrate an underlying contempt for the intelligence community, the CIA in particular".

He said that in the run-up to the Iraq war, the White House had exerted unprecedented pressure on the CIA and other intelligence agencies to find evidence that Iraq had links to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda and that Baghdad was trying to build a nuclear bomb.

While the intelligence agencies believe their mission is to provide accurate analysis to the president to aid policy decisions, in the case of Iraq "we had policies that were already adopted and they were looking for those selective pieces of intelligence that would support the policy", Mr Cannistraro said.

In written testimony, he said that Vice-President Dick Cheney and his top aide Lewis Libby went to CIA headquarters to press mid-level analysts to provide support for the claim. Mr Cheney, he said, "insisted that desk analysts were not looking hard enough for the evidence". Mr Cannistraro said his information came from current agency analysts...

The administration has refused to appoint an independent special counsel on the leak investigation, and Federal Bureau of Investigation officials said this week that John Ashcroft, attorney-general and close political ally of President George W. Bush, was involved in the investigation.

Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst who said he voted for Mr Bush and contributed to his campaign, said the White House needed to authorise a more independent investigation. "Unless they come up with a guilty party, it will leave the impression that the administration is playing politics."

I buy this.

Biography
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* School Of Foreign Service BSFS, Georgetown University
* University of Geneva, Switzerland
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And fromt his guy:

AN ANGRY CIA FIGHTS BACK..

WASHINGTON DC - For the Bush Administration, which has wrapped itself in faux patriotism, accusations that it revealed the identity of a serving CIA agent are a huge political embarrassment and another blow to its sinking credibility.

Last July, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV contradicted President Bush�s assertions that Iraq had imported uranium ore from Niger. Wilson said his investigations in Niger found the whole story was a fake, based on forged documents. Bush nevertheless claimed Iraq was importing uranium in his keynote State of the Union address.

Wilson�s patriotic act ruined his career and made him the target of a vicious White House smear campaign. At least six Washington journalists were told by Bush administration sources that Wilson�s wife was an active CIA officer. Journalist Robert Novak cited her name in his column. Revealing names of CIA agents is a federal crime.

The consensus here is that the likeliest source of the story was office of Lewis Libby, Vice President Cheney�s powerful chief of staff. Libby and Pentagon civilian allies, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith and Richard Perle, played the key role in engineering the war with Iraq. . They brought intensive pressure on CIA to tailor intelligence to produce proof of hidden t weapons and links between Iraq and al-Qaida.

Behind the Wilson scandal, a far more important battle is raging. The Bush Administration has so far spent $1 billion in the fruitless search for unconventional weapons in Iraq. The non-existence of these weapons - the main excuse for the invasion of Iraq � has badly damaged the White House; eroded the power of Cheney� ‘men� - Wolfowitz, Feith, Perle - who jestingly call themselves ‘the cabal,� - and humiliated the hapless Colin Powell.

Now, the ‘cabal� and some politicians blame CIA for the failure to find Iraq�s non-existent weapons and alleged links to al-Qaida. But CIA is fighting back through leaks, accusing the Administration of distorting, corrupting and politicizing the conduct of national security.

CIA does deserve some sharp criticism over Iraq: it had a shocking lack of reliable human intelligence there, forcing the agency to rely heavily on dubious defectors and foreign intelligence, rather than its own resources. Ironically, France had excellent intelligence in Iraq and rightly warned Bush his war would lead to a disaster. But Bush was too busy listening to the neo-conservative�s cooked intelligence to heed France�s excellent and reliable advice.

So far, CIA chief George Tenet has refused public comment over the attacks on CIA, but agency sources report him furious with the White House and its neo-conservative Pentagon allies. CIA staffers are waiting for Tenet to go public and take on the neo-cons who are trying to blame CIA for the fiasco they created..

When VP Cheney and the Pentagon ‘cabal� decided CIA was not providing the damning evidence on Iraq they needed to promote war, they created a special intelligence unit reporting to Wolfowitz and Feith, that cherry-picked bits and pieces of negative data about Iraq, trumpeted lurid claims by Iraqi defectors, then passed them on to the White House as fact.

They used Iraqi exiles were used as a primary conduit for the disinformation, and provide the Iraqis funding and political support. The New York Times� Judith Miller repeatedly parroted the Iraqi defector�s lies and distortions.

Wolfowitz�s special intelligence office reportedly sought to link with Israel�s Mossad intelligence agency in the anti-Iraq campaign. But Mossad was too professional to have anything to do with this ad hoc operation. However, members of Israeli PM Ariel Sharon�s cabinet reportedly provided the neo-cons�s special intel unit with a stream of negative stories about Iraq.

CIA�s professionals were enraged by this end-run, and appalled that defector�s wild tales and self-serving foreign-supplied material were being packaged as fact and used to formulate US national security policy.

Before the war on Iraq, Director Tenet took the unprecedented step of publicly warning that many of the claims about Iraq were not justified by facts. But he was ignored in Bush�s rush to war and did not repeat his caution. Warnings by ranking CIA officers that their country was being stampeded into war by neo-conservatives with a hidden agenda were also ignored.

The Wilson affaire has exploded at a time when the extent that the nation�s professional intelligence cadre was circumvented, or bullied and intimidated into silence by the Bush Administration has become a major issue.

Such politically motivated pressure on the nation�s intelligence establishment by men with little American flags on their lapels is totally unacceptable and gravely endangers national security. Real patriots do not start wars to win elections and divert attention from financial scandals.

CIA chief Tenet ought to come out and denounce the cabal that led the US into an unnecessary war that has become a bloody and unimaginably expensive mess. But CIA officers are trained to remain silent and obey the chain of command.

So, it�s up to Congress to demand a full investigation of the corruption of national security, and of the extremist ideologists who misled America into a war that should never have been waged.

and this:

However, as former treasury secretary Paul O’Neil has revealed, top administration officials including President Bush, his vice-president Dick Cheney and defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld had all sought to find a pretext to invade Iraq from the moment they were sworn into office in January 2001.

Wolfowitz admitted in an interview in May 2003 that, in seeking to find a public justification for invading Iraq, top Bush administration officials “settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason”.

It is well-known that the CIA-created INC received about $40 million in US funds over the past four years, including $33 million from the State Department and $6 million from the DIA, to provide “intelligence” on Iraq.

In December 2002, former CIA official Vincent Cannistraro, obviously speaking for his colleagues at the agency, publicly stated that the INC’s “intelligence isn’t reliable at all... Much of it is telling the defense department what they want to hear.”

According to the May 24 London Guardian, “an urgent investigation has been launched in Washington into whether Iran played a role in manipulating the US into the Iraq war by passing on bogus intelligence through” the INC. “Some intelligence officials now believe that Iran used the hawks in the Pentagon and the White House to get rid of a hostile neighbour, and pave the way for a Shia-ruled Iraq.”

“It’s pretty clear that Iranians had us for breakfast, lunch and dinner”, the Guardian quoted an “intelligence source in Washington” as saying. “Iranian intelligence has been manipulating the US for several years through Chalabi.”

Chalabi has vehemently rejected the allegations as “a lie, a fib and silly”, accusing CIA director George Tenet of a smear campaign against himself and Habib.

According to the Guardian, the CIA has called for an FBI counter-intelligence investigation into “Chalabi’s contacts in the Pentagon to discover how the INC acquired sensitive information that ended up in Iranian hands”.

“The CIA allegations”, the British daily noted, “bring to a head a dispute between the CIA and the Pentagon officials instrumental in promoting Mr Chalabi and his intelligence in the run-up to the war. By calling for an FBI counter-intelligence investigation, the CIA is, in effect, threatening to disgrace senior neo-conservatives in the Pentagon”, beginning with Chalabi’s “handlers” at the Pentagon’s now-disbanded Office of Special Plans.

The five-person OSP was set up by Wolfowitz and his boss, Rumsfeld, shortly after 9/11 to pressure the CIA, the DIA and other US intelligence agencies to accept the bogus “intelligence” data on Iraq’s WMD provided by Chalabi’s INC. The OSP’s day-to-day operations were run by William Luti, a former aide to Vice-President Dick Cheney, and Luti’s immediate superior, Douglas Feith, under-secretary of defence for policy.

Chalabi has openly admitted that the INC supplied the Bush administration with fabricated stories about Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction. In February, he told the London Telegraph, “we are heroes in error... As far as we’re concerned, we’ve been entirely successful. That tyrant Saddam is gone, and the Americans are in Baghdad. What was said before is not important. The Bush administration is looking for a scapegoat. We’re ready to fall on our swords if he wants.”

Chalabi said later he was misquoted. Misquoted or not, it appears that the professional spooks in Washington have decided to not only make him the scapegoat for the WMD “intelligence” fiasco, but also the scapegoat for getting the US into an unwinnable and increasingly disastrous war in Iraq.

The senate report Arles so leaned upon said that the CIA was stuck in Groupthink and thats why the evidence mounted up. The CIA says that groupthink was caused by The pressure and leanings of the administration. Believe who you want but the evidence, Running Tenet out, outing a CIA agent, hushing Powell, relying on Chalabi alone, etc. leads to many differing conclusions.

Cronin: I think that's exactly what happened. At n opoint were opposing viewpoints considreed and that was a huge mistake. A good manager wants to hear the opposite side, but this admin silenced all opposition. Just look at who has been forced out and who has been promoted.

I also think that a lot of the rhetoric on nuclear wepons was well beyond what evidence we had. The talk of mushroom clouds and the amount of time devoted to aluminum tubes and yellowcake was not supported by evidence. Like I said, I think the bio/chem angle was solid, but the nuclear angle was thin at best.

Arles: Both the CIA and State department warned against Chalabi and the source(I believe his codename was Curveball). Chalabi was a favorite of Cheney and Wolfowitz and was given much more credibility by this admin than with Cliinton.

So Clinton said nuclear, as the Wedding Singer would say, "Whoopadeedoo! Most of the international community believed, probably correctly, that Saddam would try to restart his nuclear program if left to his own devices. However, the Bush folks went way beyond that. Fliescher aid, "the smoking gun could be a mushroom cloud". The tubes were pushed as proof that Saddam had restarted his nuclear program. The yellowcake was also pushed as proof that Saddam was currently developing nuclear weapons. We had almost no proof beyond the word of Chalabi and his stooge that this was correct. The nuclear angle was hyped plain and simple.

Now that I think about it, the nuclear angle was pushed in a way remarkably consistant with the Newsweek Koran story. We had a single source that wasn't checked for authenticity, in fact was warned to be unreliable by the State Dept. Shouldn't we get a retraction?

A corollary to my point, fellows, is that when you accuse Bush et al of lying, covering up, etc. you end up with as much credibility as him. It's a misleading description of what happened. To understand the arguments they were making, you have to realize that they BELIEVED the intel that suggested Iraq was developing WMDs. Just like the prosecutor believed Michael Jackson had molested that little boy.

The difference here is that the admin. asked for and at times applied pressure to get the evidence they wanted. Sure the evdience they got was wrong and thats a great scapgoat, but they, in fact, got what they asked for. Keep in mind if a CIA agent went against the grain they were pushed out, that is a lot of pressure for career men.

It's also nothing new. Intelligence community has always had to be more aware of political realities than the military. Is it fair? Maybe not. But it's certainly nothing that started when Bush took office.

then why are some arguing that it didnt happen? Yours is a completely different take. youre saying..it did happen, so what? Arles is saying that it didnt happen? cant have both and neither one is right, morally.

Arles and I have sparred before about just because something is commonplace doesnt mean its right and should be accepted. I hold the high ground on that stating we should not accept it, He and Jon think we should. Maybe Im naive but I like it there.

In this particular thread ALL of the evidence point to what has happened but the staunch right refuse to accept anything that comes through the media because the media is so tainted int heir view. So, like I said, unless some pundit flips he will never see the colors that are in this rainbow because his glasses have a big elephant on them.

The best part is its hard for him to argue credibility with me since Im left and for the war. It creates quite a cunundrum in that Im not so staunch that I cant see the truth in all of this. I hope when we're done here we (the UN - since its such a big coalition we have attained in Iraq) go to the Sudan too.

I just don't see what the big deal is; even you, Flasch, surely concede that Saddam had wanted WMD's, had used them in the past, and had demonstrated that he couldn't be trusted not to try to acquire them, and that he represented a major threat to regional stability. That we have not found WMD's is to me more a detail along the lines of it turns out he didn't have a working Air Force when we thought he did. I'm glad we took him out, I think we were right to do so even under the arguments presented by the Administration (and for what it's worth, I personally think Bush has been a disaster as a president, easily the worst of my lifetime). That Tenet and others were basically kicked out of the CIA is a tangential benefit, since they had pretty clearly demonstrated their uselessness. I think you are playing up the political conflict, and downplaying the incompetence argument.

oh no, there is definitely some incompetence. I just dont like being lied to AND more importantly dont want someoen to try to continue to force feed me the lie (most blatantly when Cheney still continued to promote Al Qaeda and Iraq - prewar during the debate). It insults me to the very core.

BTW, we all want a lot of things...I would like 100 million dollars, I could rob a bank to get it, doesnt mean I should be punished for thinking it BUT if I had a gun, a map of a bank, police scanners, a lock pick, a mask, a passport, etc. then if they took me down for conspiracy ok...hence my support fo the war. humanitarian reasons, ok....bullshit, im not ok.

I have no idea if this point has been made, because I don't feel like reading 40+ points on a subject that is a non-issue to me, but you're reading this incorrectly IMO.

Two weeks before this (and the DSM) memo were written, the NYTimes had done a story on the military plans for an invasion of Iraq.

Taken in context, it doesn't mean the administration has yet to decide on how to "sell the war". It means the military has decided it's best approach to a war in Iraq, but the politicians have not yet decided that's the best course of action.

And yes, the 2nd memo does point out a lack of postwar planning. I'm not trying to sugarcoat the facts that mistakes have been made... I'm just trying to point out that there is no "there" there.

Dola. One of the great things about living in this part of the country is the people you have as your neighbors. On my cul-de-sac I have a guy that works for the Crane Operators Union, a DoD contractor (former Marine who's served in both Iraq and Afghanistan), a Lt. Col. in the Army who's stationed at the Pentagon, a DoJ recruiter, and a guy who just retired after 18 years in the... CIA.

I have no idea what this guy did for the CIA, nor do I want to know. But the next time we get together for beers I'm going to ask him about your theory here.

cool

But the CIA was presenting much of the same under Tenet when Clinton was president. Clinton didn't simply have the political capital (because of Monica) or the support from the people (pre-911) to act on it. And that's not a knock against Clinton - had 9/11 not happened I doubt Bush would have had the support to enter Iraq either, regardless of the evidence.

The main thing that bothers me about this "Blame Bush" mentality is that it gives the CIA and intelligence community a major out. The argument shifts from 'We need to fix the CIA and intel community to make sure this doesn't happen again" to "Well, Bush was a crook so all we have to do is remove him and everything is honkey dorey."

The latter way of thinking is very dangerous. You even admit "Sure the evdience they got was wrong and thats a great scapgoat". But the role of the president is not to double-check the CIA or FBI, it's to act based on the information they provide. And, what we know right now is that the CIA was wrong when it presented data to Clinton in the late 90s, wrong when it presented info to Bush in the early 00-02 timeframe and could very well be wrong when it presents to the next administration after Bush. Bush will be gone in a couple years and the scary thing is that many on the left will feel that the intelligence community will be all fixed once he leaves (with Bush being the major problem).

It also doesn't surprise me that a lot of CIA agents are starting to backtrack on the information they presented 2-3 years ago as it turned out to be false and is a simple act of self-preservation. Was there pressure from the White House to find support for the war in Iraq? Probably, but that's not the same as fixing facts. If at any point in time the CIA didn't feel the case for war was supported, Tenet simply had to tell the president and/or congress. He never did and only presented facts that supported the war to Bush and company. I fail to see how Bush "fixed intel" when all of it was already vetted and presented to him by Tenet. If anything, Tenet and the CIA should have done a much better job at notifying the president of all angles and not saying things like "it's a slam dunk" when Bush pressed them.

Arles: That's true but we also know that this admin created the OSP specifically because they believed the CIA wasn't pushing hard enough on Iraq, that Chalabi had basically been written out of the CIA/State until he came back in favor with this admin, that the rhetoric on Saddam's nuclear capability changed dramatically with this admin, and that Bush has never criticized the info given to him by Tenet, in fact he gave the guy a medal!

I'm all for redoing our intelligence structure, but just as its wrong to lay the blame for everything at the White House, its wrong to place it all at the CIA. Bush & Co. knew they were spinning WMD especially as it pertained to nukes.

First off, I can understand lawyering, but in the case of the Iraq war it is unacceptable because the executive branch controlled the information being presented. There was no 'defense attorney' to Bush's 'prosecutor'. Lawyers do what they have to do, but the law is that each side must have available to it the same evidence.

But I think it goes beyond simple laywering, and I point to the SS debate as an example. Bush has consistently not only miststated facts and made misleading statements, but also blatently lied. However, since economic data is available to everyone, there was an opposite side to point out his BS. As a result, support for the plan plummetted.

I think we are close to reaching a common ground. There is certainly some blame on this administration for angling to support the activities in Iraq - that probably did give some people the feeling that dissent wasn't encouraged. But that type of stuff is par for the course in a build-up to war. The one thing that the hearings last July did show me was how flimsy some of the foundations were for assertions made by Tenet and other CIA agents. I just have a hard time faulting any administration (Bush, Clinton, Bush I even) when they are presented with compelling evidence by the CIA for a threat. The job of the administration is to act on the information they are given - not to vet it or determine how reliable it is.

The one positive of all this is that I think the intel community will get a pretty big overhaul and that there will be a much more comprehensive vetting process for data presented - especially critical data. But, again, it seems that a lot of the criticisms against Bush involve using 20-20 hindsight and accusing him of believing statement "X" on nuclear arms or "Y" on WMD that were presented to him by Tenet. Thus, the "Bush lying" claim doesn't hold much water. If Bush didn't really believe Saddam was going after nukes or the evidence supported certain claims on WMD, it's very doubtful he would reference said data (and open it up to a million journalists) in major speeches. That would be incredibly stupid and the evil genius Karl Rove wouldn't have allowed it :p

Given the info Clinton stated in speeches, as well as the info we know he was given by Tenet, a much more viable alternative was that Bush was given this information from the CIA and, when Tenet didn't offer any objections, was a little too eager to use it.

I just did a search of 'explosives missing iraq' on cnn.com and didn't come up with anything saying that they were determined to have been destroyed or relocated. Was it on Drudge that it was discredited? I don't think that you can argue that there were enough troops, we couldn't even guard our supply lines from insurgent attacks even with no WMD's to guard.

This is where the House and the Senate come in. They get the same information as the president and if the president was obviously altering facts, they would have been in a great spot to call him on it. Yet, none ever did reference facts Bush "fixed" leading up to the war.

This leads more credibility to the idea that the evidence given to Bush by the CIA was "legit" and Bush did more cherry picking than altering.

The problem is that the facts as we know them right now, do not support this leap in conclusions.

What's the point of providing more evidence? It will just be rationlized away. What would be good evidence, someone on the inside saying the war was fixed? The WH says Clarke is wrong and suddenly he is 'discredited'. Is good evidence pointing to statements made by the WH which were known at the time to be fabricated or completely untrue? Then it's 'bad intelligence' and nobody at the WH must have known. Is good evidence proof of ignoring opposing viewpoints? Then the reply is that the UN was corrupted by the oil-for-food scandal, that's why they said there were no WMD's.

What would be evidence?

No, the intelligence committees in the House and the Senate do not get the same information as the executive does. The CIA and the NSA are executive branch departments, and the houses of congress do not tell them what to do. The committees may see the final reports, but that is immaterial since it is the contention of CIA whistleblowers that Cheney was in the CIA pressuring them about what to put in the reports.

I don't know, how about accounts and evidence that the White House actually changed intelligence to be in support of Iraq?

You know - they stuff you have been actually accusing them of doing for months. But, then again, maybe asking for actual cited instances of intelligence fixing is asking too much for someone accusing the White House of fixing intelligence.

Richard Clarke was an insider who made these accusations a few years ago. Tom Maertens confirmed parts of Clarke's story. Joseph Wilson exposed the whole story about the Niger memo. Lt. Colonel Kwiatkowski (sp?) made some other allegations. I'm sure there are other people, but those are the ones that spring to mind. As I said earlier, I thought the memo was relatively boring because it confirmed what many witnesses have said for a while.

What other types of evidence would you expect? Do you really expect there to be a paper trail? Even if there were, do you think it would ever be declassified? And what do you mean by "actual cited instances?"

What I was looking for is for someone show evidence that Bush took evidence provided, changed it and re-presented that new information to the public/congress/UN. To this point, I have not seen anything to indicate that happened. There have been certain instances that seemed to insinuate that he "cherry-picked" intel (much of what Clarke said), but that's not the same as "fixing" intelligence.