Originally posted by Red1998SVT: You are still missing Red's point. Bush went around asserting that the EVIDENCE for an imminent threat from WMDs in Iraq was "slam dunk." Bush was privy to ALL the evidence, he knew it was thin as tissue, and yet he boldly asserted that it was "slam dunk". He lied.
Back again for another thrashing?
Wrong. Tenet said that the case of possession of WMDs was a "slam dunk".
I can't state it any more succinctly:
1) Every intel agency around the GLOBE had pretty much the same information on Iraq, in that it possessed WMD. The CIA wasn't alone in this.
Yes, the CIA said there were WMDs. So did other agencies. But the CIA conclusions were based on weak evidence (that proved to be false): the "aluminum tubes," the "african uranium," the claims of Iraqi exiles with an axe to grind.
The UN got it right: they decided the evidence was too weak to support a war. Bush got it wrong: he started an unecessary war that has caused the deaths of many thousands of people, and cost hundreds of billions of dollars.
Originally posted by JaTo:Again, where did Bush lie? Please point this out.
Bush knew the CIA evidence was sketchy. He knew very few people would be willing to support his "hit" on Saddam unless he spun the evidence. So that's what he did: he told the American people that the evidence was (in Tenet's words) a "slam dunk." He misled us by saying again and again that the evidence was solid, when he knew it was not. It was a masterful example of politicking and warmongering, and it was a big fat lie.
Originally posted by JaTo:
Originally posted by Red1998SVT:If Bush claims he should be allowed to rely on the CONCLUSIONS of the CIA director, (i.e. the president is not responsible for reviewing and analyzing the EVIDENCE himself), then he is not fit to be president.
I disagree, in that no sitting President that I'm aware of has ever drove to Langley to engage in reviews of what would end up being THOUSANDS upon THOUSANDS of pages of reports, dossiers and transcripts. One has to be an absolute SUCKER if you think any US President is going to dig through the basement at Langley with staff pukes and hash it all out; it's expected that they do a thorough job in the FIRST place. There's a reason that the CIA exists and there is a reason they try to keep politics at arm's length: to provide POLITICALLY neutral information to assist the US leaders in making decisions. This is PRECISELY why no President has any business doing "case work" at the CIA, as you seem to be so ignorantly suggesting.
This is another classic JaTo red herring. Who is suggesting that the president should do "case work", or be involved in the gathering and analysis of raw intel? You know I didn't suggest any such thing. It's absurd.
The intel assessment the president received was a SUMMARY of the evidence. Bush was responsible for reading and analyzing that and making a decision based on it. If you want to maintain that he was allowed to skip straight to the assessment's conclusion and adopt it as his own, then you scare the hell out of me. I'll never understand how you can hold the chief executive to such a low standard of performance.
In the case of the Iraq war, the assessment apparently included only very weak and unreliable evidence (the aluminum tubes, the "Nigerian uranium," the "meeting in Prague", statements from axe-grinding Iraqi exiles). Bush knew it was weak, but he told us the evidence was strong and solid. BIG FAT LIE.
Originally posted by JaTo:
Originally posted by Red1998SVT:Please read the resolution. It condones the use of force in Iraq. But it does not declare support for Bush's reckless invasion. Bush decided whether to actually invade, when to invade, and how to invade. And he blew it.
Actually, O Solomon the Wise, the invasion was considered to be one of the greatest military successes in the history of warfare.
No historian or politician (not even Kerry himself) has come out and said otherwise.
Now, tell me ONE more time how Bush blew the invasion?
Bush blew it by ordering the invasion in the first place. He ordered without any other countries on board to substantially share the burden. Now, as Colin Powell says, "we broke it, we bought it." We're on our own, baby. Come back in ten years, look in your wallet, and tell me that doesn't matter.
Even those allies who agreed to be part of the coalition did so against the will of their own citizens, and hence offered only a token level of support. We got their token support only because we are the world's only superpower, and we had a lot of money and promises to throw around, and we could threaten those who refused.
Note to Mysti-ken: read-only mode = real good idea.
