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You tell us you were in the Marines over seven years ago, and you had some role in providing briefings that were sent to the White House. You say this gives you standing to assure us that the intel Bush received was not influenced or spun by his handlers for political purposes.



I know exactly how the intelligence agencies work. I was not some lowly peon, I was an officer, I held the highest clearances in the Military, and I was privy to info back then that you STILL don't know about.

From your assumptions I can tell you have absolutely no idea of how intelligence works. The fact that you believe you can spin documents that are NOT ABLE TO BE CHANGED simply makes me laugh. Certain intel is able to be withheld, but at my level once I signed off on something, it was headed to the Oval Office -- political pundits cannot spin, or change the written conclusions and recommendations in those documents.

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Do you really know exactly what happened to the reports you "signed off on" after they left your hands?



Yes, I can even tell you the path they took through the hallways of the Pentagon. I can tell you how once sealed they were placed into a secure case for transport to the morning briefings. All edited...

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You were one cog in a very large wheel.



Actually, I was more of the hub of the wheel, where everything tied together. (Since you wanted an analogy.)

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And do you think the president got intelligence only through the agency you worked with?



Did I say that? Nope. But I do know that all of the intel agencies have to follow strict guidelines when it comes to handling of intelligence, just so what you're saying happened, doesn't.

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Furthermore, seven years is a long time ago. That was during the Clinton administration, right? You think things might just possibly have been different then?



The point there is that back then, 7+ years ago, I was seeing the SAME intelligence that you are saying the President forged. I was reading about Saddam's WMD programs constantly after 93. Yet you seem to think it was forged information. That's where you're simply wrong.

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The real issue is not so much whether intel was twisted by Bush's handlers before he saw it. The real issue is how they spun it and lied about it to the American public.



Lemme get this straight...

The President gets multiple pieces of intel stating that Saddam has an active WMD program, and is attempting to gather items to create a(n) atomic/nuclear weapon(s). The entire world's intel agencies agree with our assessment of Iraq. Yet when he goes to the American public with this information its political spin? Or was the intel flawed? Or did these imaginary "intel handlers" you speak of spin it first?

You need a hobby, like playing in traffic on I-35.

E1

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