Bush's own man trashes his SOTU claims on WMDs

[Ned]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
As for Bush, considering Tenet personally intervened in October 2002 to stop Bush from making any references to the Nigerian yellow cake claim in a speech in Cincinatti, and at that time the NIE had concluded that the claims of the material was "highly dubious," I'd say it's inclusion in the SotU address was a calculated lie, undoubtedly. The CIA had a conniption fit when they got the first draft of the speech over those claims. But since Bush was hell-bent on saying, it, they could only get the compromise that the intelligence be pinned on the British instead of the U.S. agency. When Bush said "British Intelligence has learned..." he was practicing deliberate deceit, because he and his staff, and the CIA, knew it had been first a CIA information-gathering mission (and that the British were using CIA info), and they knew the claims were unfounded.

Did Bush want to believe the reports? Sure, but that doesn't excuse him for using what was known to be unfounded claims in his SotU address to frighten Americans into supporting a war he had been wanting since before he took office.

Frankly, to make Bush's statements "true," you'd have to do the kind of semantical hair-splitting that made Clinton's statements about the word "is" true.

At the time of the SOTU speech, was it the position of the CIA that the Niger reports were 1) unconfirmed; or 2) confirmed to be not true?

[Ned]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov


Sen. Clinton, Clark and Kerry were not privvy to the intelligence from the CIA about the Niger claims, now were they? They believed there were weapons, but they didn't lie about a specific piece of intelligence in a State of the Union address, did they? They believed Bush, which was their mistake, as Clark and Kerry said since. Who would think the POTUS would tell them such a bald-faced fib about a matter of national security on national TV?

Senator Clinton cited the position of the government under her husband as a reason for supporting the IWR.

The Senators and Representative on the Intelligence committees of Congress did have access to the raw data. All of them that did have access affirmed to their colleagues that Saddam did have WMD.

The Niger reports were not material to the IWR. They were icing on the cake.

No one voting for the IWR had to rely on Bush for any intelligence information. They had direct access themselves. So it is a simply falsehood to say that the Senate and the House were misled into voting for the IWR because of Bush's lies.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Trajanus


Indeed, Bush actively lied about the existence of WMD. I can't blame him if he has suspicions of Saddam still having WMD, but has he proved it?

Don't you agree that it is very dangerous if people can simply decide to go to war for reasons just based on assumptions?

I've seen the explanation Colin Powell made one day to prove to the rest of the world that Saddam was working on WMD. He was talking about those mobile labs and some factories that "might" be able to be used for this purpose.
I mean any child could see that it was not conclusive evidence, let alone worth calling evidence!

Simply pathetic imo.

Trajanus, the Senate and House had access to the same information that Bush had. They voted for war.

[Alexander's Horse]

POTUS reminds me of Crassus - who died in Iraq, the Parthians destroyed his legions and then poured molten gold down his throat in mockery of his legendary greed.

[Ted Striker]

.

[Alexander's Horse]

yes he is

[Ted Striker]

DROT

[Agathon]

Ted, stick to posting sexist remarks about women. Plato said we were all destined to be good at one task, and that's yours.

[Zero]

This is how I exactly pictured future gulf war debate to be:

1) Found WMD
Rep: Nyah Nyah, I told you so~ We Win.
Dem: Shut up, we still didnt need to goto war for it

2)Not found WMD
Dem: Where is this so called WMD now? evidence are piling.. you lied!
Rep: Who cares we got our war. public doesnt care. We win.

[Ted Striker]

.

[chequita guevara]

I heard Cheney lie the other day. He said they'd found those mobile weapons labs, which, as we remember, were hydrogen gas manufacturing trucks for spotter balloons. This was revealed in May, and yet Cheney is trotting out this lie seven months later.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Ned
As I said, if this is true, then everyone who formerly said that Saddam had WMD lied. That includes all the top Democrats from the Clinton administration and everyone who argued in favor of the Iraq War authorization in Congress, which includes Hillary Clinton and Senator Kerry.

Except nobody else went to war over such assertions.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Whaleboy
Bush claimed there were WMD, and that has proven to be fallacious. The evidence that they based that claim on was clearly faulty, which seems indicative of the quality of intelligence. Any claim based upon such poor quality intelligence, is most likely guess work, which they purported as the truth, which is a lie.

False, not fallacious. Reasoning is fallacious, a fact is false

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Ned
As I said, if this is true, then everyone who formerly said that Saddam had WMD lied. That includes all the top Democrats from the Clinton administration and everyone who argued in favor of the Iraq War authorization in Congress, which includes Hillary Clinton and Senator Kerry.

This is not an issue that the Democrats can win on if their nominee is Kerry. This is a Dean issue because he is the ONLY one running that has always been against the war.

You forgot Kucinich

[Ned]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


Except nobody else went to war over such assertions.

That does not mean that only Bush lied. That means that he did not lie.

It does indicate a very severe intelligence problem.