Bush Lied...

[SlowwHand]

That's a crapshoot too, Spraybear. I would assume most try.

[-Jrabbit]

This "report" is exactly the kind of misdirection that has made this administration so successful at bullying its way toward its ends. It totally ignores a likely scenario -- that intelligence agencies were either subtly or specifically directed toward reporting what the administration wanted to see.

All this report does is throw the US intelligence community under the bus. It certainly does not exonerate the administration.

[germanos]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
A president doesn't "know" everything. He's a manager of people at the highest level. He gathers information from people who are supposed to know, contemplates the information, and makes a decision based on this information.

In my electronic manufacturing world, I'm not going to make a quality decision until Quality people have given their input, as a for instance. If they're wrong, I'm likely to be wrong. It's what mamagers do, or should do. Gather facts from "experts" in a particular area and make a decision.

That looks like an awfull thin sheet of ice for a president to walk on. Why don't you just put a burocrat on the seat?

A president (or PM as we have here) shouldn't be just a manager, he should be the CEO.
It's the burocrats that should be the managers.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Originally posted by CrONoS


What do you call Bull****, Rockfeller report?

http://www.channel4.com/news/article.jsp?id=253293

this one was used by Colin Powell in UN as prime evidence for the war

Channel Four News has learnt that the bulk of an intelligence dossier heralded by Colin Powell at the UN yesterday, was copied from three different articles - one written by a graduate student.

On Monday, the day before the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell addressed the UN, Downing Street published its latest paper on Iraq.

It gives the impression of being an up to the minute intelligence-based analysis - and Mr Powell was fulsome in his praise.

Published on the Number 10 web site, called "Iraq - Its Infrastructure of Concealment Deception and Intimidation", it outlines the structure of Saddam's intelligence organisations.

But it made familiar reading to Cambridge academic Glen Rangwala. It was copied from an article last September in a small journal: the Middle East Review of International Affairs.

It's author, Ibrahim al-Marashi, a postgraduate student from Monterey in California. Large sections do indeed appear, verbatim.

A section, for example, six paragraphs long, on Saddam's Special Security Organisation, the exact same words are in the Californian student's paper.

In several places Downing Street edits the originals to make more sinister reading.

*and other honest mistakes* like

-the story about "fake" Iraq - Niger uranium claim which triggered outing of Valerie Plame in US...

-in UK 45 minute capability to strike UK claim (main reason why the parliament in UK approved)

-spying and pressure by US and UK on UN security council members in order to pass the resolution for war (which failed so they invaded anyhow without the resolution being passed)

-ordering the weapons inspectors out of Iraq, as they are coming in - not letting them to continue with the job

-and the general rush for going to war without clear proof... ie by the time war was about to start all the evidence put forward was being challenged, why was first dossier "inconclusive", second doggy dossier necessary, why were others being pressured so hard for support without clear evidence. Germany/France and many other usual allies clearly opposed this action without proper assessment at the security council and clarification on the threat.


However some "post war" released information like the Downing Street Memo from 2002 which came to light in 2005... should make it crystal clear even for the staunch supporters that they were successfully duped

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article387374.ece

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.

and some of "post war" comments from senior CIA operativs

Richard Kerr, a 32-year CIA veteran who served three years as deputy director for intelligence, was commissioned to lead a review of agency analysis of Iraqi WMD claims, and produced a series of reports, one of which is unclassified.[24] Kerr told journalist Robert Dreyfuss that CIA analysts felt intimidated by the Bush administration, saying, "A lot of analysts believed that they were being pressured to come to certain conclusions … . I talked to a lot of people who said, 'There was a lot of repetitive questioning. We were being asked to justify what we were saying again and again.' There were certainly people who felt they were being pushed beyond the evidence they had." [25] In a January 26, 2006 interview, Kerr acknowledged this had resulted in open antagonism between some in the CIA and the Bush White House, saying, "There have been more leaks and discussions outside what I would consider to be the appropriate level than I've ever seen before. And I think that lack of discipline is a real problem. I don't think an intelligence organization can kind of take up arms against politics, or a policy-maker. I think that will not work, and it won't stand."[26]

.
.
.

Kenneth Pollack, a former National Security Council expert on Iraq, who generally supported the use of force to remove Saddam Hussein,[27] told Seymour Hersh that what the Bush administration did was

"... dismantle the existing filtering process that for fifty years had been preventing the policymakers from getting bad information. They created stovepipes to get the information they wanted directly to the top leadership.... They always had information to back up their public claims, but it was often very bad information," Pollack said.[28]

Some of the information used to justify the U.S. invasion of Iraq came from a discredited informant codenamed "Curveball" by CIA, who falsely claimed that he had worked as a chemical engineer at a plant that manufactured mobile biological weapon laboratories as part of an Iraqi weapons of mass destruction program. Despite warnings to CIA from the German Federal Intelligence Service regarding the authenticity of his claims, they were incorporated into President Bush's 2003 State of the Union address and Colin Powell's subsequent presentation to the UN Security Council.

is this not enough?

The question is not whather Blair government & Bush admin lied, but "Why did they lie?" Obvious reason is that if they gave the "honest" opinion the war would have never been supported by the public, and as we are both democracies public opinion matters.

And why did they want the war? I guess there are many answers to that, but a complete one is that there were various opinions in than UK&US administration of why to invade Iraq, but they were all up for it... except Colin Powell perhaps (anc Robin Cook most definitely) but Colin decided to play ball and go with the orders while Robin resigned, and was the only one to quit from both governments in the run up to war...

[Winston]

Bush Lied...

Germans have taken to writing little songs about Bush?

They've certainly come a long way since the days of Schröder.

[Winston]

Damned BeBro.

But yeah, carry on.

[Berzerker]

What do you call Bull****, Rockfeller report?

Why should I believe Rockefeller? Is he some fount of truth now? The Dems dont wanna impeach, if Bush lied they look complicit by ignoring the lies. Besides, accusing the Prez of lying us into a war aint politic...

[Jesus]Let he who never lied cast the first stone[/Jesus]

Lying a nation into war aint tellin the Mrs she aint fat.

Here's how the lie worked... Imagine a football game and you're watching the highlight reel without knowing who won. The highlights only show the good plays by the losing team and the bad plays from the winning team. You walk away thinking the losing team won...

[Deity Dude]

The issue is a matter of wisdom vs technicality.

There is not a person on the earth that has not lied. That does not mean that lying about a reason to go to war is OK.

That is the same logic that would say since everyone has broken the law, (speeding, jaywalking, swearing in public, being drunk in public etc etc etc) that murder is OK.

There was a guy a long time ago called Justinian and a book written a long time ago (The Torah) along with 1000's of other examples thoughout history, that say a punishment should be equal to its crime.

If your lie is to tell fat Aunt Betty that she looks thin, that is alot different than if your lie is to put 2 nations into war.

I'm not commenting on the war, I am just commenting on the gravity and importance and trust we put in our leaders. (And hopefully the price they should pay if they blatantly lie)

[SlowwHand]

Originally posted by -Jrabbit
This "report" is exactly the kind of misdirection that has made this administration so successful at bullying its way toward its ends. It totally ignores a likely scenario -- that intelligence agencies were either subtly or specifically directed toward reporting what the administration wanted to see.

All this report does is throw the US intelligence community under the bus. It certainly does not exonerate the administration.

And Clinton never inhaled. What's your point?
Had he focused more on attacks against our troops, rather than on pounding sluts and denying a simple thing like pot, we wouldn't be where we are now.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
That's a crapshoot too, Spraybear. I would assume most try.

But not Bush. Regardless of whether George Tenet, Condi Rice, etc., are "quality people," the fact is that the Bush Administration has shown consistent patterns of (1) Hiring quality people and then not listening to them when they told uncomfortable truths (see Christine Todd Whitman and Richard Clarke, among others); (2) Refusing to hire quality people because they wouldn't toe the line ideologically (see the current DoJ hiring scandal); (3) Deceiding what teh facts were first, then ordering underlings to find evidence supporting the administration once its mind was already made up (see George Tenet).

Even if the intelligence sucked, the climate in which bad intelligence was sought by, and created for, the president was a climate entirely created by Bush and Cheney. Unlike a good manager, they consistently put support of their agenda ahead of the truth. For this they are entirely culpable.

[SlowwHand]

I don't remember Bush saying we were going to Iraq. WMD or not, as you view WMD, existed.
You can't escape the fact that Hussein broke a Cease Fire, and that for 8 years it was allowed. You can try, but you'll be wrong. I still blame the U.N. and Bush, Sr. for this pileof****.
During the Gulf War is when I decided the U.N. was meaningless.

[Imran Siddiqui]

You can't escape the fact that Hussein broke a Cease Fire

How?

[DinoDoc]

Is "Bush lied" going to be the internet's new spin on the religion vs atheism discussion?

[SlowwHand]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

You can't escape the fact that Hussein broke a Cease Fire

How?

How? Read some history if nothing else.
He killed Kurds by the thousands afterwards, during the Cease Fire.
He fired on patrol aircraft, during the Cease Fire. He had a U.N. mandated No Fly Zone, for Iraq.
Clinton nor the U.N. did diddley squat. Bush, Sr. should have taken him, U.N. wishes or not.

[SlowwHand]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Is "Bush lied" going to be the internet's new spin on the religion vs atheism discussion?

Well, hell yes. If one of them gets caught jacking off, it's Bush's fault.