This article would be funny if so many didn’t just read it, bob their heads with wide eyes, and believe it:
With other members of the committee, I asked to see the NIE on three subjects: (1) the Iraqi program for weapons of mass destruction; (2) the likely battlefield scenario during an invasion; and (3) the plan for postwar U.S. occupation until sovereignty could be returned to a legitimate Iraqi government.
[…]Alarmed, I tried to alert the public and instructed the intelligence agencies to produce a declassified version of the NIE. Intelligence officials usually declassify documents by drawing black lines through sensitive matters. In this case, we received a newly minted "declassified" NIE. It was 65 pages shorter. Gone was the debate over the aluminum tubes and any other dissents or reservations. Gone was the unanimous conclusion that Saddam would only use weapons of mass destruction if Iraq were first attacked. That was the last straw. The Bush administration was clearly scheming to manipulate public opinion in favor of war. I was livid. Five days later, during Senate debate on Iraq, I said that those who gave the president warmaking authority would have "blood on their hands.
Livid because the Bush Administration did like he asked and produced a declassified NIE without the sensitive matter. I guess he was livid because they didn’t include black lines?
Now, get this…seriously, the guy actually EXCUSES those who didn’t read either the classified NIE or the declassified one!
In my opinion, those candidates who voted for the Iraq war without first reading the NIE should not be disqualified from serving as president of the United States. For 220 years, Americans have held the office of the presidency and its occupants in high regard. With a few specific exceptions, we have generally presumed that presidents tell the truth in matters of war and peace. Any of the current presidential candidates could have honorably acted on that presumption in voting for the war in October 2002.
Yep, that’s right. The intelligence community put together a declassified estimate of Iraq’s WMD threat as asked, and because they didn’t include black lines, Sen Graham wigged out, but still gives a free pass to anyone who didn’t even bother read the intelligence at all. Graham’s article is about how no one read the NIE, and he seeks to excuse that for the Presidential candidates. How can anyone excuse that?
Additionally, I checked both Graham and Tenet’s books regarding the claim that the NIE request included items 2 and 3 from the article. Both books mention that Graham and Durbin wanted to know Saddam’s reaction to an effort at regime change, but neither says anything at all about a post war occupation strategy, information, etc. I feel confident that it’s another case of the Senator’s memory being fouled (despite his eccentric diary habit). If the NIE request DID ask about "(3) the plan for postwar U.S. occupation until sovereignty could be returned to a legitimate Iraqi government." then this is the first ANYONE has ever made mention of it in five years.
- Tenet’s book-no mention of Graham asking for a post-invasion assessment in the NIE
- Graham’s book-no mention of Graham asking for a post-invasion assessment in the NIE
- Daschle’s book-no mention of Graham asking for a post-invasion assessment in the NIE
Bob Woodward’s book, Plan of Attack does mention that Graham asked Tenet to describe the postwar landscape in the request for the NIE. That is a FAR CRY from the description Graham tries to market in his article where he says he asked the CIA to provide the strategy for postwar occupation.
Why on Earth would the CIA provide Congress with a Pentagon strategy for post-invasion? This is something that has little to do with the CIA and would be primarily a State Dept task supported by the DoD.
Graham is (typical of his fashion) merely drawing attention to the elephant in the room that no one wants to discuss (pun intended). That is the complete dereliction of duty on the part of members of Congress before authorizing war against Saddam. Sen Kerry skirted it in the 2004 campaign. Democrats as a whole were able to distract from it in the 2006 campaign, and here’s Sen Graham pointing out the lack of accountability. If Bush misled the nation based on flawed intelligence, at least he looked at the intelligence! Congress blew it off completely, and therefore even more deliberately misled the world.
Let’s see how this goes:
Bush and Democrats claim Saddam is a threat, authorize war, and Bush is chastised for intel failures while Dems who ran the Sen Intel Com and saw MORE intel than GWB get a free pass for years.
Bush and Democrats declare that a nuclear-armed Iran is unacceptable, suggest trying diplomacy, and all say the military option is on the table, but Bush is the warmonger and Democrats like Kerry, Edwards,
Clinton, Obama are all embraced.
Bush and Democrats all say tens of thousands of American troops will have to be in Iraq for years to come, but people protest against Bush while at the same time sending donations and campaigning for the
Democrats who have pledged to keep the war in Iraq going if they become President.
Hmmmm, it seems the claims of misleading the nation to war, of warmongering against Iran, and of perpetuating the war in Iraq are not based on reality as much as they are in political opposition to
President Bush/political favoritism to Democrats. As long as Democrats make the same statements, pledges, and commit the same sins as GWB but are given a pass (or even funded), it’s hard to draw a different conclusion.
Amazing.
Author of “Reparations and America’s 2nd Civil War
Reparations and America’s 2nd Civil War: Malensek, Scott: 9798864028674: Amazon.com: Books
We are SOOOO over Senator Graham down here. Not sure whether he knows he was elected by voters in South Carolina or Massachusetts.
There’s even a movement here to encourage a challenger in his 2008 primary reelection bid:
http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/155/story/102299.html
Wrong Graham. Bob Graham was a Florida Democrat Senator. Say what you will about Lindsey Graham, but at least he hasn’t gone wobbly on the war.
The reason why Senator Graham wants to give a pass to all those who did not read the reports is because he is one of them…. what a complete bozo! He has so many out right lies it’s hard to find a good starting point… but lets just look at the one lie that stood out to me.
He states that there was “unanimity on one issue” and that issue was that “Every intelligence agency agreed that if Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, he would use them only if he were first attacked.”!!!!
The 2002 report that he cited just two paragraph’s earlier could not prove Graham’s statement more false.
Here’s what it had to say about Saddam’s possible use of his WMD’s.
http://www.fas.org/irp/cia/product/iraq-wmd.html
“We have low confidence in our ability to assess when Saddam would use WMD … Saddam could decide to use chemical and biological warfare (CBW) PREEMPTIVELY against U.S. forces, friends, and allies in the region in an attempt to disrupt U.S. war preparations and undermine the political will of the Coalition.”
I could point out other out right lies that Graham puts in his Op-ed, but it would be a waste of time. Yea, Graham is a complete joke, however, in the hands of the anti-Bush media, the joke is on us.