Last week the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released the final findings of their four year investigation into pre-war intelligence on Saddam’s Iraq. The report was amazing. In direct contradiction, on the very first page of the report, Democrats controlling the committee chose to seize the opportunity to target the Bush Administration and cover up any and all accountability for anyone else (particularly themselves) regarding pre-invasion statements about how threatening Saddam’s regime was to the United States. Previous reports have been bi-partisan and even unanimously supported by the committee. This one was not. This time, the Republican minority used their allotted “Additional Comments” section of the report to flat out accuse Senate Democrats of a cover-up, of distorting the report’s findings, and of deliberately misleading the American people at the specific expense of degrading the capability of American intelligence agencies.
The report is not a fun read. Republicans and supporters of the choice to invade Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein cannot escape being frustrated at the clarity of disingenuous presentation and manipulation of facts. Democrats and people who (today) oppose the decision to invade, might be stirred with enthusiasm and excitement at first, but when they read the “Additional Views” section and are reminded of the pre-war statements made by Democrats privy to intelligence before the war, they might be resentful. When anyone-any American-reads the “Amendments” section and sees what was left out of the report, they cannot escape sentiments opposite of national pride: sheer and utter embarrassment.
At it’s core, the problem is this: the report’s stated scope (state on pg1) is not supported by the report. Instead, the report only addresses comments made to the American people by Executive Branch leaders, and no one else, but the scope specifically states:
I. Scope and Methodology
(U) This report’s scope, as agreed to unanimously by the Committee on February 12,2004, is to assess “whether public statements and reports and testimony regarding Iraq by U.S. Government officials made between the Gulf War period and the commencement of Operation Iraqi Freedom were substantiated by intelligence information.
There are many more “U.S. Government officials” who have made statements between “the Gulf War period” [1991] and “the commencement of Operation Iraqi Freedom [March 2003]. Yet the Democrats on the committee deliberately chose to remove and ignore all other statements from anyone other than the Bush Administration. They omitted/removed statements from Clinton Administration officials, from Congressional leaders over a 12-year period, and they removed their own claims about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.
535 Members of Congress tens of thousands of people in the first George Bush administration, and the two terms of the Clinton administration all had their claims about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein dismissed as irrelevant. Instead of all those hundreds of thousands of policy makers and influential representatives of the American people, this report only looked at:
• Vice President Richard Cheney, Speech in Tennessee to the Veterans of Foreign Wars National Convention, August 26, 2002.
• President George W. Bush, Statement before the United Nations General Assembly, September 12,2002.
• President George W. Bush, Speech in Cincinnati, October 7, 2002.
• President George W. Bush, State of the Union address, January 28, 2003.
• Secretary of State Colin Powell, Speech to the United Nations Security Council, February 5,2003.
What’s remarkable is that anyone would believe for even a moment that the American people supported the decision to invade Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein based on 5 little talks from President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and Sec Colin Powell.
As mentioned earlier, in the “Additional Views” section (supported by the “Amendments” section), some people cried foul, and would not let the cover-up go completely unchecked and unseen.
Cover-up for Democrats [pg102]
Following the Committee’s agreement on February 12,2004, to examine “whether public statements and reports and testimony regarding Iraq by U.S. Government officials made between the GulfWar period and the commencement of Operation Iraqi Freedom were substantiated by intelligence information” the Chairman and Vice Chairman each provided a list of statements their respective Members wanted examined by the Committee staff. In the reports released today, only those statements submitted by the Democrats were reviewed.The Republican Members ofthe Committee submitted approximately 100 statements for review. These were statements made by officials in the previous administration and Members of Congress. Many of our Members believed it was relevant and important to include those statements, particularly from Democrats in Congress, to show that during the debate leading up to and during the authorization of the war in Iraq and during previous efforts to use force in Iraq, Members of both parties with access to intelligence information, not just the Republican administration, made very similar statements about Iraq’s weapons ofmass destruction capabilities and links to terrorism. In our opinion, the statements from most policymakers, whether or not they supported the decision to go to war in Iraq, were similar because everyone saw virtually the same intelligence and used that same intelligence in speeches to explain their own decision-making.
The minority’s “Additional Views” section goes on…
Cherry-Picking Intelligence
We have several concerns about the intelligence information the majority chose to include, and chose to ignore, in its report.First, the majority chose to include only “finished disseminated intelligence” for comparison with policymakers’ statements. This is not only a departure from the Committee’s agreed upon terms of reference, it is unfair to policymakers whom we know had access to far more than just published intelligence assessments.
…
Second, the report excludes other information relevant to any fair inquiry of whether policymakers’ statements were substantiated by intelligence. For example, the Committee obtained information related to the coordination, declassification, and fact-checking of the President’s Cincinnati speech with the CIA, relevant portions of which we requested be included in the report. Specifically, a handwritten note by a CIA officer at the bottom of one of the drafts to then-DCI Tenet said that the CIA terrorism analyst had “read all the terrorism paragraphs and said it was all okay” (emphasis original.) We believed it was only fair to let the public know that the CIA checked the President’s speech and said that all of the terrorism paragraphs were
determined by CIA analysts to be “all okay.” Apparently the majority did not think: this was something the public needed to know since they denied our request to include it and did not allow a vote on the amendment offered to fix this shortcoming. Why do the Democrats want to hide the fact that the CIA cleared the President’s speech?
…
Third, in several cases, the report compares policymaker statements to intelligence published after, sometimes months after, the statements were made. This just does not make sense. For example, Amendment 97 addresses a conclusion which says the “President’s suggestion that the Iraqi government was considering using UAVs to attack the United States was substantiated by intelligence judgments available at the time, but these judgments were revised a few months later, in January 2003.” Whether the NIE judgments were reviewed after the President’s speech is irrelevant to whether the statement was substantiated at the time it was made. Furthermore, we note that this conclusion also distorts the President’s words because he did not say that Iraq was considering using UAVs to target the United States. Rather, he said: ”we are concerned that Iraq was exploring ways of using these UAVs for missions targeting the United States,” a comment that was fully consistent with the January 2003 NIE, Nontraditional Threats to he US. Homeland Through 2007. Obviously the intelligence community had to be concerned that Iraq could use these UAVs to target the homeland or they would not have been included in an NIE about threats to the Homeland at all.
We find the refusal to include all relevant intelligence and the inclusion of information published after the delivery of statements to be particularly ironic since in a letter on November 14,2005, then-Vice Chainnan Rockefeller, along with Senators Levin and Feinstein, wrote to the Majority and Minority Leaders explaining that they had “insisted that the Committee compare statements of government officials against all intelligence infonnation prepared for circulation and relevant to the subject matter at issue, provided it was it was available at the time the statement was made.”
This appeared to be considered a worthwhile task when the burden of collecting all of the available intelligence from the end of the GulfWar through the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom fell to Republican Members and their staff, but when the Democrats took charge, including only some of the intelligence was deemed acceptable. Perhaps forcing the Republican staff to review over 40,000 documents was just a request intended to delay further publication of the Phase II effort and allow the continuation of charges of “obstruction.”
The idea of limiting the intelligence to that which was “available at the time the statement was made” must have seemed like a better idea when the Democrats thought policymakers would not be able to use information published even days after their statements to defend themselves. When it turned out that this could be used to the majority’s own advantage, however, information that was actually available to policymakers apparently became less important. Maybe the majority believes those reading the report will not bother to check the dates.
One of the more dangerous and shocking parts of the report is that many of the points its writers make are fiction.
Unsubstantiated ClaimslDistorting Intelligence
One of the most hypocritical aspects of the Majority report is that while it purports to cast judgment on how well policymakers characterized intelligence analysis in their public statements, the report itself distorts many policymakers’ statements and the intelligence analysis. This has the unfortunate consequence of undermining the Committee’s credibility in exercising oversight.Several of the minority’s amendments focused on the issue ofmischaracterizing policymakers’statements. One example is Amendment 7 which addresses a portion of the majority report which says that the President, Vice President, and the Secretary of State “stated that the Iraq government had an active nuclear weapons program.” However, even a cursory examination ofthe statements included for review in the report shows that none of the named individuals “stated” that Iraq had an “active nuclear weapons program,” not one. Another amendment, Number 136, addresses a conclusion that claims the President and Vice President made statements that “Saddam Hussein was prepared to give weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups for attacks against the United States.” Yet, neither the President nor the Vice President said this.
If you don’t read the report at all, this part of it is the most important part to read regardless of party, political orientation, or views on the decision to invade Iraq. It’s the core of the entire “Bush Lied” conspiracy theory debate:
Conclusion
Although we are troubled by all of the issues we have outlined thus far-that the report released today was a waste of Committee time and resources that should have been spent overseeing the intelligence community, that the report is part of a partisan agenda, that the report cherry picked information and distorted policymakers’ statements and intelligence, and that the majority refused to offer those it is accusing the opportunity to be heard-we are most concerned about the damage that this report will do, and that the whole Phase II effort has done for the past several years, in creating the impression that policymakers should be bound to make policy based on only that which is published in intelligence assessments. This is not only wrong, it is dangerous and it is contrary to everything else this Committee has done since it published its first report on the Iraq intelligence failure. It has the effect of encouraging intelligence community analysts to become policymakers, and encouraging policymakers to adhere strictly to whatever analysts write, when we know that intelligence analysis can be dangerously inaccurate. Have we forgotten how wrong the intelligence judgments were in the October 2002 Iraq WMD NIB and how many other intelligence failures we had before that one? Intelligence is not incontestable truth and it is only one factor out ofmany that a policymaker must consider before making a policy decision.This fallacy has also unnecessarily increased demands on the intelligence community. Requesting NIBs with unclassified key judgments has become sport in Washington as each side hopes the NIB will support its position. Cries of “politicization” usually follow from whichever side is unhappy with the results. This is not only unfair to the intelligence community, it is dangerous in that analysts will attempt to please all sides and their muddied judgments will help no one.
We expect intelligence analysts to follow tried and true marching orders for intelligence:
tell me what you know, tell me what you don’t know, tell me what you think, and make sure the policymaker understands the difference. Analysts cannot do this if they are constantly wondering if their assessments will be used for politics.The Democratic majority, in the partisan way it attempted to suppress intelligence information and skew the historical record, is betting that the public and the media will not take the time to read these and other minority views that expose its hypocrisy. We have written these views to shine a light on it, for if there is any oversight value left in this fruitless endeavor that has consumed so much of the resources of this
Where is the accountability?
Where is the Pulitzer-winning mainstream journalist who has the endurance, professionalism, conviction, or mere interest to actually read the entire report and tell the world that the Democrats in control of this committee not only started the “Bush Lied” conspiracy theory, but they fed it and continue to feed it for their own political gain as well as to protect and hide their party’s aquiescence, submission, and even outright promotion of the invasion of Iraq?
Author of “Reparations and America’s 2nd Civil War
Reparations and America’s 2nd Civil War: Malensek, Scott: 9798864028674: Amazon.com: Books
Bravo!
This post should be frontpage on every major and minor newspaper around the globe.
Hopefully this is the beginning of a trend in that direction.
I agree.
When administration officials were telling us that Muhammad Atta had met an Iraqi operative in Prague, they lied. The CIA did not consider that little slice of intelligence to be credible and for good reason, the source was a known fabricator with a substance abuse problem.
When administration officials warned us about Iraq and Al Qaeda working as collaborators, they lied. The National Intelligence Estimate indicated almost the opposite.
When they claimed that Saddam would hand over WMD to terrorist orgainizations, they lied. The CIA was dboutful that Saddam would do such a thing.
You are correct that almost everyone in congress failed us. They either did not read the NIE or they read it and didn’t keep track of where Bush and his associates veered from what was the concensus.
If your arguement is that policymakers should ignore intelligence estimates and just go with their “gut”, that is absurd. However, we would save a ton of money, we could shut down more than a dozen intelligence depts.
Oscar, what you are ignoring are timelines; of what was known, when.
On Meet the Press Cheney said “pretty well confirmed” that Atta had been in Prague. He based his statement on what was thought at the time:
MTP 3/24/02:
MTP 9/08/02:
Russert is always fishing for “gotcha” statements, regarding 9/11-Saddam connections. He keeps coming back to repeating the same question in all of these interviews.
MTP 9/14/03:
Finally, MTP 9/10/06, where Russert tries to play “gotcha”:
“Pretty well confirmed” was said in Dec 2001. Why doesn’t Russert bring up Cheney’s subsequent statements on the matter?
I don’t believe this story was ever conclusively “debunked”, but remains unresolved. Did Czech intelligence ever back off the claims?
Your timeline is helpful, except you did not include information as to when the CIA doubted the claim that Muhammad Atta had met an Iraqi operative. The answer to that question destroys VP Cheney’s arguements, he lied repeatedly about the what was known and when.
The CIA never considered the intelligence credible on this matter. For that reason, this story does not appear in the October 2002 NIE nor does it appear in any intelligence estimate.
This fraudulent story was found by Douglas Feith’s office inside the Pentagon. The report was briefed directly to administration officials without the vetting of the intelligence community.
Thank you for printing so much of what VP Cheney said on Meet The Press, it is really amazing to see his words again in light of the fact that he constructed an amazing lie and told it so well.
Oscar, that’s exactly the kind of misleading statement that fills the Sen Intel Com report. The scope of the NIE never included regime ties to Al Queda. It was only a look at WMD. Not IIS/AQ etc.
btw, check the dates….Feith’s OSP briefed the Admin, but 48hrs later the CIA briefed the Admin and published their “Iraqi Support For Terrorism 2002” pamphlet. Any misleading done by Feith’s office was cleared up by that CIA report that came out the Wed after the OSP’s Monday briefing. The use of Feith’s office as a scapegoat has been well sold, and apparently bought wholeheartedly by many people including yourself, Oscar, but it doesn’t hold up to a calender. Not only was the Admin briefed 48hrs later by the CIA, but the House and Senate Intel Committees had almost 24 closed door briefings with intel agency officials and leaders after the OSP briefing. Any concerns about statements made by the Admin (allegedly based on the OSP’s claims) were supposed to have been cleared up at those closed door briefings. That was the purpose of the two dozen closed door meetings-to clear up questions.
Nope. Feith’s OSP didn’t manipulate the intel and mislead the President, his administration, Congress, and the American people. Someone else successfully misled/finger-pointed to Feith and his office. Who, why?
http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/kanjorski-says-dems-were-insincere-about-ending-war-2008-05-23.html
Shortly after September 11th, Vice President Dick Cheney asked Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet to look into the claim that Atta had met an Iraqi intelligence agent. Tenet put the Directorate of Operations Jim Pavitt on the case, who reported back to Tenet. On September 21st, 2001, Tenet told the President, “Our Prague office is skeptical about the report. It just doesn’t add up.” Tenet also indicated that other evidence the CIA was able to find, including credit card and telephone records, made such a meeting highly unlikely.
Cheney lied.
Oscar Lewis. Please read, in it’s entirety, the study translating Harmony and ISG docs confiscated in 2003 from Saddam’s regime after OIF.
Then get back to us about “lies”.
The Cheney/Tenet “ask about” and “doesn’t add up” BS is all old, vague speculative news with little bearing on any one issue of import. We have hard copy documents from the regime now to work from INRE Saddam’s ties to militant terrorists, including AQ’s Zawahiiri from 1993 (when he was head honcho for EIJ).
Do catch up. Otherwise your contributions are years’ old talking points with little relevance.
It’s pretty hard to argue with you. The case regarding Cheney’s lie about Muhammad Atta meeting Al-Ani in Prague is clear.
There are no CIA concensus documents to support Cheney’s assertion. There never were. Yet, you cling to incorrect reports that purport otherwise.
Next, you will argue that the world is flat. I think if you look back far enough in time, you will find supporting evidence.
Oscar,
You continue to twist and twirl and turn as you spin the “Cheney lied” meme.
Where are your facts sir? Where are your sources? Your proof?
So far, you’ve not provided one single link or source. Not one.
Simply copying and pasting from Wikipedia, sans link, will not work for you.
In addition, Wikipedia, while fun to use, is a notoriously unreliable source. It is, as I am sure that you are aware, assembled, maintained, and edited by members of the Wiki community. It is replete with errors and is constantly being massaged and nuanced.
To answer Wordsmith’s question from above, no, the Czechs never backed away from their original claim. They continue to stand behind it.
Simply saying “Cheney lied” is a simple thing to do.
Proving it to people who will not just take your word for it is more difficult.
You’re making the claim. Can you back it up?
Oscar, Oscar, Oscar. If you are going to copy and paste from Wiki, at least source it. No wonder you are finding it difficult to argue with MataHarley.
Apparently you must have skipped Scott’s wonderful thread he provided for us a few days ago.
http://www.floppingaces.net/2008/06/11/key-points-senate-select-committee-on-intelligence-phase-ii-investigation
“(U) Conclusion 14. The Intelligence Community did not confIrm that Muhammad Atta met an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in 2001.
Amendment 121 – strike the above conclusion
Comments – At the time that the Vice President commented that “it’s been pretty well confirmed that [Atta] did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service” a CIA assessment said, “The Czech Government last week publicly confirmed that suspected hijacker Muhammad Atta met with former Iraqi station chiefAhmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir aI-Ani in Prague before al-Ani’s expulsion from the Czech Republic last April. AI-Ani and Atta met during 8-9 April in Prague, according to a foreign government service.” (Emphasis added.)”
Isn’t Oscar engaging in another of those “distractions” on minor points which Obama has repeatedly told us gets in the way of understanding of the real issues?
The point here about this report NOT being a unanimous product of the committee like previous reports and the 9/11 Commission Report is key. It’s clear that Democrats blatantly politicized this process and that their goal was NOT to report the full truth.
That in itself weakens any case Oscar and friends would care to make.
However, from the perspective of how this report is viewed by the general public I realize that this key weakness will likely go unnoticed.
Few people will inform themselves on this report beyond what they read in the headline and perhaps opening paragraphs of a news story which will dutifully echo the conclusions Democrats made in the report. If the news story reports the GOP dissenting view at all, it will be buried and the importance of a lack of unanimity will be lost.
Below is an opinion piece I wrote that deals with this issue in a broad sense.
There exists a case for the impeachment of President George W. Bush. The United States Constitution calls for the removal of the President for “high crimes and misdemeanors,” and this term can apply to abuse of power and serious misconduct. President Bush has committed many violations of law and constitution in relation to his warrantless spying on U.S. citizens, authorization of the use of torture on terror suspects, detention policies and other practices. This piece however only addresses his disregard for and abuse of authentic pre-war intelligence and his creation of a shadow intelligence department.
There was compelling, multi-sourced information available to the President before the war, which indicated Iraq was not an urgent danger, yet he chose to ignore it. Dating back as far as 1997, the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) appraisal of Iraq’s known nuclear program was that it was successfully dismantled. In September of 2002 the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) released a report in which they contended, “There is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons, or whether Iraq has – or will – establish its chemical warfare agent-production facilities.” About one month later the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) reported that the available evidence was inadequate to support the claim that Iraq was effectively pursuing an integrated comprehensive approach to acquire nuclear weapons. On March 7th, 2003, just ten days before President Bush declared war, the IAEA reported that there was no evidence that Iraq had reconstituted its nuclear program. In addition, the extensive UN inspections between November 2002 and March 2003 did not reveal any evidence of renewed chemical or biological weapons programs. Of all the data presented to President Bush on these matters the IAEA, UN, DIA and INR reports should have been viewed with the highest degree of veracity.
Instead of embracing the most accurate and reliable information available at the time, our leader refused to acknowledge the validity of those reports. Although many members of congress had access to much of the same intelligence on Iraq that Bush did, he led the way in misrepresenting the intelligence. He elevated and amplified the unsubstantiated anecdotes of Iraqi exiles and defectors like the highly reimbursed Ahmed Chalabi. President Bush knew better, as it is common for expatriates to pursue personal agendas. In the case of Chalabi, he had obvious credibility issues as he had previously been convicted for embezzling millions from a Jordanian bank. Bush also relied upon intelligence culled from The Office of Special Plans, a team within the Department of Defense that was set up by his political appointees. Their primary purpose was to provide supportive intelligence favoring President Bush’s contention that Iraq was pursuing banned weapons programs. As detailed in a report by Senator Carl Levin, some of their dubious research was presented directly and exclusively to administration officials without first being subjected to the scrutiny of the intelligence community. When the president did use intelligence that had been properly vetted, he frequently dropped caveats and never mentioned dissenting analysis.
Although there was no hard evidence of renewed weapons programs, President Bush repeatedly made statements of certitude about the growing danger that Iraq posed. A few examples include: On October 7th, 2002 in Cincinnati he claimed, “The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons programs.” At his State of the Union address on January 28th, 2003, President Bush made the bold declaration, “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” Months earlier the CIA had debunked that claim. In that same speech he warned, “Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons and other plans-this time armed by Saddam Hussein.” The President made this type of warning many times. He wanted us to believe that Saddam would hand over his weapons to Al-Qaeda, even though he was aware that no collaborative relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda had ever been established and the CIA considered it unlikely that such a relationship would develop. Finally, according to the research paper “Iraq on the Record” by the U.S. House of Representatives, careful analysis of President Bush’s speeches showed that he made “55 misleading statements about the threat posed by Iraq in 27 separate public statements or appearances.”
Aggravating our doubts about President Bush’s integrity is the possibility that he used the tragedy of 9-11-2001 to realize a pre-existing goal of deposing Saddam Hussein. Based on comments of former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neil in the book, “The Price of Loyalty,” the Bush administration was focused on deposing Saddam Hussein within the first ten days of taking office. Also, according to an encounter with the President in the immediate aftermath of 9-11, former counter terrorism chief Richard Clarke explained on CBS’s 60 Minutes, “He came back at me and said, “Iraq! Saddam! Find out if there’s a connection.’ And in a very intimidating way. I mean that we should come back with that answer.” Also, the leaked “Downing Street Memos” provided hard evidence that the Bush administration had secretly decided to wage war on Iraq at least as early as July 2002, long before public declarations to that effect. These documents confirm that the administration was manipulating the intelligence in an effort to justify military action. It appears that in his resolve to depose Saddam Hussein, President Bush was willing to lie and redirect our outrage over the terrorist attacks of 9-11 from al Qaeda to Baghdad.
Some people would argue that in the case of Iraq, dishonesty by the President did not matter. The benefits of removing an evil dictator far outweighed the costs. Of course deposing a murderous dictator was a decent cause. Bringing peace, democracy and economic opportunity to Iraq and the Middle East would be a legacy for which our country could be proud. However, the cost of this war has been anything but cheap. Hundreds of thousands of lives have been needlessly destroyed and millions of refugees created. Over a trillion dollars will eventually be spent. We have lost the respect and admiration of the world. Al Qaeda has enjoyed an unencumbered resurgence and we are less able to effectively negotiate with North Korea and Iran. These consequences only serve to heighten the importance of denouncing the dishonesty of President Bush.
Our President’s credibility has been greatly damaged, as it appears that in deciding to attack Iraq he started with a policy and worked backward in search of information that would support his ambitions. With this in mind, we must not condone the President’s misuse of his authority. On such a vital matter as the security of our nation, we should have every confidence that our President is obtaining and responding to the best available information. We should expect our leader to convey truthfully and persuasively to curry public support for his policies. The evidence indicates that President Bush was not honest, deliberate or temperate in his judgments. It is essential that this corruption be addressed. The House of Representatives must start the impeachment process.
OK Oscar,
Let me make sure I understand this.
I asked you:
You provided:
This “opinion piece” is filled with even more falsity than the “Cheney lied” meme you were trying to spin earlier.
Certainly you must know better.
Epic Fail.
Don’t you consider the IAEA report from March of 2003 (10 days before Bush declared war) to be evidence?
Don’t you consider reports by the DIA and INR to be valid?
The conclusions of these reports have been validated. What do you need?
I find it humorous that you want proof but overlook all the reports (many more than I could mention in my piece) that indicate the Bush administration misrepresented the available intelligence.
Keep lying and denying.
Oscar,
I don’t consider an “opinion piece” written by you Oscar, or a Wikipedia entry copied and pasted by you, sans link or credit, to be proof.
You note all these different reports, and claim that they say what you want them to say, but yet you don’t link or quote directly from the reports.
Why is that Oscar?
Again:
If what you say is true, then it should be easy enough for you to provide what is needed to support your posited argument.
That way, we can all read the statements, go to the noted sources, and see the entire context of what is there rather than just a snippet that meets your needs.
I’m not going to do your research for you.
You’ve made the statements, the burden is entirely upon you to prove them.
Another “Oscar” winning performance in the fiction category by Oscar Lewis.
I’ll match your report and raise you three.
Oscar sez:
Also
Lawdy… like shooting fish in a barrel, this one is.
Let’s advance a year to the UNMOVIC May 2004 quarterly report, shall we? (That would be the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, in case you’re not in the know…)
Well lookie that! Illegally possessed missiles, known to be in Saddam’s possession March 2003, and conveniently dumped in a Netherland scrap yard to avoid being found when OIF commenced. oops… That makes your purported evidence source… uh, what’s the word? WRONG!
Oh no, say it ain’t SOOOO! You mean Saddam and pals moved something *other* than the palace patio furniture in all those convoys and “humanitarian” flights???
oops again… And I’ll bet your beloved media didn’t advise you of that little report, did they? Would make them look like the lazy fools they are.
Like I said, if you’d stay current instead of relying on dated, media propaganda, you might have something to contribute. And thank heavens you at least wrote that opinion instead of putting it as lyrics to someone else’s music. BTW, you a Brit? Ship some bangers, please.
Now, now Mata.
Mike and I were fishing for us some Oscar and you had to come along and stir up the water with those darned inconvenient facts.
Maybe Oscar, over in his very own special corner of Alternate Reality, will be able to produce some sort of proof for his claims but I won’t hold my breath.
Mata, have you ever heard of Dave Gaubatz? Interesting fellow he is, and lots to contribute to this line of discussion too.
He may or may not be a Brit but he lives in Atlanta, GA now, so probably has no bangers for you. He might be able to ship you something from the Varsity though.
He’s a big fan of Sen. Chambliss and Neal Boortz.
Oscar, da fighting fish… Wouldn’t it be easier to just watch them kill their own, then pluck them out by hand??
UPDATE INRE Dave Gaubatz… thought name looked familiar, but I read so little of his stuff. Apparently doesn’t make it into my internet path often enuf. Caught couple of his American Thinkers. You have any specific recommendations?
Oscar, when it comes to refuting “the facts” in your piece, it’s a matter of “where do I begin?” and “do I have the time and energy on my hands?”. A number of points you bring up are already addressed if you go through the FA archives. I know we’ve covered downing st memo, 16 sotu words, and on and on.
Oscar in comment #9:
Pavitt’s one of those “shadow warriors” Kenneth Timmerman calls out by name in his book, as being anti-Bush.
Aye Chihuahua #16:
A better opinion piece:
Well, since everyone else is joining in and doing Oscar’s work for him I’ll do my part.
From the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report that he was waving about in post #15.
Here’s the part Oscar quoted. The part he wanted us to see:
Oddly enough, that’s also the portion that was leaked to the press.
Imagine that.
Here is the part that Oscar didn’t quote. The part he didn’t want us to see:
Emphasis mine.
Oscar’s selective quoting is in italics.
This is the link to the original PDF.
My students are going to really enjoy reading this series of comments. Thank you very much for your participation.
Take care,
Oscar
Oscar, interesting comments across the board. Let’s check the dates and the sources though if we can.
You make an interesting point about Pavit (CIA) looking into regime ties to AQ between
Sept 11, 2001
and
Sept 21, 2001
You also make an interesting point about DCI Tenet looking into regime ties to AQ in the same period.
There are several problems here.
1) Just because Pavit, others in CIA, and even DCI Tenet were dubious of regime ties does not automatically mean that either the matter was fully investigated in the Sept 11, 2001 to March 17, 2003 period. Your point is only in reference to the chaotic days immediately after the 911 attacks-days in which many still didn’t believe the carefully planned, prepared, orchestrated, and timed attacks could possibly be Al Queda. Even the Israeli Mossad-which arguably had the best intelligence service re the region at the time-didn’t believe it was UBL and AQ.
2) Making statements about how Pavitt, Tenet, or others (I can list a dozen or more if desired) couldn’t believe the reports of regime ties to AQ only means that those people were skeptical. It doesn’t mean anyone reported that skeptism to VP Cheney, or that he should have been skeptical. Quite the contrary-immediately after the 911 attacks (and to this day) many believe the Bush Administration was too skeptical about intelligence reports about AQ, and should have been less skeptical/taken more action on the pre-911 intelligence reports…vague as they were.
3) MOST IMPORTANTLY, the intelligence regarding regime ties to Al Queda doesn’t hinge on the Prague meeting. Not at all. That’s just one of the hundreds of reports of the regime working with Al Queda. No doubt, not all intelligence reports are 100% accurate (that’s why they’re not called “Evidence Agencies”). By and large, most of the intelligence reports about pre-911, post-911/pre-OIF regime ties were accurate and indicated a long list of high level meetings between the regime and AQ. Post invasion intelligence has shown that hundreds of Iraqi leaders worked directly with AQ groups before the invasion.
Ultimately, Saddam and Bin Laden didn’t have to be snuggle-buggle, hand-holding lovers, or even friends. They didn’t even have to like each other any more than racist Hitler liked an Asian Tojo.
The biggest, most important tie between the regime and AQ isn’t Saddam and UBL, but the covert leadership of both entities, and the strategic exploitation of each other to further their own individual ends; ie the removal of US and western forces from the Middle East as well as their ally…Israel.
Oscar, Oscar. Hold on just a sec….
No need to dash off so quickly. We were just getting started.
Personally, I was convinced that you would at least attempt some feeble effort toward defending your position and arguments but then again, after the way you got your ass handed to you, I cannot really blame you for wanting to slink away quietly.
The burden of having your arguments eviscerated, disassembled at the joints, and stacked neatly in the corner must have been just too much for you to face.
I thought you were going to be something different, Oscar. Something special.
As it turns out, you’re just ordinary.
Oh well.
Oscar a teacher? No wonder the “dumbing down of America” is successful….
Education should be about teaching independent thought, and how to form educated opinions. It is not about pushing an instructor’s beliefs onto the class. So the question is: Will he inspire his students to look for the original source materials (as we provided here for his convenience) to read for themselves everything in it’s entirety?
Or will his students, like him, depend upon so called jouralist “interpretations” of the source documents because it’s easier?