Now it's a battle for the truth [View All]

[DoYouEverWonder]

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/02/06/1075854070686.html

February 7, 2004

It is unnerving to watch the world's most powerful intelligence chief with his back to the wall. But when the CIA's director, George Tenet, stood up at Georgetown University to explain his handling of the prewar intelligence on Iraq's weapons, there was little doubt he was on the defensive and his career was on the line.

<snip>

Tenet set about strenuously defending many of the flawed claims in the prewar US National Intelligence Estimate of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. The claims in that document, released in October 2002, were repeatedly exploited by President George Bush, Australia's Prime Minister, John Howard, and Britain's Tony Blair before the Iraq war.

At the end of each claim, Tenet offered his "provisional bottom line" on what he now knows. In all but one case, the intelligence estimate was grossly exaggerated or plain wrong. On chemical weapons, his prewar estimate claimed "Saddam has probably stocked a few hundred metric tonnes of CW agents". Now, Tenet conceded, "we have not yet found the weapons we expected".

<snip>

Now Bush has agreed to Kay's proposal for an independent inquiry into the prewar intelligence, pitting the White House and some powerful Republican players against Tenet. Kay's split with the CIA chief brings into the open a power struggle between the CIA and the White House over who will take the blame for the failure to find any WMD in Iraq.

<snip>

Yesterday Tenet insisted the intelligence agencies told the White House that "Saddam did not have a nuclear weapon and probably would have been unable to make one until 2007 to 2009".




Looks like the battle lines are being drawn. Let the finger pointing begin.

One of the things in the article that bugs me is why is Joe Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace hanging out with David Kay? Is the CEIP siding with Bu$hCo?

Oh and remember that mushroom cloud Condi warned us about, now Tenet says Saddam was 5 - 10 years away from being able to make a nuke? How did 5 - 10 years become an imminent, immediate, grave, serious, we can't wait for inspectors to do their job, level of threat?