Dems: Prewar Probe Ignores Misuse Queries

[Spazito]

WASHINGTON - Democrats said Friday that a Senate inquiry into prewar intelligence is ignoring questions about whether the Bush administration misused the intelligence.



The Senate Intelligence Committee's top Democrat, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, said he believes committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., wants to place all responsibility for problems on the intelligence agencies "and never get to any other branches of government, in particular the White House" and related agencies.

Roberts was traveling in Kansas and his spokeswoman did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

The dispute renewed an unusual public rift on a committee that traditionally has sought to maintain a nonpartisan appearance. The two senators have clashed before over the scope and structure of the Iraq (news - web sites) intelligence inquiry.

more

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=512&e=16&u=/ap/cia_senate

[xchrom]

1. he's not alone

the despcription of the story sounds like a minor dispute over the neighbors fence.
the ''mistakes'' made by this admin should mean jail time for a number of folk.

[gratuitous]

2. Gee, Sen. Roberts

There are some folks who regard going to war as a serious undertaking, and asking our military to put their lives on the line as something that should be done with only the utmost gravity. You seem more interested in excusing this administration's screw ups than in the lives and welfare of our military personnel and the tens of thousands of dead Iraqis we have made out of formerly live Iraqis.

Would it be out of line to suggest your priorities need some rearranging?

[radfringe]

3. connect the dots

PNAC ( http://www.newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm )and others had the invasion of Iraq, Iran etc. planned long before September 11 - what they lacked was someone with the power to enact that plan

They found someone - the Whistleass - and either through agreement or pure incompetence - the whistleass went along with it

September 11 just gave them the excuse to enact the plan

The argument for invading Afghanistan was easy - Bin-laden was there, Bin-laden was behind the September 11 attack, the taliban was protecting Bin-laden.

But to invade Iraq - the "obvious" arguments were not there for all to see. To carry the momentum of patriotic public opinion a connection must be made between Bin-laden and Saddam - and by extension that Saddam was a very immediate threat. The CIA intelligence wasn't showing any connection, nor was it showing that Saddam was a very immediate threat.

Enter the "NIGER" documents regarding yellow cake and Saddam. Nothing is more terrifying than images of a mushroom cloud over YOUR home town. Next we get statements from Condi and the Whistleass about mushrooms clouds, Niger, yellow cake, Saddam and nukes all mushed together. This implies that Saddam has and will use nukes.

For whatever reason - the CIA wouldn't support the Niger-Saddam connection. To get around this, Whistleass Inc. cites British Intelligence as the source of information, which by extension implies that Whistleass Inc. (inclusive of all branches of intelligence) believes it to be true.

Now, Wilson stands up and says "This isn't true"

Welllll, you can't have someone contradicting Whistleass Inc. - so it's decided to muddy the message, shoot the messenger and send a message to anyone else thinking of questioning Whistleass Inc's policies. hence the outing of Wilson's wife.

The 16 words were downplayed... "pooh pooh just 16 words, but look what else bush said in the SOTU...."

Wilson was branded as a partisan - "he hates the president, he's politically motivated, can't believe him - meanwhile did you know his wife is a CIA agent and pulled strings to get him into Niger???"

Meanwhile, through Ashcroft - whistleass inc. is investigating itself, and you know that is going to go through the wash cycle several times until either they emerge with a sparkling clean conclusion or attention to the issue fades completely.

Now the Senate committee is poised to reveal a "scathing" report about the intelligence community and how it failed to provide accurate information to whistleass inc.

it's all connected back to the PNAC

several questions are not being asked - (we've asked and answered some of them here on the DU)

Why was the vetting process of information circumvented so that it allowed inaccurate and bogus info to reach Whistleass inc.

how much pressure was put on analysts to provide information specifically pertaining to current administration policies

who put the pressure on them

what happened to that info once it hit whistleass's desk - who cherry picked through it, filtered it and manipulated it for the sole purpose of using it to justify invading Iraq

what other information is being used in the same manner to justify invading Syria, Iran or even North Korea?

- the most important question - we as citizens need to ask ourselves --
What are the real concerns of this administration - oil? power? self-serving greed? political advantage? or doing what's right by our country and people?

---

one other thing, and I'm sure tomost of us this is nothing new -

the whistleass administration doesn't take responsibility

---the 16 words were blamed on british intelligence and Tenet fell on his sword

---No Niger-Saddam connection - that was dodged by smearing Wilson and outing his wife

---No WMD's - gee it's the CIA's fault for giving us bogus info

---finding Plame's leaker - let Ashcroft run it through the wash cycle - and express doubt about finding the leaker, meanwhile downplay Plame's outing as "not being all that bad"

[maryallen]

4. Excellent summary, radfringe ...

For the life of me, I can't understand why the American people are not coming unglued about the nonexistent Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Soldiers are dying daily because of this bogus rationale for war, and we Americans continue to sit on our hands and watch it happen.

In a sane country, television commentators and journalists would be screaming about this on a daily basis ... but they're not.

[radfringe]

5. for all you LiHOP / MiHOP

It's fairly obvious that the "leak" and manipulation of pre-Iraq invasion information has whistleass inc's fingerprints all over it

I believe it even goes further back

Most of the news article/reports point to intelligence failures on the part of the FBI/CIA which "allowed" September 11 to occur

wellllll... how much of the pre-Septmber 11 intelligence was also being cherry picked or just outright ignored by whistleass inc?

back to the mantra "what did the pResident know and when did he know it?"

Feb-March 2001: FBI terrorist investigations into Bin-Laden were "curbed"

March-April 2001: in an under-reported visit to Afghanistan regarding the Caspian Sea pipeline, the taliban were told by whitehouse representatives that Afghanistan could be "carpeted in gold...or carpeted in bombs.."

fast forward to the days after September 11 - it took us less than one month to mobilize and start bombing Afghanistan. Contrast that to the six-seven months that it took Poppy Bush to mobilize and start bombing during the Gulf War

seems to me that plans/preparations were already lined up in the starting gate to use military action against Afghanistan - all that was missing was a "reason" that would gain public support

slap me with a :tinfoilhat: - but I think the "leak" and recent information about intelligence manipulation story is only a tiny glimpse. This goes deeper and further back.