Cheney's visits to the CIA: has anyone at the CIA said

[Eric J in MN]

on the record that he or she felt pressured by Cheney, or only anonymously?

[ElsewheresDaughter]

1. yes...i'm positive i've read and heard it stated by CIA people....

and the "Pentagons Office of Special Plans"

[Eric J in MN]

2. Can anyone name a CIA person who said he felt pressured? nt

nt

[ElsewheresDaughter]

3. all i found so far have is this Hindu article from 6/6/04 .. i'm searching

http://www.hinduonnet.com/2003/06/06/stories/2003060605721400.htmThe Vice-President's office has not chosen to respond to the substantive aspects of Mr. Cheney's visits to the CIA headquarters or the implications of such visits. "The Vice-President values the hard work of the intelligence community, but his office has a practice of declining to comment on the specifics of his intelligence briefings," Mr. Cheney's director of public affairs has been quoted.

Eight weeks after the `liberation' of Iraq, the Bush administration has been embarrassed in not finding any weapons of mass destruction. The existence of these weapons and programmes were the chief rationale for starting the war with Iraq.

The Congressional Committees of the Senate and the House of Representatives are planning open hearings soon and law-makers cutting across party lines have promised to get to the bottom of the matter. The debate is if the administration — which appeared so bent on starting a war with Iraq — deliberately twisted intelligence assessment from an assortment of agencies to suit its line of thinking.

Reports like the ones in The Washington Post will raise further questions on whether the administration tried to `pressure' — even in indirect terms — analysts with coming up with certain outputs.

Across the Atlantic, the Prime Minister of Britain, Tony Blair, is seen to be in `hotter' water over Iraq's weapons of mass destruction than the U.S. President, George W. Bush. The additional problem for Mr. Bush is that serious rumblings on Capitol Hill present a real danger as he starts his re-election campaign for November 2004. And the administration is aware of what is unfolding.

"I know of no pressure. I know of nobody who pressured anybody'', argued the Under-Secretary of Defence for Policy, Douglas Feith, in a rare session with the media. But the report in The Post makes the point that intelligence officials had faced a "continual drumbeat" from not only Mr. Cheney and his Chief of Staff but also from hardliners in the Pentagon like the Deputy Defence Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, to look for information or write reports that helped the administration make the case that going to war with Mr. Hussein was urgent.