Bush's legacy: the sabotage of intelligence

[Alpharetta]

The focus of a 2nd term president turns more to his legacy.

Sadly for Bush, the hallmark of his presidency is being punctuated by the Gannon scandal.

The hallmark itself? Failures of intelligence.

There were failures leading to 9/11.
Failures leading to WMD charges and the invasion of Iraq.
Failures leading to the misguided occupation and reconstruction strategy.

The biggest intelligence failure of all? The Bush administration deliberately sabotaged the CIA. They bypassed the CIA and used the Pentagon to channel Chalabbi's false intelligence regarding Saddam's weapons programs. Then they used a fake news reporter to expose a CIA agent who was investigating WMD.

Their refusal to identify who in the White House leaked Valerie Plame's identity is a refusal to support the CIA and America's intelligence community. Just as Nixon's legacy was Watergate, Bush's legacy will best be illustrated by his stonewalling of the Plame Affair.