Knight Ridder Does it's Job: "....administration tinkers with truth"

[sabra]

http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/politics/13185348.htm

In challenging war's critics, administration tinkers with truth
Knight Ridder Newspapers

<snip>

ASSERTION: In a Veterans Day speech last Friday, Bush said that Iraq war "critics are fully aware that a bipartisan Senate investigation found no evidence of political pressure to change the intelligence community's judgments related to Iraq's weapons programs."

CONTEXT: Bush is correct in saying that a commission he appointed, chaired by Judge Laurence Silberman and former Sen. Charles Robb, D-Va., found no evidence of "politicization" of the intelligence community's assessments concerning Iraq's reported weapons of mass destruction programs.

But neither that report nor others looked at how the White House characterized the intelligence it had when selling its plan for war to the world and whether administration officials exaggerated the threat. That's supposed to be the topic of a second phase of study by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

....

ASSERTION: In his speech, Bush noted that "more than a hundred Democrats in the House and the Senate - who had access to the same intelligence - voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power."

CONTEXT: This isn't true.

The Congress didn't have access to the President's Daily Brief, a top-secret compendium of intelligence on the most pressing national security issues that was sent to the president every morning by former CIA Director George Tenet.

....

ASSERTION: In his Veterans Day address, Bush said that "intelligence agencies around the world agreed with our assessment of Saddam Hussein."

CONTEXT: Bush is correct in saying that many intelligence agencies, particularly in Europe, believed that Saddam was hiding some weapons of mass destruction capabilities - not necessarily weapons. But they didn't agree with other U.S. assessments about Saddam. Few, with the exception of Great Britain, argued that Iraq was an imminent threat, or that it had any link to Islamic terrorism, much less the Sept. 11 attacks.

more @ link

[Hissyspit]

1. The truth of *'s dissembling is even WORSE than the article implies!

But it's great FINALLY see this kind of contradiction of the WH spin and lies in the "mainstream" media. Don't know how long Knight-Ridder will be keeping this up, though.

Nominated.

[Kurt Remarque]

2. please remember...

bush is incompetent and unable to write any speech. he and cheney are having a tiff so i suspect that idiocy came from karen hughes. chimp is in a box and has no idea what to do. he now has a chilly relationship with poppy but needs him now more than ever. chimp's inner circle is shrinking to a few clueless people.

this stupid neocon soap opera is controlling our country. impeachment will never happen. we need to go into damage control mode and attack and expose these asses while they are on the ropes and work with all strength to take something back in 2006. we need a somewhat national campaign, not as severe as gingrich but clear in intent. blend national and local issues.