The worst scandals over the past year... rank them and why

[crushbush04]

Abu Ghraib abuse
No WMD. Intelligence failure
9/11 Commission revelations
Ahmed Chalabi spy for Iran?
The War itself.
No Bin Laden
UN oil for food ripoff
Saddam Bribery of international officials
Underestimating the insurgency
"negative", "positive" press bias
Kerry foreign leaders statement
Fox News
Al Jazeera
BBC and the David Kelly suicide

[jay-3d]

1. BBC and the David Kelly suicide

[crushbush04]

4. Really! Thats interesting

i put it on my list because i seems like a big deal to me but I didnt think this would even show up on anyones radar. There were some resignations as a result but not much else. And the BBC is still as pompous as ever.

[NMDemDist2]

2. i think the Iran/Chalabi thing will grow some legs

and get HUGE

[crushbush04]

3. Thats near the top for me

Iran using the US to get rid of saddam. That is as crazy and ironic as anything I have ever heard

[salin]

7. Take it further

because the accusation is that the intel being received is recent and thus was ongoing. That the man accused who has now fled to Iran, shared an office with two DIA agents. That initial reports indicate irrefutable evidence of passing intel of such high security clearance that few in the govt had access. And finally that the intel passed could put some US lives at risk.

Put that together, and what does it have the potential to mean?

Wait - let me echo what the media (at the WH effort to tie all of the resistance to 1) old Saddam loyalists; and 2) to outside fighters (ala al qeada))... that recent attacks have grown in their coordination and sophistication...

Chew on the implications.

Oh - for the really horrendous (if the above inference is the reality) - one of the articles I read last week about the associate of chalabi who has fled to Iran is that it was known - or at least suspected - for a number of years (1998??) - that this individual had ties to Iranian intelligence.

Oh - and one more - it appears that the person that Chalabi met with (ala the Jordanian information that is "irrefutable") - head of Iranian covert operations... against the US.

Best documentation I have read on the unfolding story is veteran journalist Laura Rozen's www.warandpiece.com

[crushbush04]

9. Next on my personal list is

The prison scandal because of the damage it has done to our status as nation that values human rights.

Now when we say anything about China, Sudan or any other human rights violators they will point to Abu Ghraib and say clean up your own house first. In fact I heard a Libyan official say just that. He said (paraphrasing) "the US should have no voice when it comes to human rights."

It has ruined our image around the world. This may take decades to repair

[salin]

10. I don't disagree with you

but view it as one more of a long series of egregious steps that have sullied our international standing to, ironically, promote "democracy and freedom". Very egregious.

yet in terms of actions that are a direct betrayel and have a potential larger impact that Watergate and Iran Contra combined - the Chalabi story has the potential to blow the neocons out of the water. Discredit them for years to come.

[Mel]

5. The outing of CIA

Agent Valerie Plame who was working on WMD and the person(s) who outed her are in the WH.

[salin]

8. While I used to think that was the worst as it demonstrated

a clear lack of concern for US National Security (she operated an intel network that tracked the international movement of weapons of mass destruction...)

I now think that the Chalabi/Iran story is much more serious, and much more damaging. Please read my post above.

[madrchsod]

6. i`d say the

fight between the whitehouse/defence dept with the cia over the ahmed scandal,the plame affair,and the prison torture. if it wasn`t for the cia distancing and evenutaly blowing the scandals open we would have never known just how badly the bush team has destroyed this countries ability to work with others to at least know what the bad guys are up to and stop them....maybe the cia actually does something good sometimes....

[kaitykaity]

11. The CIA got tired of taking it in the neck

for the administrations failures. Add to that their
obvious anger about the Plame outing, and it was only
a matter of time.

[crushbush04]

12. How about the oil for food?

[NMDemDist2]

13. as horrible as that was, it wasn't GW that set that up eom

[EndElectoral]

14. The stolen election in Florida

It's where the whole mess started