History is written by the winners, and bush has beaten the CIA.

[tuvor]

Report Assails C.I.A. for Failure on Iraq Weapons
By DAVID E. SANGER and SCOTT SHANE

Published: March 29, 2005


WASHINGTON, March 28 - The final report of a presidential commission studying American intelligence failures regarding illicit weapons includes a searing critique of how the C.I.A. and other agencies never properly assessed Saddam Hussein's political maneuverings or the possibility that he no longer had weapon stockpiles, according to officials who have seen the report's executive summary.

The report also proposes broad changes in the sharing of information among intelligence agencies that go well beyond the legislation passed by Congress late last year creating a director of national intelligence to coordinate action among all 15 intelligence agencies....

***

The report particularly singles out the Central Intelligence Agency under its former director, George J. Tenet, but also includes what one senior official called "a hearty condemnation" of the Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency, two of the largest intelligence agencies....

***

The report particularly ridicules the conclusion that Mr. Hussein's fleet of "unmanned aerial vehicles," which had very limited flying range, posed a major threat. All of those assertions were repeated by Mr. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other senior officials in the prelude to the war. To this day, Mr. Cheney has never backed away from his claim, repeated last year, that the "mobile laboratories" were probably part of a secret biological weapons program, and his office has repeatedly declined to respond to inquiries about whether the evidence has changed his view....

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/29/politics/29weapons.ht...

Now, let's take a trip down memory lane, back to 2002 before bush's war was declared...

Why the CIA thinks Bush is wrong
The president says the US has to act now against Iraq. The trouble is, his own security services don't agree.
13 October 2002
http://www.sundayherald.com/28384

CIA in blow to Bush attack plans
The letter also comes at a time when the CIA is competing with the more hawkish Pentagon, which is also supplying the White House with intelligence on the Iraqi threat.
October 10, 2002
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,808970,00.h...

White House 'exaggerating Iraqi threat'
Bush's televised address attacked by US intelligence
October 9, 2002
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,807286,00.h...

Don't let bush get away with rewriting history!

[Jack Rabbit]

1. Bush hasn't won yet

EDITED for typing

That report is steer manure. The intelligence was bad because the policy makers made damn sure it was bad. That was what Cheney and Libby were doing on their treks to Langley; that was Feith's mission at the OSP.

Bush is no more a winner than Pinochet. Bush, like Pinochet, will spend the rest of his life under the threat of having to answer for his crimes.

[AG78]

3. You don't really

"Bush, like Pinochet, will spend the rest of his life under the threat of having to answer for his crimes."

believe that do you?

[Jack Rabbit]

6. Why not?

I know it seems like a remote possibility now, but so did it once seem like a remote possibility that Pinochet would be brought before the bar.

This is something on which we should never give up. Bush is a war criminal and we should insist that he be treated like one.

[AG78]

7. I agree

He is a war criminal. I'd never debate that.

But Bush and Pinochet are different animals. None of the people in this administration will ever face a day in prison. As much as they should, they won't.

[Jack Rabbit]

9. I don't see Bush and Pinochet as different animals

What Pinochet did to Chile, Bush has done on a global scale.

Pinochet until recently thought he had escaped justice. After he gave up power, he was made a senator for life and given immunity from prosecution. But some people kept hounding him until the jaws of justice snapped.

Bush thinks he can get away with it, too. And someday, the jaws of justice will snap on him.

[Hamlette]

2. tragedy...thanks for the well researched post. and the great toon.

We will get it right in the end. We knew they were lying to us about Vietnam, now everyone does.

[JohnyCanuck]

4. Just laying smoke for cover again.

From The Guardian.:

The spies who pushed for war

<snip>

According to former Bush officials, all defence and intelligence sources, senior administration figures created a shadow agency of Pentagon analysts staffed mainly by ideological amateurs to compete with the CIA and its military counterpart, the Defence Intelligence Agency.

The agency, called the Office of Special Plans (OSP), was set up by the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, to second-guess CIA information and operated under the patronage of hardline conservatives in the top rungs of the administration, the Pentagon and at the White House, including Vice-President Dick Cheney.

The ideologically driven network functioned like a shadow government, much of it off the official payroll and beyond congressional oversight. But it proved powerful enough to prevail in a struggle with the State Department and the CIA by establishing a justification for war.

<snip>

There was a mountain of documentation to look through and not much time. The administration wanted to use the momentum gained in Afghanistan to deal with Iraq once and for all. The OSP itself had less than 10 full-time staff, so to help deal with the load, the office hired scores of temporary "consultants". They included lawyers, congressional staffers, and policy wonks from the numerous rightwing thinktanks in Washington. Few had experience in intelligence.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,999737,00.h...

[blm]

5. I just don't think the good guys at the CIA will roll over so easily.

I have to believe that something more will be revealed publicly.

There was a reason that Bush purged so many agents after the election. He knew they were working against him. I expect some of them plan to continue to expose the criminals in the WH.

[Just Me]

12. I agree.

Blowbacklash is inevitable. It's just a matter of time.

[bobthedrummer]

8. The Office of Special Plans gang again.

They're going for the World Bank, the UN and a monopoly in space weapons as well as "selective intelligence".

I mean Dick Cheney was personally at the CIA with neo-conservative Cheneymen both in and out of uniform-this is spookwar brought on by "the crazies" and backed by the Rumsfeld/Myers DoD which employs mercenaries and is in the process of "Transformation".

PNAC zealots and traitors to our US Constitution are now "intelligence experts" imo.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

10. Both JFK and Nixon thought they had the CIA under control....

...and neither finished their then-current terms.

[G_j]

11. oh & BTW, US Senate ends probe into prewar intelligence on Iraq

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

US Senate ends probe into prewar intelligence on Iraq

By Edward Alden in Washington
Published: March 10 2005 23:36 | Last updated: March 11 2005 00:44

The Senate committee overseeing US intelligence has shut down its investigation into whether top administration officials distorted intelligence evidence to build the case for war on Iraq.


Senator Pat Roberts, who heads the committee, said on Thursday he was satisfied administration officials had accurately portrayed what turned out to be flawed intelligence claiming the regime of Saddam Hussein possessed mass destruction weapons.

<snip>
It also said at the time it would conduct a second phase of the investigation to look into several additional issues.

In particular, the committee agreed to examine whether public statements by US officials were substantiated by intelligence information, and whether the Pentagon Office of Special Plans (OSP), which reported to Douglas Feith, the defence undersecretary, had played a significant role in pushing the intelligence community to take a harder line on Iraq.

<snip>
But the closing of the Senate investigation will effectively leave all blame for the failures with the professional intelligence community, rather than with political appointees.

..more..