Reply #8: Not only that, we had no choice but to believe the President

[joemurphy]

Only the President had access to the raw intelligence. He is the head of the Executive Branch. He oversees ALL of our intelligence-gathering and ALL of the bodies responsible for analysis of intelligence. Congress relies on the President to present it with honest and well-analyzed data. Congress has no intelligence bodies of its own. It relies ENTIRELY on facts presented to it by the President's Administration. If the President presents it with "cooked" intelligence, the Congress cannot responsibly perform its oversight duties or knowledgeably exercise its war powers under the Constitution.