Fingerpointing abounds inside Bush administration

[villager]

After discredited report, fingerpointing abounds inside Bush administration

By Barry Schweid, Associated Press, 7/11/2003 16:30

WASHINGTON (AP) The Bush administration is engaged in frantic fingerpointing as it tries to explain how its handling of faulty intelligence on allegations of Iraqi nuclear smuggling produced so few red flags.

The State Department and CIA both had information as early as March 2002 casting doubt on British claims that Iraq was seeking uranium in Africa.

Yet the White House says neither CIA Director George Tenet nor Secretary of State Colin Powell stopped President Bush from using now-discredited British intelligence as a justification for the war.

A former diplomat hired by the CIA to check into the merits of the allegations has added his own twist. He says Vice President Dick Cheney's office knew in 2002 that the diplomat was unable to substantiate the intelligence.

Whatever the case, the allegation made it into Bush's State of the Union address in January, then was abruptly dropped a month later when it was learned the information came from forged documents.

Now Congress and a host of Democrats want to know who knew what and when. It has the trappings of a summer controversy in the nation's capital, fanned by the winds of the approaching 2004 presidential election.

<snip>

http://www.boston.com/dailynews/192/wash/After_discredited_report_finge:.shtml

[NYC]

1. I like the phrase "frantic fingerpointing".

.

[Systematic Chaos]

2. Kinda makes me wish

they'll get careless with all their "frantic fingerpointing" and accidentally rearrange each other's faces. :P

[diamond14]

3. its great ! everyone will take a little break this weekend as we

wait until shrub returns to answer to all of this...

some pentagon soldiers told me today that it really upsets them to see the pResident on TV, amusing himself watching elephants f*ck, while OUR soldiers are getting BLOWN UP AND KILLED in two on-going wars...(I live about 1 mile south of the pentagon, and a lot of pentagon soldiers live near me...and are not happy)

for my own effort this weekend, going down to the Democrat.com THINK TANK called "celebrating Bastille Day", in DC at a FRENCH restaurant, while we think out our approaches to the RE-DEFEAT BUSH in 2004...

everybody needs to help...bush* has lots of money, and we need to start working NOW...it's a really good investment in your life goals, vote Democrat and then you won't need to DIE on the other side of the world in a sandstorm, because your gun didn't work...
time to get busy, make a plan this weekend...how YOU will help in the upcoming Democratic campaign...get in on the good paid jobs early...flash movies are already going up...Democrats need lots of computer nerds...

[leftofthedial]

4. It's their fault! Not mine! Don't you see!!!??

I know now that it was wrong to machine gun the busload of nuns, but neither Tenet nor Bowell stopped me from doing it. And Tony Blair didn't either!

For that matter, neither did Bill Clinton. The whole time I was pulling a Bonnie and Clyde on the old yellow bus, not once did Bill Clinton or his penis even try to stop me.

See? It's not my fault.

[bluedog]

5. Remember the OSP?

A US envoy sent to investigate the claims reported to the CIA in February 2002 that they were fakes. But the OSP and the White House ignored him.


The OSP is the brainchild of Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who set it up after the 2001 terrorist attacks. It was tasked with going over old ground on Iraq and showing that the CIA had overlooked the threat posed. But its rise has caused massive ructions in the normally secretive world of intelligence gathering.

The OSP reports directly to Paul Wolfowitz, a leading hawk in the administration. They bypassed the CIA and the Pentagon's own Defence Intelligence Agency when it came to whispering in the President's ear!

'Rumsfeld set up his own intelligence agency because he didn't like the intelligence he was getting,''
more at::::

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,953604,00.html

[pippin]

7. OSP aka KGB

yeah, OSP, KGB, OSS etc

[Bandit]

6. Buck stops with you, no it's with you, no it's with you, no it's Clinton's

fault. Ya that's the ticket it's Clinton's fault and I'm sure there was a woman being raped while he was giving us such bogus info. Ya that's the ticket. Ha Ha Ha We sure pulled a fast one huh?

[Nottingham]

8. Ya why didn't Dick Cheney stop this Speech fiasco! He KNEW!

:bounce: