Inquiry reopening debate about run-up to war

[radfringe]

It's not so much an Inquiry is reopening the debate - it's the lame GOPer spin to avoid one...

Why not just blame it on the bosa nova? 3 excuses/attempts to duck accountability and responsibility

Inquiry reopening debate about run-up to war
By Philip Dine
POST-DISPATCH WASHINGTON BUREAU
11/12/2005

Partisan wrangling over how the Senate should investigate the administration's use of prewar intelligence about Iraq is about far more than politics - it reflects major differences over the evidence itself.

As a result, any effort to objectively examine whether the White House misled the country into war faces huge hurdles, even once the political maneuvering is completed.

---snip----
1. Blame it on someone else:

Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond, R-Mo., doesn't think so.

"No, I do not see any major problems," said Bond, a member of the Intelligence Committee and one of the six-member task force. If anything, he said, Democrats are to blame for the errors because intelligence-gathering capability was reduced under the previous administration of President Bill Clinton"

Bond was asked whether statements by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice merited examination. As national security adviser before the war, Rice helped build the case that Iraq had an active nuclear program by stating that its aluminum tubes could be used only for nuclear weapons - a statement at odds with analysis within the government at the time that the tubes had several potential uses.

"I'm not familiar with that one," said Bond.

................snip

"Unfortunately, the topic is incredibly complex," said Greg Davis, who spent 25 years as an analyst and operations officer with the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency. "The more they dig, the more they will find out there was very little substance to the intelligence analysis that was presented to the White House. Bush inherited a mediocre intelligence organization."

---------snip----------------------

2. Dismiss it as a waste of time and nonsense:

Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, sharply disagrees that there is any evidence that the administration misused intelligence. He calls efforts to examine the matter a "political thing" - because, he says, any mistakes were honest ones made by intelligence agencies, not dishonest ones by government officials.

"It's a waste of time," Voinovich said. "I was here, we were all here. There wasn't one intelligence agency that wasn't taken in by this - Israeli, British, all the intelligence agencies. ... Going ahead with an investigation, it's nonsense."

---------------snip----------------

3. Call it a distraction:

Rep. Todd Akin, R-Mo., of the House Armed Services Committee, worries that discussion of how the war began will distract from winning it. "Now we're there, and we need to finish the job and come home," he said.