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Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
 
Link

quote:
“In making the case for war, the administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when in reality it was unsubstantiated, contradicted, or even non-existent,” the Committee chairman, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, said on releasing the 172-page report. “As a result, the American people were led to believe that the threat from Iraq was much greater than actually existed.”

“There is no question we all relied on flawed intelligence,” he added. “But, there is a fundamental difference between relying on incorrect intelligence and deliberately painting a picture to the American people that you know is not fully accurate.”

I think its interesting how far they bend over backwards to avoid using the word "lied", yet this is precisely their conclusion. Bush and Cheney deliberately lied to persuade the Senate and the American people to invade Iraq.
 
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
 
Two more interesting articles on Iraq


UK Independent
Reuters
 
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
 
Unless they have a section that details their own culpability or show some resolution towards doing something to reign in the White House, I don't see anything particularly newsworthy here.
 
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
 
Yes. I found this quote from the Reuters article very interesting.

quote:
“What are the threats that require U.S. forces to be there?” asked Nadeem Al-Jaberi, a co-founder of the al-Fadhila Shi’ite political party, speaking through a translator.

“I would like to inform you, there are no threats on Iraq. We are capable of solving our own problems,” he declared. He favored a quick pullout of U.S. forces, which invaded the country in 2003 and currently number around 155,000.

There are no threats on Iraq. None. Everything's under control.

Everything.
 
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
 
...and let's also keep in mind that most members of the GOP on the Senate Intelligence Commitee are accusing the committee of cherry-picking their data to support their political claims.
 
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
 
I'll keep that in mind but I don't think it means the same thing to me that it means to you. Since the Senate report was supported by 2 of the 6 GOP members on the committee and is in agreement with reports from other sources such as Bush's former press secretary, the Downing Street memo, and veteran intelligence professionals, the failure of those 4 republicans to sign the report says more about their lack of integrity than it does about the report.
 
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
 
quote:
Since the Senate report was supported by 2 of the 6 GOP members on the committee and is in agreement with reports from other sources such as Bush's former press secretary, the Downing Street memo, and veteran intelligence professionals, the failure of those 4 republicans to sign the report says more about their lack of integrity than it does about the report.
Your math is off, according to the article.

quote:
Both reports were signed by 10 members of the Committee, including two Republicans, Sens. Olympia Snowe and Chuck Hagel. Five members — all Republicans — issued a strong dissent, arguing that the minority had been “entirely cut out of the process” and charging that the Democrats had “twisted policy makers’ statements and cherry-picked the intelligence in order to reach their misleading conclusions.” The ranking Republican on the committee, Sen. Christopher “Kit” Bond, called the report “political theatre”.
15 members. Ten signed it, five dissented.

I don't disagree with the findings of the report, but I'm not blindly invested in trying to prove the Bush admin is woven whole-cloth from the Devil's own dingle-berries.

Let me point out that election-year politics is playing a large role in actions both parties are taking right now, and that we are likely to receive LOTS of BS from both of them. (The Independent article you linked to points out some GOP electioneering-- although with a level of bias I find despicable)
 
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
 
I saw that objection, but even after trying to look for details, all I could find was the vague complaint. I'm not sure what they are claiming.

Does anyone know if they saying that the characterization of the Bush administration willfully misleading the public is incorrect because data that wasn't included in the report invalidates this charge? That would seem to be a pretty tall order, to me. Or is it something else?

Or did they not even give any details, just the boilerplate denial?

---

edit: It would be just like Congressional Democrats to give a report about bad stuff the Bush Administration did that everyone already knows about but to try to juice it so that ultimately the report isn't valid. At the same time, it'd be jsut like Congressional Republicans to issue an empty, baseless statement accusing people of political bias in order to carry more water for the least popular President in the history of polling.

[ June 09, 2008, 11:34 AM: Message edited by: MrSquicky ]
 
Posted by Nato (Member # 1448) on :
 
When Joe Wilson was in town, he said that the Senate did know that the "intelligence" the White House Iraq Group (which this report doesn't mention, specifically) had dug up was unreliable and not representative of what the analysts in the CIA actually thought about Iraq. They knew that analyst arms were getting twisted. Since then, a number of these analysts have retired (or have been retired).

quote:
Originally posted by MrSquicky:
Unless they have a section that details their own culpability or show some resolution towards doing something to reign in the White House, I don't see anything particularly newsworthy here.

Exactly.


As McClellan said, the White House's policy was to make the Iraq war the inevitable and necessary conclusion. The Congress and the media were complicit in this. We are not hearing very much on this complicity from either the Congress or the media (with only a few main media figures speaking out--Brokaw, for instance). I don't think Rupert Murdoch is going to respond to Bill Moyers' challenge (to explain his pre-war claims of $20/barrel oil), for example... And did you see McClellan's hour on the O'Reilly show? Much blustering and interrupting, little recognition of truth by O'Reilly...
 
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
 
You can read the full Senate report here.. The minority views of Senators Bond, Chambliss and Hatch begin on page 161.
 
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
 
I am not impressed with this challenge. The only parts that aren't talking about the commitee's actions towards the minority (edit: or the false statements about war intelligence made by Democratic Senators that weren't doing their jobs) are soundly refuted by the facts established in black and white in the report.
 
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
 
The minority report seems to be just a partisan rant. It is unfortunate that the report chose solely to focus on statements by administration officials and not to address the culpability of the Senate as well. But that doesn't seem to be the crux of the minority complain, they seem focused on party rather than branch of government. They never mention statements made by republican senators who were in the majority at the time, just those made by democratic senators.

As long as people like Orrin Hatch who are chief among those spreading the lie that Hussein was involved in the 9/11 attacks sit on these committees, we will never see any real introspection and change.

The idea that any group (Senate, executive branch, media) will justly police itself is a pleasant fantasy. That's why we are supposed to have a system of checks and balances. Its also why I hate to see one party dominating all branches of government.

A strong opposition is essential to good governance. Its a pity that Bush's opposition was so weak in 2002. If they had been strong enough to simply stand for the truth, America wouldn't be in the sad shape its in today.
 
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
 
So, I'm on page 12 of the report, and let me give you my impressions so far (in light of Sen. Rockefeller's statements):

The US intelligence community in 2002, according to the 2002 NIE, was largely in agreement that Iraq was trying to restart their nuclear program. State/INR was not in agreement, saying that the evidence other agencies used in drawing this conclusion wasn't comprehensive enough.

So far, I don't see what the problem is-- there WAS conflicting opinion; so what? The majority of intelligence agencies were in agreement at this point. (2002)

How is this any different than saying, "The majority of climatologists think that human-influenced climate change is a reality?"

I'll keep reading.
 
Posted by Sterling (Member # 8096) on :
 
What I find amusing is the "There is nothing new in this report" response that seems to be coming from the Executive Branch.

"You think that we were lying to you is new? Get serious."
 
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
 
quote:
The idea that any group (Senate, executive branch, media) will justly police itself is a pleasant fantasy. That's why we are supposed to have a system of checks and balances. Its also why I hate to see one party dominating all branches of government.

A strong opposition is essential to good governance. Its a pity that Bush's opposition was so weak in 2002. If they had been strong enough to simply stand for the truth, America wouldn't be in the sad shape its in today.

Does this mean you will be voting for McCain?
 
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
 
I imagine that Rabbit may decide her vote on more than just that consideration.

---

I'm very much of the same mind as Rabbit concerning having opposing parties in the Executive and Legislative branch.

However, without some major changes, I don't believe that the Republican party as it now stands deserves to be a viable party. I would like to see the coming elections destroy it, or at least its current incarnation.
 
Posted by T:man (Member # 11614) on :
 
*skips to end of forum*

Like selling car insurance you got to make the road look very dangerous.
 
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by DarkKnight:
quote:
The idea that any group (Senate, executive branch, media) will justly police itself is a pleasant fantasy. That's why we are supposed to have a system of checks and balances. Its also why I hate to see one party dominating all branches of government.

A strong opposition is essential to good governance. Its a pity that Bush's opposition was so weak in 2002. If they had been strong enough to simply stand for the truth, America wouldn't be in the sad shape its in today.

Does this mean you will be voting for McCain?
I'm of a mind that our political parties should naturally fall just about evenly spaced between establishment and opposition parties. The fact that democrats are probably going to practically sweep congress and the executive shows that the republicans have slipped from from the will of the public.

Control of congress and the white house will be, in itself, a form of opposition against the past 8 years of buffoonery and lies. If the republicans can re-task and shed the dead weight corruption that infests their party, then they will present opposition that is healthier in the future. For now, I'm content to let the election results speak for themselves- when they eventually do.
 
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
 
As far as the Republicans go:

Blah blah blah.

Democrats have been in office for a little over 12 months. They've been promising us this part of the report since at least 2005. It was either primarily written under a Republican Congress, or they stonewalled for so long that they got booted out. I don't really see where they get to complain about it after refusing to release it for more than three years when they kept saying they were just about to finish it.

Put up or shut up.
 
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Feith#Counter_Terrorism_Evaluation_Unit
 
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
 
quote:
However, without some major changes, I don't believe that the Republican party as it now stands deserves to be a viable party. I would like to see the coming elections destroy it, or at least its current incarnation.
It's already schisming.

All over the internet GOP supporters are turning their guns on each other. The subgroups of the big tent (social conservatives, neocons, traditional conservatives, theocons, etc) have so little in common and now they have no common enemies. They don't agree on anything. The guns/taxes/abortion formula coasted them for decades but has now become irrelevant. Talk radio used to have supremacy in social commentary and it kept them influential. Now it's the internet and blogs, which skews young and liberal, and is the primary formative environment for most people, politically.

Used to be you could run the country your way by convincing evangelical christians to vote for you based on fear of gays and crap like that. Bush Fatigue has ended that. I have been watching this go on for a while now. Anyone who read up on MS-01 has an idea how bad it looks. I won't make any predictions as to how bad this is going to get, but honestly I'm wondering what the political landscape will look like twenty years from now. The Republican Party does not convince me that it will be a large part of it.
 
Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :
 
In the 1900's there were the dangers of the Anarchists.

To fight them the party held together.

By the 1920's the Anarchists, always a small group, were replaced by the Communists. Communists were not only a threat to property and riches, but a threat to the Church--being atheist and all.

While the Communists were a great threat through the 60's, by the 80's the threat was not so strong anymore.

Thank God for gays. Many conservative power players went looking in the 90's for something to bind the party together, some enemy to focus our paranoia on. Sure crime and abortion were good, but both were falling. What was something spreading as fast as 1950's Communism that was a threat to the American way of life?

Gay Pride.

Suddenly homosexuals were not just silly fops and pansy's, they were "a threat to marriage."

Suddenly everyone was up in arms about gays in the Army, gays getting married, and gays spreading Aids to the world.

Now the growing majority of society has come to the conclusion that homosexuality isn't that damaging to society or the American Way (certainly less so than certain religious fanatics).

Terrorists would be a great new enemy to force everyone under the big tent again, but the cost of that fear has been too high recently. (Just as the cost of the fear of communism was too high politically during Vietnam).
 
Posted by 1lobo1 (Member # 7762) on :
 
What about Gay Terrorists?
 


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