Everyone at the time was briefed with certainty by the IC that the Iraqi's had WMD's. Both R's and D's were on record as supporting with invading Iraq - including Sen. Clinton.
Years later, it is reflex for the liberals to blame W, but of course that is far too simplistic.
Since then, we have learned about the corruption and rogue nature of the IC who has engaged in efforts to spy on a candidate that they didn't want as well as to even continue brazen efforts to remove a sitting and duly elected president from office. They even manufactured false evidence to obtain warrants.
The facile and coordinated nature of their efforts between agencies would suggest that this is not the first time that they have exercised such "independence".
How could an intelligence agency get something so massively wrong as saying the Iraq had WMD's, and then also tell the POTUS that they were certain? if we had any reporters in the MSM worth anything, they would be at least investigating this question.
(As a pre warning to liberals who wish to continue in their bubble, a response such as "what would the IC have to gain? is not a logical rebuttal, it is another question - and it has potential answers as well).
I haven't made up my mind on any of this btw, but I would like to have this question addresed.....such is the result of the revelation that there is a "5th Estate" in Washington, D.C.
All lied to Bush about the actual beliefs of the “intelligence community”. The idiots around Bush were the major problem. Maybe these turds only were telling Bush what he wanted to hear, but no one can deny they were pushing their own war mongering agenda.
Robert Dreyfuss:
I think the most important thing is that while the CIA probably did not get very much right about Iraq, they were at least convinced, most of the intelligence agencies, that there was a lot of doubt, that there were a lot of things they didn’t know. The doubts got completely erased in the policymaking circles, and in particular the Pentagon—which set up its own little sort of rump intelligence unit called the Office of Special Plans, under Douglas Feith at the Pentagon bureaucracy—not only was responsible for deleting these doubts, but they had some value added, too.
They added in their own spin and their own intelligence, part of which came from Iraqi exiles, part of which came from their own staff, which was doing its own intelligence. And they created talking papers that ended up wildly exaggerating the threat that Iraq allegedly posed to both the United States and to its neighbors, and that information went directly to Vice President Cheney’s office and to the White House, and it led the administration in the direction of going to war, because that was a war they already wanted.
In other words, the idea that they were invading Iraq based on faulty intelligence has it exactly backwards. They had already decided they wanted to invade Iraq. So the intelligence was then used to justify a pre-existing policy.
And so for Bush to argue, or anyone else to argue, that the administration went to war based on faulty intelligence is just plain silly. They would have gone to war in any case, but they were afraid to make the argument that Saddam Hussein is a bad guy and therefore, for reasons of national strategy, for reasons of oil, for reasons of Middle East policy and protecting Israel, for all of these reasons, we’re going to invade Iraq. That probably wouldn’t have sold, either to the American public or to Congress, so instead they picked on this “Iraq is a threat” argument.
All the people you highlight had an agenda. I believe John Bolton may also have been involved. It was not only US IC dismissing all of Cheney's claims; the British said they gave certain facts to the US, facts that went to Cheney who folded them into a "compelling case" for war. No one bullshitted Cheney and his clowns. Cheney and his boys were the bullshitters foolishly thinking they'd be welcomed like the GIs going into Paris.
Cheney had Bush's ear and Bush was afraid of not looking strong against the man he said, "tried to kill my father."
I love all this revisionist history trying to bail out the GOP for what most believe was the most horrendous blunder in US history.
He was certainly involved in the decision.
The same people are currently running our Iran policy. You might think that Trump is the only thing between us and war...but he appointed them all.
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Nobody elese that I know of is talking about this at the moment, but it seems a reasonable question seeing what the IC has revealed of itself lately.
i suppose this is a natural end product of losing trust in a business that relies on it.
Btw, i do not by the stupid argument that Bush was lied to by his "controllers". He was either deceived by faulty intel, or he knew what he was doing.
Obviously he had subordinates who pushed their own war agenda by cherry picking Intel but they were not “controllers” and I never implied such. I also didn’t imply that Bush didn’t also want to go to war in Iraq. I did say he was lied to, I didn’t say he was “controlled”.
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And they filtered out any Intel that questioned their war mongering rationale from Bush- who may well have been looking for any excuse they could conjure up to initiate that moronic Iraq Cluster ....
Every single serious person in this country thought Iraq had CW abd BW. Every. Single. One.
He used them on Iranians from 80-88, and on his own people in 88.
It turns out that the U.N. weapons inspectors found t them all (as I have said on here many times, they are damn good). But no one here - no one - thought that they got them all.
This was the case in 1998 during Desert Fox. It was the case in 2003.
Only the neocons surrounding Bush thought it was worth invading, that 9/11 somehow changed Iraqi rationality when it comes to wmd.
The war was NOT the result of an intelligence failure. It was a mistake of grand strategy. Full stop.
Blaimng the IC is the worst kind of partisan revisionism.
Read Woodward’s book on this era.
Agreed. At the time, and even more today, I am against going to war against a country for what it might possibly maybe perhaps do someday. When I think of all the dead and maimed servicemen, I completely despise George W. Bush.
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This fact was based on the intel. Are you saying that the intel was wrong? Are you saying that Bush and many others were willing to kill kids and ruin their legacy by misrepresenting what intel really said?! Is it not more likley that an IC that has shown it's hand recently could have misrepresented it's facts? Back in the day, everyone was under the impression that intel showed that there were the makings for nukes in Iraq - it was not just the knwoown biologicals and chemicals that were of concern.
I suspect that you adhere to the belief that Bush and Cheney lied to congress about what the IC told them. That belief would be easily as tin foil as my question.
I believe that the IC has so discredited itself in the past 3 years that these questions have to be looked at carefully. If they cheated here, they may have cheated there.
And remember, you will be claiming that the IC didn't do anything wrong with Trump and his campaign, and we are all close enough to the event to know what utter rubbish that claim is.
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Again, i have not asserted anything. i wish the IC to be scrutinized closely on all unusual cases based on the duplicity that they have demonstrated.
You act as if the very thought is absurd, yet they have attempted a soft coup in front of our eyes.
I suspect that your information is partisan, and I'd be more reassured by an actual investigation.
Remember when you thought that there was Russian Collusion? You are capable of being wrong.
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Woods Procedures
Woods Procedures were named for Michael Woods, the FBI official who drafted the rules as head of the Office of General Counsel’s National Security Law Unit. They were instituted in April 2001 to “ensure accuracy with regard to … the facts supporting probable cause” after recurring instances, presumably inadvertent, in which the FBI had presented inaccurate information to the FISA court.
Prior to Woods Procedures, “[i]ncorrect information was repeated in subsequent and related FISA packages,” the FBI told Congress in August 2003. “By signing and swearing to the declaration, the headquarters agent is attesting to knowledge of what is contained in the declaration.”
It’s incredible to think of how many FBI and Justice Department officials would have touched the multiple applications to wiretap Trump campaign adviser Carter Page — allegedly granted, at least in part, on the basis of unverified and thus prohibited information — if normal procedures were followed.
The FBI’s complex, multi-layered review is designed for the very purpose of preventing unverified information from ever reaching the court. It starts with the FBI field offices.
According to former FBI agent Asha Rangappa, who wrote of the process last year in JustSecurity.org, the completed FISA application requires approval through the FBI chain of command “including a Supervisor, the Chief Division Counsel (the highest lawyer within that FBI field office), and finally, the Special Agent in Charge of the field office, before making its way to FBI Headquarters to get approval by (at least) the Unit-level Supervisor there.”
At FBI headquarters, an “action memorandum” is prepared with additional facts culled by analytical personnel assigned to espionage allegations involving certain foreign powers.
Next, it goes to the Justice Department “where attorneys from the National Security Division comb through the application to verify all the assertions made in it,” wrote Rangappa. “DOJ verifies the accuracy of every fact stated in the application. If anything looks unsubstantiated, the application is sent back to the FBI to provide additional evidentiary support – this game of bureaucratic chutes and ladders continues until DOJ is satisfied that the facts in the FISA application can both be corroborated and meet the legal standards for the court. After getting sign-off from a senior DOJ official (finally!).”
There’s more
But there are even more reviews and processes regarding government applications for wiretaps designed to make sure inaccurate or unverified information isn’t used.
In November 2002, the FBI implemented a special FISA Unit with a unit chief and six staffers, and installed an automated tracking system that connects field offices, headquarters, the National Security Law Branch and the Office of Intelligence, allowing participants to track the process during each stage.
Starting March 1, 2003, the FBI required field offices to confirm they’ve verified the accuracy of facts presented to the court through the case agent, the field office’s Chief Division Counsel and the Special Agent in Charge.
All of this information was provided to Congress in 2003. The FBI director at the time also ordered that any issue as to whether a FISA application was factually sufficient was to be brought to his attention. Personally.
Link: https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/372233-nunes-memo-raises-question-did-fbi-violate-woods-procedures
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Sada is the former Air Vice Marshall of the Iraqi Air Force during the 1991 US-Iraqi-Kuwaiti conflict (a Christian who was imprisoned for not executing POWs), retired, and then became National Security Advisor for the interim government after the 2003 Iraq War. He says there was no nuclear program after 1981 in Iraq, but they did have non-nuke WMDs, and they flew them on civilian tagged flights to Syria during the months immediately prior to the 2003 invasion.
Seems somewhat unbelievable to say that the UN inspectors are that good.
(As an aside: The fact that Christians like Sada and Tariq Aziz could be leaders in Iraq under Hussein is another reason we should not have invaded. Probably safe to assume that Chriatians would not rise so high today? My comment isn't about promoting or saving Christianity in the Middle East...it is about promoting secular regimes who aren't religiously motivated to attack the United States or its interests. Obviously, there are secular regimes that want to attack the US, and we should fight them when the time comes, but to replace them with religiously motivated regimes who have the same intent to attack the US is pure insanity.)
He’d probably be he first to promote that, if it wasn’t crap.
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the worm always turns
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