Memo to Sen. Pat Roberts: According to a National Journal story, President Bush personally received two classified reports before the Iraq war casting doubt on two of his main arguments for going to war — that Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat (analysts argued that he wouldn’t attack unless attacked first), and that he was acquiring high-strength aluminum tubes for nuclear weapons (Energy Department experts determined the tubes were for conventional weapons).
But Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and others continued to use these arguments to help sell the public on the invasion.
This could be further material for Sen. Roberts’ “phase two” intelligence failure report, which we’re still waiting for. . . .
Posted by Randy Scholfield
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37 Comments
Anybody who thinks that the report will be out before the November mid-term elections…. or ever for that matter hasn’t been paying attention.If it ever comes out, and is objective, it will more than likely prove what has been said all along. Intelligence (or lack thereof) was fitted to this administration’s agenda.
Yep, we’re not going to see that puppy until after 2008.I wonder if people will still be trying to blame Bill Clinton, 8 years after the fact.
Once I had to go before a board to defend myself against alligation of mis-conduct. I took to different resignations. one said two weeks and the other said immediately. Depending on how it went. Of course if it went for me then no resignation would be needed.
I have the feeling that is how the report on phase two will go. If Bush kisses enough babies and and make another ground zero type speech. The report will be boarder line bad for him. But will neither defuse nor confirm one way or another. But if it becomes appearent that he is a rock about the neck of those in power,well…
Bush doesn’t have too much to fear Patsy Roberts will continue to attack all evidence as the work of the politically motivated minority party. In the event he can’t stall it indefinitely.
Hmmm…ten o’clock and still no bush or roberts defenders? Support is getting thin around here. Maybe they are all in church.
Sorry for the length of this post, but it follows nathan’s posts so perfectly I couldnt resist. Hat tip to you too rachel. You all made the talking points admirably, and right on cue.
Bushies live in a fantasy world.
FANTASY # 1
Event: A CBS News poll shows Bush at an all-time low approval rating of 34%.
Response of Bush followers: The poll is biased, unfair, and therefore we can happily ignore the results.
FANTASY # 2
Event: Multiple other polls released in the next two days after the CBS poll also show Bush at or near all-time low approval ratings.
Response of Bush follower: All of the polls are biased and therefore we can happily ignore the results.
FANTASY # 3
Event: Sectarian violence reaches an all-time high in Iraq as all signs point to the beginning of a civil war.
Response of Bush followers: There are no real problems in Iraq. “Hysterical news coverage” of the violence was “exaggerated”. Things are peaceful and great in Iraq. The whole “civil war” thing is just a fiction invented by the Bush-hating media.
FANTASY # 4
Event: Multiple polls show that a majority of the public opposes warrantless eavesdropping and believe the President broke the law by implementing the NSA eavesdropping program.
Response of Bush followers: From the always-fact-ignoring Bush follower John Hinderaker:
“How did the secret wiretapping program ‘tarnish’ the administration’s ‘tough-on-terror image’? It didn’t. It enhanced it, and the public has solidly backed the administration’s position”
Fantasy # 5
Event: A Zogby poll reported that even the U.S. troops in Iraq believe we should withdraw this year.
Response of Bush followers: The poll is biased, unfair, and therefore we can happily ignore the results.
I shamelessly lifted this from Glenn Greenwald, but didnt say so until the end on the off chance some bushie might actually read this without Glenn’s name.
Hello, this is Bret Hums of Fox News and I do not know what video everyone else saw about the briefing of the President on the impending Hurricane Katrina. But the one I watched show a President who was aware, asking the important questions and taking charge of a dangerous situation as a true leader would do.
And farther more Bush’s top man in Iraq has stated that things could not be going better in the war on terrorism! We are winning and there will be no civil war in Iraq unless President Bush gives the order for there to be one.
The economy is the best it ever has been and job growth is going through the roof! In fact we have so many jobs in the Untied States, that companies are being forced to move their operations over sea.
To anwser a view’s e-mail, thank you for the suggestion. With the use of preparation H I hardly feel the presents of Karl Rowes hand up my anis moving my mouth any more….Thank you !!
With Bush’s Senator Roberts and God’s Senator Brownback, who is left to represent Kansas?
Well, I wasn’t going to comment because it seemed like just another unsubstanciated Randy thing. But since ksfarmgrrl seemed to challenge a non-liberal to comment…
“according to records and knowledgeable sources.”
This is all the verification that is sited in this story. Doesn’t it bother Randy that he is willing to try to draw Sen Roberts attention to an article that sites as its source,”records and knowledgeable sources”? What makes him, or anyone else think that this rises to the level of warranting the attention of a U.S. Senator?
Despite Randy’s last two entries on this subject, Roberts has to deal with the facts, not news stories siting anonymous sources and/or personal opinions. Your bias is showing Randy, as usual.
Brown-nose Roberts will od everything in his power to bury it.
Then Roberts should get busy with the investigation, and put the politics aside.
“What makes him, or anyone else think that this rises to the level of warranting the attention of a U.S. Senator?”Do you remember who the US Senator really works for? With The King’s approval ratings at about 34% and the war near the top of the disapproval list, one might think the Senator might be interested in getting this behind him.That 34% is probably just the kool-aid drinkers.
Well Outlander can now be classified as a full on nut. (Like that is news)
Roberts dos not care about the truth or his obligation as a United States senator. He is fully assured that an idiotic plurality of Kansans will get him re-elected.
Good post writer dog…..but you missed how the hands of Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes are moving the mouths of Hannity and Rush.
Good post farmgirrl. But polls are irrelevant! That bush lost by plurality in 2000 is irrelevant! That questions remain as to the electoral college in 2000 are irrelevant!
We are at WAR DAMMIT! Those who would question the leader of our troops in a time of war are seditious traitors! Nevermind the polls of the people OR the troops!
Say it with me Outlander! One people one nation one leader! Geroge Bush Hail Victory!
Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuehrer!!
It’s just getting too easy to criticise Bush these days.
The guy seems intent on proving every allegation that we left-wingers accused him of before the war.
The fact that we were right gives me no satisfaction. Now we have to figure out how to get out of the quagmire, repair damaged relationships with the rest of the world, and do it so that the right-wing won’t hit us over the head with “cut and run” for the next fifty years . . .
“Roberts dos not care about the truth or his obligation as a United States senator.”
Jr: Surely you can do better than that. How do you know what’s in Roberts head! Pretty pathetic response. Telling in that you do not address the point made in my post.
Excuse me for insisting that there should be an evaluation of the veracity of the source. We wouldn’t want to the facts to get in the way of your vendetta.
Outlander–
“It’s not who you say you are; it’s not who you think you are; it’s what you DO.”
When Roberts DOES something, then we’ll know he’s serious about the truth.
Until then, the logical conclusion is that he’s a Bush backing minion.
Our senior Senator–”Old Rubber Stamp.”
Outlander, good for you for clicking and reading the story. When I did so, I found that the “records” being quoted were National Intelligence Estimates that noted dissent among the agencies who prepared it. I wonder why they wont release the “summary” of these NIE reports that was given to the preznit.
Lose-lose to release it. If it is released, and shows the preznit knew, that looks bad. If they release it, and the bad news was left out of the preznit’s summary, who was controlling the info? Was it because the preznit doesnt like bad news? Did cheney and the neo-cons hide it?
No wonder they wont release the summaries. The rest of the article appears to quote similar records. These are records prepared by federal agencies. You doubt their veracity? :)
And as for the un-named sources, given what happened to Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson, why would anyone allow their name to be used?
Not looking good for the worst president ever.
You know KFG, I get discouraged because of the one track thinking that I have to deal with. You know, the cause and effect assumptions when there is no evidence? Of course you get this with a “Bush bad” starting point.
I also notice the leap in logic along the lines of that just because someone warned you about something and that thing comes to pass, that you should have listened, dammit! Well, someone is always saying something whether it has merit or not. That is one of the jobs of a leader , to decide what should be listened to and what need not.
My favorite is that “the administration failed to plan for post war insurgency”. Here is a great quote from Churchhill (Winston, not the lefties’ favorite, Ward)
“Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events”.
Good words regarding the caution with which war should be approached, but also about the stupidity of criticism for not planning for unforeseeable events.Hindsight, of course, is always 20-20.
Enough for now. I gotta get some work done.
Did I leap? Glad farmgirrl and the other posters filled in my gap!
Let me scroll up just a sec….
Ah there it is “That is one of the jobs of a leader, to decide what to listen to and what need not”
Uh……Outlander?pre 911 warnings about AlQuaedapre war intelligenceColin Powell and the “pottery barn” rule
briefing about Hurricane Katrina
Refusing to listen to anything or anyone at all is not the trait a leader should have…..
gosh I better go to. I got an itch to make a Hitler comparison, but that is starting to get a little relevant….er redundant.
Outlander–
In case you didn’t remember, Winston “Pass the Whiskey” Churchill lost his position as PM after the war.
Sandy Berger told Condi Rice (then Nat’l Security Advisor) that “you’ll spend more time on Al Qaeda than all your other security threats combined.”
They didn’t. Her speech to be delivered on 9-11 was all about missile defense. Not surprisingly, the text of that speech mysteriously disappeared from the White House.gov page, but it’s been cached by bloggers and I can get for you if you want.
She also remarked after 9-11 that she never met with Berger, but the New York Times has her on record as saying that had met with him previously.
Outlander–
“[This shows] the stupidity of criticism for not planning for unforeseeable events.”
Well, explain why this ordinary little guy in Wichita, Kansas saw it all unfolding exactly the way it is unfolding?
Here’s an article I wrote six weeks BEFORE Bush invaded and occupied Iraq.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/03/02/01_war.html
Looks like foresight can be 20/20 too, with a basic understanding of history and an ordinary ability to evaluate evidence.
Too bad Bush has neither . . .
Read the link, PL. IMPRESSIVE! I’d say you had it pretty well called.
Outlander, Churchill was correct. The american people were totally stupid for believing the war would only last “six days, six months” and that we would be greeted with flowers and as liberators. PT Barnum was right.
A lot of people tried to say “war isnt easy” but they were labeled as traitors. That is a lot different than not knowing who to listen to. There was such a rush of testosterone fueled war fever, those comments were hardly heard. Anything that didnt agree with the bushco view wasnt considered and dismissed. It was never considered AT ALL, and it was buried to boot!
Bush spins and we buy it. I put the blame as much or more on koolaide voters than the pols. They just do what works, and we let ‘em.
And outlander, with all due respect, some of us come from a “bush is bad” position because, well….he is. Surely you dont want another litany posted of why that is true?
One more thing outlander….
hillary, edwards, and kerry, and all the other damn dems who voted for the war get no break from me either. They thought they would be politically smart for doing so, but they were just opportunists who were wrong. I dont think we should reward their bad judgement either.
Howard Dean is looking smarter all the time. Is that why the media bags on him?
Outlander:”That is one of the jobs of a leader , to decide what should be listened to and what need not.”
Are you trying to argue that Bush has done this leadership role well? Surely, you are not. Because clearly he has done a terrible job. Won’t trouble you with a list of instances, because surely, you really do know what we’re talking about here.
It is almost a home run article except that criminal, traitor and no military service were not included.
By Gerald Rellick
3/5/06
The word incompetence has been used to describe George Bush so often that it’s beginning to have an anesthetic effect. People are being numbed by the frequency of its use and brush it off as “Bush-bashing,” which it turns out is a convenient and clever expression coined by Bush supporters that allows them to dispense with all criticism of Bush and his policies.
I’ve used the word incompetence in my own writings, titling one piece, “The Price of Incompetence.” But there is something unsatisfying about the word. It doesn’t really cut to the heart of who and what George Bush is about. There is no question that Bush is incompetent, grossly so. And if his name weren’t Bush and if his father wasn’t once president, the most George W. could have hoped for career-wise would have been something like night manager at a Kentucky Fried Chicken. But here he is, president of the United States, and we are stuck with him. We have Karl Rove to thank for that, who saw in George W. the perfect Manchurian candidate, witless and passive, and Rove had the resources and backing from strong-willed and wealthy conservatives to pull it off: President George W. Bush, now soiling the White House daily.
A revelation of sorts hit me recently after reading an article by Jonathan Schell in The Nation. Schell begins by listing some of the most egregious of Bush’s failures, of which we are all familiar with now– the Iraq war and the failure to plan for Iraq reconstruction, the Hurricane Katrina bungling, the God-awful Medicare prescription drug plan, the relaxing of power plant pollution standards. The list goes on. Schell’s conclusion is right on target:
“We all keep referring to the ‘Bush Administration,’ yet administering seems to be the last thing on its mind…Bush officials turn out to have had a minimal interest in actually running things…[So] if the Bush outfit is not governing, what is it doing? The answer comes readily: It wishes to acquire, increase and consolidate the power of the Republican Party.”
And what better way to bring this about than by rewarding those with the big bucks, corporate America—Merrill-Lynch, Exxon Mobil, Merck and Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, etc.—without whose money Bush would never have gotten reelected. They have been given generous tax cuts and financial incentives and a relaxation of government controls on pollution and other inspections. And if these corporate giants want to pay bottom-end wages, provide no health care insurance, ship their work to India or Malaysia, that’s OK too. Bush’s only directive is to just keep filling up the Republican Party war chest. The country can take care of itself. And so what if New Orleans was destroyed? We can blame it on one bungler, Michael Brown, just as we blamed Abu Gharib on “a few bad apples.” The American middle class will never notice. Our rhetoric and spin are just too clever for those dumb bastards to ever catch on.
A recent New York Times’ editorial echoes Jonathan Schell’s thinking. Commenting on the recent Dubai Ports World fiasco, the Times writes that while the United Arab Emirates is an American ally in the fight against terrorism,
“The money to finance the Sept. 11 attacks flowed through that country [and] Abdul Qadeer Khan, the rogue Pakistani nuclear scientist, sent equipment to Libya and Iran through Dubai, helping to create nuclear weapons capacity for those two regimes. And while port managers have little if anything to do with inspecting cargo or checking manifests, they are responsible for hiring guards, securing the areas under their control and working with Customs and Homeland Security officials.
“One reason for the current uproar is the halfhearted way the Bush administration has dealt with the issue of port security… The president’s main budget priority continues to be tax cuts, and he has not fought for the money needed to keep the ports secure. The administration has [even] worked to eliminate a port-security grant program from the budget.”“Halfhearted” –as in leadership– is the key word here. In a separate Times editorial, we learn that,
“The [Dubai Ports World] deal was approved by an obscure committee of second-level officials. The committee is headed by a Treasury official whose department focuses on promoting trade rather than on security requirements. When [security] concerns were raised, they were never flagged for higher-ups. And the committee itself may never have been warned that the Coast Guard was initially worried that gaps in intelligence made it impossible to assess the potential threat of terrorist operations through the Dubai company.”
So much for George Bush working diligently (“It’s hard work”) to protect the country from terrorism.
And let’s take a look at the recent nuclear pact that Bush signed with India. India is one of only three countries that have refused to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. By international agreement, any country that refuses to sign the NPT is ineligible for nuclear technology assistance. This has been the United States’ stance toward India for 30 years. But Bush signed an agreement with India last week that will give India access to top level atomic energy technology. Under the agreement only 14 of India’s 22 nuclear reactors will be placed under international supervision. You can guess which ones will be supervised – those dedicated to energy production. Those dedicated to nuclear weapons material production are off limits. What a great deal for India. News articles were full of analyses about the need to “counter the threat of China” and the need, as Steve Holland of the Washington Post put it, “to do something about rising gasoline prices, which have contributed to American worries about the U.S. economy.” What utter nonsense, as if Bush is capable of thinking at that kind of level. What a horrible job Holland and others have to write their mainstream articles where they are forced to pretend George Bush is a real leader, a real president, as if his words had real meaning. The real answer is found in an obscure sentence in an article in the March 5th Los Angeles Times about the India nuclear deal: “U.S. firms stand to reap billions in profits from the deal, administration officials said.” Enough said.
The truth is that George Bush has no leadership skills whatsoever. He is completely incurious and has made it clear to his staff that he doesn’t care to be bothered with details of governance. But worse – much worse — like his comrade in vileness, Dick Cheney, Bush’s only concern is power and some vague idea of a neoconservative revolution in America with the Republican Party at the helm for decades to come.
This great country can no longer stand a total hack for president. Americans can still wrest some semblance of democratic government and accountability by making the 2006 elections a referendum on George W. Bush and the cowardly Republican Congress that has acquiesced to his every misguided goal. Republicans up for reelection are already distancing themselves from Bush with his 34% approval rating. They want the elections to be “local.” Forget local. These are not ordinary times. The country is in crisis mode. If you really believe in America’s greatness you will use the sole power available to you as citizens in a democratic society, the power of the vote. May the Force be with us.
Gerald S. Rellick, Ph.D., worked in aerospace industry for 22 years. He now teaches in the California Community College system. He can be reached at grellick@hotmail.com
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