President Bush and his top policymakers exaggerated Saddam Hussein’s links to terrorism, according to the long, long-awaited final “phase II” report released today by the Senate Intelligence Committee. The 171-page report also says that intelligence reports at the time supported most of the administration’s statements about Iraq’s weapons (since proved untrue), but that the administration didn’t disclose the internal debate about the accuracy of that intelligence.
“The president and his advisers undertook a relentless public campaign in the aftermath of the (Sept. 11) attacks to use the war against al-Qaida as a justification for overthrowing Saddam Hussein,” Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said in written commentary on the report. “Representing to the American people that the two had an operational partnership and posed a single, indistinguishable threat was fundamentally misleading and led the nation to war on false pretenses.”
Most, though not all, of the Republicans on the committee objected to the findings and issued a minority report noting that Democrats were also wrong about the Iraq threat. But the committee’s findings match former White House press secretary Scott McClellan’s account of how the administration conducted a misleading campaign to sell the war.
Hillary Clinton plans to announce her support for Barack Obama on Saturday. Meanwhile, Obama announced a three-member vice presidential selection committee that includes Caroline Kennedy. His aides said the search would proceed slowly. Will Clinton be the pick?
The Washington Post did a long analysis of Barack Obama’s victory over Hillary Clinton, which is described as “one of the biggest upsets in U.S. political history.†The Obama team had analyzed the race so thoroughly that it knew which districts had an even number of delegates and which had an odd number (thus helping it win more delegates than Clinton in the Nevada caucuses, even though she won more votes). The campaign expected to lose big states such as California, Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania, but it made up for it with delegates from smaller states, which Clinton mostly ignored. For example, the Obama campaign sent staffers to Kansas three months before Clinton organizers arrived, the Post reported, and by Super Tuesday, his staff outnumbered Clinton’s 18 to 3. “They have a plan,†Lawrence attorney Dan Watkins said in late January. “They are empowering people to draw out what they can do.â€
A Lawrence Journal-World editorial wondered about the lack of geographical diversity among the Kansas Republican Party’s delegates to the convention in Minneapolis, Minn. The editorial noted that no Douglas County Republicans made the GOP delegate slate chosen last weekend to represent the 2nd or 3rd districts, while all nine delegates from the 4th Congressional District live in Sedgwick County. “Is it right that in the three-county 3rd District and the 10-plus county 4th District, all of the Republican national delegates come from a single county?†the editorial board asked.
“One of the best ways to describe the current rural atmosphere is something akin to a gold rush — I’ve never seen anything like this — especially with the oil influence,†Lane County grain grower Vance Ehmke told Associated Press. But it’s not just increased oil drilling that is raising the fortunes of rural Kansas. So are high commodity prices. As a result, AP reported, farmland values are up about 20 percent from last year; farmers are making more capital investments, which also helps the rural economy; and there are high loan repayment rates, which is freeing up more money for farm loans.
President Bush and his top policymakers exaggerated Saddam Hussein’s links to terrorism, according to the long, long-awaited final “phase II” report released today by the Senate Intelligence Committee. The 171-page report also says that intelligence reports at the time supported most of the administration’s statements about Iraq’s weapons (since proved untrue), but that the administration didn’t disclose the internal debate about the accuracy of that intelligence.
