Recieved this from a friend. Figured I could use it to jar the memory 10 years from now when W is selected for the Republican Nobel.
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I would think for everyone that the assertion that the Administration deliberately misrepresented intelligence leading up to the Iraq war is beyond debate now. It's compelling to look at a compilation of relevant reports over the past few years:
Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill: The Bush administration began planning to use U.S. troops to invade Iraq within days after the former Texas governor entered the White House three years ago:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/01/10/oneill.bush/
Longtime WH Counter-Terrorism Official, Richard Clarke (just after 9/11):
"What happened was the president, with his finger in my face, saying, 'Iraq, a memo on Iraq and al-Qaida, a memo on Iraq and the attacks.' Very vigorous, very intimidating, and in a way that left all of us with the same impression, that he wanted that answer. Well, we couldn't give him that answer because it wasn't true."
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/terrorism/jan-june04/clarke_03-22.html
Dept of Defense Analyst for 25 years, Peter Molan:
The justifications for that war were completely counter to everything that I had learned in that 20-odd years of government service working on the Middle East, as you say. I was simply outraged by the twisting and turning of intelligence information that I had helped develop to what was clearly, to my mind, a preordained policy decision that I felt to be profoundly wrong.
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/11/11/157236
Just after 9/11, Rumsfeld sends memo wanting "best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit S.H." – meaning Saddam Hussein – "at same time. Not only UBL":
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/09/04/september11/main520830.shtml
CIA agent, Michael Scheuer: "Headed the CIA’s Osama bin Laden unit and saw the confrontation up close. 'I know a lot of people in the Iraq shop who were dissenting. There were people who were disciplined or taken off accounts.'":
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=10472
Leaked Secret MI-6 Memo (July 2002): "Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1593607,00.html
Leaked Secret Memo from UK Chief Foriegn Policy Advisor (Jan 2003): Bush made clear to Tony Blair that he was determined to invade Iraq without the second resolution, or even if international arms inspectors failed to find unconventional weapons. "Our diplomatic strategy had to be arranged around the military planning." "The start date for the military campaign was now penciled in for 10 March.""This was when the bombing would begin.":
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0327-05.htm
Uranium from Niger intel was included in State of the Union speech, but didn't make the cut for an earlier speech because of low reliability by CIA. This was explained as a mistake. [No source needed]
"A small group of retired, anti-war CIA officers are accusing the Bush administration of manipulating evidence against Iraq in order to push war":
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,81148,00.html
Hussein Kamel was a source for Iraqi pre-war intel. But the information he provided was cherry-picked:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20030407/baker
[ Ed. note: "Kamel"? We got pre-war intel from a guy named "Kamel"? Did he graduate from the same spy-school as "Curveball"?]
"Tyler Drumheller headed up the CIA’s convert operations in Europe until he retired last year. Before the war, Drumheller says that Saddam Hussein did not have a weapons of mass destruction program, and he tried to tell the White House. He claims that information was ignored.":
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/12485336/
"Vice President Cheney and his most senior aide made multiple trips to the CIA over the past year to question analysts studying Iraq's weapons programs and alleged links to al Qaeda, creating an environment in which some analysts felt they were being pressured to make their assessments fit with the Bush administration's policy objectives":
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A15019-2003Jun4?language=printer
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