Bush Was Misled - Not A Liar

[Dr. Shane]

In his new book, ''State of War," New York Times reporter James Risen, who is by no means a Bush supporter, states that CIA director George Tenant withheld information about Iraq from the President. He claims that George Tenant knew the evidence for WMDs was thin when he briefed Secretary of State Colin Powell before going before the UN. He claims that George Tenant never indicated to the President that there was any doubt that Saddam had WMDs. George Tenant misled President Bush who then, misled the nation.

So why didn't President Bush fire him and hang him out to dry? Probbally because George Tenant would have written a book revealing some embarassing things and perhaps making some up.

History points to William Randolph Hearst as causing the Spanish-American War with his yellow journalism. Will history point to CIA director George Tenant as starting the Iraq War with his bad intelligence?

[Nicodema]

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Shane said:

George Tenant misled

President Bush who then, misled the nation

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... Will history point to CIA director George Tenant as

starting the Iraq War with his bad intelligence?

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I'm glad to see that at least you are finally admitting two things: first, that the nation was indeed misled in this matter (and instrumental in this was Pres. Bush), and second, that the commencement of the Iraq War itself was predicated upon error. You've come a long way, Shane.

[Dr. Shane]

Presidents must rely on those that serve them to give them accurate information. George Tenant was appointed by President Clinton and tried to take Clinton down the same road. It wasn't about Bush getting revenge. It wasn't about big contracts for Halliburton. It wasn't about oil. It was about George Tenant's crusade against Saddam.

Not only did George Tenant withhold information about WMDs from President Bush. George Tenant also had intelligence that indicated there would be an insurgacy and he withheld that information from President Bush. It was under the CIA direction that Saddam's army was disbanded - many of them finding themselves unemployed - joined the insurgants.

Now in hindsight we did discover the oil-for-food scandel as a result of the invation. We also discovered Saddam's plans to get resume his WMD programs after getting sanctions lifted. So it is not as if all is for naught. Better intellignce should have been able to uncover the oil-for-food scandel without a war. But something did need to be done and the world is better off without Saddam.

Now we have to deal with Iran and North Korea. The problem with them is they, like Saddam, support terrorism. Nations that support terrorism cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons. If there is anyway we can stop it.

[Bravus]

I don't have it at the tip of my mind, but was it Rumsfled or Cheney who (a) basically went in and told the CIA what to say and what the administration wanted to hear and ( created his own little intelligence operation hand-crafted to get those answers? Those two things both definitely happened. Yes, Tenet (sp?) rolled over for it, and deserves some blame, and if Bush was aware that that was going on he can't claim to have been misled on intelligence. If he didn't, either he wasn't doing his job or there are senior people in his administration who weren't and should have been summarily sacked... and they weren't.

It's a nice attempt at a dodge, but the buck stops with the president, particularly when he has tried so very, very hard not to hear things he doesn't want to hear.

[Bravus]

I have nothing invested in labelling Bush as a liar. There is a train through these events, albeit not a very plausible one, whereby he could have been misled at every step. But I'm afraid the only viable alternative label to 'liar' is 'criminally incompetent'.

Before a president commits his country to war - a war costing billions of dollars, tens of thousands of Iraqi civilian lives, thousands of US military lives and tens of thousands of wounded and maimed American soldiers, he'd better be sure - and have taken the steps that will make him sure, questioned the answers, challenged the information. Some of it was paper thin - one push would have torn it, but he never pushed.

[bevin]

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Nations that support terrorism cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons

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Oh, you mean countries like the USA, Great Britain, and France - all of which have supported such activities against regimes that they did not like.

Or maybe you mean countries like the USA, that have backed horrible dicatorships like Batista (Cuba) and Pol-Pot (Cambodia).

Or maybe you mean countries like the USA, which have secret jails, indefinite detention, support torture, and kidnapped and assasinate their enemies.

/Bevin

[Dr. Shane]

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it Rumsfled or Cheney who (a) basically went in and told the CIA what to say and what the administration wanted to hear

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Now that sounds like some paranoid theory from far-left wacks like the folks at moveon.org. There is no evidence of such. Remember that George Tenant was appointed by Clinton and tried to get Clinton to invade Iraq. Did Runsfeild and Chenney tell Tenant what Clinton wanted too?

New York Times reporter James Risen is no friend of the White House. His sources inside the CIA are tell the story that Tenant hid the information from the President.

Now really, it isn't that hard to admit Bush is an honarable man.

[bevin]

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Now really, it isn't that hard to admit Bush is an honarable man.

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He is either a liar or a fool. Just look at the messes he has presided over. You are trying to tell me he knew nothing about the incompetence and corruption involved in

• The no-bid Halliburton contracts
• His "one heck of a job" pick's mess with Katrina
• His choice of an inexperienced lightweight crony for the Supreme Court
• The lies his campaign manager did in Texas to get him a governorship
• The lies about WMD
• The energy commission
• DeLay
• Abramoff
• etc

I grant you, he can be an honorable fool...

As my parents observed in NZ, where the head line was "US Invaded Iraq Because of Deficient Intelligence", most people know who has the deficient intelligence.

/Bevin

[Jeannieb43]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr />

bevin said:

</font><blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr />

Now really, it isn't that hard to admit Bush is an honarable man.

<hr /></blockquote><font class="post">

He is either a liar or a fool. Just look at the messes he has presided over. You are trying to tell me he knew nothing about the incompetence and corruption involved in

• The no-bid Halliburton contracts
• His "one heck of a job" pick's mess with Katrina
• His choice of an inexperienced lightweight crony for the Supreme Court
• The lies his campaign manager did in Texas to get him a governorship
• The lies about WMD
• The energy commission
• DeLay
• Abramoff
• etc

I grant you, he can be an honorable fool...

As my parents observed in NZ, where the head line was "US Invaded Iraq Because of Deficient Intelligence", most people know who has the deficient intelligence.

/Bevin

<hr /></blockquote><font class="post">

ROFLOL, Bevin. You've hit the nail on the head!

[Bravus]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Special_Plans

[Dr. Shane]

Some people are so extreame they cannot admit that President Clinton did a good job of handling the economy. Others are so extreame they cannot admit that President Bush is an honorable man. However most moderates, like me, have no problem admitting either.

Any student of history can go through a president's record and make a list of mistakes that were made. President Carter made some terrible mistakes but is remembered as an honorable man, and rightly so. While I will admit that President Bush has made some errors, I am not willing to concede that granting no-bid contracts to Haliburton or FEMA not anticipating the incompetance of local and state governments are among them. And now the evidence continues to show he was misled and acted responsibly with the information he had.

[Dr. Shane]

Bravus, be aware that you are going to an anti-Bush source for your information. The information I am referencing here is also from an anti-Bush source. So your source contradicts my source and both sources are anti-Bush.

Wikipedia

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Wikipedia is a liberal "encyclopedia" that anyone can edit. Unfortunately, it is very popular and very "progressive", although its stated goal is to present factual information wit a neitral point of view.

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[Dr. Shane]

To clarify, the anti-Bush source I refer to is the author of the piece - not Wikipedia itself.

What Is Wikipedia ... And How Does It Treat History?

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A recent New York Times article noted the dangers of Wikipedia’s format. During the past election cycle, the entries for John Kerry and George W. Bush were constantly edited and re-edited by supporters and detractors. At one point, President Bush’s photograph was replaced with Hitler’s. After Kerry’s defeat, the senator’s biography was edited to read in its entirety: “John Kerry is a girl.” Such polarity in political views led Wikipedia administrators to “lock down” many of the pages.

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Liberal and conservative views are most prominent in Wikipedia’s “External Links,” a collection of unaffiliated websites that relate to the topic under consideration. The External Links for Donald Rumsfeld, for example, include a website that describes Rumsfeld as “sometimes insulting,” “undiplomatic,” and a “backstabber.” Another link leads to an article written by the liberal organization, MoveOn. Wikipedia’s External Links for Tom DeLay include an article written by the conservative American Spectator, entitled, “Texas Smear Machine Targets DeLay.”

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[John317]

No, the war and how it started and why it went forward is a lot more complicated than that. For one thing, even during Clinton's administration, people at the highest levels of the U.S. government were saying the same things that George Bush and others in his administration were saying just before the invasion of Iraq. It was not only the C.I.A. but also the intelligence services of Russia, Jordan, and Israel who said that Saddam had WMD. Clinton said that the US would have to take military action and the US Congress voted for "regime change." This was before George W. Bush was elected President. Also, the U.S. and its allies had a legal right to invade Iraq because of Saddam's repeated violations of the agreement he signed to end the Gulf War.

As a result of US and British actions, Saddam is where he belongs and deserves to be, and the people of Iraq are rid of him and have an opportunity at last to have a democratic government. Would you rather have Saddam's prison's and torture chambers still be open and doing their terrible work? Jim

[Dr. Shane]

Yes, many forgien intelligence services did believe Saddam had WMDs - including the Iraqi intelligence! However, according to James Risen, in his new book, the CIA obtained information that cast doubt on that intelligence and withheld it from President Bush.

[Bravus]

http://www.salon.com/books/review/2006/01/10/risen/

Another liberal view: which says that Rumsfeld was (as I said) behind the failures of the CIA. So why wasn't Rumsfeld sacked? Because he was doing what his boss wanted.

I only linked Wikipedia as a handy data source. The Office of Special Plans and its interference in pre-war intelligence is a matter of fact, not opinion: the source is irrelevant. You can find right-wing sources that still acknowledge that it happened. I don't have time right now.

[Dr. Shane]

There were three failures of the CIA:

• The 9/11 terrorists trained for and planned the attacks in the US successfully.
• The belief that Saddam had stockpiles of WMDs
• Not anticipating the insurgency after the fall of Saddam.

These failures took place in both the Clinton and Bush Administrations but all took place under George Tenant. Given the intelligence failures that became evidant on 9/11, an Office of Special Plans certainly was needed.

Was Rumsfield behind the bad intelligence during the Clinton years? Was he behind the Russian, Brittish, Israeli or Egyptian bad intelligence too?

[Dr. Shane]

Here is a different prespective which is more in line with James Risen's book.

Pentagon Team on Iran Comes Under Fire

[:"blue"] Defense Department spokesmen acknowledge that a small, four-member team is working on Iran policy within the Pentagon's so-called Office of Special Plans. Critics contend that the office has been distorting intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and links to Al Qaeda in order to strengthen the case for war.

A senior Pentagon official told the Forward that the office is "a pure policy-planning shop" and was not engaged in reviewing — much less distorting — intelligence.

The furor over the office and its role has emerged as a flashpoint in the larger administration debate over Iran policy, which pits moderates in the State Department against hawks in the Pentagon....

The Office of Special Plans was first described by journalist Seymour Hersh in a recent New Yorker article. Hersh claimed that it had emerged as a rival to both the CIA and the Pentagon's own Defense Intelligence Agency as a main source providing intelligence on Iraq to President Bush.

The senior Pentagon official said such press reports were "utterly false and a complete fabrication."

The Defense Department has three distinct policy-planning divisions, the official said: one on South Asia, one on the Middle East and one dealing with the Northern Gulf. The latter was renamed "special plans" in October 2002 and had its personnel expanded because it had to deal with an upcoming war against Iraq as well as other issues like terrorism, the official said. [/]

[jasd]

>>New York Times reporter James Risen, who is by no means a Bush supporter, states...<<

Umm, shades of Jayson Blair and the news-as-massaged a la NYTimes? That said,

are huzzahs in order?

Do you really believe that Dubya was misled -- according to that ol' Clintonista, James Risen? I mean,

in that the left of aisle has made "He lied, we were misled" their carpa mantra... mebbe, Risen's simply attempting to attribute by inclusiveness, the "...we were misled" idiocy to Dubya, as well. After all,

Risen was never shy about pimping spins for the NYTimes rather than journalistically reporting the news.

[jasd]

QT frame:

Aren’t we all just a bit bemused that we, the hoi polloi of the mundane, go on, and on, and on, and… about the ‘smarts’ and/or the ‘character’ of one who’s proved more capable than the lot of us together – by ascending to the most enviable and demanding position in this wide, wide world (and currently of history for that matter) --that of POTUS?

…sounds, mebbe, like clinical ‘envy’ on our part, doesn't it? Moreover, he did it

in spite of the efforts of our hubristic literati and academe (present company excluded, of course) – who, supposedly, represent the epitome of ‘intelligence’ in this fair land. Oh, we ought not give short shrift to their associates and henchpeoples who contribute after the manner expected of disgruntled house organs... y’know, the Moores; the Frankens; the Hollywoodish riff-raff pack; the dragon teeth urls; the [sotto voce] in-the-loop-privied, ‘intel-wise’; the East coast ol’ Gray Lady Times and its hinder coast LATimes with asst rags between; the, well…, ahem, fashionable media. Moreover,

he did it both times, Twice! against the best of the opposition party! …y’know, the whinin’-cryin’-sobbin’-mewlin’-carpin’-ungraciously-losin’ opposition. Besides,

how many of us are qualified to fly them aero-jetta silver wings with turbo-exhaust and yet, win the Malaprop award? By the way,

…anything to the bruit that 9/11 was a coup d’Etat attempt by certain friendlies? and that the planes that flew into their targets were remote-controlled – drones; the Islamo-bad hijackers being patsies? that, with

another coup attempt against the electorate’s duly-elected in the near-offing?

[Bravus]

Um, he didn't actually do it twice, you know: he did it once after having it fraudulently handed to him once.

[Dr. Shane]

Bush did not win fraudulently and to say he did is slanderous. In the US the president is elected by the electoral college. The people elect the electoral college and the electoral college elects the president. Just like Parliment elects the prime minister in many other democracies. George W. Bush won the electoral college twice. He was the third person in the history of the US to lose the popular vote and win the electoral vote. There was no fraud. That said, he was the only one of the three to win re-election.

Can we get over the 2000 election already?

[Planey]

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Shane said:

There was no fraud.

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[Dr. Shane]

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Can we get over the 2000 election already?

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[Planey]

Shane if something bad happened in the past, does the passage of time gradually make it acceptable?

Will we eventually praise Josef Stalin for the purge?

As the years go by, will Jim Jones be viewed as a great leader?

With the drifting away of years, will we tell the Jews to "get over" the Holocaust?

If something was morally reprehensible (and demonstrably crooked) at the time it occurred then it is still morally reprehensible as we recall it now. No, nobody should be expected to "get over it"

Graeme