Bush and company did exactly this
And Tenet said the case was "slam dunk". The Senate concluded there was no political pressure on intelligence conclusions, and if you read the Senate report CB cited it is clear that the only ones really doubting that Iraq was shopping around for uranium was the State guys. On page 52 or thereabouts it says the CIA, DIA and other guys were all in agreement. Where's the cherry picking? The intelligence agencies screwed up, but it looks more like it was a consensus screw up with a few dissenters, outvoted. That's not cherry picking, that's believing consensus conclusions and not believing the dissenter. Just because one guy disagrees, but you are not persuaded, doesn't mean you are acting in bad faith to arrive at pre-conceived conclusions.
CIA downplayed the British White Paper that said Iraq was seeking uranium in Niger. They could have cherry-picked that, but didn't. And when that bit of info got cleared, by CIA, for inclusion in the POTUS speech, Tenet said it was a mistake. There's plenty of blame to throw at CIA, but cherry picking isn't one of them, IMO.
Derek |
