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To: Oeconomicus who wrote (157748)	6/6/2003 4:30:40 PM
From: GST	Respond to of 164684

Bob -- I would laugh, except that Americans died in Iraq, and more die every day. I don't find it funny. As for your empty rants, you have been wrong on this issue from day one.

To: Oeconomicus who wrote (157748)	6/6/2003 4:57:44 PM
From: GST	Respond to of 164684

Intelligence Historian Says CIA 'Buckled' on Iraq 23 minutes ago Add Politics to My Yahoo! By Jim Wolf WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The CIA (news - web sites) bowed to Bush administration pressure to hype the threat of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s weapons programs ahead of the U.S.-led war in Iraq (news - web sites), a leading national security historian concluded in a detailed study of the spy agency's public pronouncements. Intelligence Historian Says CIA 'Buckled' on Iraq Reuters - 23 minutes ago "What is clear from intelligence reporting is that until about 1998 the CIA was fairly comfortable with its assessments on Iraq," John Prados wrote in the current issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. "But from that time on the agency gradually buckled under the weight of pressure to adopt alarmist views," he said. "After mid-2001, the rush to judgment on Iraq became a stampede." A CIA spokesman, Mark Mansfield, dismissed Prados' conclusion, saying "The notion that we buckled under and adopted alarmist views is utter nonsense." The supposedly imminent threat from Iraq's feared chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs was cited by U.S. and British leaders as the chief justification for going to war in March. Eight weeks after Saddam's ouster, U.S. forces have yet to find any chemical or biological weapons in Iraq. Prados is author of 11 books, including "Presidents' Secret Wars: CIA and Pentagon (news - web sites) Covert Operations from World War II through the Persian Gulf." His biography of the late CIA chief William Colby has been praised as "meticulously researched" by Thomas B. Allen, co-author of "Spy Book: The Encyclopedia of Espionage." In his study of unclassified Iraq intelligence judgments, Prados said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had no need for a specially created intelligence team at the Pentagon to search for terrorist links with Iraq and other countries -- "George Tenet's CIA had already been hounded" into building the case for war. TENET DENIAL Tenet, the director of central intelligence, denied last week a rising tide of charges, including from insiders who spoke on condition of anonymity, that intelligence on Iraq had been slanted to buttress President Bush (news - web sites)'s approach to Saddam. "The integrity of our process was maintained throughout, and any suggestion to the contrary is simply wrong," Tenet said ahead of a report by a CIA review team examining prewar intelligence judgments. In an Oct. 7, 2002, letter to Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Bob Graham, Tenet said that in response to a U.S.-initiated attack that put Saddam in danger of defeat, the chances of his use of weapons of mass destruction were "pretty high, in my view." Much of U.S. prewar intelligence findings on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction was flimsy but policymakers' goals were clear, said Mel Goodman, a professor at the Pentagon's National War College and director of the Intelligence Reform Project at the Center for International Policy in Washington. "To deny that there was any pressure on the intelligence community is just absurd," said Goodman, who quit in 1990 as a CIA analyst over alleged skewing of intelligence. The Defense Intelligence Agency, in a classified September 2002 report, said it lacked enough "reliable information" to conclude Iraq was amassing chemical weapons, even as the administration was pushing for war, an official said on Friday.

To: Oeconomicus who wrote (157748)	6/6/2003 11:10:47 PM
From: Lizzie Tudor	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 164684

who cares about whether McKinley was lying or whether Bill Clinton was lying. Why do you conservatives try to deflect this huge issue of whether we, the US killed thousands of people in a pre-emptive strike against an unarmed country with these irrelevant issues? It just illustrates your lack of perspective. I cannot believe that those freaks on the Bush thread think that Clinton lying about SEX was actually grounds for impeachment where Bush lying about weapons, where thousands of people were killed is not grounds for impeachment. Its pathetic really.

To: Oeconomicus who wrote (157748)	6/7/2003 10:06:40 AM
From: GST	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

Ex-Official: Evidence Distorted for War Sat Jun 7, 6:18 AM ET Add White House - AP Cabinet & State to My Yahoo! By JOHN J. LUMPKIN, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON - The Bush administration distorted intelligence and presented conjecture as evidence to justify a U.S. invasion of Iraq (news - web sites), according to a retired intelligence official who served during the months before the war. "What disturbs me deeply is what I think are the disingenuous statements made from the very top about what the intelligence did say," said Greg Thielmann, who retired last September. "The area of distortion was greatest in the nuclear field." Thielmann was director of the strategic, proliferation and military issues office in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research. His office was privy to classified intelligence gathered by the CIA (news - web sites) and other agencies about Iraq's chemical, biological and nuclear programs. In Thielmann's view, Iraq could have presented an immediate threat to U.S. security in two areas: Either it was about to make a nuclear weapon, or it was forming close operational ties with al-Qaida terrorists. Evidence was lacking for both, despite claims by President Bush (news - web sites) and others, Thielmann said in an interview this week. Suspicions were presented as fact, contrary arguments ignored, he said. The administration's prewar portrayal of Iraq's weapons capabilities has not been validated despite weeks of searching by military experts. Alleged stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons have not turned up, nor has significant evidence of a nuclear weapons program or links to the al-Qaida network. Bush has said administration assertions on Iraq will be verified in time. The CIA and other agencies have vigorously defended their prewar performances. CIA Director George Tenet, responding to similar criticism last week, said in a statement: "The integrity of our process was maintained throughout, and any suggestion to the contrary is simply wrong." On Friday, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency acknowledged he had no hard evidence of Iraqi chemical weapons last fall but believed Iraq had a program in place to produce them. Also Friday, Sen. John Warner (news, bio, voting record), R-Va., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee (news - web sites), said he was not prepared to place blame for any intelligence shortcomings until all information is in. "There are always times when a single sentence or a single report evokes a lot of concern and some doubt," Warner told reporters after a closed hearing of his committee. "But thus far, in my own personal assessment of this situation, the intelligence community has diligently and forthrightly and with integrity produced intelligence and submitted it to this administration and to the Congress of the United States." Thielmann suggested mistakes may have been made at points all along the chain from when intelligence is gathered, analyzed, presented to the president and then provided to the public. The evidence of a renewed nuclear program in Iraq was far more limited than the administration contended, he said. "When the administration did talk about specific evidence — it was basically declassified, sensitive information — it did it in a way that was also not entirely honest," Thielmann said. In his State of the Union address, Bush said, "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." The Africa claim rested on a purported letter or letters between officials in Iraq and Niger held by European intelligence agencies. The communications are now accepted as forged, and Thielmann said he believed the information on Africa was discounted months before Bush mentioned it. "I was very surprised to hear that be announced to the United States and the entire world," he said. Thielmann said he had presumed Iraq had supplies of chemical and probably biological weapons. He particularly expected U.S. forces to find caches of mustard agent or other chemical weapons left over from Saddam's old stockpiles. "We appear to have been wrong," he said. "I've been genuinely surprised at that." One example where officials took too far a leap from the facts, according to Thielmann: On Feb. 11, CIA Director Tenet told the Senate Intelligence Committee that Iraq "retains in violation of U.N. resolutions a small number of Scud missiles that it produced before the Gulf War (news - web sites)." Intelligence analysts supposed Iraq may have had some missiles because they couldn't account for all the Scuds it had before the first Gulf War, Thielmann said. They could have been destroyed, dismantled, miscounted or still somewhere in Saddam's inventory. Some critics have suggested that the White House and Pentagon (news - web sites) policy-makers pressured the CIA and military intelligence to come up with conclusions favorable to an attack-Iraq policy. The CIA and military have denied such charges. Thielmann said that generally he felt no such pressure. Although his office did not directly handle terrorism issues, Thielmann said he was similarly unconvinced of a strong link between al-Qaida and Saddam's government. Yet, the implication from Bush on down was that Saddam supported Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s network. Iraq and the Sept. 11 attacks frequently were mentioned in the same sentence, even though officials have no good evidence of any link between the two.