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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (117636)	10/25/2003 10:07:37 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 281500

Analyst: White House lied on Iraq _______________________________________ By Donna Jackel Staff writer rochesterdandc.com (October 20, 2003) — The Bush administration lied to Congress to pave the way for war with Iraq, alleged a former CIA analyst who visited Rochester on Sunday. Ray McGovern, 64, who was a CIA analyst from 1964 to 1990, was guest speaker at Metro Justice’s annual dinner. The Bush administration’s deception of the American people began a year ago, according to McGovern. It was then that former Ambassador Joseph Wilson made a trip to Africa to investigate claims that Iraq was seeking uranium to build nuclear weapons. Wilson reported to the Bush administration that the allegations were false. But the Bush administration reported to Congress that intelligence indicated Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction. President Bush also gave “many” speeches linking Iraq to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, McGovern said. “Never have I seen such a cynically orchestrated campaign over a year and a half,’’ he said. “Only a few weeks ago did Bush admit that Iraq was not involved in any way with 9/11.” Suzy DeFrancis, a White House spokeswoman, said Sunday that President Bush was “very satisfied” with the intelligence he received and with “the unanimity of the intelligence community on Iraq.’’ “Other countries agreed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and had not accounted for them,’’ DeFrancis said. “The president has already stated he was satisfied with the quality of the intelligence he received and made his decision based on that. He believes it was absolutely the right decision.” To those who want to know why Saddam did not both say and show to weapons inspectors that he had no weapons of mass destruction, McGovern said simply that it was a matter of self-defense. “With ambiguity comes a measure of deterrence,” he said, referring to potential aggression on the part of Israel. If the Bush administration doesn’t let the United Nations take over administration of Iraq, McGovern said, he worries that the situation will turn into another Vietnam. “Unless we change our policies, we’ll suffer more and more casualties,” McGovern said. “In the early stages of Vietnam, people were saying the same things — ‘You can’t cut and run. You have to see this thing through.’ That just compounds the error.”