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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: American Spirit who wrote (532999)	1/30/2004 7:55:30 PM
From: GROUND ZERO™	Respond to of 769667

Grub 533001... GZ

To: American Spirit who wrote (532999)	1/30/2004 7:57:45 PM
From: GROUND ZERO™	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 769667

You still don't get it, and you never will... don't you realize that Bush will win by a landslide, that you and the other Bush haters will get nowhere by trying to sell your hate... most Americans believe Bush is doing the right thing, but you still think you're in the majority... it's a sad thing for you and your dwindling party... GZ

To: American Spirit who wrote (532999)	1/31/2004 12:31:05 AM
From: Selectric II	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

No Evidence CIA Slanted Iraq Data Probers Say Analysts Remained Consistent By Dana Priest Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, January 31, 2004; Page A01 washingtonpost.com Congressional and CIA investigations into the prewar intelligence on Iraq's weapons and links to terrorism have found no evidence that CIA analysts colored their judgment because of perceived or actual political pressure from White House officials, according to intelligence officials and congressional officials from both parties. Richard J. Kerr, a former deputy CIA director who is leading the CIA's review of its prewar Iraq assessment, said an examination of the secret analytical work done by CIA analysts showed that it remained consistent over many years. "There was pressure and a lot of debate, and people should have a lot of debate, that's quite legitimate," Kerr said. "But the bottom line is, over a period of several years," the analysts' assessments "were very consistent. They didn't change their views." Kerr's findings mirror those of two probes being conducted separately by the House and Senate intelligence committees, which have interviewed, under oath, every analyst involved in assessing Iraq's weapons programs and terrorist ties. The panel chairmen, Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) and Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.), and other congressional officials said in recent interviews that they found no evidence that analysts shaded their findings to more closely fit the White House's known desire to create the strongest, most urgent case for war with Iraq. The conclusion that analysts did not buckle under political pressure does not answer the question of why the intelligence reports were so flawed. Nor does it address allegations -- made by Democrats in Congress and Democratic presidential candidates -- that top Bush administration officials misused intelligence and exaggerated the threat posed by Iraq. On Wednesday, former chief U.S. weapons inspector David Kay told a Senate committee that he no longer believed Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction in the months leading up to the war. And he called for an independent inquiry into why U.S. intelligence agencies believed the opposite. The White House, which has said it opposes such an outside inquiry, has said final conclusions about Iraq's weapons programs and U.S. intelligence cannot be made until the Iraq Survey Group, the inspection agency Kay used to lead, completes its work. "I want the American people to know that I, too, want to know the facts," Bush told reporters yesterday. "I want to be able to compare what the Iraq Survey Group has found with what we thought prior to going into Iraq." Bush added that Hussein was a danger and "we dealt with the danger. And, as a result, the world is a better place and a more peaceful place, and the Iraqi people are free." There were instances before the war in which intelligence analysts said they sensed pressure to reach certain conclusions, but the House and Senate investigators said there was no indication they bowed to such wishes. Last year, for example, some analysts at the CIA complained to senior officials when Vice President Cheney made multiple trips to CIA headquarters to question their studies of Iraq's weapons programs and alleged links to al Qaeda. And analysts at the Defense Intelligence Agency told investigators they sensed pressure when civilian Defense Department leaders constantly questioned why their analysis had found only tentative links between al Qaeda and Iraq. But "their constant message" to congressional investigators was "they didn't buckle to pressure," another congressional official said. Neither the CIA inspector general nor the agency's ombudsmen received any complaints about outside meddling, a senior intelligence official said. Added one congressional official: "There were no anonymous calls, no letters, nothing."