Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (534771)	2/3/2004 11:59:33 AM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

Bush is not incompetent. Leadership requires a degree of risk taking, in order to benefit in the long run.

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (534771)	2/3/2004 12:07:22 PM
From: Skywatcher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

IT AIN'T OVER YET....Blair will take his lumps after being bailed out on the hearings with VERY dubious conclusions by a LORD Britain to Probe Accuracy of Iraq Intel By JILL LAWLESS, Associated Press Writer LONDON — The British government announced Tuesday that it would hold an inquiry into the intelligence used in deciding to go to war with Iraq, and expected findings to be ready months before a similar investigation in the United States. The White House was leaning toward naming members of its commission on intelligence failures on Wednesday, when President Bush is expected to give a speech on terrorism at Library of Congress, a senior administration official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "I think there are issues" about intelligence that need to be looked at, Prime Minister Tony Blair told a Parliamentary committee. But he insisted Saddam Hussein had "weapons of mass destruction capability" when Britain and the United States went to war in March. Announcing details in the House of Commons, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said the inquiry would look at the accuracy of prewar intelligence about Iraqi weapons and "discrepancies" between that intelligence and what eventually was found. It is due to report before Parliament breaks for the summer in July. The five-member committee will be chaired by Lord Butler, a retired senior civil servant, and include a Labour and a Conservative lawmaker. The third-largest party in Parliament, the Liberal Democrats, declined to participate in the inquiry because it will not review the government's use of intelligence. The announcement comes less than a week after a senior judge cleared the British government of allegations it distorted what it knew about Iraq's weapons programs to build a case for war. Also, the decision was made public a day after Bush announced he would name an independent, bipartisan inquiry into faulty intelligence in Iraq. Opposition Democrats in the United States have complained that the American inquiry is unlikely to report its findings before the presidential election in November. Blair denied he had been forced into an inquiry by Bush's announcement. "It did not take us by surprise," he said. "We've been working very closely with the Americans about this." The threat posed by Iraq's alleged nuclear, chemical and biological weapons was Blair's main argument for war. No such weapons have been found, and David Kay, the former head of the U.S.-led Iraq Survey Group, has said he doesn't believe they ever will be. Kay, who quit last month, told the U.S. Congress last week that "it turns out we were all wrong, probably" about the Iraqi threat. "What is true about David Kay's evidence, and this is something I have to accept as one of the reasons why I think we now need a further inquiry ... we have not found stockpiles of actual weapons," Blair told the lawmakers. "What is untrue is to say that he is saying that there was no weapons of mass destruction program or capability, and that Saddam was not a threat." The British government previously rejected calls for an inquiry. But on Monday, Blair's spokesman said last week's ruling by senior judge Lord Hutton that the government had not "sexed up" intelligence cleared the air and allowed for a rational discussion of Iraqi weapons. Before last year's war, Blair maintained that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. In September 2002, the government published a dossier of intelligence about Iraq; Blair told the House of Commons that Saddam Hussein's "weapons of mass destruction program is active, detailed and growing." Blair said some of Iraq's chemical and biological weapons "could be activated within 45 minutes." Eight months later, a BBC report claimed some people in the intelligence services had had doubts about the 45-minute claim, were unhappy that it was included in the dossier and that the government "probably knew ... that it was wrong." The story sparked a feud between the British Broadcasting Corp. and the government that culminated in Hutton's investigation that exonerated Blair but was harshly critical of the BBC. Hutton said the government had not manipulated intelligence, but said the issue of the accuracy of that intelligence was outside the scope of his inquiry. After publication of the Hutton report, Blair acknowledged that "it is absolutely right that people can question whether the intelligence received was right, and why we have not yet found weapons of mass destruction." On Tuesday, he insisted his position on Iraq's weapons had not changed. "It's not a question as it were of changing a position, it's a question of recognizing the fact that though there has been ample evidence of weapons of mass destruction programs and capability, the actual weapons have not been found as yet in Iraq," he said. "And the view of the head of the Iraq Survey Group is that he does not believe that the intelligence in relation to the stockpiles of the weapons. Now that's exactly what we need to look into." He said he still believed the war had been just. "I have no doubt whatever that we did the right thing," Blair said. "Now I think there issues to do with intelligence that we need to look at -- and that's not just the intelligence agencies but the government as well, incidentally."