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

To: cnyndwllr who wrote (130759)	4/30/2004 9:29:54 PM
From: h0db	Respond to of 281500

All of chickenhawk's "facts" come from fringe websites. Reality would crush him if he let any in.

To: cnyndwllr who wrote (130759)	5/1/2004 12:03:15 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Court Historian Woodward Disguises Bush Aims in Invading Iraq _________________________________ Blowing Smoke for Bush by Ray McGovern Published on Friday, April 23, 2004 by CommonDreams.org Why is Bob Woodward’s latest book, “Plan of Attack,” is being promoted by the administration? Because it portrays an in-charge President Bush and presents him as genuinely concerned (and seemingly misled) over the threat posed by Iraq’s “weapons of mass-destruction.” Unfortunately, the nation’s most-famous investigative reporter got it wrong. You would not know from Woodward’s book that the CIA’s National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction – used with Congress to hype the threat - was written several months after the administration decided to make war on Iraq. That decision had little to do with WMD or with supposed ties between Iraq and al-Qaeda. It had everything to do with the imperative seen by Bush’s neoconservative advisers to gain dominant influence over strategic, oil-rich Iraq and to eliminate any possible threat to Israel’s security. With that twin aim, the rationale was generally consistent with several decades of U.S. policy objectives in the Middle East. Where the Bush administration broke new ground was in its decision to launch a preemptive war when there was nothing to preempt. To honest analysts—including some within the “coalition of the willing”—the actual U.S. purpose was a no-brainer. Australian intelligence analysts, for example, had done their homework in reading the neoconservatives’ rationale in the documents of the Project for a New American Century and were able to make confident judgments regarding underlying U.S. motives. Senior Australian intelligence analyst Andrew Wilkie has testified to his Parliament that Australian intelligence gave his government “detailed assessments in which it was made very clear that the U.S. was intent on invading Iraq for more important reasons than WMD and terrorism. Hence, all this talk about WMD and terrorism was hollow.” The U.S. Congress was not likely to acquiesce in attacking Iraq on the basis of the strategic vision of the neoconservatives. Rather, it was necessary to coerce our lawmakers by conjuring up ominous specters like the frequently adduced “mushroom cloud.” Enter the NIE on Iraq and weapons of mass destruction prepared hurriedly in September 2002. Secretary of State Colin Powell has admitted that the target audience for the Estimate was Congress. The NIE and its various initial drafts became the centerpiece of a successful campaign to persuade our elected representatives to relinquish to the executive the war-making power vested solely in them by the framers of the Constitution. Hyping the evidence on WMD in classified briefings for Congress proved relatively easy; making a persuasive public case for WMD in Iraq was a tougher challenge. According to Bob Woodward—erstwhile junkyard dog of Watergate and, more recently, domesticated administration chronicler—CIA Director George Tenet and his deputy were called to the White House on December 21, 2002 to rehearse the case for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. In his book “Plan of Attack,” Woodward reports that when the briefing was over Bush turned to Tenet and remarked, “I’ve been told all this intelligence about having WMD and this is the best we’ve got?” Woodward writes that Tenet assured the president that it was “a slam-dunk case,” and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, who was there, has confirmed Woodward’s account. The next 45 days were devoted to fortifying the evidence in preparation for Colin Powell’s key speech at the U.N. on February 5, 2003. But as in the case of the earlier NIE, almost none of Powell’s assertions regarding WMD in Iraq have stood the test of time. Powell has even conceded publicly that he was misled on the existence of the Iraqi “bio-trailers” to which he gave such prominence, and says he has had “discussions” with the CIA about this particular embarrassment. That the White House has been promoting Woodward’s book (Rice wasted no time in saying she is sure it is “terrific”) reflects the administration’s determination to keep the focus on the cover story for the war—WMD, and obscure the actual motives regarding oil and Israel. And if, with no WMD to be found, the U.S. media or political opponents press home the point about going to war on false pretenses, Woodward’s book will provide useful yarn for White House spinners claiming the president was misled by faulty intelligence. And the slam-dunker can be left hanging on the rim of the basket, twisting in the wind, so to speak, until he falls of his own weight. By design, this would blow still more smoke over the actual reasons for the war. But for Tenet it would bring a certain poetic justice. For the unforgivable sin in intelligence analysis is telling the policymaker what he wants to hear—justifying with cooked “intelligence” what he has already decided to do. Sycophancy has no place in intelligence work—and particularly not on issues of war and peace. ________________________ Ray McGovern’s (RRMcGovern@aol.com) responsibilities during his 27-years as a CIA analyst included chairing National Intelligence Estimates. He is on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. ### commondreams.org