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

To: Neocon who wrote (148068)	10/15/2004 5:21:58 PM
From: Michael Watkins	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

I merely point out that having one of your close buddies defend you is hardly vindication. Its when your opponents vindicate you that believability is achieved. Want to switch specific topics? We can close this one off, for now, until new evidence comes up. In summary, the core of this argument was this: - when going to war, one needs a compelling reason. - it was Bush, not me, that made the tubes the nuclear smoking gun, the "compelling reason" - common sense says that if you are going to war, the principle reason for doing to is going to come under microscopic scruitiny. You've suggested that the key fact somehow failed to be raised to the RICE level; I don't buy that, not for something of this import. - You've suggested all along that the reality of the tube evidence some how failed to be recognized, while I've suggested that no way would such a fact be missed by those getting ready to spend hundreds of billions and commit the country to war. - I've suggested that the Office of Special Plans was formed to give the administration the facts they wanted, rather than all the facts. You've suggested that they operated with no bias but the truth as best it was known to them, even though the group is almost completely weighted to the neoconservative inner circle surrounding Cheney / Rumsfeld / Wolfowitz. One can call a stalemate right now, but I think an unbiased reader would conclude that the administration's front line in the drive to build a case against Iraq more likely than not operated with political and personal bias; had much at stake in long held personal or professional relationships. If intelligence gathering and analysis is to be free from political influence, should not the key people be free of political ties? In this regard the Office of Special Plans fails the sniff test badly indeed.