Quote :

"Two former CIA officers say the president squelched top-secret intelligence, and a briefing by George Tenet, months before invading Iraq. By Sidney Blumenthal Sept. 6, 2007 | On Sept. 18, 2002, CIA director George Tenet briefed President Bush in the Oval Office on top-secret intelligence that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, according to two former senior CIA officers. Bush dismissed as worthless this information from the Iraqi foreign minister, a member of Saddam's inner circle, although it turned out to be accurate in every detail. Tenet never brought it up again. Nor was the intelligence included in the National Intelligence Estimate of October 2002, which stated categorically that Iraq possessed WMD. No one in Congress was aware of the secret intelligence that Saddam had no WMD as the House of Representatives and the Senate voted, a week after the submission of the NIE, on the Authorization for Use of Military Force in Iraq. The information, moreover, was not circulated within the CIA among those agents involved in operations to prove whether Saddam had WMD. ... The next day, Sept. 18, Tenet briefed Bush on Sabri. "Tenet told me he briefed the president personally," said one of the former CIA officers. According to Tenet, Bush's response was to call the information "the same old thing." Bush insisted it was simply what Saddam wanted him to think. "The president had no interest in the intelligence," said the CIA officer. The other officer said, "Bush didn't give a fuck about the intelligence. He had his mind made up.""

http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2007/09/06/bush_wmd/

This is not surprising, of course, but it's just one more bit of damning evidence that shows Bush completely falsified the evidence for going to war. It seems like nothing he does will ever be held against him in any real substantive way, but, yeah...

9/6/2007 9:25:38 AM

Dude, honestly?

Quote :

"Bush dismissed as worthless this information from the Iraqi foreign minister, a member of Saddam's inner circle, although it turned out to be accurate in every detail."

Oh well they said they don't have em boys, pack up and lets get out of here.

[Edited on September 6, 2007 at 9:28 AM. Reason : .]

9/6/2007 9:28:04 AM

Well I can see being skeptical about the news, but not dismissing it entirely.

9/6/2007 9:29:09 AM

I mean, as a member of the government that will get their asses kicked if they just published a report that said "WE HAVE WMDs" what else were they going to say?

If Bush did take that seriously, then I would seriously challenge his intelligence.

9/6/2007 9:31:26 AM

^ You might want to actually read the article. Or not, since your mind's clearly already been made up, regardless of the facts at hand. Hey, maybe you should run for President!

9/6/2007 9:34:51 AM

Do you think a CIA agent would make a top-secret report that just said 'he said he doesn't have wmd's'? I seriously doubt that was the only information in the report and that the information in it was important and reliable enough that it was brought up to the president.

9/6/2007 9:35:06 AM

^ Do you also realize the vast amount of intelligence that said he had WMDs? Who are you going to trust, info from the British, Russians, Israleis, and the CIA? or Saddam's Information Minister?

^^ I read what you gave me. And it's pretty weak shit.

9/6/2007 9:37:42 AM

Did you not read what I said?


I said the CIA would probably not wast the time on a report that they deemed to be propaganda. I'm sure the report had information to things IN ADDITION to wmd's. ie. we don't have wmd's but we're murdering people here and here, saddam's shit is strong here, weak here, saddam is allergic to fish.

9/6/2007 9:43:17 AM

Yeah, but let's believe defectors like Chalabi who turned out to be a CRIMINAL and a LIAR, right?

You think defectors have the motivation to tell the truth?

9/6/2007 9:45:56 AM

Jesus christ, I'm not saying we use them as a backbone to our intelligence, I'm saying don't summarily dismiss reports from the CIA that says their information is likely true.

Why are you such a tool?

9/6/2007 9:47:33 AM

Dude moron, that was OBVIOUUUUUUUUUUUSLY not directed at you.

THINK who it was directed at. It is SIMPLE.

9/6/2007 9:54:20 AM

my bad, i thought you were Oeuvre posting again. been a long morning here at work

read up on chalabi too and now it all makes sense.

my apologies.

9/6/2007 9:56:18 AM

Quote :

"You think defectors have the motivation to tell the truth?"

What makes them inherently any more or less reliable than someone who works for Saddam?

9/6/2007 9:58:01 AM

^^^^^ That was a HUGE flaw in the intelligence process but unfortunately it was bred by necessity in one way or another. The CIA leaned on the word of defectors and asylum seekers simply because they did not have vetted humint assets or officers in Iraq to gather information (kurdistan being the exception, although very limited).

[Edited on September 6, 2007 at 9:58 AM. Reason : ï]

9/6/2007 9:58:18 AM

Hmm, the same people that were in there during this meeting proclaiming "We have evidence that they don't have WMDs" were in there both the week before and the week after proclaiming "we have evidence that they do". It is the CIA, they don't really know shit, so they hedge their bets. When it turns out the do have WMDs, they can say "we told you so." When it turns out Saddam is really reincarnated Jesus, they can say they told you that too.

9/6/2007 10:01:02 AM

Now the liberals have faith in our intelligence

9/6/2007 10:02:38 AM

so you're using the fact that they're pretty much saying the same thing now as in 2002 is evidence that they're somehow backpedaling?

9/6/2007 10:06:30 AM

^^ what does liberal have to do with this?

9/6/2007 10:12:43 AM

Quote :

"my bad, i thought you were Oeuvre posting again. been a long morning here at work read up on chalabi too and now it all makes sense. my apologies."

tis alright, dude. thanks. i knew something must be up

Quote :

"What makes them inherently any more or less reliable than someone who works for Saddam?"

Nothing. If you ask me, both sides are equally [un]reliable. They both have very strong vested interests. But obviously Bush listened to the side with the same vested interests as his (Bush's) own:

Chalabi (and other defectors)
Israelis (yeah, they are truth-telling angels, aren't they)
Brits
etc.

I hope he burns in hell forever.

9/6/2007 10:13:12 AM

Quote :

"Israelis (yeah, they are truth-telling angels, aren't they)"

^ is salisburyboy

I think it's obvious now that Bush was going to do what he (hopefully) thought was right (and not just what he wanted to do for no valid reason). Although like spook said, for some reason, even with all this damning evidence, Bush gets away fine.

Clinton got impeached for a blowjob, while Bush is free to wipe his ass with the Constitution.

9/6/2007 10:41:15 AM

Why would the CIA be talking to the Iraqi Foreign Minister? That makes no sense.

[Edited on September 6, 2007 at 10:49 AM. Reason : /]

9/6/2007 10:49:43 AM

Quote :

"^ is salisburyboy"

Hardly. Isreal hardly has a clean track record since its modern inception.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_Nations_resolutions_concerning_Israel

9/6/2007 10:50:00 AM

Just so you know, the UN is actually controlled by salisburyboy.

9/6/2007 10:51:18 AM

^^^ souce intelligence and "talking to" people are two different things. But remember, we were talking to the Soviets on a nearly daily basis for the duration of the Cold War, why wouldn't we talk to the Iraqis?

9/6/2007 10:54:06 AM

^^^ Couldn't agree more. And it's not anti-semitic, its the truth....

9/6/2007 11:14:48 AM

Meh, I find it somewhat amusing that people keep turning to the UN as if it is some flawless, a-political organization out to save the world. I agree, that we're probably better off with it than without it, but its primary purpose is to lend creedence to US military operations since almost every effort it has attempted without us has failed. Without American backing the UN and its "peacekeepers" are pretty consistently corrupt and inept . . . I mean we're corrupt, but we're generally not that corrupt and generally pretty competent.

People also tend to forget that the UN is composed of all sorts of different countries representive of a myriad of political and social systems, each with their own agenda and, generally, far less transparency than we enjoy in the United States.

With the one-state, one-vote makeup of the GA, small countries aligned with the Arab states, or simply opposed to US hegimony, are able to exercise a power and a voice far beyond their legitimacy.

I'm not saying that Israel is a golden child, just that I put little to no stock in UN resolutions.

9/6/2007 12:14:17 PM

I definitely believe that bush used intel that he was told was 100% false to dupe the public into supporting the war and believing the lies, but I think this report needs a little bit more credibility to it to really take it as true

9/6/2007 12:19:13 PM

Quote :

"Saddam Hussein has spent the better part of this decade and much of his nation's wealth not on providing for the Iraqi people, but on developing nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, and the missiles to deliver them. The United Nations weapons inspectors have done a truly remarkable job, finding and destroying more of Iraq's arsenal than was destroyed during the entire Gulf War. Now, Saddam Hussein wants to stop them from completing their mission. I know I speak for everyone in this chamber, Republicans and Democrats, when I say to Saddam Hussein: You cannot defy the will of the world. (APPLAUSE) And when I say to him, you have used weapons of mass destruction before. We are determined to deny you the capacity to use them again."

http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/01/27/sotu/transcripts/clinton/index2.html

Bill Clinton, 1998 State of the Union Address

Why didn't Bill Clinton know, too?

And why did this Iraqi scientist make all this stuff up about a nuclear program?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4774541.stm

9/6/2007 12:35:50 PM

. . . pithy "punch line"

some bold type to look important

Quote :

"selective quote extracted out of context"

http://insert.link.here

snarky comment

obligatory




ok, how about this. The fact that Bill Clinton was a piece of shit doesn't negate the fact that Bush is one as well. So instead of constantly acting like a child pointing to the neighborhood brat and saying "well mommy, he did it too", why don't you actually defend your homy, W.

[Edited on September 6, 2007 at 12:58 PM. Reason : durrrr]

9/6/2007 12:51:03 PM

^ Which means absolutely nothing. Try addressing the post, genius.

And that PS confirms your idiocy. The point was that many people--including the preceding officeholder, President Bill Clinton (D)--also thought Iraq had WMDs and would use them if action wasn't taken. Which part can't you comprehend?

[Edited on September 6, 2007 at 1:20 PM. Reason : STFU.]

9/6/2007 12:53:45 PM

I'm trying to remember, was it Clinton or Bush that lost 3753 (and counting) American soldiers in Iraq.

9/6/2007 1:29:33 PM

^^^^ There's no disputing the Iraq has IN THE PAST pursued nuclear weapons programs. Note that the article discusses Iraq's nuclear programs over the past 25 years. The article does NOT demonstrate that the status of these programs in 2002 presented a critical threat to the US.

In short, the article does not at all detail Iraq's nuclear capabilities leading up to the invasion. Therefore, it has precisely ZERO relevance in this discussion.


Secondly, read the rest of the report:

Quote :

"On April 23, 2006, CBS's "60 Minutes" interviewed Tyler Drumheller, the former CIA chief of clandestine operations for Europe, who disclosed that the agency had received documentary intelligence from Naji Sabri, Saddam's foreign minister, that Saddam did not have WMD. ""

Sabri was a paid informant on Iraq's supposed WMDs/chemical weapons/nuclear capabilities.

Quote :

"Then the officer flew to Washington, where he met with CIA deputy director John McLaughlin, who was "excited" about the report. Nonetheless, McLaughlin expressed his reservations. He said that Sabri's information was at odds with "our best source." That source was code-named "Curveball," later exposed as a fabricator, con man and former Iraqi taxi driver posing as a chemical engineer."

However, the CIA decided instead to trust a second informant, "Curevball," who was a bonified CON MAN.

Quote :

"The officers continued to insist on the significance of Sabri's information, but one of Tenet's deputies told them, "You haven't figured this out yet. This isn't about intelligence. It's about regime change.""

Ideology, and not the facts, decided which informant to believe.

Quote :

"For two months, Drumheller fought against the use of Curveball, raising the red flag that he was likely a fraud, as he turned out to be. "Oh, my! I hope that's not true," said Deputy Director McLaughlin, according to Drumheller's book "On the Brink," published in 2006. When Curveball's information was put into Bush's Jan. 28, 2003, State of the Union address, McLaughlin and Tenet allowed it to pass into the speech. "From three Iraqi defectors," Bush declared, "we know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs ... Saddam Hussein has not disclosed these facilities. He's given no evidence that he has destroyed them." In fact, there was only one Iraqi source -- Curveball -- and there were no labs. "

The number of sources were exagerated, and the information FROM this one source was further exagerated to present the case that Iraq was an immediate threat.

Quote :

"In 2005, the Silberman-Robb commission investigating intelligence in the Iraq war failed to interview the case officer directly involved with Sabri; instead its report blamed the entire WMD fiasco on "groupthink" at the CIA. "They didn't want to trace this back to the White House," said the officer. "

The White House was provided the opposing view, ignored it, then denied ever hearing about it.

Quote :

"While one Iraqi source told the CIA that there were no WMD, information that was true but distorted to prove the opposite, another Iraqi source was a fabricator whose lies were eagerly embraced. "The real tragedy is that they had a good source that they misused," said one of the former CIA officers. "The fact is there was nothing there, no threat. But Bush wanted to hear what he wanted to hear." "

And that's it. American foreign policy dictated by exagerated evidence provided by ONE suspect source and blinded by neo-conservative idealogy. Now, oddly enough, the truth rears its ugly head and we're left pondering how the fuck our country got itself in this mess.

....


And one more thing. You can say we found some WMDs, or that we found some nuclear programs, or biological agents. You can twist the facts to make these claims. Honestly, I'll even CONCEDE that these claims, to an extent are true.

However.... and pardon the boldface...

Iraq in no way presented an IMMEDIATE threat to the national security of the United States. None of the WMDs, nuclear programs, or biological weapons found in Iraq validate the invasion and complete dismantling of Iraq's economic and political systems. The premise of the war, the unacceptable threat of Saddam and Iraq, is unequivocally FALSE. Not even the most neo-conservative warhawk can dispute this.


They all belong in jail for hijacking our country. Castrate them all with a rusty spoon.


[Edited on September 6, 2007 at 1:37 PM. Reason : [Edited on September 6, 2007 at 1:35 PM. Reason : [Edited on September 6, 2007 at 1:35 PM. Reason : ]

9/6/2007 1:32:43 PM

Quote :

"^^^ souce intelligence and "talking to" people are two different things. But remember, we were talking to the Soviets on a nearly daily basis for the duration of the Cold War, why wouldn't we talk to the Iraqis?"

Let me rephrase.

Why are we talking to the Iraqi Foreign Minister, and George Tenet is presenting a statement from the Iraqi Foreign Minister that they have no WMDs to the President as evidence?

9/6/2007 1:32:51 PM

because thats international politics? I'm not sure what you're driving at. Are you saying we shouldn't be talking to the Iraqis just because they're "bad" people?

9/6/2007 1:44:39 PM

^^^ signed.

9/6/2007 2:01:32 PM

Anyone who doesn't agree with Bush or the Iraq war is an antisemitic NAZI.

9/6/2007 3:19:11 PM

"Despite evidence of Saddam’s continued ambition to acquire nuclear weapons, to date we have not uncovered evidence that Iraq undertook significant post-1998 steps to actually build nuclear weapons or produce fissile material." [Iraq Survey Group Interim Progress Report, 10/2/03]

“My summary view, based on what I’ve seen, is we’re very unlikely to find large stockpiles of weapons. … I don’t think they exist.” [Former U.N. inspector David Kay, 1/26/04]

“The ISG has not found evidence that Saddam possessed WMD stocks in 2003.” [Iraq Survey Group Report, 10/7/04]

9/6/2007 3:19:27 PM

^^ yeah, on another note, I never got how people called Israel / Zionists, Nazis. I mean, seriously, wtf?

9/6/2007 3:21:09 PM

Quote :

"Bush knew Saddam had no WMD"

[OLD]

That is so 2003

I mean we all knew from the get go that the WMD and Sadaam sleeping w/ Osama was just a war cry to justify his oil and other interests for invading Iraq

9/6/2007 3:24:26 PM

Quote :

"I definitely believe that bush used intel that he was told was 100% false"

You must be a moron if you believe that bush was told with 100% certainty that there were no WMD and he did it anyway. You must be a complete moron, the same thing you call Bush.

9/6/2007 4:04:05 PM

While I dont think the war has gone well at all, at the time it was the right thing to do regardless of whether or not we found WMDS or anything else. The United Nations is a worthless piece of shit and will eventually go the way of the League of Nations. Technically the Iraq war was not a new war but a continuation of the gulf war in which there was a cease fire based upon Saddam meeting certain conditions. A major one of these conditions was that he submit to weapons inspections. Saddam repeatedly refused weapon inspections and the United Nations just talked tough. There was no way to know if Saddam possessed WMDs or not. Were we supposed to guess? The only way to know was to invade and inspect for ourselves. Looking back on the war is hindsight and hindsight is 20-20. We should have gone to war, but it should have been handled differently, but at the time, it was our only choice. If we had'nt no country was ever going to respect our agreements in the future.

9/6/2007 4:09:10 PM

Quote :

"If we had'nt no country was ever going to respect our agreements in the future."

Not to be an asshole, but . . . um . . . Iraq really hasn't helped us there.

9/6/2007 4:10:50 PM

Quote :

"There was no way to know if Saddam possessed WMDs or not. Were we supposed to guess? The only way to know was to invade and inspect for ourselves. Looking back on the war is hindsight and hindsight is 20-20. We should have gone to war, but it should have been handled differently, but at the time, it was our only choice."

That's complete BS.

There were tons of intelligence reports and UN reports even that stated Iraq didn't have WMDs at the time.

It was only our US media and politicians that were afraid to question Bush because he was still riding his 9/11 wave, and the Republicans called any doubters traitors.

9/6/2007 4:17:48 PM

^There were also tons of reports saying they did. The only way to know for sure was to go in. I liked how you just picked out part of my argument too. Respond to the rest.

9/6/2007 4:20:16 PM

The reports saying they did were also known to be BS based on "secret evidence we can't even show senators with security clearances."

9/6/2007 4:21:49 PM

Nice try. Evidence was presented to the UN that suggested the presence of weapons of mass destruction.

9/6/2007 4:29:56 PM

Quote :

"The United Nations is a worthless piece of shit "

Fair enough, I can understand how one is not a fan of the United Nations. But then you go on to say this:

Quote :

"Technically the Iraq war was not a new war but a continuation of the gulf war in which there was a cease fire based upon Saddam meeting certain conditions. A major one of these conditions was that he submit to weapons inspections. Saddam repeatedly refused weapon inspections and the United Nations just talked tough"

Who exactly set out these conditions and where exactly are they codified? Was it not the United Nations through UN SC resolutions? So if we are going to use these conditions set out in various UN Security Council Resolutions, please point out the part where they explicitly dictate when and how the use of force is justified.

Quote :

"We should have gone to war, but it should have been handled differently, but at the time, it was our only choice"

How exactly was it our only choice? I think that it was fairly clear then and just as clear now that Iraq posed no immediate threat worthy of a pre-emptive strike. instead we opted for the preventive war.

Quote :

"If we had'nt no country was ever going to respect our agreements in the future. "

I'm reasonably certain that this had absolutely nothing to do with us going to war, especially considering much of that aforementioned worthless organization considered our actions to be in breach of our previous agreements.

9/6/2007 5:05:33 PM

^ I think it's also fair to say that, due to the SNAFU w/ Iraq, countries will be reluctant to make agreements with or trust the US, as well...

So I'm confused. What exactly is the "top-secret intelligence" on which the CIA briefed Dubya? Is it something the Iraqi Foreign Minister (IFM) said directly? Is it documents from him or his office? I'm having a hard time seeing why "information from the [IFM]" would be considered "top-secret intelligence"

Barring a response to that, I'd have to say that I, too, would dismiss any information spit out by the IFM, especially if it was spit out via television and newscasts, ala the "The Americans are dying at the gates of Baghdad" speeches and such. But, if the information was gleaned via more clandestine sources, then that would be a different matter...

9/6/2007 5:17:57 PM

well, goddammit, you ain't gonna make me the last one now



[Edited on September 6, 2007 at 5:44 PM. Reason : ]

9/6/2007 5:18:02 PM

hate it when posts are at the bottom of a page

[Edited on September 6, 2007 at 5:24 PM. Reason : ]

9/6/2007 5:20:16 PM