Iran Punks Bush
Posted by
Kevin
First, the Republican controlled Senate just released a report that said that there was no connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq and that Iraq had no WMDs. That information has been clear for a long time. What is more interesting is that the Bush white House apparently knew that their public statements were incorrect:
A declassified report released yesterday by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence revealed that U.S. intelligence analysts were strongly disputing the alleged links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda while senior Bush administration officials were publicly asserting those links to justify invading Iraq.
Far from aligning himself with al-Qaeda and Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Hussein repeatedly rebuffed al-Qaeda’s overtures and tried to capture Zarqawi, the report said.
The Bush Administration, particularly Cheney several times presented as established fact several things that the intelligence services did not consider credible:
In a classified January 2003 report, for instance, the CIA concluded that Hussein “viewed Islamic extremists operating inside Iraq as a threat.” But one day after that conclusion was published, Levin noted, Vice President Cheney said the Iraqi government “aids and protects terrorists, including members of al-Qaeda.”
Intelligence reports in June, July and September 2002 all cast doubts on a reported meeting in Prague between Iraqi intelligence agents and Sept. 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta. Yet, in a Sept. 8, 2002, appearance on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” Cheney said the CIA considered the reports on the meeting credible, Levin said.
In February 2002, the Defense Intelligence Agency concluded that “Iraq is unlikely to have provided bin Laden any useful [chemical and biological weapons] knowledge or assistance.” A year later, Bush said: “Iraq has also provided al-Qaeda with chemical and biological weapons training.”
Even more interesting is this conclusion:
The report also said exiles from the Iraqi National Congress (INC) tried to influence U.S. policy by providing, through defectors, false information on Iraq’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons capabilities. After skeptical analysts warned that the group had been penetrated by hostile intelligence services, including Iran’s, a 2002 White House directive ordered that U.S. funding for the INC be continued.
My emphasis. The Bush Administration was warned that they were being fed disinformation by Iranian agents and then promptly turned around and fed that information to the American public:
But, as Snowe emphasized in her statement, the report concluded that information provided by an INC source was cited in that estimate and in Secretary of State Colin L. Powell’s February 2003 speech to the United Nations as corroborating evidence about Iraq’s mobile biological weapons program. Those citations came despite two April 2002 CIA assessments, a May 2002 Defense Intelligence Agency fabrication notice and a July 2002 National Intelligence Council warning — all saying the INC source may have been coached by the exile group into fabricating the information.
They wanted their glorious little war that had nothing to do with Al Qaeda so badly that not only were they perfectly willing to deceive the American public, they were perfectly willing to deceive the American public with information fed to them by people who were almost certainly compromised by Iranian intelligence.
I think we can put to bed the notion that the Bush Administration was not deceiving the American public, at least about Iraq and Al Qaeda. They presented things as fact that their own intelligence agencies were telling them either had not been proven or were almost certainly false. I breathlessly await the condemnation from the right over Bush’s deliberate deceptions over a life and death matter.
While we wait for the crickets to quiet down, let me say that I am afraid that this report is just going to highlight how debased our democracy has become. In a sane world, this report would have Congress calling for the head of the President, with the members of his own party leading the way. The Senate has just concluded that the Administration deliberately mislead the American public on a matter of life and death. Such deception destroys the democratic process; how can the people be asked to decide an issue of the President is deliberately misleading them about the factual basis for his case? Unfortunately, I am sure we will see the GOP introduce a measure to attack Iran before they introduce a measure to hold Bush accountable for his betrayal of democratic principles.
What, no accusations of lying from Fred? I’m stunned, I tell you!
Comment 9/12/2006