Rawstory: Sen. Kennedy speaks out on Downing Street Memo....

[sabra]

<<SNIP>>
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Kennedy_speaks_out_on_Downing_Street_Memo_Twisted_intelligence_Distorted_f_0607.html

Sen. Kennedy speaks out on Downing Street Memo: 'Twisted intelligence; Distorted facts'
RAW STORY


The following was released by Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) on the Downing Street Minutes this morning. Kennedy becomes the first senator to raise the issue in the Senate, after earlier reports that Massachusetts' junior senator, John Kerry, would speak about the minutes in Washington.

“The contents of the Downing Street Minutes confirm that the Bush Administration was determined to go to war in Iraq, regardless of whether there was any credible justification for doing so. The Administration distorted and misrepresented the intelligence in its attempt to link Saddam Hussein with the terrorists of 9/11 and Osama bin Laden, and with weapons of mass destruction that Iraq did not have.

"In addition, the Downing Street Minutes also confirm what has long been obvious – that the timing of the war was linked to the 2002 Congressional elections, and that the Administration’s planning for post-war Iraq was incompetent in all its aspects. The current continuing crisis is a direct result of that incompetence.

....

We know the Administration had been planning to invade Iraq for many months before the invasion actually began. We know the Administration twisted the intelligence to make the facts fit their plan. We know that the Administration never really intended to give the U.N. weapons inspectors a reasonable chance to succeed. The Downing Street Minutes demonstrate that the Administration knew their case for war was paper thin, and that in order to go into war with the support of our allies, we had to demonstrate some willingness to go along with the UN inspection process. But the Administration continued to misuse its intelligence, distort the facts and pay only lip-service to the UN’s role in disarming Iraq.

<</SNIP>>

[Demrock6]

1. WOO HOO!

It is about time.

[abluelady]

53. Will Americans Even Care

It seems to me so many Americans are so used to Bush lying, they will look at this as just another lie. Why will this lie be treated differently?

[cthrumatrix]

2. a prosecutor should be given all data to see if this is grounds for

impeachment.

My heart goes out to those that have loved ones in this irrational war of lies and greed.

[indypaul]

3. Impeachment is only warranted

if you fib about a B.J.

[Supersedeas]

31. No stain dress...no impeachment...the only thing stained is combat

fatigues AND that sir is not grounds for impeachment

[mcg]

38. and only stained with blood, which is 'ok'

[AuntiBush]

48. Really... And, "Welcome" indypaul!

:hi:

[Double T]

4. Continuing To Pick Up Momentum And It's Not Going Away!!!!!

[BobRossi]

5. Thank you Ted!

Ted always has the balls. Kerry couldn't carry Ted's jock strap!

[comradebillyboy]

16. where was kerry?

why, displaying the same aggressively passive approach that helped bush win in november.

why anybody still looks to kerry for leadership is a mystery to me.

[confludemocrat]

34. Looks like he chickened out

Predictable. Says he was gonna raise the issue in Congress, didn't mention he was gonna raise it with his great uncle Ted in Congress. Who's gonna replace Ted? No one in sight.

God help us.

[stlsaxman]

41. Kerry was probably told by someone "in the know"

that if he raised a fuss he'd get a bullet in the head.

[murray hill farm]

42. do you think it is just possible...

that john kerry knew at the end, that the election was fixed..and that he could not win it? do u think it is possible that there is a reason that just today, his military and educationsl records were relaesed..because he had finially decided to sign that form? do u think there is just a possibility thatit was not a cooincidence that deepthroat was in the last 10 days revealed? do u think it is just possible that there is a storm brewing...and that it is all coming together just as the downing street memmos are coming into public attention? Do u think that kennedy's statement today is coincidental? The storm IS gathering..and it may well be a perfect storm

[IndianaGreen]

58. Kerry has been AWOL on Iraq

and he still seems to check the wind direction before he takes a position on anything controversial.

What became of the Kerry that wanted Nixon impeached?

[wrate]

33. Understatement of the year! n/t

[LosinIt]

6. What about a charge of Contempt of Congress??

Although Bush wasn't under oath when he spoke to Congress he did mislead them. Just wondering if this could be done.

[corbett]

40. Excellent Second Charge!

I had the same thought. He should be yanked from office for all the people who died as a result of his orders but if anyone has trouble with that charge, the contempt issue is a biggee, too.

[Atman]

7. Notice...he's calling them MINUTES!

This is important! WE are framing the issue! WOOOHOO!

[G2099]

8. Kennedy did not use the "I" word in his Statement

"Impeach"

[kcass1954]

50. He also forgot the "L" word...

"Lie"

[pdurod1]

9. Need reinforcements...

Kerry
Conyers
Boxer
Galloway (he's in country isn't he?)
Gore
Dean

[HDPaulG]

55. You forgot my Senator (with a spine) to your list.

Go Russ Feingold!

[Vyan]

10. It's a step...

But it's likely to get the "Teddy Drunk-Kennedy is at it again" response from the usual suspects. They won't take what Ted says seriously just like they didn't take him seriously when he repeatedly called the President a "Liar" - however, it will cause them to react and if they continue to spout the new RNC line that the DSM has been "totally debunked", they'll be opening a can a worms they'll never be able to close.

Check out what Media Matters had to say in response to Mehlmans appearance this weekend on Meet the Press.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200506060008

On the June 5 edition of NBC's Meet the Press, moderator Tim Russert questioned but failed to correct Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman's claim that the "findings" of the Downing Street Memo, a secret British intelligence memo suggesting that the Bush administration manipulated intelligence to support its case for war in Iraq, "have been totally discredited by everyone who's looked at it," including the 9-11 Commission and the Senate.

In fact, neither the 9-11 Commission nor the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence addressed the Bush administration's use of pre-war intelligence.

...

When Russert raised the issue of the Downing Street Memo's contention that, in the Bush administration's push for war in Iraq, "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy," Mehlman replied: "Tim, that report has been discredited by everyone else who's looked at it since then. Whether it's the 9-11 Commission, whether it's the Senate, whoever's looked at this has said there was no effort to change the intelligence at all." When Russert noted "I don't believe that the authenticity of this report has been discredited," Mehlman reiterated: "I believe that the findings of the report, the fact that the intelligence was somehow fixed, have been totally discredited by everyone who's looked at it."

The Senate Intelligence committee's report examined the creation of the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, which was the intelligence community's most comprehensive and authoritative statement about Iraq. But the committee decided at the outset not to investigate the Bush administration's use of intelligence, including public statements by administration officials, in the first phase of its investigation.

Though the committee initially planned to conduct the second phase of its investigation following the 2004 election, Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) indicated in March that the committee's investigation into whether the administration misrepresented intelligence judgments in its public statements would be indefinitely postponed, because of administration officials' insistence that "they believed the intelligence, and the intelligence was wrong." "e sort of came to a crossroads, and that is basically on the back burner," Roberts said.

...

The 9-11 Commission report said even less about the Bush administration's use of intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war. The 567-page report focuses entirely on issues surrounding the September 11 terrorist attacks, addresses Iraq only in the context of Al Qaeda and September 11, and does not assess the accuracy or honesty of the Bush's public statements about the Iraqi threat.

Other official reports have similarly avoided the question of whether the Bush administration politicized intelligence. The Robb-Silberman commission's report on intelligence regarding weapons of mass destruction noted: "(W)e were not authorized to investigate how policymakers used the intelligence assessments they received from the Intelligence Community." The Duelfer report presented the results of the Iraq Survey Group's hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq following the invasion but did not compare these findings either with Bush's prewar statements to the public or with the prewar assessments of the intelligence community.


Vyan

[deacon2]

17. Ken Mehlman lied on national television?

That's just not possible. There would be an outcry, the press would rip him to shreds...
Hang on a second, I need to relight the bong.

[olddad56]

11. Bush could be impeached, if we still lived in a democracy.

[fooj]

14. Shrub WOULD be impeached if we still lived in a democracy!

:cry:

[glitch]

15. He would never have been "elected" if we still lived in a democracy!

:grouphug:

[fooj]

28. No kidding...

:grouphug: I sware that bastard has taken 10 years off my life...

[oneold1-4u]

20. Never happen

* has seen to it that every avenue of discontent runs only a few feet, to an unscaleable wall, by creating protection for his cronies and himself with new rules and courts, and hand picked judges!
And as long as we have the same old election packages it will never change!
We have to somehow change voting to make elections honest and accountable!

[xxqqqzme]

12. 'distorted and misrepresented the intelligence'

call it for what it is - as Galloway said (& it warmed my heart 2 hear it) 'a pack of lies'!

[Al-CIAda]

13. PNAC Mr. Kennedy, PNAC. YOU know it, now say it! n/t

[wallwriter]

18. Why is this one Senator and not 45 or 50 or 51?

[Triana]

21. My question exactly - where the f*ck ARE our

representatives in gov't? That EVERY DEMOCRAT isn't screaming about this is unforgivable. I don't give a damn if they voted for Iraq or not, they were deceived and they OUGHT to be pissed about that. I am!

[joeunderdog]

56. Hillary blamed the press for being pussies yesterday.

A real leader would be rallying Senators for truth in a rally that the press couldn't ignore.

Where is she and the rest of them...or isn't this important enough for them?

[Triana]

57. the press are pussies but...

...so are most of the Dems. I agree with you. Until Dems unite and get collectivly so LOUD that they cannot be ignored by the media or anyone else, ...they may as well be mice beneath a lion's roar.

[notadmblnd]

19. here's is a BBC documentary that compliments

and puts thing into an easy to understand format. It runs about an hour but I think is a must see.

http://www.overcast.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/warofterror/iraqtonytruth.htm

[go west young man]

66. Fascinating BBC documentary. Thanks for posting it.

Finally credible sources are tying the whole mess together.

[AFSCME girl]

22. Kickedy Kick! n/t

[AFSCME girl]

23. C'mon guys, let's keep this up

at the top! GO TEDDY GO!!!!

AFSCME girl

[BigBearJohn]

24. RECOMMENDED with EVERYTHING THAT I HAVE! WOW

[Dr Fate]

25. Great. More "releases." How about TALKING about it on TV???

WTF does "released" mean, and how does this get the info to swing voters???

OHHH- I get it. When they ask for money and we say "But you are not fighting Bush hard enough over the memo" they can say- "But didn't you read about the 'release' on the internet?"

They need to stop "releasing" things and start SAYING things, ON TV, to their faces.


Wow! Dr Fate "releases" stuff on the internet too. How effective.

[Ellipsis]

26. winds a changin...Hard a-LEE Prepare to come about matey! Darrr! n/t

[Roland99]

27. But...but...but..This is nothing new & the 9/11 panel cleared the WH

:sarcasm:


1) This is *proof* behind what we've all suspected to be true. We haven't had that before.

2) The WH *did* pressure intelligence analysts. That much has been reported but the next phase of the Senate Investigative Committee that was to be tasked with determining the WH's role in this has yet to be started.

[Imagevision]

29. Bush-Cheney> 28 pages of report not for public consumption!!

until after the election...

[Roland99]

30. Remember all of this?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1258055,00.html

That was, however, not what the Democrats on the commission believed, nor is it necessarily what the investigation proved. In the body of its report the senate committee reported that the CIA ombudsman had talked to 24 CIA officers about pressure from administration officials.

The ombudsman told the committee that about half a dozen mentioned "pressure" from the administration; several others did not use that word, but spoke in a context that implied it.

At its core, the row over the Bush administration's role in persuading the country into the Iraq war came down to a single semantic question about the meaning of "pressure". Like much else, it was a question left unresolved by yesterday's report.

Both sides agreed that CIA analysts came to the wrong conclusions over Iraq's possession of WMD. They also agreed that before coming to those conclusions they were subjected to intense questioning and "repetitive tasking" (being asked to do their work over again) from senior administration officials.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/14/politics/14inte.html?hp

The White House and the Central Intelligence Agency have refused to give the Senate Intelligence Committee a one-page summary of prewar intelligence in Iraq prepared for President Bush that contains few of the qualifiers and none of the dissents spelled out in longer intelligence reviews, according to Congressional officials.

<...>

"In determining what the president was told about the contents of the N.I.E. dealing with Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, qualifiers and all, there is nothing clearer than this single page," Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, said in a 10-page "additional view" that was published as an addendum to the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on Friday.

<...>

Mr. Bush and his advisers had full access to the classified 90-page intelligence estimate, "Iraq's Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction," which provided a more detailed and qualified account of the intelligence agencies' views, the Senate Republican official noted.

The main body of the 511-page report that was approved unanimously by the Senate Intelligence Committee made no mention of the summary sent to Mr. Bush. In interviews, Democratic officials said that Republicans on the panel, which meets in closed session, had blocked their efforts to formally request the document from the White House. They also said that Democrats on the panel had tried and failed to persuade Republicans to include in the committee report a description of the one-page summary as having been an inadequate reflection of the full intelligence estimate.

[leftchick]

32. Call it what it is! "A PACK OF LIES"!!!!

It needs to be repeated over and over in tyhe Senate!

Pack of Lies Pack of Lies Pack of Lies!!!!

[GOPFighter]

35. STANDING O!!!!!

Super! It's time to bring this callous, murderous,un-AMERICAN, s***bag of an administration down.

I'm sick and tired of pompous politicians throwing the weight of MY country around, invading, killing and maiming JUST BECAUSE THEY CAN! And these ignorant buffoons (e.g., Republicans) wonder why the world hates us???

:nuke:

[DemoTex]

36. After the Battle of Ap Bai ("Hamburger Hill") in 1969 ...

Teddy Kennedy went to the well of the Senate and delivered an impassioned speech denouncing the Vietnam War. That speech is thought by many to be the turning point for the anti-war movement in this country.

DSM press releases are better than nothing, but we need Kennedy, Kerry, Boxer, Byrd and others speaking with passion about the DSM on the floor of the Senate. Play it again, Teddy. For the good of the Republic.

[McCamy Taylor]

37. No MSM outlet mentions Downing Street in its headlines.

However this ABC poll shows that Bush's ratings esp in relationship to Iraq are bottoming out so I think that America is getting the real story about Iraq somewhere possibly from newspaper or word of mouth or the internet.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/PollVault/story?id=826934&page=1

A friend's GOP in laws told him very seriously that the president had lied to the country about the reasons for invading Iraq. THis recent realization greatly disturbed them. They are old style small government isolationist type conservatives. I think we are going to be hearing a lot from disenchated Republicans like them. These kinds of people read the newspaper and stay informed.

[cal04]

39. Let's not forget about this. We should be asking where are these pages

America Tore Out 8000 Pages of Iraq Dossier
THE United States edited out more than 8000 crucial pages of Iraq's 11,800-page dossier on weapons, before passing on a sanitized version to the 10 non-permanent members of the United Nations security council.

The full extent of Washington's complete control over who sees what in the crucial Iraqi dossier calls into question the allegations made by US Secretary of State Colin Powell that 'omissions' in the document constituted a 'material breach' of the latest UN resolution on Iraq.

Last week, Secretary General of the UN Kofi Annan accepted that it was 'unfortunate' that his organization had allowed the US to take the only complete dossier and edit it. He admitted 'the approach and style were wrong' and Norway, a member of the security council, says it is being treated like a 'second-class country'.

Although Powell called the Iraqi dossier a 'catalogue of recycled information and flagrant omissions', the non-permanent members of the security council will have no way of testing the US claims for themselves. This will be crucial if the US and the UK go back to the security council seeking explicit authorization for war on Iraq if breaches of resolution 1441 are confirmed when the weapons inspectors -- this weekend investigating 10 sites in Iraq, including an oil refinery south of Baghdad -- deliver their report to the UN next month.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/1222-02.htm

[donkeyotay]

43. They have a habit of withholding information

making their version of democracy more like lieocracy.

Although Powell called the Iraqi dossier a 'catalogue of recycled information and flagrant omissions', the non-permanent members of the security council will have no way of testing the US claims for themselves. This will be crucial if the US and the UK go back to the security council seeking explicit authorization for war on Iraq if breaches of resolution 1441 are confirmed when the weapons inspectors -- this weekend investigating 10 sites in Iraq, including an oil refinery south of Baghdad -- deliver their report to the UN next month.

Going back to the UN for actual war authorization was something else * didn't have time for.

[warsager]

45. kick

[MeDeMax]

44. kicking...important stuff...n/t

:kick:

[AuntiBush]

46. "Twisted Intelligence & Distorted Facts" is being too kind.

God bless Senator Kennedy. Oh, the other side will certainly poke fun of him, but he's got something more Dem's need to study: SPINE!

Go Kennedy. The "Downing Street Documentation Minutes & Memo" are beginning to come to the surface.

:bounce:bounce::patriot::bounce::bounce:

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

47. ...and Kerry will, of course, follow up later this week.

Right?

[zara]

49. Between Equivocations on the matter, Kerry...

will waffle. Opining that he would have done things differently (being a war hero) Kerry will shrilly condemn Bush at the same time he grudgingly accepts that we are stuck in Iraq and must make the best of it.
A true leader!!!

[Andrushka]

51. A kick

Get these f****ers on those ropes AND PUMMEL THE LIVING SH** OUT OF THEM!! You go, Senator Kennedy. Let's hope you are joined by those few in your party that still retain a backbone.

:applause:

[pauldp]

52. Thank you Ted! n/t

[jazzjunkysue]

54. Breaking: Blair gives B*** Blow Job

:loveya::loveya::loveya::loveya::loveya:
:grouphug::grouphug::grouphug::grouphug::grouphug:
:headbang::headbang::headbang::headbang::headbang::headbang:

[burrowowl]

59. Go Kennedy!

Where is Kerry!?!?

[EndElectoral]

60. kick

[emald]

61. wouldn't it be wonderfull...

to live a Democratic existence again? To know that my say counted, even in the minority, is all I ever expected. That unelected shrub of a human being has taken that from me, from all of us. Unless our votes are counted fairly, unless we have transparency in government, there will be no democracy.
By the way, how can a human being lie so consistently as this unelected moron we call president and get away with it?

[confludemocrat]

62. Anyone hear Frank Rich on Air America today on the DSM?

Saying that he understood why this was not a big story (!), firstly because his paper had covered this pretty well and that because of Paul O'Neill, Richard Clarke, etc., we already knew all this. So basically, he says, it's not surprising that it has not been covered.

This is a vaunted columnist for the NYT who can't even see what every sane person who cares enough to be informed (thereby eliminating on those two counts nearly all Republithugs) can see: that this was from the horses mouth that this was truly a smoking gun and not from someone who could be dismissed as easily as those two for being "disgruntled". This Rich guy realy does seem to live in some kind of bubble as many bigfoot mainstream media types seem to, all excuses and rationalizations.

[Guaranteed]

63. KA BOOM!! WELL DONE, SIR!!

:applause: :woohoo: :applause: :woohoo: :applause: :woohoo: :applause: :woohoo: :applause: :woohoo:

[LuPeRcALiO]

64. “Mission Mis-accomplished”

good one Teddy!

[Zhade]

65. Damn, Ted. That's what I'm talkin' bout.

NT!

[Rainscents]

67. You go Senator Kennedy!!! We should all write to him amd thank him!

This is well deserved! Does anyone has his email address?
I have feeling, reason Kerry didn't bring this up, it has something to do with Ted. I think Ted didn't want to see Kerry get trash by the RW-Nut cases. You know, they would had hang him big time! This is just my feeling. Thats why Ted came out with this instead Kerry.:yourock: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause: :patriot:

You ROCK, Senator Kennedy!!!

[ngGale]

68. It took Kennedy to blow the whistle...

we only need one Senator to say the 'I' word. I'm not holding my breath, but I sure think about Big Bill a lot. Clinton lied, but nobody died.

[Cugel the Clever]

69. Kennedy's "release" needs a punchup

I dig what Kennedy is saying, but he needs to do something other than casting the same old boulders, truthful they may be.

Saying, "Bush lied about Iraq," is not going to make the evening news because everybody already knows that- if the DSM (I say if because WTF do I know) is a legitamate official document, Kennedy should be talking about the "Provable Documentation" and "Officially Verified" proof PROOF- that the sky is blue.

The focus should be more on the validity of the DSM and then, by implication, what it is saying about BushCo's agenda

[evolved Anarchopunk]

70. I work in DC for a labor union,

And all i can say is today we were all taking bets as to when MSM would pick this story up, nobody bet "if". Hell of a lot of forum lurkers in city jobs, that's how people are staying informed. That's how its going lately, you can feel the energy rising. just when i was starting to feel that "summer politic burn-out" everyone gets all uppity-buppity. OK, fine, let's do this! I LOVE YOU TED !!

:loveya: from a simple:hippie: