CIA Rebuffs Criticism of Prewar Reports

[Rose Siding]

WASHINGTON -- The CIA on Friday rejected Senate criticism of its prewar reports on the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, saying it's too soon to conclude the intelligence was unfounded while the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq continues.

"It is hard to understand how the committee could come to any conclusions at this point, particularly while the efforts of (weapons search leader) Dr. David Kay in Iraq are at an early stage," said CIA spokesman Bill Harlow.

snip>

Democrats are pressing to widen the inquiry to look at whether the White House and Defense Department knowingly exaggerated the threat posed by Saddam to bolster the administration's case for war.

"We're going to get at this one way or the other," said Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, the committee's ranking Democrat. "If the majority declines to put the executive branch at risk, then they are going to have a very difficult minority to deal with."

http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-cia-senate,0,2388339.story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines

[Sagan]

1. Early stage?? Early stage????

That's just self-serving tripe. If the Chimp had been even 10% right on his assertions of Iraqi WMD's, we would have found boatloads by now.

Lies and lying liars.

[snippy]

2. Bush keeps making enemies at the CIA.

The most outrageous statement in the article:

Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., called some of the intelligence "sloppy" and said "the executive was ill-served by the intelligence community."

Cheney and Libby spent hours at the CIA pushing the analysts to come up with Bushshit intel.

[Rose Siding]

3. There's some very good news here

The repubs in the Senate want to swing responsibility away from bush and toward the CIA.

It looks like Rockefeller knows that's exactly what's happening and he isn't being quiet about it.

[burythehatchet]

4. Folks, this is GREAT news

I say let's encourage these bastards to keep pissing off the spooks. Payback will be hell.