bbc: Kay queries White House war talk

[salin]

Kay queries White House war talk

The White House may have ignored some aspects of intelligence on Iraq in the run-up to war, former chief US weapons inspector David Kay has suggested.

He was reacting to a rare speech by CIA director George Tenet, who said the agency had never asserted that Saddam Hussein was an "imminent threat".

A new commission to study intelligence failures should ask whether political leaders manipulated data, Mr Kay said.

more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3464807.stm

[Brotherjohn]

1. How much of this do you think we'll hear in the U.S. press?

Specifically this part. In response to Tenet's claim that the CIA never said the threat was imminent:

"Speaking in Washington on Thursday, Mr Kay said the apparent contradiction "raised the possibility that the intelligence community had been telling the White House one thing and the White House had been hearing something else."

The "contradiction" being that the White House repeatedly DID say threat was imminent. It's the closest I've seen to anything coming out of government (much less a Bush man like Kay) admitting what we all know is obvious: that the Bush administration DID in fact overstate the case and DID ignore intelligence contrary to their opinion.

[salin]

2. What he says.... and who is saying it... is HUGE.

If some of the liberal bloggers who are followed more and more closely get a hold and run with this... then I belive that it will make it into the US press.

[YEM]

6. I've already posted it on a wing-nut site!

I'll do my best to get this out there!

[salin]

8. hehehe oh please do report back

and let us know of the responses!

[Brotherjohn]

9. Kay's statements are getting press, although often in the story about ...

... Bush announcing the panel:

http://news.google.com/news?q=David+Kay+Tenet+imminent&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&edition=us&scoring=d

Headlines for the same AP story vary from:
Tenet speech leaves questions on Bush use of intelligence unanswered
TO
Bush expected to name intelligence panel

Unfortunately, most headlines read the latter. It's not all in the headlines, though. At least the idea that Bush exaggerrated and mis-used the evidence is now getting some play (although, of course, it has been very obvious to anyone who has been paying attention for some time). It is encouraging that the story says the issue is "emerging as a top campaign issue: Did the Bush administration accurately describe that intelligence in making the case for war?

[salin]

10. In the announcement of the panel

story - it looks like there will be a focus not only on the CIA (the wh desperately wanted to be able to just keep the focus there, as they had in the senate intel hearings) - but in the political use of the intel. They can try to white wash it - but the more that aspects of the story make it into multiple mainstream press sources, the more the public awareness is heightenend, the less likely they will be able to do a full white wash.

[lovedems]

3. They did a segment on Nightline about this last night and a former

top official from the CIA made the point that it wasn't the CIA who decided to go to war, it was the pResident. David Bergen was on and he said clearly, the administration in the rush for war presented the evidence as an imminent threat. They might not have used the actual word but the intent was there. There was also a national correspondent from Newsweek I believe and he said the CIA was "soft on Saddam" and that is why the DOD created the OSP. It was pretty damaging but it could have been much worse.

[salin]

5. Did the correspondent mention OSP?

I contend that if the existence of the Office of Special Plans penetrates the public psyche... and the admin tries to do an investigation that never mentions OSP or looks at intel manipulation by Fieth etal or at the WH .. then the public will not only rebuke the investigation (with that big glaring whole) and be disgusted with THIS whitehouse... I think it is big enough to begin to loosen the iron coalition formed behind the current GOP.

THus - every mainstream place the OSP gets mention - and hopefully with some frequency - the better.

[librechik]

13. Fareed Zacharia mentioned the OSP, nice job Fareed!

and it was David Gergen, not Bergen, and he was very grave and worried indeed, and said this was real trouble for Bush.

[salin]

15. you might be interested in this

on another thread i did a googlenews search (for recent stories) mentioning OSP... this are just the first page results.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=1092046&mesg_id=1092291&page=

[Beetwasher]

4. Interesting that this is only on BBC, so far anyway

Hmmm, Kay better hide his family...

[salin]

7. I think it has huge implications

for Kay to say this in public.

Lets see if someone like Josh Marshall picks it up... or the others... or that some campaign makes a mention of it... which is what got the whole AWOL story revived. Campaign (indirect through Michael Moore) repub outrage leads to taunting question in debate... leads to more attempts to ridicule the resposne... leads to reopening and discussing the story in a way much more broad than in 2000. Most folks never heard the 2000 story beyond the he used daddy to go to the national guard part. Now with the amount of news sources talking about it... hard for folks to not be aware - at least that there are some peculiarities in the record.

Would love this to help turn the key to get the OSP mentioned in more and more stories to where it is in the public psyche as well.

[salin]

11. kick..

because it brings some forboding for the WH...

[CJCRANE]

12. It's happening in stages...

Have you noticed how Kay and Tenet seem to passing the baton back and forth to keep the story going and developing...?

[salin]

14. fits and starts

but they haven't yet figured a way to stop it from continuing being covered in the press (and frankly, I don't know how they could.)