WP (Pincus): Bush, Aides Ignored CIA Caveats on Iraq

[kskiska]

Clear-Cut Assertions Were Made Before Arms Assessment Was Completed

By Walter Pincus and Dana Priest

In its fall 2002 campaign to win congressional support for a war against Iraq, President Bush and his top advisers ignored many of the caveats and qualifiers included in the classified report on Saddam Hussein's weapons that CIA Director George J. Tenet defended Thursday.

In fact, they made some of their most unequivocal assertions about unconventional weapons before the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) was completed.

Iraq "is a grave and gathering danger," Bush told the United Nations on Sept. 12, 2002. At the White House two weeks later -- after referring to a British government report that Iraq could launch "a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after the order" is given -- he went on to say, "Each passing day could be the one on which the Iraqi regime gives anthrax or VX -- nerve gas -- or someday a nuclear weapon to a terrorist ally."

Three weeks later, on the day the NIE was delivered to Congress, Bush told lawmakers in the White House Rose Garden that Iraq's current course was "a threat of unique urgency."

On Thursday, summarizing the NIE's conclusions, Tenet said: "They never said Iraq was an imminent threat."

more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20194-2004Feb6.html

[stepnw1f]

1. So if there was no...

emminent Threat, then why the hell did we go to war, Bush!

[Cush]

2. surprise, look at where the story is

buried on page A17, although there its linked from the main page.

[neverforget]

3. The people's fears, fresh from 9/11, were stoked and used to

to start a war against a country that posed no threat. Yet, Congress wants to investigate Janets boob? The Republicans are definitely in charge.

:grr: :argh:

[TacticalPeek]

4. I'm starting to get starry-eyed over Walter Pincus.

He has been aces on WH war mendacity for a long time now. I think he's the closest thing we have to Woodstein this time around; in fact, it was reported a few months ago that Bob Woodward had to stand with Pincus against WaPo editor/publisher resistance to printing an article the admin would not like. The article was printed, but the aversion at the WaPo and elsewhere to 'offending' aWol's gang was and is palpable. (Milbank and recently Froomkin have also walked the walk.)

Tenet's speech was an Alley Oop pass to whoever wanted it, and I've only seen Clark catch and dunk it (masterfully, as usual, on CNN-Aaron Brown last night). Here Pincus carefully and plainly states the facts that may come to be Shrub's doom.

This article is based on Tenet's speech and the cabal's statements in Sep/Oct 2002, before the NIE, but the war-mongers' depravity is even deeper, as the document below shows (from O'Neill/Suskind). When it was created in January, 2001, the only thing special about September 11 was that it was being marked on calendars with holiday plans.

Everything is not different after September 11, 2001.

Everything is different after January 20, 2001.





Tab C is the smoking gun.