Ray McGovern: Still Smoke and Mirrors

[Dudley_DUright]

For some reason February 5 has been chosen two years running for rhetoric aimed at what Socrates termed “making the worse cause appear the better”—last year by Secretary of State Colin Powell at the UN and Thursday by CIA Director George Tenet at Georgetown University.

As in the case of Powell’s spurious depiction of the threat from Iraq, Tenet’s disingenuous tour de force becomes more embarrassing the closer you look.

Tenet chose to defend the indefensible—the bogus National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) hurriedly conjured up in September 2002 to support spurious charges made by Vice President Dick Cheney on August 26, 2002 in beating the drum for war on Iraq. The conclusions of that estimate have now been proven —pure and simple—wrong.

Even so, that is not the most important point. What all should know is that the Bush administration’s decision for war against Iraq came well before any intelligence estimate. There is ample evidence that that decision was made, at the latest, by spring 2002.

more...

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0206-11.htm

[Martin Eden]

1. NIE was highly politicized

Here is the most damning allegation Ray MsGovern makes:

"In other words, the purpose of the estimate was not to inform an (already reached) decision on whether war was necessary. Rather, it was to enlist intelligence in the campaign to deceive Congress into thinking that Iraq posed such a threat that the legislative branch’s prerogative must be surrendered to the president, and—not incidentally—to make so persuasive a case to the nation that those who dared vote against the president would be highly vulnerable in the mid-term election of 2002. That worked too."

[reprehensor]

2. Bump. (n/t)