from Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo:
Yesterday evening, I started making a new timeline of events in the summer of 2003, the time that all this stuff was happening with Rove, Plame, et al. And I came across this short Post piece by Pincus, Dewar and Slevin from June 15th, 2003, that I had either not seen originally or had long forgotten.
Let me reprint it in toto ...
"A key component of President Bush's claim that Iraq had an active nuclear weapons program -- its alleged attempt to buy uranium in Niger -- was disputed by a CIA-directed mission to the central African nation in early 2002, according to senior administration officials and a former government official. But the CIA did not pass on the detailed results of its investigation to the White House or other government agencies, the officials said.
The CIA's failure to share what it knew was one of a number of steps in the Bush administration that helped keep the uranium story alive until the eve of the war.
A senior intelligence official said the CIA's action was the result of "extremely sloppy" handling of a central piece of evidence in the administration's case against then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
A senior CIA analyst said the case "is indicative of larger problems" involving the handling of intelligence about Iraq's alleged weapons programs and its links to al Qaeda, which the administration cited as justification for war. "Information not consistent with the administration agenda was discarded and information that was consistent was not seriously scrutinized," the analyst said.
The controversy has expanded with the failure so far of U.S. teams in Iraq to uncover proscribed weapons."http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_07_10.php#006120So-- taking this out of the context of 9/11 for a moment, let us just talk about the types of things the CIA does.
I think most of us here can agree that at some level intelligence was "cooked" on Iraq's WMD, right?
So who here believes that the explanation for this particular "faulty intelligence" on Iraq's WMD was
"the result of "extremely sloppy" handling of a central piece of evidence"???
Isn't it clear that what happened here is that the CIA is doing what it does best-- LYING?
As an aside, what is all this bullshit that seems to be spread in the liberal media about the poor honest CIA being manipulated by the Bush administration to spread faulty information about Iraq's WMD? Isn't it clear that at one level the CIA acts as a propaganda outlet and they will do whatever they are instructed to do by the national security powers in this country? In this case, the national security/geopolitical strategy was to invade Iraq. The Iraq invasion wasn't simply Bush and Cheney's whim-- it was what "the powers that be" in this country wanted, part of the US plan for geopolitical dominance and also for securing important oil reserves.
Of course, the CIA is being set-up as a fall-guy for the "intelligence failures" about Iraq's WMD. This takes the heat off the Bush administration and angers liberals. However, is there really any doubt that the CIA is just as complicit as the Bush administration in the lies about Iraq? The CIA wasn't used. They were a willing partner in this crime. They lied to sell a war.
Therefore, in terms of 9/11-- does anyone here seriously believe the CIA's excuses for their "intelligence failures" regarding 9/11?