Diane Feinstein's reply email re: the DSM

[nikraye]

Feinstein responds with--big surprise--a NON-committed response. No mention of Conyers, the petition drive, calls for an investigation or Ted Kennedy's raising of the DSM issue on the Senate floor...NOTHING.

************************

June 15, 2005


Dear Ms. XXXX:

Thank you for writing me about the "Downing
Street" memo, which recently surfaced in Great Britain.
The document was written by British national security
aide Matthew Rycroft based on notes he took during a
July 2002 meeting of Mr. Blair and his advisers,
including Richard Dearlove, the head of Britain's MI-6
intelligence service who had recently met with Bush
administration officials.

Please know that the Senate vote on the resolution
to authorize the use of force in Iraq was difficult and
consequential based on hours of intelligence briefings
from Administration and intelligence officials, as well as
the classified and unclassified versions of an important
National Intelligence Estimate that comprehensively
assessed Iraq's WMD program. It was based on trust that
this intelligence was the best our Nation's intelligence
services could offer, untainted by bias, and fairly
presented. In this case it was not.

The bottom line is that Iraq did not possess
nuclear, chemical or biological weapons in 2003 when
the war began. Saddam Hussein did not have an active
nuclear, chemical or biological weapons program.
Considering the statements that were being made by the
Administration, and the intelligence that was presented to
Congress which said otherwise, this is quite disturbing
and points once again to failures in the analysis,
collection and use of intelligence.

In order to address these intelligence failures,
Congress passed the Intelligence Reform bill, which I
voted for. This law will make consequential changes to
the structure and organization of the 15 agencies which
make up our intelligence capabilities. As a member of the
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, I will be sure to
continue to monitor this issue closely.

Again, thank you for writing. I hope you will
continue to keep me informed of your views and
concerns. If you should have any further questions or
comments, please do not hesitate to call my Washington,
D.C. staff at [phone], or visit my website at
http://feinstein.senate.gov.





Sincerely yours,

Dianne Feinstein
United States Senator

http://feinstein.senate.gov

Further information about my position on issues of concern to
California and the Nation are available at my website
http://feinstein.senate.gov. You can also receive electronic e-mail
updates by subscribing to my e-mail list at
http://feinstein.senate.gov/issue.html.

[malmapus]

1. Yeah keep on "monitoring" Senator

One good thing about moving south, is that I traded her for Boxer.

[fooj]

6. Feinstein is worthless. Too much $$$ riding for her to get involved!

:puke: It makes me ill!

peace.

[Grateful for Hope]

2. It is obvious

that she is unwilling to stray from the 'accepted' bi-partisan line that the 'faulty' intelligence was at fault.

This is shameful.

[Proud_Lefty]

3. This is ridiculous!

Glad she's disturbed, but she should be outraged. Another example of towing the political line while we are being slaughtered in Washington. We need better representation than this and we should start demanding it.

[fooj]

7. You betcha!

:patriot:

[longship]

4. Notice that she says nothing about

the now undeniable fact that * lied to Congress, the People, the UN, and to the international community in order to get approval for a war that because of the lies, is a de facto illegal war.

[fob]

5. WTF? Did your e-mail go like this;

Dear Sen. Feinstein,

I have been hearing people talk about "Downer Street" or something like that, could you please tell me what that is? Also I've been meaning to ask you about something from 2003 but I can't recall what it is could you just gloss over some major topic from 2003 for me too? And while you're at it could you throw in some right-wing spin about the "intelligence" being "flawed" or whatever?

Signed,

Clueless in ?????

Because that response reads like that's what she's answering.

[ibegurpard]

8. LOL

Exactly. The response was an insult.

[malmapus]

11. lol nice!!!

Great one there :rofl:

[Ignis]

17. Thxu Constituent_001, please drive through.

I still have a copy of the form letter I received from Feinstein in response to my aggrieved letter asking her to vote against the IWR. It boiled down to the following: "I'm on the Intel committee and I know more than you do, so I'm voting for the IWR despite the overwhelming number of my constituents who've asked me to vote against it, neener neener."

Thanks, DiFi. It's hard work, eh?

[shance]

9. Sentor Feinstein needs to explain her husbands own profiteering

Time for her and her husband to be honest with the American taxpayer.

[acmejack]

10. I am convinced Feinstein is a waste of skin.

She is better than a Republicon, but only marginally. When compared to real Democratic Senator like Boxer, she doesn't come off very well at all. California deserves better IMO. Remind me, what is it that Californians like about her...

[plasticsundance]

12. What a lame-ass response

Who the hell does she think she's kidding. (no question marks, it's a rhetorical question). People are dying in Iraq daily because of Chimpy-the-Idiot-King schoolboy deceptive tactics to get us into this imbroglio. Where supposed to believe that some law that she helped to get passed, is going to protect us from an Administration that this Congress and Senate are continuing to hold unaccountable.

That's a really fucked up rationalization, and doomed to failure.

[Jack Rabbit]

13. It's obviously a form letter

In the Senator's defense, she gets thousands of letters and e-mails a week and can't be expected to answer more than a handful of them personally. This is a letter that was prepared probably several days ago to respond to letters concerning the DSM.

Unfortunately, events around the DSM are moving faster than busy Senators can write new form letters. There are now over a half dozen Downing Street documents; they all tell a tale of how the regime cooked intelligence in order to deceive both Congress and the American people, as well as attempt to deceive a far less credulous international audience.

The fact is that there was a lot less wrong with the intelligence than Bush and the neocons would have us believe. As far as they were concerned, the biggest thing wrong with it is that it didn't support their case for war against Iraq. The Bushies fabricated facts and dissembled intelligence reports in order to build a case that was not there; the invasion was an unjustified and unnecessary war of aggression. Bush and his inner circle in the White House and the Pentagon knew this. So did Tony Blair and those around him.

This doesn't seem to have caught up with Senator Feinstein yet. If you write her another letter next month, maybe you'll get a better answer, even if that, too, will come in a form letter.

[plasticsundance]

16. Jack Rabbit said

"The fact is that there was a lot less wrong with the intelligence than Bush and the neocons would have us believe. As far as they were concerned, the biggest thing wrong with it is that it didn't support their case for war against Iraq."

Reading emphasis:

So damn true, it's funny. So damn funny, it's scary. So damn scary, it's sad.

[Jack Rabbit]

18. The politicization of intelligence

I first became aware of this in October 2002 when I saw this little gem by Julian Borger in the Guardian Unlimited (well, one wouldn't expect to have found it in a mainstream US source, would one?) Up to then, I had suspected that this was happening, but this was something to document that is was as a fact. It would be another seven months until Seymour Hersh would provide more details of this scheme in The New Yorker, and give it a name: the Office of Special Plans. Of course, by the time Hersh's piece appeared, the damage was done. US troops were in Baghdad and a colonial regime installed under an American governor general.

If one really has any confidence in the case one is making, one does not need something like the Office of Special Plans. If the facts were there to show that Saddam had a vast biochemical arsenal, the reports from the CIA and the DIA would have done nicely. They weren't good enough. Dissembling intelligence was the mission of Doug Feith and the OSP.

I really never thought we could prevent this war. Nevertheless, when I read Borger's story in the Guardian, I knew we could bring the regime down over this subterfuge and put Bush and his top aides behind bars if they went ahead with it.

That kind of justice should now be our goal.

[plasticsundance]

19. Thanks for the links

I can use them on the forums where I get into discussions with conservatives that act as nothing more than Bush apologists. I was aware of the Hersh article, but not the Guardian. Thanks again.

[Carolab]

14. Another pro-AIPAC senator.

Blech.

[Generator]

15. Intelligence?

Blame the CIA. "failures in the analysis,
collection and use of intelligence"

Why did the CIA say what it said? Because it was told what to say or because they "failed?" Me thinky they were told what to say.

Maybe if you have a "write what we say or say bye-bye" order your intelligence is not the problem.

Intelligence reform bill? Get rid of the anti-intelligence. Bush and the neo-cons, sweetie, there's your problem.

[leesa]

20. Ah yes, Feinstein spewing the GOP meme...it was faulty intelligence.

This creep is a GOP whore to the max. Lazy, geedy woman. At least she and her war profiteering hubby did well with his Iraq contracts.

[Lowell]

21. Get rid of all these DINOs

If we can't get Democrats that vote and think like Democrats then we need to vote in Greens and Independents with progressive thinking. Anything but this bunch of asshats.