"Path to 9/11" Distracts From Awful Senate Phase II.

[harlinchi]

http://intelligence.senate.gov/

This was the Phase II? This was the report that would show whether or not the administration manipulated intelligence to gain support for the Iraq war? Where? The two links I see mention a comparison between prewar assessments versus postwar realities and a discussion of the use of intelligence by the intelligence community, not by the administration's elected officials.

I've not been online for several days. I assumed that when I returned there would be much talk about the insubstantial nature of the Phase II report, notwithstanding that many administration faults were revealed by it. It seems that discussion of ABC's 'Path to 9/11' has superseded any which might have occurred about the bogus Phase II.

I submit much more should be made of the Senate's so-called Phase II. I said before we should pluck each instance of GOP corruption and country-destroying actions from the vile republican tree of Anti-Americanisms. I also said that Sen. Roberts is low-hanging and ripe!

[Lasher]

1. This was not the full phase II report

It's easy to miss because many of the earlier news reports failed to make this distinction. Many of the more recent articles are pointing this out, however.

Prewar intelligence doubted al-Qaida link to Iraq, report says


The partial release of the report came after nearly three years of partisan wrangling over what is to be a five-chapter analysis of the use of prewar intelligence in the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

The heart of the report — a detailed comparison of administration statements with the intelligence then available — is still far from release.

But the committee voted Thursday to release two chapters, one on the role that Iraqi exiles played in shaping prewar intelligence, the other on the accuracy of the prewar analyses of Saddam's nuclear-, chemical- and biological-weapons capabilities and his suspected links to al-Qaida and the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

<snip>

The committee report's conclusions are based on the Democrats' findings because two Republicans — Sens. Olympia Snowe of Maine and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska — supported those findings.

"After reviewing thousands of pages of evidence, I voted for the conclusions that most closely reflect the facts in the report," Snowe said. "Policy-makers seemingly discounted or dismissed warnings about the veracity of critical intelligence reports that may have served as a basis for going to war."

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2003250558_report09.html

We would not have seen even the partial release of just these two chapters if it hadn't been for the rebellion of Snowe and Hagel. Roberts would have continued to roadblock even this partial release if he would have had his way, and is trying to downplay his own committee's conclusions.

Republicans tried to downplay the report. “I think that anyone who has been paying attention the last couple of years will recognize that there is little that is new in this report,” said Sen. Pat Roberts, D-Kan., the intelligence committee chairman. “As we have all known since 2004, this nation and our allies experienced an intelligence failure with respect to pre-war intelligence on Iraq.”

And, Roberts noted, it was not just the Bush administration led astray. He noted that top Democrats, including Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, ranking Democrat on the intelligence committee, were among those saying in 2002 that Iraq had an aggressive nuclear weapons program and could have a nuclear bomb within five years. “The long-known fact is that the pre-war intelligence was wrong,” Roberts said.

http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-2091485.php

But just this partial report clearly shows that the Bush administration manipulated intelligence to drum up support for their adventure in Iraq. The other 3 chapters, which will be delayed until after the midterms an possibly forever, must be very damning indeed.

[harlinchi]

2. Thanks! I did see the 'partial' modifier but I suspect that this will...

...effectively be 'it'. Beyond how many elections must this report, crucial to our understanding what happened, be delayed?

[Supersedeas]

3. thanks for that clarification Lasher