In October 2002 Bob Graham begged fellow senators to read the "entire" NIE on WMDs.

[madfloridian]

not just the 25 pages that had been unclassified. There were 90 pages apparently classified that were available for them to read. He told them that invading Iraq would put our country in more danger.

"Friends, I encourage you to read the classified intelligence reports which are much sharper than what is available in declassified form," Sen. Graham reports stating on the floor of the Senate in October 2002.

"We are going to be increasing the threat level against the people of the United States." He warned: "Blood is going to be on your hands"

It is very hard to find much about this, but I finally found this on Barbara Radnofsky's old website. I knew Bob Graham was very intense about this vote, but not much is said about why.

I had heard that they had a chance to read more of the intelligence, but never saw much about it. From her comments at her site:

http://www.radnofsky.com/blog.php?items_id=1238

The cafe format permitted a lengthier explanation than in the debate's 90-second answer, so I discussed the classified intelligence contrasted with unclassified at the time of the Iraqi war vote in October 2002, when Sen. Bob Graham begged his colleagues on the floor of the Senate to read the 90 page classified NIE on WMD (as opposed to the 25 pages of declassified materials).

"Friends, I encourage you to read the classified intelligence reports which are much sharper than what is available in declassified form," Sen. Graham reports stating on the floor of the Senate in October 2002.

"We are going to be increasing the threat level against the people of the United States." He warned: "Blood is going to be on your hands"

Sen. Graham has explained that the classified version did not support the later claim by George Tenet that the WMD issue was a "slam dunk." The former Florida senator has also explained that the 25-page declassified document didn't accurately represent the classified NIE; "gone" were the assessments of Saddam Hussein's intentions to use WMD, omitting "a huge component" selectively removed.

And Graham has said the "slick" 25-page document was "substantially different" from the classified document, and selectively put forth risks in favor of invading, while omitting other key information. A "livid" Sen. Graham had complained to George Tenet of the "wildly different impressions" created by the two documents. Sen. Graham's book "Intelligence Matters" recites the contemporaneous evidence available to Sen. Hutchison, had she read it as requested: Saddam Hussein was not going to attack us unless we attacked him. We know the far greater terror risks were known then and served as the focus for the Graham Amendment: war on Al-Qaeda, Abu Nidal, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Palestinian Liberation Front, and Hezbollah. And, he explains the rational priorities known then: finishing the job in Afghanistan, with General Franks's honest assessment of where the war on terror needed to be fought, known in February of 2002 (Afghanistan, Somalia, and Yemen) at a time when General Franks disclosed that the intelligence on WMD in Iraq was 'weak.'

I had not known that part, though I had written previously about his telling them they would have blood on their hands. I remembered his anger.

I remember Bob Graham's rant on October 9, 2002, two days before the IWR vote.

From the Palm Beach Post:

..."On Oct. 9, 2002, Graham — the guy everyone thought of as quiet, mild-mannered, deliberate, conflict-averse — let loose on his Senate colleagues for going along with President Bush's war against Iraq.

"We are locking down on the principle that we have one evil, Saddam Hussein. He is an enormous, gargantuan force, and that's who we're going to go after," Graham said on the floor. "That, frankly, is an erroneous reading of the world. There are many evils out there, a number of which are substantially more competent, particularly in their ability to attack Americans here at home, than Iraq is likely to be in the foreseeable future."

He told his fellow senators that if they didn't recognize that going to war with Iraq without first taking out the actual terrorists would endanger Americans, "then, frankly, my friends — to use a blunt term — the blood's going to be on your hands."

It was a watershed moment. Gone was the meticulous thinker who would talk completely around and through a problem before answering a question about it...

Bob Graham is a serious thoughtful man. More should have listened.

[acmavm]

1. Many people tried to tell these people that the bush** administration was

blowing smoke up their asses. Did they listen? The answer is yes. To their corporate masters and the corrupt political machinery that determines all this country's .

They still are.

[rodeodance]

2. I read prevously that very FEW Senators came into the Room to read

the larger Doc.

[madfloridian]

3. Found it on the Frontline special about Cheney..the Dark Side

DAVID KAY: When I read the NIE, I thought they were protecting sources and methods and trying to paint just an adequate job to get past the vote, that there must be more there. When I read it in 2003, after I took this responsibility­ there's an old Peggy Lee song that I like that came to mind, "If That's All There Is."

NARRATOR: The NIE was kept in a locked room where Congress could read it, but few did. In mid-October, they voted overwhelmingly in favor of the Iraqi war resolution. A declassified version of the NIE, known as the "white paper," was prepared by the CIA and released three days later.

Sen. BOB GRAHAM: And one of the surprising things about it was it was of a very high production level­ graphs, photographs in color. It was an advocacy piece.

INTERVIEWER: What does it say to you?

Sen. BOB GRAHAM: Oh, it says to me that the decision had been made that we're going to go to war with Iraq, all of this other was just window dressing, and that the intelligence community was being used as almost a public relations operation to validate the war against Saddam Hussein."

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/darkside/etc/script.html

[madfloridian]

4. What General Franks told Bob Graham....from Frontline:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/darkside/interviews/graham.html

"Hussein and Osama bin Laden were adversaries. The idea that they had collaborated in 9/11 was absurd.

How did you hear about it, that they were headed in this direction in February of 2002?

Graham: Well, I heard about it during a briefing at Central Command , which is located in Tampa, Fla., on the Afghanistan war. The briefing was very positive. Things were going well; victory appeared to be close at hand. Then I was told in a private meeting that no, that wasn't the case; that in fact, we were beginning to recede from the war in Afghanistan precisely to get ready for Iraq.

Who told you?

Gen. Tommy Franks.

Take me into the meeting. What's happening? ...

The general said, "Senator, I would like to speak with you privately." We went into his room, and he proceeded to tell me that they weren't fighting a war in Afghanistan; that they were, in fact, beginning to redeploy assets. He particularly mentioned special operations personnel and the Predator unmanned aircraft as examples of assets that were being redeployed from Afghanistan to get ready for Iraq.

He then laid out what he thought the strategy should be for victory in the war on terror: Finish the job in Afghanistan; move to other areas that had large numbers of cells of Al Qaeda -- Somalia, Yemen being number one and number two. He went on to say that Iraq was a special case, that our intelligence there was very poor, and that the Europeans knew more about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction than we did.

The head of CENTCOM, a four-star general, is telling you this information. How do you react?

I was stunned, because I believed the president when he had said shortly after 9/11 that our strategy was going to be to identify, engage and destroy all terrorists of global reach. I thought that was the right strategy, a clear definition of the mission; that's what we should be following. We should first eradicate those who had just killed 3,000 Americans; then we should go after groups which had killed Americans previously -- particularly Hezbollah -- and had the capability of killing more Americans."

[Dr.Phool]

5. I want all these Senators and Congresspeople to keep telling me

How they were misled. Everything they needed was right under their noses.

We knew better. Why didn't they.

Too busy calling campaign donors I guess.

[peacetalksforall]

6. Gross deception and disastrous representation - for votes?

and for money?

Our represents represented someone or some entity other than us.

My perception is that the DLC is at the heart of the Dem policy on supporting the Iraq invasion.

Take a look at the proponents and the ongoing support.

I hope I won't be attacked for voicing my perception.

[madfloridian]

16. Looks tlike the same stuff is going on now.

At least where wars are concerned. I guess they don't have the courage to buck the Democrats who support staying in Iraq. Polls show most want Dems to do something to get us out of Iraq. I hope the new bill has more stuff than I think it does. :shrug:

[madfloridian]

7. The liberals got this one right. The moderates failed us.

When we called about stopping the shock and awe, they treated us like we were not so bright. We were right. They were wrong.

Most never took time to read the intelligence they should have been reading to keep us out of war.

They can't admit it, so they send their bots to call us things to put us down.

We were right, they were wrong.

[politicasista]

8. That's good. Now we should support legislation ending this illegal war

And holding this criminal administration accountable.

[madfloridian]

9. Doesn't really sound like they are prepared to stop it.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/1145

"And Congress, you know, has finally asked him, you know, Do you need more troops? Do you need more troops? Under Rumsfeld, they never needed more troops. And now they’re saying, We need 92,000 more. So we’re looking at how we could do that for them."

Oh, well, then, I am just a "liberal" so what the heck do I know.

[madfloridian]

10. Outstanding WP article on Graham's passion that day in the Senate.

Graham is the kind of person people just don't pay attention to because he is not flashy. But he was angry that day. He knew our country was making the real dangers to us much worse by attacking Iraq. He did not get their attention, but he tried.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A63703-2003May1?language=printer

In more than three decades in public office -- including two terms as governor and three as senator -- he had earned respect for his honesty and integrity, but had rarely made a national splash. His main claim to fame was his bizarre habit of scribbling the dullest conceivable minutiae of his life -- the chocolate Slim-Fast he drank, the red shorts he changed into, the Jim Carrey video he rewound -- in little notebooks that he color-coded by season. (He even recorded in his notebooks the time he spent recording in his notebooks.) And even those daily logs were oddly devoid of feeling. Once on a trade mission to Brazil, when Graham's plane had a mechanical crisis, he had meticulously recorded: "2:39 p.m. -- pilot announces hydraulic failure, must make emergency landing."

But now, suddenly, Graham was preaching like a prophet of doom, hectoring his colleagues that Americans were dangerously vulnerable to terrorist attacks, that militant groups like Hezbollah could be even deadlier than al Qaeda or Saddam Hussein, that war in Iraq would only increase the threat at home. And then he went further: "If you believe that the American people are not going to be at additional threat, then, frankly, my friends -- to use a blunt term -- blood is going to be on your hands."

Bob Graham said the Senate would have blood on its hands?

"I was like, Whoa! No way Uncle Bob said that!" marvels William E. Graham, the senator's nephew and the CEO of the Graham Companies, the family's real estate firm. Paul Anderson, the senator's communications director, had helped prepare Graham's floor remarks, and he knew he hadn't written anything about blood on anyone's hands. "I was completely speechless," Anderson says. Several former Graham aides frantically e-mailed one another transcripts, with "Wow" in the subject line. "We were all asking each other: Is this our Bob Graham?" says Margaret Kempel, who used to run Graham's South Florida office. "He's never been a freakout guy."

I remember he talked about going after the terrorists where they were, using surgical strikes for their training camps....not invading the countries. I look back now, and I remember the passion we put into trying to stop them from giving Bush the power to do this. I feel sick inside.

Bob Graham was boring as hell, but he was right.

[bvar22]

11. Well, that sure shoots down the old "I WAS MISLEAD" excuse.

Anyone....ANYONE who voted to send our children into Iraq, but didn't bother to read the WHOLE NIE that was available doesn't deserve to be in office (ANY office).

I've heard all the apologies and I'm not impressed. I want to hear them explain WHY they couldn't be bothered to read the entire NIE before sentencing our children and over 100,000 Iraqis to DEATH.
I mean, THESE PEOPLE have BLOOD on their hands!

Did Hillary bother to read the whole NIE?
Someone PLEASE ask her!

[madfloridian]

12. I posted it because Graham has my respect, and because liberals are being targeted...

here at DU and in the Dem party. The word liberal is a very good word. It means open-minded and given to clear thought on issues.

I am angry at being called a traitor here, and I am angry that too many Democrats equate anti-war with "liberal" and "idiot"...that is the DLC legacy in our party.

[Solon]

13. Its only 90 pages, why couldn't these Senators take the time...

about an hour or so, just to READ the ENTIRE damned report? How irresponsible do you have to be?

[Contrite]

14. Why, then, did he give them a pass?

In an article in the WaPo he was quoted as saying that while he could apply caveat emptor, his colleagues could not.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/18/AR2005111802397.html

What I Knew Before the Invasion

By Bob Graham

Sunday, November 20, 2005; Page B07

In the past week President Bush has twice attacked Democrats for being hypocrites on the Iraq war. "More than 100 Democrats in the House and Senate, who had access to the same intelligence, voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power," he said.

The president's attacks are outrageous. Yes, more than 100 Democrats voted to authorize him to take the nation to war. Most of them, though, like their Republican colleagues, did so in the legitimate belief that the president and his administration were truthful in their statements that Saddam Hussein was a gathering menace -- that if Hussein was not disarmed, the smoking gun would become a mushroom cloud.

(snip)

"From my advantaged position, I had earlier concluded that a war with Iraq would be a distraction from the successful and expeditious completion of our aims in Afghanistan. Now I had come to question whether the White House was telling the truth -- or even had an interest in knowing the truth.

On Oct. 11, I voted no on the resolution to give the president authority to go to war against Iraq. I was able to apply caveat emptor. Most of my colleagues could not."

[madfloridian]

15. I think it is the "we are there now" syndrome.

The one that advocates hushing up since we are there now and "can't leave."

I think Bob Graham did not speak out a lot later on because of party loyalty. That would be his style.

I understand that, but I think when we have 140,000 something troops in the middle of a civil war surrounded by 27 million Iraqis who hate us for our bombings and torture....maybe it is time..

Donna Brazile said we did not want to micromanage the war, but I think it is time for us to do something.

[madfloridian]

17. What if they had listened?

Many did know that Iraq was no immediate threat.

[fujiyama]

18. Graham had it absolutely right

As much as I like Edwards, it's really hard to excuse him (and other Dem senators on the comm.) considering he was also on the intel committee and had the same access as Graham.

[madfloridian]

19. Not so much Edwards as Hillary and Bill.

Think about it. Those two had to know more than anyone else that Saddam had been contained. They had to have seen the intelligence to the UN by his son in law that the weapons had been destroyed much earlier.

They were recently out of the white house and in a position to influence others greatly.

[fujiyama]

20. Good point

As a former president, Bill was able to get access to classified CIA briefings.

Though, I'm not sure if the senate intel committee had any more info that a former president or a non-intel committee member would be privy to.