Larry Johnson:The Lies of George Bush Exposed Part 2

[cal04]

Part II (The findings on terrorism can be found at my initial post.)
Consider for a moment that a Republican controlled Senate Intelligence Committee released the reports today that are so damning to the lies Bush and Cheney repeated ad nauseum for the last three and a half years. What the hell is in the three additional reports that they don't want to release until after the November elections? It is difficult to imagine the truths still to be told.

These reports make clear that the case for war in Iraq was manufactured by ignoring the intelligence. However, this is not only an indictment of Republicans; it is an indictment of every Democrat who voted for going to war. Can't these people read? If the National Intelligence Estimate reflected a clear, unanimous opinion, then the Democrats could argue, "we were mislead by the intelligence". Hell bells, folks, the NIE consistently had dissenting opinions. That means there was NO AGREEMENT among intelligence analysts. Shame on every Republican and Democrat who were too goddamn lazy to read the NIE!


The first report, Postwar Findings about Iraq's WMD Programs and Links to Terrorism and How they Compare with Prewar Assessments destroys every lie advanced by Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld to advance their case for starting a war in Iraq. These findings also show how bankrupt are the claims of Laurie Mylroie (who argued vociferously that Mohamad Atta met Iraqi agents in Prague), Stephen Hayes (who insists that Al Qa'ida and Saddam were in cahoots), and Christoper Hitchens. They are wrong.

The first section deals with the WMD issues. Here are the conclusions from the report:

more
http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2006/sep/09/the_lies_of_george_bush_exposed

Senate Intel Committee Bloodies Bush's Nose(initial post)
http://noquarter.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/09/senate_intel_co.html

[The_Casual_Observer]

1. As I recall, access to the NIE was very limited. Wasn't the point

made that they were allowed to view it in a little closet & not take notes, and that very few actually bothered to do so? That is what I remember about this.

[immoderate]

2. Also, IIRC, if they read it, they couldn't discuss it.

--IMM

[salin]

3. I believe reading that the version given to Congress was severely

editted, removed were all the footnotes containing caveats about which pieces of "evidence" were not substantiated, and which were indeed contradicted by other evidence. I also believe that in one of the original hearings, the question was asked - WHO ordered the editing of the NIE - and NO ONE could answer the question.