Bush, Cheney, Rice Were Personally Told Iraq Had No WMD in Fall 2002

[dogday]

60 Minutes: CIA Official Reveals Bush, Cheney, Rice Were Personally Told Iraq Had No WMD in Fall 2002

Tonight on 60 Minutes, Tyler Drumheller, the former chief of the CIA’s Europe division, revealed that in the fall of 2002, President Bush, Vice President Cheney, then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and others were told by CIA Director George Tenet that Iraq’s foreign minister — who agreed to act as a spy for the United States — had reported that Iraq had no active weapons of mass destruction program. Watch it


TRANSCRIPT

BRADLEY: According to Drumheller, CIA Director George Tenet delivered the news about the Iraqi foreign minister at a high level meeting at the White House.

DRUMHELLER: The President, the Vice President, Dr. Rice…

BRADLEY: And at that meeting…?

DRUMHELLER: They were enthusiastic because they said they were excited that we had a high-level penetration of Iraqis.

BRADLEY: And what did this high level source tell you?

DRUMHELLER: He told us that they had no active weapons of mass destruction program.

BRADLEY: So, in the fall of 2002, before going to war, we had it on good authority from a source within Saddam’s inner circle that he didn’t have an active program for weapons of mass destruction?

DRUMHELLER: Yes.

BRADLEY: There’s no doubt in your mind about that?

DRUMHELLER: No doubt in my mind at all.

BRADLEY: It directly contradicts, though, what the President and his staff were telling us.

DRUMHELLER: The policy was set. The war in Iraq was coming, and they were looking for intelligence to fit into the policy, to justify the policy.

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/04/23/60-minutes-cia-official-reveals-bush-cheney-rice-were-personally-told-iraq-had-no-wmd-in-fall-2002

[Parisle]

1. You know what this means,....

--- If Drumheller's testimony stands up,... then it means that our top 3 or 4 administration officials... starting with Bush and working down,.... were actively, knowingly and deliberately lying to the American people and to Congress,... How much more "impeachable" can you get, eh? The purpose of the war was to transfer (or "redistribute") a half-trillion dollars of taxpayer income upwards into corporate coffers, while driving up oil profits and securing a steady source of petroleum for the PNAC's envisioned further wars of planetary conquest. Big Oil, along with Halliburton, KBR, Bechtel, Carlyle, etc, etc,... all profitted handsomely from the carefully-planned scheme executed by the junta they helped put in place. Some heads need to roll for this one, folks.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

5. Impeach the bastards. Every one of them.

there is no other choice.

[Jawja]

14. But they haven't been caught

lying about getting a BJ in the Oval Office! Geesh, get REAL. :eyes:


:sarcasm:

[formercia]

18. Just think of Iraq

as one very big blue dress. The evidence is all over it.

[malaise]

6. We know that they actively

knowingly and deliberately lying to the American people and to Congress. We know that ages ago but who is willing to stop them.

[senseandsensibility]

2. kick

eom

[SammyWinstonJack]

3. K&R

[dogday]

4. As with Iran, read this thread below

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=3113208&mesg_id=3113208


Seems they keep making this shit up as they go, and the American people are falling for it....

[azurnoir]

7. I think most of us knew this anyway

if Mr. Drumheller's testimony can stand would impeachment still be "off the table" for Dem's, what scares me is what would * do to remain in power, how far would he go and would the military follow him?

[dogday]

8. This is proof... Yes we knew, but we could not

prove other than DSM, but still this guy puts them all together and states exactly what they knew about no WMD in Iraq....

[EFerrari]

9. Impeach.

K&R

[crispini]

10. K*R

[seemslikeadream]

11. you've got to put your bodies upon the gears

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7Mf9j8co70



http://www.fsm-a.org/stacks/mario/mario_speech.html

Mario Savio's speech before the FSM sit-in


Editorial note: This is the conclusion of Mario Savio's memorable speech, before Free Speech Movement demonstrators entered Sproul Hall to begin their sit-in on December 3, 1964. His climactic words about "the operation of the machine" have been quoted widely ever since, out of context, as the existential emblem of the FSM. (Or mis-quoted, since he said "passively" rather than "tacitly.") The beginning of Savio's talk -- about the technical details of the failed negotiations and the administration's reprisal --has never been transcribed. We hope to make it available soon, for it provides a fuller view of the balance of thought and feeling in his speech, and in the FSM.



We have an autocracy which runs this university. It's managed. We asked the following: if President Kerr actually tried to get something more liberal out of the Regents in his telephone conversation, why didn't he make some public statement to that effect? And the answer we received -- from a well-meaning liberal -- was the following: He said, "Would you ever imagine the manager of a firm making a statement publicly in opposition to his board of directors?" That's the answer! Now, I ask you to consider: if this is a firm, and if the Board of Regents are the board of directors, and if President Kerr in fact is the manager, then I'll tell you something: the faculty are a bunch of employees, and we're the raw material! But we're a bunch of raw material that don't mean to have any process upon us, don't mean to be made into any product, don't mean to end up being bought by some clients of the University, be they the government, be they industry, be they organized labor, be they anyone! We're human beings!


There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!


Now, no more talking. We're going to march in singing "We Shall Overcome." Slowly; there are a lot of us. Up here to the left -- I didn't mean the pun.

[Loge23]

12. Bradley's been gone over a month

Where has this thing been? Ed Bradley died some time ago - how long has this sat around and why is it coming out now?
Last night, the same program gave the idiot a perch for his BS. Now this??

[Supersedeas]

13. sitting on the shelf of the Media accomplices.

[bornskeptic]

15. This aired in April 2006.

Here's a thread from then.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=1007023

[dogday]

16. Yes it did and it is important to keep

raising attention to this issue..... :hi:

[Major Hogwash]

19. I missed this one for some damned reason, so thanks for bringing it up now.

On the brink of Libby's trial.

[procopia]

17. Even before this revelation, in 2001

both Colin Powell and Condi Rice said publicly that Saddam Hussein was not a threat to his neighbors, had been unable to pursue WMD plans, and was not in control of northern Iraq. I don't understand why their statements, made in 2001 and documented on video, have gotten no traction in media or elsewhere.

[deacon]

20. k + r

[Disturbed]

21. Every damn member of Congress knows this.

Why won't they Impeach these War Criminals?

[dogday]

24. I sent this entire article with link to Pelosi's office...

Figured it was worth a shot....

[progressoid]

22. La la la la la, I can't hear youuuu!

Oooh - American Idol is on!

[TahitiNut]

23. Meanwhile, Tariq Aziz is imprisoned in an 'undisclosed' location.

Conveeenient. :puke:

[tuvor]

25. Here are some 2002 news items from the UK press.

Intelligence didn't fail. bush did. Some people seem to be forgetting that.

Check out these stories from well before bush decided to start a war back in '03.

WHY THE CIA THINKS BUSH IS WRONG
The president says the US has to act now against Iraq. The trouble is, his own security services don't agree.
13 October 2002
http://www.sundayherald.com/28384

CIA IN BLOW TO BUSH ATTACK PLANS
The letter also comes at a time when the CIA is competing with the more hawkish Pentagon, which is also supplying the White House with intelligence on the Iraqi threat.
October 10, 2002
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,808970,00.html

WHITE HOUSE 'EXAGGERATING IRAQI THREAT'
Bush's televised address attacked by US intelligence
October 9, 2002
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,807286,00.html

[Norquist Nemesis]

26. And now we have a 2nd CIA Agent suing

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1155AP_CIA_Firing.html
Judge rules agent can sue CIA

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON -- A fired CIA employee, who collected prewar intelligence that Iraq was not developing weapons of mass destruction, can continue with a lawsuit challenging his dismissal, a federal judge has ruled.
....
The intelligence was collected as the United States prepared for the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and President Bush justified the war on grounds that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. No such weapons have been found.

The lawsuit said Doe's CIA superiors either refused to disseminate the intelligence or demanded he falsify his report to indicate several countries were developing the weapons.
...
The plaintiff said the CIA launched two sham investigations of him before his termination in September, 2004, accusing him of having sex with a female intelligence asset and diverting money designated for informers to his own use.
...

I don't understand the either/or in his suit. It's not clear to me whether they demanded and he refused, or whether he's alleging they chose to not dessiminate. Oh, and let's not forget that Porter Goss was announced to be candidate for CIA head on Aug. 10, 2004 and took over Sept. 24, 2004. Maybe he hit the ground running!