The Case for Iraq

If you have not been paying attention to the news recently, you probably don't realize that our leadership has told us that they lied it get us into war in Iraq. "That's not new news," you may say, but it is new that people are saying it openly. Maybe not using the word 'lied', but it is about as close as one can come to it. Case 1: The "slam dunk" CIA intelligence information David Boren, a personal friend of CIA director George Tenet, said that in the weeks before the Iraq war, he warned Tenet that since he was not a member of Mr. Bush’s closest circle of advisers, the White House would make him the scapegoat if things went badly in Iraq. He turned out to be very prophetic. In an interview on “Meet the Press,” Mr. Cheney said: “George Tenet sat in the Oval Office and the president of the United States asked him directly, he said, ‘George, how good is the case against Saddam on weapons of mass destruction?’ The director of the C.I.A. said, ‘It’s a slam dunk, Mr. President, it’s a slam dunk.’ ” I belive this statement to be true, since Tenet is writing a new book, where he is going to defend himself. One person who has read early drafts of Tenet's new book said Mr. Tenet defended himself by carefully parsing the “slam dunk” comment: he said he was not telling Mr. Bush that there was rock-solid evidence that Mr. Hussein had chemical and biological weapons, only that the president could make a “slam dunk” case to the American public about these weapons programs. So, our "slam dunk" is regarding the case for war that the President can make to a frightened populace, and not the intelligence itself? Hmmm... Case 2: Douglas Feith's "significant relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda" The Pentagon's inspector general recently submitted a report (a summary of which is de-classsified,) concluding that Feith's assessment in 2002 that Iraq and Al Qaeda had a "mature symbiotic relationship" was not fully supported by available intelligence, but was nonetheless used by policymakers; At the time of Feith's reporting, the CIA had concluded only that there was an "evolving" association, "based on sources of varying reliability." Douglas Feith, who was defense policy chief at the time, was one of the key contributors to the administration's rationale for war. His intelligence activities, authorized by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul D. Wolfowitz, and coordinated with Vice President Cheney's office, stemmed from an administration belief that the CIA was underplaying evidence of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's ties with al-Qaeda. (For what purpose, exactly?) In responding, Feith emphasized the inspector general's conclusion that his actions, described in the report as "inappropriate," were not unlawful. "This was not 'alternative intelligence assessment,' " he said. "It was from the start a criticism of the consensus of the intelligence community, and in presenting it I was not endorsing its substance." Feith insisted that his activities did not constitute intelligence and that "even if they were, they would be appropriate given that they were responding to direction from the Deputy Secretary of Defense." The link here shows a video of intelligence talking about Feith and this case. The commentary by Sullivan is appropriate, I think. Here, we have another major player backpedaling, saying that he didn't "endorse the substance" of the intelligence, even at the time he delivered it in 2002. He is also being supported by the VP. Hmmm again... So- the VP, the defense policy chief, the Defense Secretary, his deputy, and the CIA director are all changing their stories. What are the odds that this is all coincidence?