Is Obama Really this Bad?

[Burgold]

Peter, you're not paying attention. DESPITE THE FACT that the Dept. of Energy disagreed with other agencies about the tubes they STILL AGREED that Saddam had an active nuclear energy dept.

What Bush said – that Iraq sought uranium from African countries – is just what both British and US intelligence were telling him at the time. So Bush may indeed have been misinformed, but that's not the same as lying.Your conspiracy theory is untenable.

On that one I disagree with you, mardi. That was the story where the CIA vetters removed that stuff from his speech saying that the intel was bad and had been disproven, but then Bush put it back in, and then in the last review the vetters removed it again before Bush or one of his speech writers placed it back in and Bush used that info in his speech. That, to me, is lying. It is intentionally using discredited information that your people say can't be trusted in order to sway the public.

We agree on what motivated him, but we should be honest about his dishonesty as well.

[PeterMP]

Peter, you're not paying attention. DESPITE THE FACT that the Dept. of Energy disagreed with other agencies about the tubes they STILL AGREED that Saddam had an active nuclear energy dept.

And again, I ask why did they say that? Was it based on a CIA report that he was trying to obtain nuclear material?

What Bush said – that Iraq sought uranium from African countries – is just what both British and US intelligence were telling him at the time. So Bush may indeed have been misinformed, but that's not the same as lying.

Of course, I've never said he lied, and I've never said there was a conspiracy.

You don't get to monday morning quarterback this thing. As President and Congress, you have the information you have.

Again, I'll ask, on March 10, what piece of information are you saying, this is the evidence of why we need to attack, based on what was known on March 10?

Certainly, the President is allowed to ask the CIA WHY they think he can have a nuclear weapons program in only a few years.

If there was no such piece of information, should somebody have stepped up and said something?

[Bang]

As I've always said, I believe the WMD was a sellable reason to give to the UN and our population to say we're going to war against a specified enemy.

The alternative is to say we're going to war, but we really don't know where the enemy concentrates or even who he is, and we have to figure out a way to root him out. this could take a while, and it could end up all over the place.

No one would have agreed, even though that is essentially what we had to do.

I believe strategically speaking taking Saddam out of the mix was a sound decision, and as it is turning out, the ends may have justified the means, as rotten as that may seem.

(and there's always that possibility that he did have some things, and they were removed in all the hide and seek games that led up to the war. Saddam's own head of the Iraqi air force wrote a book and claims that he had a lot of stuff sent to Syria.)

~Bang

[mardi gras skin]

On that one I disagree with you, mardi. That was the story where the CIA vetters removed that stuff from his speech saying that the intel was bad and had been disproven, but then Bush put it back in, and then in the last review the vetters removed it again before Bush or one of his speech writers placed it back in and Bush used that info in his speech. That, to me, is lying. It is intentionally using discredited information that your people say can't be trusted in order to sway the public.

We agree on what motivated him, but we should be honest about his dishonesty as well.

You don't disagree with me, you disagree with FactCheck.org. I was quoting them:

http://www.factcheck.org/article222.html

But what he said – that Iraq sought uranium – is just what both British and US intelligence were telling him at the time. So Bush may indeed have been misinformed, but that's not the same as lying.

[Predicto]

This is not just the result of CIA intelligence. This is the cumulative intelligence of many agencies across multiple countries.

Your conspiracy theory is untenable.

You are selectively reading things here. The CIA experts were saying that the Iraq threat was overblown. Cheney did not want to hear that. So he listened to Dough Feith's team, which gave him the "unfiltered intelligence" that he wanted to hear. Feith was the gatekeeper, and he had an agenda, and that agenda was to give Cheney what he was looking for - a reason to invade Iraq ASAP.

[mardi gras skin]

And again, I ask why did they say that? Was it based on a CIA report that he was trying to obtain nuclear material?

No, the Department of Energy's analysis was not based on CIA intelligence. DIA analysis was not based on CIA intelligence. British intelligence analysis was not based on CIA intelligence. The CIA is not the clearing house for all other intelligence gathering agencies.

[Predicto]

Certainly, the President is allowed to ask the CIA WHY they think he can have a nuclear weapons program in only a few years.

If there was no such piece of information, should somebody have stepped up and said something?

The CIA didn't think that. The CIA thought the Saddam thread was overblown.

That's why the Administration bypassed the CIA.

---------- Post added May-16th-2011 at 11:59 AM ----------

No, the Department of Energy's analysis was not based on CIA intelligence. DIA analysis was not based on CIA intelligence. British intelligence analysis was not based on CIA intelligence. The CIA is not the clearing house for all other intelligence gathering agencies.

No, in 2003, that would be Doug Feith's Office of Special Plans in the Pentagon.

(I can't speak for the British, but I suspect that they were piggybacking on our flawed intelligence a lot of the time).

[PeterMP]

No, the Department of Energy's analysis was not based on CIA intelligence. DIA analysis was not based on CIA intelligence. British intelligence analysis was not based on CIA intelligence. The CIA is not the clearing house for all other intelligence gathering agencies.

What was it based on?

It doesn't have to be a clearing house for to be a significantly affect their opinion. This message board is not a clearing house for all football related information, but the things I read here have a significant impact on my opinions related to football.

[mardi gras skin]

You are selectively reading things here. The CIA experts were saying that the Iraq threat was overblown. Cheney did not want to hear that. So he listened to Dough Feith's team, which gave him the "unfiltered intelligence" that he wanted to hear. Feith was the gatekeeper, and he had an agenda, and that agenda was to give Cheney what he was looking for - a reason to invade Iraq ASAP.

If Feith was the gatekeeper of all intelligence information from all of our agencies (and British intelligence somehow), why did he allow the DoE express a dissenting view regarding the use of the tubes? Why were there dissenting and alternative opinions expressed throughout the Intelligence report given to Congress before they voted to go to war with Iraq?

Feith was a sloppy gatekeeper.

[Predicto]

If Feith was the gatekeeper of all intelligence information from all of our agencies (and British intelligence somehow), why did he allow the DoE express a dissenting view regarding the use of the tubes? Why were there dissenting and alternative opinions expressed throughout the Intelligence report given to Congress before they voted to go to war with Iraq?

Feith was a sloppy gatekeeper.

He wasn't perfect, but he did a good enough job to convince people that we had to go to war against Iraq immediately. You are correct that many dedicated professionals in the intelligence community did their best to get their more objective analysis heard, but with the way that Cheney had rearranged the channels for vetting intelligence, their views were discredited and diminished.

Until later, of course, when we were scouring Iraq for 5 years trying to find a single bit of evidence of what we all "knew" to be there (all of us except the career intelligence professionals, of course).

[mardi gras skin]

What was it based on?

Are you asking to personally see the classified information the reports were based on?

[mcsluggo]

my gawd this thread is filled with stupid

[mardi gras skin]

He wasn't perfect, but he did a good enough job to convince people that we had to go to war against Iraq immediately. You are correct that many dedicated professionals in the intelligence community did their best to get their more objective analysis heard, but with the way that Cheney had rearranged the channels for vetting intelligence, their views were discredited and diminished.

No, Predicto. The official Intellegence Report (the one most in congress CHOSE not to read) was full of dissenting views regarding both WMD capacity and the connections to terrorism:

Nuclear Weapons

The document also said "most" US intelligence agencies believed that some high-strength aluminum tubes that Iraq had purchased were intended for use in centrifuge rotors used to enrich uranium, and were "compelling evidence" that Saddam had put his nuclear weapons program back together.

On the matter of the tubes, however, the report noted that there was some dissent within the intelligence community. Members of Congress could have read on page 6 of the report that the Department of Energy "assesses that the tubes are probably not" part of a nuclear program.

Some news reports have said this caveat was "buried" deeply in the 92-page report, but this is not so. The "Key Judgments" section begins on page 5, and disagreements by the Department of Energy and also the State Department are noted on pages 5,6,8 and 9, in addition to a reference on page 84.

Though much has been made recently of doubts about the tubes, it should be noted that even the Department of Energy's experts believed Iraq did have an active nuclear program, despite their conclusion that the tubes were not part of it. Even the DOE doubters thought Saddam was working on a nuclear bomb.

Connection to Terrorism

On one important point the National Intelligence Estimate offered little support for Bush's case for war, however. That was the likelihood that Saddam would give chemical or biological weapons to terrorists for use against the US.

Al Qaeda: The intelligence estimate said that – if attacked and "if sufficiently desperate" – Saddam might turn to al Qaeda to carry out an attack against the US with chemical or biological weapons. "He might decide that the extreme step of assisting the Islamist terrorist in conducting a CBW attack against the United States would be his last chance to exact vengeance by taking a large number of victims with him," the NIE said.

The report assigned "low confidence" to this finding, however, while assigning "high confidence" to the findings that Iraq had active chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs, and "moderate confidence" that Iraq could have a nuclear weapon as early as 2007 to 2009.

That was the intelligence available to Congress when the House passed the Iraq resolution Oct. 10, 2002 by a vote of 296-133. The Senate passed it in the wee hours of Oct. 11, by a vote of 77-23. A total of 81 Democrats in the House and 29 Democrats in the Senate supported the resolution, including some who now are saying Bush misled them.

A point worth noting is that few in Congress actually studied the intelligence before voting. The Washington Post reported: "The lawmakers are partly to blame for their ignorance. Congress was entitled to view the 92-page National Intelligence Estimate about Iraq before the October 2002 vote. But . . . no more than six senators and a handful of House members read beyond the five-page executive summary."

[PeterMP]

This looks interesting:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niger_uranium_forgeries#CIA_doubts

"On July 22, 2002, the DOE published an intelligence product (Daily Intelligence Highlight, Nuclear Reconstitution Efforts Underway?)[citation needed] which highlighted the intelligence on the Iraq-Niger uranium deal as one of three indications that Iraq might be reconstituting its nuclear program.

There was a second and third dissemination of these forged documents to the USA by SISMI in early September, 2002. One source being a suspicious "ex-agent," of SISMI who occasionally worked on and off for them, who was selling the documents.

Far more officially, Nicolo Pollari, chief of Italy's military intelligence service, SISMI, brought the Niger yellowcake story directly to the White House, meeting secretly in Washington on September 9, 2002, with then–Deputy National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley. In that month, the claims of Saddam trying to buy yellowcake uranium from Niger became much stronger. In September 2002, the DIA published an intelligence assessment (Defense Intelligence Assessment, Iraq’s Reemerging Nuclear Program) which outlined Iraq’s recent efforts to rebuild its nuclear program including uranium acquisition. On this issue issue, the assessment said "Iraq has been vigorously trying to procure uranium ore and yellowcake."

September 11, 2002, National Security Council (NSC) staff contacted the CIA to clear language for possible use by the President. The language cleared by the CIA said, "Iraq has made several attempts to buy high strength aluminum tubes used in centrifuges to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. And we also know this: within the past few years, Iraq has resumed efforts to obtain large quantities of a type of uranium oxide known as yellowcake, which is an essential ingredient of this process.""

Of course, before the war has started the IEAE has discovered the documents were forged and that several people involved, including Joe Wilson, doubted that Iraq had really tried to obtain nuclear material from Niger.

"Previously, in February 2002, three different American officials had made efforts to verify the reports. The deputy commander of U.S. Armed Forces Europe, Marine General Carlton W. Fulford, Jr., went to Niger and met with the country's president, Tandja Mamadou. He concluded that, given the controls on Niger's uranium supply, there was little chance any of it could have been diverted to Iraq. His report was sent to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers. The U.S. Ambassador to Niger, Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick, was also present at the meeting and sent similar conclusions to the State Department."

"In late February 2002, the CIA sent Ambassador Joseph Wilson to investigate the claims himself. Wilson had been posted to Niger 14 years earlier, and throughout a diplomatic career in Africa he had built up a large network of contacts in Niger. Wilson interviewed former prime minister of Niger, Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, who reported that he knew of no attempted sales to Iraq. Mayaki did however recall that in June 1999 an Iraqi delegation had expressed interest in "expanding commercial relations", which he had interpreted to mean yellowcake sales.[14] Ultimately, Wilson concluded that there was no way that production at the uranium mines could be ramped up or that the excess uranium could have been exported without it being immediately obvious to many people both in the private sector and in the government of Niger. He returned home and told the CIA that the reports were "unequivocally wrong".[15] The CIA retained this information in its Counter Proliferation Department and it was not passed up to the CIA Director, according to the unanimous findings of the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee's July 2004 report."

"In early October 2002, George Tenet called Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley to ask him to remove reference to the Niger uranium from a speech Bush was to give in Cincinnati on October 7. This was followed up by a memo asking Hadley to remove another, similar line. Another memo was sent to the White House expressing the CIA's view that the Niger claims were false; this memo was given to both Hadley and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice."

So the DOE is forming an opinion based on information that is coming from other places that the other places know is actually troublesome and/or is known to be out and out false when the invasion started.

---------- Post added May-16th-2011 at 03:32 PM ----------

Are you asking to personally see the classified information the reports were based on?

You claimed it wasn't coming from the CIA. The only way you make that decleration is if you've seen the information. I am asking for you to show us what you've seen.

**EDIT**

One of the other things (the wiki pages talks about 3 things) appears to be Iraqi press releases:

http://books.google.com/books?id=t5idp2-W-goC&pg=PA121&lpg=PA121&dq=%22Nuclear+Reconstitution+Efforts+Underway?%22&source=bl&ots=WVDWBgUzaH&sig=fGR_Wfskae1dZvINDETjNBOwdwA&hl=en&ei=TX_RTYq6I8Tw0gG_zsyWDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CCcQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=%22Nuclear%20Reconstitution%20Efforts%20Underway%3F%22&f=false

[Burgold]

You don't disagree with me, you disagree with FactCheck.org. I was quoting them:

http://www.factcheck.org/article222.html

I guess I am. I'm pretty sure I'm getting this right. At the point where Bush delivered his speech U.S. Intelligence had discounted and ruled the yellowcake stuff as unreliable information which is why Bush credited Brittain's intelligence on that one which had not yet formally said it was garbage.

[mardi gras skin]

I guess I am. I'm pretty sure I'm getting this right. At the point where Bush delivered his speech U.S. Intelligence had discounted and ruled the yellowcake stuff as unreliable information which is why Bush credited Brittain's intelligence on that one which had not yet formally said it was garbage.

I don't know man. Factcheck.org is pretty reliable. I'm going to have to see some pretty convincing proof on your part.

[mardi gras skin]

This looks interesting:

The factcheck.org article above addresses this.

Does anyone else find it interesting that the conspiracy theory is being advanced via wikipedia and refuted via factcheck.org?

[Burgold]

It's possible I'm wrong. It's happened twice before, but I remember really drawn out, extended arguments with Kilmer about whether this was a lie with him taking the position that it wasn't because he didn't say the U.S. believed it, but that this is what British Intelligence uncovered. It was one of those Kilmer threads where he was driving all the libs crazy with his horseplay. I don't remember if you were part of those, but Kilmer loved playing lawyer when it came to the technicality of "truth and lies" and at one point it drove me a little crazy. I think this was also during that period where it was a capital offense for a Republican or a conservative to admit that a President did anything wrong and disagreeing with a war time President was actual treason on top of being anti-American.

It's strange how quickly Repubs and Conservs changed their mind about that...

[PeterMP]

The factcheck.org article above addresses this.

Does anyone else find it interesting that the conspiracy theory is being advanced via wikipedia and refuted via factcheck.org?

The factcheck is completely silent on why the DOE signed off on the opinion the Iraq was trying to obtain nuclear weapons or what was known shortly before the war with respect to the Iraqi nuclear program.

What do you have issue with?

1. That the fact that other intelligence agencies were reporting that it was possible that Iraq had tried to obtain nuclear material in Niger played into the DOE opinion.

2. That various people associated with the US government looked into it and concluded that it hadn't happened, there was essentially no way that it would ever happen, and there was nothing but speculation that was what Iraq was trying to do.

3. That there were forged documents at one point in time "proving" that Iraq had obtained nuclear material, but that the IAEA had concluded those documents were forged before the war started, and today nobody doubts that those documents were forged today.

[Wrong Direction]

Yeah, when I did it I imagined Wrong Direction saying, "Damn you MGS!"

Lol. I'm just seeing this up again and was definitely surprised. For the record:

http://www.factcheck.org/article222.html

On the yellowcake issus...

None of the new information suggests Iraq ever nailed down a deal to buy uranium, and the Senate report makes clear that US intelligence analysts have come to doubt whether Iraq was even trying to buy the stuff. In fact, both the White House and the CIA long ago conceded that the 16 words shouldn’t have been part of Bush’s speech.

But what he said – that Iraq sought uranium – is just what both British and US intelligence were telling him at the time. So Bush may indeed have been misinformed, but that's not the same as lying.

---------- Post added May-16th-2011 at 04:23 PM ----------

If the American right wing can not simply be happy that Osama is dead because it helps Obama politically then I feel sorry for them.

Ugh. Nobody's saying anything other than it's good that he's dead and Obama made the right call.

[mardi gras skin]

It's possible I'm wrong. It's happened twice before, but I remember really drawn out, extended arguments with Kilmer about whether this was a lie with him taking the position that it wasn't because he didn't say the U.S. believed it, but that this is what British Intelligence uncovered. It was one of those Kilmer threads where he was driving all the libs crazy with his horseplay. I don't remember if you were part of those, but Kilmer loved playing lawyer when it came to the technicality of "truth and lies" and at one point it drove me a little crazy. I think this was also during that period where it was a capital offense for a Republican or a conservative to admit that a President did anything wrong and disagreeing with a war time President was actual treason on top of being anti-American.

It's strange how quickly Repubs and Conservs changed their mind about that...

Nope, wasn't a part of those, I don't know what was said. I'm not trying to be cute or parse the meaning of the word "lie" or anything. According to factcheck, Bush didn't lie about British and and American intelligence (from several sources) reporting that Saddam sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

Does this change your opinion or are there other sources you trust more that refute factcheck's conclusions?

---------- Post added May-16th-2011 at 04:33 PM ----------

On the yellowcake issus....

Yeah, I've pimped that article several times in this thread but I think its written in some crazy code liberals can't read or something.

[Wrong Direction]

Yeah, I've pimped that article several times in this thread but I think its written in some crazy code liberals can't read or something.

Yeah, I just caught up.

I'm glad Saddam's gone, and I think it really matters for that region. For that reason I have a hard time sympathizing with the left even when they do make good points (e.g., Cheney's statements). Heck, there was an entire book written about the intelligence linking Al Qaida and Iraq (Stephen Hayes, I think). Some of that was discredited, but there were a lot of low level contacts that implied the possibility of a link.

The intel was murky, for sure. For that reason, I think I most agree with Tony Blair's statement about how history will judge (even if no WMDs or link with Al Qaida, at least we got rid of an imperialist, murdering dictator and added a taste of freedom to the middle east).

Still, w/o the WMDs, it doesn't sit well with me.

[mardi gras skin]

1. That the fact that other intelligence agencies were reporting that it was possible that Iraq had tried to obtain nuclear material in Niger played into the DOE opinion.

Raw data is shared among agencies. In the case of yellowcake, that raw data came (for the most part) from British Intelligence, not the CIA. The DoE have their own analysts who disagreed with the CIA regarding the use of those tubes. But the DoE independent analysts AGREED with the CIA, DIA, and British Intelligence agencies that Saddam had an active nuclear program. I do not know how much credibility DoE analysts gave to the British intelligence information. But, as their dissent regarding the tubes proves, DoE analysts are not beholden to the CIA or any other intelligence organization.

2. That various people associated with the US government looked into it and concluded that it hadn't happened, there was essentially no way that it would ever happen, and there was nothing but speculation that was what Iraq was trying to do.

I do not take issue with this. The National Intelligence Estimate provided to Congress made it clear that there were dissenting opinions. In fact, the MAJORITY opinion provided to Congress by the National Intelligence Estimate was that there were no operational (please not the word "operational") ties between al Queda and Iraq. In that case, the dissenting opinions were those held by the Bush Administration. Even with the variety of dissenting and majority opinions in the report they were given, Congress voted to go to war with Iraq.

3. That there were forged documents at one point in time "proving" that Iraq had obtained nuclear material, but that the IAEA had concluded those documents were forged before the war started, and today nobody doubts that those documents were forged today.

According to both the Butler Report and the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report, the forged documents had no bearing on the American or British agencies conclusions regarding Saddam's acquisition of uranium.

http://www.factcheck.org/bushs_16_words_on_iraq_uranium.html

Both the US and British investigations make clear that some forged Italian documents, exposed as fakes soon after Bush spoke, were not the basis for the British intelligence Bush cited, or the CIA's conclusion that Iraq was trying to get uranium.

---------- Post added May-16th-2011 at 04:58 PM ----------

Still, w/o the WMDs, it doesn't sit well with me.

Me either. Clearly, there was a decades long multi-national failure to assess Saddam's WMD capacity. They weren't just off by a little bit, they were in a different zip code.

[Burgold]

Does this change your opinion or are there other sources you trust more that refute factcheck's conclusions?.

It's tough b/c I still think I'm right. It's one of those factoids that's glued in my head. I'm certainly willing to concede that it looks like I'm wrong based on factcheck, but my memory is screaming something else.

What I remember is that Intelligence once believed the aluminum tube and yellowcake stuff, but by the time Bush gave us that speech telling us about it they had already determined that the aluminum tubes couldn't really be used for that purpose and the yellowcake stuff couldn't be reported with confidence. Thus, the vetters removing it from the speech and Bush putting it back in. I also remember the Brits finding something similar and Bush reporting this finding came from British intelligence rather than ours because our guys said it wasn't true.

Now, here's the gray... did our guys say that the tubes, cake, was 100% wrong or unfounded. They tend not to be that absolute. Also, if Factcheck is discussing more Iraq's nuclear ambitions it is very likely tht Iraq had nuclear ambitions and might be talking about a larger issue than the specific incident and speech I am recalling.

Then again, maybe I'm just in a stubborn mood

[twa]

Still, w/o the WMDs, it doesn't sit well with me.

Me either...How about we invade Syria and find out if the rumors are true?

After all we found Osama where he was rumored to be