Is Obama Really this Bad?

[Predicto]

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:

long quotation from somewhere

I don't read that quotation at ALL the way you do. I read it as saying "the Official Report says that it is the overwhelming opinion that Saddam has tons of WMDs and will give them to terrorists if he doesn't attack us himself. A few people aren't sure, but really, can we take that chance?"

If that is an accurate characterization, then that "Official Report" has Feith's hands all over it. There is no way that any member of Congress is going to try to gainsay the overwhelming opinion of the Executive Branch's intelligence officials. They don't have the capacity to do so even if they want to. The Executive has access to all the intelligence, and makes the assessments about how serious a threat we face. Congress has no intelligence operatives and virtually no authority in that area.

[mardi gras skin]

I don't read that quotation at ALL the way you do.

You're not reading the way factcheck intends you to read it then.

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.

Before this point in the article, Factcheck says that the National Intelligence Estimate supports Bush's claims of WMD (including nuclear). But at this point, factcheck says that the National Intelligence Estimate DISAGREED with Bush's (and Ferth's) assessment that there was a substantial connection between Iraq and al Queda. Why in the hell would Ferth doctor up one half of the report but not the other?

Quit reading your bias into the article. Its not complicated.

[Predicto]

You're not reading the way factcheck intends you to read it then.

Before this point in the article, Factcheck says that the report supports Bush's claims of WMD. But at this point, factcheck says that the National Intelligence Estimate DISAGREED with Bush's (and Ferth's) assessment that there was a substantial connection between Iraq and al Queda.

Quit reading your bias into the article. Its not complicated.

It is complicated, because Factcheck is not trying to answer the subtle question of whether the intelligence was improperly filtered, or why that filtering came to be. They are asking the simple question of whether Bush flat out lied.

As I have already said three times in this thread, I do not believe that Bush lied. I believe that he and Cheney both fully believed that Saddam had every bad WMD program under the sun, and that Saddam was working with Al Qaeda, and the fact that the intelligence wasn't backing them up was tremendously frustrating to them both because they KNEW that they were right.

And that IS a complicated subject.

[Wrong Direction]

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.

Or, they were right and Saddam really was able to ship his weapons to syria. That doesn't sit well either.

[mardi gras skin]

It is complicated, because Factcheck is not trying to answer the subtle question of whether the intelligence was improperly filtered, or why that filtering came to be. They are asking the simple question of whether Bush flat out lied.

Don't dodge what's clear from that article. Congress was provided with intelligence information before they voted to go to war. You asserted that Feith's hands were all over the document. But the truth is that the document could not have been doctored by Feith because it refuted a key part of Feith's argument.

[Predicto]

Or, they were right and Saddam really was able to ship his weapons to syria. That doesn't sit well either.

It is also extraoridinarily unlikely.

First of all, such WMDs aren't easy to ship under the best of circumstances, much less quickly and secretly while the entire US military is canvassing every inch of Iraq in preparation for invasion, and particularly attempting to find any WMDs that might hurt our invading troops (or be lobbed at Israel).

Second, why would he ship them to Syria? He didn't run Syria. What would he have to gain? Why wouldn't he use them to defend himself from our troops?

Third, there isn't any evidence that it happened except for internet rumors and one second hand claim by an Iraqi trying to sell a book. Our investigators found zero evidence to support this claim - and believe me, if there was any evidence, the Bush Administration would have been all over it like bees on honey trying to vindicate its invasion decision.

In sum - the rumor that WMDs went to Syria is nothing more than wishful thinking by good Americans who don't want to believe that we went to war on erroneous pretenses.

[mardi gras skin]

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.

I think Predicto and Pete are dealing with the same thing. factcheck is certainly not a neo-con apologists blog (or wikipedia for that matter) and they include links to source material so its pretty hard to ignore their findings. Still, when you believe something for so long...

[Predicto]

Don't dodge what's clear from that article. Congress was provided with intelligence information before they voted to go to war. You asserted that Firth's hands were all over the document. But the truth is that the document could not have been doctored by Firth because it refuted a key part of Firth's argument.

I'm not dodging. You are demanding that I concede something that your article does not attempt to demonstrate. I decline to do so.

The intelligence information in that Official Report was filtered and prepared before it was sent to Congress. Thus, Congress was given the same bad information that Bush and Cheney were relying on, and not surprisingly, they reached the same conclusions as Bush and Cheney did.

But Congress was not responsible for that bad intel and had no way of looking behind the curtains.

Bush and (especially) Cheney were directly responsible, and they had the ability to look behind the curtains - but they didn't look behind the curtains because they knew in their heart of hearts that Saddam's WMD machine was running at full bore and we needed to take him out ASAP. So they read everything with that preconcived notion in mind, and Doug Feith gave them what they were hoping to hear.

So no, I won't concede your point because the Factcheck article does not disprove what I am saying at all.

I am beginning to suspect that we are talking at cross-purposes a little bit.

---------- Post added May-16th-2011 at 04:22 PM ----------

I think Predicto and Pete are dealing with the same thing. factcheck is certainly not a neo-con apologists blog (or wikipedia for that matter) and they include links to source material so its pretty hard to ignore their findings. Still, when you believe something for so long...

Don't treat me with disrespect and I won't treat you with disrespect. I am a huge fan of Factcheck, and I am not questioning anything that they say.

Perhaps you should read my posts a little more carefully, and stop assuming that I think "Bush lied, people died."

[mardi gras skin]

I am beginning to suspect that we are talking at cross-purposes a little bit.

Maybe, lets see.

If I have it right, you're asserting that Feith or his contemporaries filtered the document before congress saw it. I am asserting that Feith could not have filtered it because the document specifically refutes Feith's (Bush's/Cheney's) claims concerning linkage between Iraq and al Queda.

Did I miss something?

[twa]

How do you explain Tenet believing they had WMD's?....Feith again?

[mardi gras skin]

Don't treat me with disrespect and I won't treat you with disrespect.

Ack. Yeah, re-reading several posts, I have come across like a turd. Sorry about that.

---------- Post added May-16th-2011 at 07:45 PM ----------

How do you explain Tenet believing they had WMD's?....Feith again?

Really, Saddam having WMD was a settled issue even before Bush came to office. It was just assumed true by both parties. I think Predicto and Pete are questioning whether or not Saddam had nuclear program and if Saddam having WMD was a threat to us and our allies.

[twa]

That would depend on what you consider a threat.....a existential threat no,a great harm certainly

He certainly fell into the Needing Killed category,just as Gaddafi is now by nature of our choices

[Predicto]

Maybe, lets see.

If I have it right, you're asserting that Feith or his contemporaries filtered the document before congress saw it. I am asserting that Feith could not have filtered it because the document specifically refutes Feith's (Bush's/Cheney's) claims concerning linkage between Iraq and al Queda.

Did I miss something?

No, you are simplifying something. The document was prepared by someone, was it not? Congress did not get the same volumes of unfiltered intelligence that the President had access to, did they?

So who prepares "National Intelligence Estimate" that are given to Congress in 2003?

A small group of analysts led by George Tenat (the head of the CIA), a man who had become convinced, like Bush and Cheney, that the WMDs existed, and had further bcome convinced that any intelligence to the contrary was automatically wrong. A man who came to that conclusion because of the information that he had been fed by Doug Feith's team. He pretty much admitted it in his own book several years later.

WASHINGTON, April 26 — George J. Tenet, the former director of central intelligence, has lashed out against Vice President Dick Cheney and other Bush administration officials in a new book, saying they pushed the country to war in Iraq without ever conducting a “serious debate” about whether Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat to the United States.

The 549-page book, “At the Center of the Storm,” is to be published by HarperCollins on Monday. By turns accusatory, defensive, and modestly self-critical, it is the first detailed account by a member of the president’s inner circle of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the decision to invade Iraq and the failure to find the unconventional weapons that were a major justification for the war.

“There was never a serious debate that I know of within the administration about the imminence of the Iraqi threat,” Mr. Tenet writes in a devastating judgment that is likely to be debated for many years. Nor, he adds, “was there ever a significant discussion” about the possibility of containing Iraq without an invasion.

Mr. Tenet admits that he made his famous “slam dunk” remark about the evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. But he argues that the quote was taken out of context and that it had little impact on President Bush’s decision to go to war. He also makes clear his bitter view that the administration made him a scapegoat for the Iraq war.

.....

Mr. Tenet takes blame for the flawed 2002 National Intelligence Estimate about Iraq’s weapons programs, calling the episode “one of the lowest moments of my seven-year tenure.” He expresses regret that the document was not more nuanced, but says there was no doubt in his mind at the time that Saddam Hussein possessed unconventional weapons. “In retrospect, we got it wrong partly because the truth was so implausible,” he writes.

.....

But Mr. Tenet largely endorses the view of administration critics that Mr. Cheney and a handful of Pentagon officials, including Paul D. Wolfowitz and Douglas J. Feith, were focused on Iraq as a threat in late 2001 and 2002 even as Mr. Tenet and the C.I.A. concentrated mostly on Al Qaeda.

Mr. Tenet describes helping to kill a planned speech by Mr. Cheney on the eve of the invasion because its claims of links between Al Qaeda and Iraq went “way beyond what the intelligence shows.”

“Mr. President, we cannot support the speech and it should not be given,” Mr. Tenet wrote that he told Mr. Bush. Mr. Cheney never delivered the remarks.

Mr. Tenet hints at some score-settling in the book. He describes in particular the extraordinary tension between him and Condoleezza Rice, then national security adviser, and her deputy, Stephen J. Hadley, in internal debate over how the president came to say erroneously in his 2003 State of the Union address that Iraq was seeking uranium in Africa.

He describes an episode in 2003, shortly after he issued a statement taking partial responsibility for that error. He said he was invited over for a Sunday afternoon, back-patio lemonade by Colin L. Powell, then secretary of state. Mr. Powell described what Mr. Tenet called “a lively debate” on Air Force One a few days before about whether the White House should continue to support Mr. Tenet as C.I.A. director.

“In the end, the president said yes, and said so publicly,” Mr. Tenet wrote. “But Colin let me know that other officials, particularly the vice president, had quite another view.”

So Tenat's team, under pressure from Cheney and influenced by Feith, writes a summation of intelligence that is completely wrong. Bush and Cheney and Congress all honestly believe it, the first two in large part because they want to believe it, Congress because it has no other information or way to get any more information.

I think this is a pretty good summary of the whole kerfluffle:

Despite clear indications throughout 2002 that the Bush Administration intended to take military action against Iraq that would bring about a regime change in Baghdad, including quite probably the pre-emptive use of force, the Intelligence Community was caught flat-footed. Inexplicably, it took requests by members of the Senate Intelligence Committee to the Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet in September 2002 calling for production of a National Intelligence Estimate on alleged Iraqi weapons of mass destruction -the cornerstone of the Administration's case for invading Iraq -for the Intelligence Community to be roused from its analytical slumber.

The resulting classified National Intelligence Estimate, prepared in just three weeks time, was a rushed and sloppy product forwarded to members of Congress mere days before votes would be taken to authorize the use of military force against Iraq. As the Committee's report highlights, the October 2002 Estimate was hastily cobbled together using stale, fragmentary, and speculative intelligence reports and was replete with factual errors and unsupported judgments.

In preparing for a decision on whether this Nation should go to war, Congress needs the very best effort fiom our Intelligence Community. Tragically, in this case, their work did not rise to that level...

As the Bush Administration prepared for war against Iraq in the fall of 2002, the Intelligence Communityjudgments on Iraq shifted significantlyfrom many of the correspondingassessments contained in earlier analytical products.

The Committee’sreport deconstructs the October 2002 Estimate and demonstrates how many of its key judgments were not substantiated by the underlying intelligence. The Estimate contains numerous instances where intelligencewas stretched and manipulated to serve an analytical bias that Iraq’s mass destruction programs were stockpiled and weaponized.

Each of the key pillars in the Intelligence Community’s Estimate -assessments of Iraq’s nuclear, chemical, biological, and delivery programs -was built upon a weak foundation of intelligence and analytical assumptions, unable to support the collective weight of the document’s key judgments.

As the Committee report meticulously documents, the overall bias that permeates the October Estimate is toward greater certainty than warranted about Iraq possessing and producing weapons of mass destruction. As a result, the policymakers reading the Estimate were given an exaggerated picture of the threat posed by the Iraqi weapons programs during a crucial period of national and international debate on whether a preemptive invasion of Iraq was necessary.

It is no coincidence that the analytical errors in the Estimate all broke in one direction. The Estimate and related analytical papers assessing Iraqi links to terrorism were produced by the Intelligence Community in a highly-pressurized climate wherein senior Administration officials were making the case for military action against Iraq through public and often definitive pronouncements.

.....

When the analyticaljudgments of the Intelligence Community did not conform to the more conclusive and dire Administrationview on Iraqi links to al-Qaeda and specifically the notion that Iraq may have been involved in the September 11th terrorist plot, policymakers within the Pentagon denigrated the Intelligence Community’s analysis and sought to trump it by circumventing the CIA and briefing their own analysis directly to the White House.

Beginning in early 2002, a group of individuals under the direction of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith were tasked by him to look at intelligence information related to all terrorist groups, the links between them, and the roles of state sponsors. This effort eventually focused on al-Qaeda’sties to Iraq and the CIA’s reporting on the subject, including its June 2002 report, “Iraq and al-Qaida: Interpreting a Murky Relationship.”

Even though the CIA’s June 2002 report was “purposefully aggressive” in seeking to draw connections between Iraq and al-Qaeda, the intelligence analysis did not find the relationship sought by Pentagon policy officials. One of the individuals working for the self-named “Iraqi intelligence cell” at the Pentagon stated the June report, “. ..should be read for content only -and CIA’s interpretationought to be ignored.” This criticism of the CIA’s analysis was sent by Under Secretary for Policy Feith to Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Secretary Rumsfeld. This critique turned into an alternative analysis of the relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda.

Oh hell, I'd be cutting and pasting too much stuff. Just read this, if you are really interested.

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/serialset/creports/pdf/s108-301/rockefeller.pdf

---------- Post added May-16th-2011 at 05:03 PM ----------

Ack. Yeah, re-reading several posts, I have come across like a turd. Sorry about that.

Not a problem - we all get testy, me more than anyone.

Really, Saddam having WMD was a settled issue even before Bush came to office. It was just assumed true by both parties. I think Predicto and Pete are questioning whether or not Saddam had nuclear program and if Saddam having WMD was a threat to us and our allies.

Correctamundo. No one can deny that Saddam was a scumbag or that he gassed his own people as well as a bunch of Iranians. The question was whether we needed to invade Iraq in 2003.

[PeterMP]

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.

How can you say the analysis was independent? How do you know the DOE analysts weren't completely dependent on the CIA and British findings. Do you have any reason to believe the DOE saw the raw intelligence and didn't just see a report based on the raw intelligence? I'm pretty certain the DOE didn't have any independent information on Iraq trying to obtain nuclear material. The press release that the DOE also considered was almost certainly also known by the CIA and the British so again would have influenced all 3 agencies.

Though they might not beholden to them, they might assume on things like actual human intelligence (e.g. Evidence that Iraq is trying to obtain nuclear material based on covert sources) that the CIA is more knowledgable than them, and therefore their opinion should carry weight.

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.

But the intelligence changed from the time the NIE was written, and we actually went to war. Doesn't somebody have the job of communicating those changes?

Who?

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.

Right.

But what was important on the US intelligence conclusions. Well, we know that at least part of it was Wilson's trip to Niger.

So in March of 2003, the best evidence to go to war was a meeting by an ex-Ambassador where the PM of another country said he thought the Iraqis might have been trying to obtain nuclear material from his country, though nobody ever mentioned it, and he didn't think was possible for them to do so, and the British said that Iraqis were trying to obtain nuclear material?

[mardi gras skin]

So Tenat's team, under pressure from Cheney and influenced by Feith, writes a summation of intelligence that is completely wrong.

Yes, and this is where I can't follow you. How can you believe the report was completely wrong or biased by team Bush (Cheney/Feith/whoever) when a key component of the report undercut Bush's position?

[deejaydana]

back to the topic of the thread: Obama blows. Deal with it liberals. :pfft:

[PeterMP]

I think Predicto and Pete are dealing with the same thing. factcheck is certainly not a neo-con apologists blog (or wikipedia for that matter) and they include links to source material so its pretty hard to ignore their findings. Still, when you believe something for so long...

I'm not disagreeing with the factcheck. I'm making two points:

1. The information related to WMDs and Iraq didn't end of the Bush's state of the union address in Jan, and I'd hate to think our decision to go to war wasn't up-dated based on those changes.

2. Just because Bush didn't lie doesn't mean that there wasn't an issue with the intelligence based on what was known by the US intelligence community.

I'll again ask my question. It is the week before the attack on Iraq is supposed to start, you have the collective knowledge of the intelligence community at that time and Bush comes to you and says, I need to be sure about what we are going to do give me the piece of information that is why we need to attack, what do you give him?

That the Clinton administration said he had WMD?

That some Iraqi representatives may have met with some representatives of Al Qeada at some point in time, but nothing further developed from that?

That an ex-ambassador met with the PM of Niger, and he said a few years ago some Iraqis came to meet with him, and he thinks they may have been after nuclear material, but nobody actually mentioned nuclear material in the meeting, and the PM and ex-ambassador agree that they couldn't get nuclear material from Niger without a lot of people finding out?

That a guy that many people suspect of lying claims he worked in Saddam's WMD program?

That the British say he's tried to develop a nuclear program?

---------- Post added May-16th-2011 at 08:59 PM ----------

Yes, and this is where I can't follow you. How can you believe the report was completely wrong or biased by team Bush (Cheney/Feith/whoever) when a key component of the report undercut Bush's position?

Because it was biased by them and not completely written by them, and the CIA was looking to hedge their bets while going along with party line?

[Burgold]

back to the topic of the thread: Obama blows. Deal with it liberals. :pfft:

Says the man who rooted for Osama Bin Laden to stay free and able to plot and execute his plans.

On a thread about Obama's role in taking out Bin Laden if you are going to hate on Obama it must be inferred that you were pro Bin Laden. Shame on you.

[mardi gras skin]

Because it was biased by them and not completely written by them, and the CIA was looking to hedge their bets while going along with party line?

Well, at least you disagree with Predicto that the report was completely wrong. On the other hand, this is total conjecture on your part and it makes no sense that Feith would totally cut the legs out from under Bush/Cheney while giving Bush's critics so much ammo.

---------- Post added May-16th-2011 at 09:23 PM ----------

I'll again ask my question. It is the week before the attack on Iraq is supposed to start, you have the collective knowledge of the intelligence community at that time and Bush comes to you and says, I need to be sure about what we are going to do give me the piece of information that is why we need to attack, what do you give him?

If President Bush were to ask that question, you'd have to tell him the truth:

"Mr. President, for decades now, the best intelligence information all agrees that Saddam has WMD. No information we have gathered in the past 4 months have reassured us that the past estimates are false and that Saddam is no threat. We know for a fact that Saddam has no moral problem with the use of WMD's even against his own country. If he could get away with it, we have no doubt he'd gas every last American.

But most importantly, Mr. President, we know that Congress has already declared War on Iraq. It is now your responsibility to execute that war. You are not a dictator who can refuse that declaration of war and if you refuse the will of the people, Congress will rightly impeach you. So since we don't have evidence that Saddam is no longer a threat, you better get to work."

[PeterMP]

If President Bush were to ask that question, you'd have to tell him the truth:

"Mr. President, for decades now, the best intelligence information all agrees that Saddam has WMD. No information we have gathered in the past 4 months have reassured us that the past estimates are false and that Saddam is no threat. We know for a fact that Saddam has no moral problem with the use of WMD's even against his own country. If he could get away with it, we have no doubt he'd gas every last American.

But most importantly, Mr. President, we know that Congress has already declared War on Iraq. It is now your responsibility to execute that war. You are not a dictator who can refuse that declaration of war and if you refuse the will of the people, Congress will rightly impeach you. So since we don't have evidence that Saddam is no longer a threat, you better get to work."

And he'd have been right to laugh at you:

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-107publ243/content-detail.html

"(a) Authorization.--The President is authorized to use the Armed

Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and

appropriate in order to--

(1) defend the national security of the United States

against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and

(2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council

resolutions regarding Iraq."

Bush could have easily determined that no force was necessary to defend the national security of the US as there was no known relevant threat to the US from Iraq, and that force was not needed to enforce any UNSC resolutions as there were no UNSC resolutions that actually stated force will or even should or could be used.

But more importantly, how does the best intelligence all agree that he has WMD? What intelligence?

It does occur to me though you would have fit well into the Bush neo-con intelligence community and your answer is an excellent mix of truth, inaccuracies, and not answering the question that I have no doubt plagued them at that time.

[Prosperity]

this thread delivered

[mardi gras skin]

Bush could have easily determined that no force was necessary to defend the national security of the US as there was no known relevant threat to the US from Iraq

Ok, lets play this out. Congress has just, overwhelmingly, voted to go to war with Iraq. Bush has no new data since the vote that proves Saddam is no longer a threat. Bush just decides that force isn't necessary any more. Saddam hasn't offered up any proof that he scrapped his WMD program or that he's no longer a threat or anything, Bush just just isn't feeling it anymore.

What do you think happens? Congress says, "Oh, sure, George, no problem. You're the commander in chief, whatever you say goes."

Or maybe they impeach the guy. Its been known to happen.

[PeterMP]

Ok, lets play this out. Congress has just, overwhelmingly, voted to go to war with Iraq. Bush has no new data since that vote to prove Saddam is no longer a threat. Bush just decides that force isn't necessary any more. Saddam hasn't offered up any proof that he scrapped his WMD program or that he's no longer a threat. Bush just just isn't feeling it anymore.

What do you think happens? Congress just says, "Oh, sure, George, no problem. You're the commander in chief, whatever you say goes."

Or maybe they impeach the guy. Its been known to happen.

I'd expect there would be some political heat, but there was political heat for going to war.

The key thing is in March we knew more than we did in Jan or Oct. 2002 when Congress had passed its resolution.

He could have explained that the intelligence had changed. That respectable institutions like the IAEA saw no evidence of an active nuclear program, that Blix and his inspectors had found no evidence of active WMD programs, that they were encouraging patientce and that Iraq was cooperating (more/better), that there was no evidence linking Iraq to Al Qeada in active manner, nor any credibile evidence that Iraq was any danger to US national security, and given the failure of the UNSC to pass a resolution allowing for force (or even any sort of follow up resolution to 1441) that the legality of using force had issues with international law.

Two Presidents have been impeached. Let's not pretend like it happens all of the time. They would have had no cause to impeach him. There's absolutely no evidence or reason to believe he'd have been impeached.

And even if there had been a direct decleration of war, the Constitution gives broad power to the President in conducting the war, and there is no reason to believe they'd have any say in determining the data and type of attacks that would have occurred.

Your well he could have impeached line works for any action. He could have also been impeached for going to war.

It does occur to me though you would have fit well into the Bush neo-con intelligence community and your answer is an excellent mix of truth, inaccuracies, and not answering the question that I have no doubt plagued them at that time.

**EDIT**

I've written in the past that I believe that the Iraq war will be judged historically not just as a failure of the US (and its intelligence community), but a failure of the international community and international diplomacy. Bush walked himself to the edge of war with the help of others (i.e. other countries voted for 1441 which "promised" "serious consequences" for failure to comply) and when he threatened to jump, nobody lent him a hand to try and pull him back.

So he felt forced to jump (well, honestly, I think he probably wanted to jump and didn't realize how bad the fall was), but I don't think Blair in England did, and I'm not sure if Bush would have jumped alone. If somebody would have pulled Blair back that would have prevented Bush from jumping.

But nobody else wanted to follow through with "serious consequences" that would have been less than war (other than the British who floated such a proposal, but was shot down by other members of the UNSC).

And so when Blix found Iraq in violation based on their failure to comply completely and voluntarily, Bush saw no choice (which was Bush's fault and again partly because I think they really did believe the war would be quick and easy (another failure of the intelligence community)).

[mardi gras skin]

He could have...

You know, Pete, a lot of things could have happened. Al Gore could have won his home state of Tennessee. Bush could have surrounded himself with better advisors. Rumsfeld could have been far less smug about his "new military". Congress could have actually read the intelligence report they were given which expressly contradicted Bush administration assertions of ties between al Queda and Iraq. Saddam could have let the WMD inspectors do their job. Someone could have fire insulated the WTC above the 64th floor. Could have, could have, could, have...

I believe the Bush Administration had enough legitimate concern that Saddam had WMD that their decision to execute the war was reasonable. Saddam was given ample opportunity to prove he was clean and he chose not to do so. Different reasonable choices could have been made by a different President, but the information was murky enough that anyone claiming Bush was irresponsible in the lead up to the war is just biased. And I say the same to anyone who tries to claim Clinton failed the country when they say he didn't do everything he could to capture or kill Bin Laden.

You can label me any way you want.

[Predicto]

I'm tired of discussing this issue. I probably left some loose thread or issue unanswered, but frankly, I don't care.

Ultimately, because this is a question of presidential judgment involving classified information and hundreds of different accounts by both eyewitnesses and analysts (all of whom have their own personal and political agenda), there is pretty much no way to convince someone to change their "belief that the Bush Administration had enough legitimate concern that Saddam had WMD that their decision to execute the war was reasonable... and anyone claiming Bush was irresponsible in the lead up to the war is just biased."

It just can't be done. Nothing I could say or do could change your mind. History will have to make that judgment for us.

I do hope some of the readers of this thread got something out of this. If nothing else, I hope they read the Senate Minority Report: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/serialset/creports/pdf/s108-301/rockefeller.pdf