Something to remember: Senators were lied to prior to the IWR vote [View All]

[Tennessee Gal]

Can we say that this had no impact on their votes?

From Senator Nelson of Florida on Jan. 28, 2004:

"I want to take this occasion to inform the Senate of specific
information that I was given, which turns out not to be true. I was one
of 77 Senators who voted for the resolution in October of 2002 to
authorize the expenditure of funds for the President to engage in an
attack on Iraq. I voted for it. I want to tell you some specific
information that I received that had a great deal of bearing on my
conclusion to vote for that resolution. There were other factors, but
this information was very convincing to me that there was an imminent
peril to the interests of the United States.
I, along with nearly every Senator in this Chamber, in that secure
room of this Capitol complex, was not only told there were weapons of
mass destruction--specifically chemical and biological--but I was
looked at straight in the face and told that Saddam Hussein had the
means of delivering those biological and chemical weapons of mass
destruction by unmanned drones, called UAVs, unmanned aerial vehicles.
Further, I was looked at straight in the face and told that UAVs could
be launched from ships off the Atlantic coast to attack eastern
seaboard cities of the United States.
Is it any wonder that I concluded there was an imminent peril to the
United States? The first public disclosure of that information occurred
perhaps a couple of weeks later, when the information was told to us.
It was prior to the vote on the resolution and it was in a highly
classified setting in a secure room. But the first public disclosure of
that information was when the President addressed the Nation on TV. He
said that Saddam Hussein possessed UAVs.
Later, the Secretary of State, Colin Powell, in his presentation to
the United Nations, in a very dramatic and effective presentation,
expanded that and suggested the possibility that UAVs could be launched
against the homeland, having been transported out of Iraq. The
information was made public, but it was made public after we had
already voted on the resolution, and at the time there was nothing to
contradict that.
We now know, after the fact and on the basis of Dr. Kay's testimony
today in the Senate Armed Services Committee, that the information was
false; and not only that there were not weapons of mass destruction--
chemical and biological--but there was no fleet of UAVs, unmanned
aerial vehicles, nor was there any capability of putting UAVs on ships
and transporting them to the Atlantic coast and launching them at U.S.
cities on the eastern seaboard.
I am upset that the degree of specificity I was given a year and a
half ago, prior to my vote, was not only inaccurate; it was patently
false. I want some further explanations.
Now, what I have found after the fact--and I presented this to Dr.
Kay this morning in the Senate Armed Services Committee--is there was a
vigorous dispute within the intelligence community as to what the CIA
had concluded was accurate about those UAVs and about their ability to
be used elsewhere outside of Iraq. Not only was it in vigorous dispute,
there was an outright denial that the information was accurate. That
was all within the intelligence community.
But I didn't find that out before my vote. I wasn't told that. I
wasn't told that there was a vigorous debate going on as to whether or
not that was accurate information. I was given that information as if
it were fact, and any reasonable person then would logically conclude
that the interests of the United States and its people were in
immediate jeopardy and peril. That has turned out not to be true."

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2004_cr/s012804b.html

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And the Congressional Research Service reported this:

Limitations on Congressional Access to Certain National Intelligence

By virtue of his constitutional role as commander-and-in-chief and head of the executive branch, the President has access to all national intelligence collected, analyzed and produced by the Intelligence Community. The President's position also affords him the authority - which, at certain times, has been aggressively asserted (1) - to restrict the flow of intelligence information to Congress and its two intelligence committees, which are charged with providing legislative oversight of the Intelligence Community. (2) As a result, the President, and a small number of presidentially-designated Cabinet-level officials, including the Vice President (3) - in contrast to Members of Congress (4) - have access to a far greater overall volume of intelligence and to more sensitive intelligence information, including information regarding intelligence sources and methods. They, unlike Members of Congress, also have the authority to more extensively task the Intelligence Community, and its extensive cadre of analysts, for follow-up information. As a result, the President and his most senior advisors arguably are better positioned to assess the quality of the Community's intelligence more accurately than is Congress. (5)

http://feinstein.senate.gov/crs-intel.htm


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I am an Edwards supporter and have not chosen between Hillary and Obama. I will vote for the nominee.

I am not attempting to defend Hillary's vote on the IWR. I am, however, curious about why she never brings up the lies of the White House when questioned about her IWR vote.

On the other hand, because Obama was not privy to the information (lies) being given to the Congress by the Bush White House, he cannot be absolutely certain how he would have voted when confronted with such responsibility.