The Senate Report

[acmavm]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/10/opinion/10SAT1.html?th

Published: July 10, 2004

<snip>
In a season when candor and leadership are in short supply, the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on the prewar assessment of Iraqi weapons is a welcome demonstration of both. It is also disturbing, and not just because of what it says about the atrocious state of American intelligence. The report is a condemnation of how this administration has squandered the public trust it may sorely need for a real threat to national security.

The report was heavily censored by the administration and is too narrowly focused on the bungling of just the Central Intelligence Agency. But what comes through is thoroughly damning. Put simply, the Bush administration's intelligence analysts cooked the books to give Congress and the public the impression that Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological weapons and was developing nuclear arms, that he was plotting to give such weapons to terrorists, and that he was an imminent threat.

<snip>

The report reaffirmed a finding by another panel investigating intelligence failures before the 9/11 attacks in saying that there was no "established formal relationship" between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. It also said there was no evidence that Iraq had been complicit in any attack by Osama bin Laden, or that Saddam Hussein had ever tried to use Al Qaeda for an attack. Although the report said the C.I.A.'s conclusions had been "widely disseminated" in the government, Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have repeatedly talked of an Iraq-Qaeda link.

<snip>

Then there are the news conferences that administration officials hold periodically to warn us that we're about to be attacked. Everyone is aware of the danger out there, but there is no reason to go on television and repeat vague warnings that seem to be intended to frighten everyone, but are more likely to lull people into complacency by their familiarity and repetition. When Tom Ridge, the secretary of homeland defense, holds a news conference to warn the nation of dire peril and it winds up as fodder for comedy shows, there's something very wrong somewhere./>

-MORE-

[displacedtexan]

1. Another notable graph

By late 2002, you'd have had to have been vacationing on Mars not to know what answer Mr. Bush wanted. The planning for war had begun. The C.I.A. was under enormous pressure over getting it wrong before 9/11. And the hawkish defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, wanted to set up his own intelligence agency to get the goods on Iraq that the wishy-washy C.I.A. couldn't seem to deliver.

[wurzel]

2. We are all being stampeded again!!!

The same cabal that stampeded us into believing in WMDs are now stampeding us into believing the CIA is "broken". I'm no fan of the CIA, but these guys are getting a thoroughly bum rap. The CIA analysts did not write the NIE that fooled Congress. I think it was written by Cheney and Tenet. The mantra is being repeated by the "press". "The CIA had a mindset about MWDs" Why would CIA analysts have a mindset about MWDs? "They didn't share information." They never have, and nor has anyone else. That is, and always will be, the nature of the beast no matter who runs it.

[AirAmFan]

3. The CIA has mainly stayed out of domestic politics, whatever else

you might say about them. Who would gain power at the CIA's expense? Do you trust Tom Ridge to stay out of election politics? Do you trust Karl Rove not to consider possible political use of part of Homeland Security's budget?

Last week, Ridge made some frightening noises about what we might call "homeland ballot security" JUST when Kerry was introducing his VP choice to the American people. The timing was quite suspicious, as this AP report noted "between the lines", at http://www.indystar.com/articles/3/161068-7433-010.html :

"Officials seek security boost amid election threats

By Katherine Pfleger Shrader Associated Press

July 9, 2004

WASHINGTON -- ..

officials are considering how to secure polling places come November. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said the Bush administration based a decision to bolster security on credible reports about al-Qaida's plans...

The government is not raising its color-coded alert status, he said, and U.S. officials do not have specific knowledge about where, when or how an attack might take place. The CIA, FBI and other agencies "are actively working to gain that knowledge," Ridge said.

Asked why he had made a public statement Thursday, Ridge said that after the attacks in Madrid, Spain, he considered it 'very important, on a periodic basis, to frankly just give Americans an update as to where we are and what we are doing.'"

If you want to get scared about what this "security" concern may mean for interference in November, to tilt the election to Bush, just google "ballot security". You'll find accounts of how cynical Republicans used "ballot security" to try to help elect Republicans Jesse Helms, Bob Dornan, and even Tom Keane.