CNBC-Brian Williams--Stansfield Turner (ex-CIA chief) weighs in

[berry]

It will show once more on the east coast (1am et), maybe more times out west. Try to catch the Brian Williams show tonight. Marie Bartoromo is subbing, and she interviews Adm Stansfield Turner, ex-CIA chief. Really amazing stuff. And, unfortunately, as far as I can tell after searching around, they don't offer a transcript. I do think it was newsworthy--so something in the form of an article may appear on MSNBC. We shall see. Sorry I can't recap the interview--just to say it was pretty damning. I'm going to try to catch it again and then come back and report. But that won't be for a few hours.

This is just a heads-up.

[Cha]

1. Thank you, berry...I don't get cable but you make it sound so

worthwhile!

I all of a sudden love ex-CIA Spooks!!

[berry]

4. Me too! I'm even sort of sorry I'm not one myself (no, not really...)

Sorry for the delay--I tried to post before, but it didn't "take", and then I was knocked off-line. (luckily I had saved my notes) Hope this works this time.

Well--here are the important points Turner made:

Apparently Bobby Inman (ex-NSA chief under ?) was on the show last night with the WH talking points about how intel is always fuzzy and it's a matter of judgment how the policy-makers interpret and use it. Turner wasn't having any of that--he went into detail about how Bushco* didn't use any judgment at all, simply choosing every time the most extreme, the most damaging (to Saddam) interpretation or information possible. He did agree that there is a degree of uncertainty in all intel work, but basically made the point that that doesn't excuse bad judgment and misleading the American people (yeah, he didn't use the word "lie", but his point was clear--this was an attack on Bush* and on the attempts at self-justification.)

Turns out there was a dustup when Inman had told the president at the time some info that Turner knew was "incomplete"--I think Turner won that one. But it's interesting that the case is roughly parallel to what's happening now. The jab was very delicately done.

Also, he made the point that Iraq doesn't have the ability to keep bio and chem weapons in the kind of storage that would preserve them. So it's VERY unlikely (impossible?) that any COULD be found. The best to be hoped for would be facilities for their production--but Turner sounded skeptical about that too, probably because they couldn't be just in a cellar somewhere.

Oh one other point--when he was asked if Tenet should go, he said no, probably not, but said investigation was needed. In particular, he wanted to know what pressure there might have been (and from where) on Foley to NOT report back up to Tenet.

That's most of it. He also listed all the WH claims that were exaggerated, but I couldn't write fast enough to get them all down. Anyway, you all know them--alum. tubes, battlefied chem weapons, uranium, etc., etc.

O.K.--now you don't have to be sorry to have missed it. And maybe it's not so amazing. But it is at least one more person speaking out clearly and convincingly.

[Cush]

2. Repeat coming up now

kick

[Cush]

3. CIA DIrector under Carter

more than the '16 words'

Al-Qaeda ties, weapons could be launched 45min, nuke program restarted.

They wanted to present the Extreme Case, so people would support the war.

Can't blame it all on Tenet. Who pressured Joseph, and want were the instructions?

TEnet shouldn't forced to quit just yet.

There were weapons in Iraq between 1991-1998. But now: I don't know, and nobody does. THey don't have the means to store them, so they'ed just 'dissolve' anyways.