Bush's other war - US intelligence is being scapegoated for getting it rig

[radfringe]

Bush's other war
US intelligence is being scapegoated for getting it right on Iraq

Sidney Blumenthal
Saturday November 1, 2003
The Guardian

In Baghdad, the Bush administration acts as though it is astonished by the postwar carnage. Its feigned shock is a consequence of Washington's intelligence wars. In fact, not only was it warned of the coming struggle and its nature - ignoring a $5m state department report on The Future of Iraq - but Bush himself signed another document in which that predictive information is contained.

According to the congressional resolution authorising the use of military force in Iraq, the administration is required to submit to the Congress reports of postwar planning every 60 days. The report, bearing Bush's signature and dated April 14 - previously undisclosed but revealed here - declares: "We are especially concerned that the remnants of the Saddam Hussein regime will continue to use Iraqi civilian populations as a shield for its regular and irregular combat forces or may attack the Iraqi population in an effort to undermine Coalition goals." Moreover, the report goes on: "Coalition planners have prepared for these contingencies, and have designed the military campaign to minimise civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure."

---snip---

In advance of the war, Bush (to be precise, Dick Cheney, the de facto prime minister to the distant monarch) viewed the CIA, the state department and other intelligence agencies not simply as uncooperative, but even disloyal, as their analysts continued to sift through information to determine what exactly might be true. For them, this process is at the essence of their professionalism and mission. Yet the strict insistence on the empirical was a threat to the ideological, facts an imminent danger to the doctrine. So those facts had to be suppressed, and those creating contrary evidence had to be marginalised, intimidated or have their reputations tarnished.

Twice, in the run-up to the war, Vice-president Cheney veered his motorcade to the George HW Bush Center for Intelligence in Langley, Virginia, where he personally tried to coerce CIA desk-level analysts to fit their work to specification.

[radfringe]

1. kick

[LeahMira]

2. Will they acquiesce?

So those facts had to be suppressed, and those creating contrary evidence had to be marginalised, intimidated or have their reputations tarnished.

But do you think that those folks whose entire life has been one of obedience to orders and loyalty and service to the country are going to outright oppose the pResident and Vice-pResident?

I would imagine it would be very hard. How many will just resign quietly and how many will stand and fight? How many will just go with the flow to keep their jobs, hoping to ride it out?