The link goes to the slides Doug Feith used to brief "Senior WH Officials" on the Iraq/Al-Q connection and Iraq's links to 9/11 prior to the War. It's enough to turn your stomach... the unfounded suppositions, the reliance on things known to be untrue at the time, the passive language. Ugh. Everyone should read it because this illustrates perfectly how this administration thinks (or, to be more precise, doesn't). And remember, we'd never see these if it weren't for a Dem Congress... the slides are on Sen. Levin's site... It's in .pdf, but here's the final slide... The second slide is just as bad... just go look at it all if you have the stomach... http://levin.senate.gov/newsroom/supporting/2007/SASC.Feithslides.040507.pdf
I take it in the 2 minutes since I started the thread, you went to look at the slides, read them all and then came back and posted your trenchant analysis. Of course it helps now. And it matters. Dismiss it all you want, but there are many of us who want to know every detail of how we got in this war. Not to cast blame necessarily, though it will be difficult not to put it where it belongs, but to undestand how it happened and how to prevent it from happening again.
I wouldn't be sad if Doug Feith and those behind what he did were put on trial. I can't decide if it should be for treason or murder. Sickening stuff. D&D. Hurling in Space.
I saw the slides. The final slide makes for a decent case to invade Iraq assuming all the info in the slide is correct. I don't think it's that bad.
Where's Giddy when you need him? This certainly shows the administration lying, and a lack of concern for the truth, and rush to judgement to push for war. Sadly it probably won't have too much effect. Those that were opposed to the war, believed this was the case all along. Those that are in favor of it, will take the approach, of ignoring these facts while saying that's what's done is done, and we need to find a way to make it work now that we over there, despite "mistakes" that were done before. In essence they will deny that these things are serious.
Via Josh (where I found the links to the slides) here's another doc Levin has released... the DoD's IG Report on Feith's Intelligence Operation... http://levin.senate.gov/newsroom/supporting/2007/SASC.DODIGFeithreport.040507.pdf Just Reading numbered pages 4-17 of the 100+ page doc (I think page 4 is about at page 11 in the .pdf) is enough to get the point.
But none of it was. That's the point. Contacts: Every contact they've played up has been disproven, including Atta. Cooperation: Disproven and known at the time that it was nonexistent Shared anti-US goals and they both said bad things about the US: Can't argue against the fact that both groups have a grudge against the US, but again, nothing was "shared." And to think we would go to war because people are not giving us "respect" is absurd. My favorite: Some indications of possible Iraqi coordination with al-Qaida specifically related to 9/11 Notice how the first part is incredibly passive? Some. Indications. Possible. And then the second part is more declarative: Iraqi coordination with al-Qaida specifically related to 9/11. Of course, we know (and they knew at the time) that Saddam and Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and even Bush was eventually forced to acknowledge that fact. Closely guraded secret: This last point is a reflection of the second slide where Feith says "Absence of evidence is not evidence of abscence." In other words, because we can't find any evidence that Iraq and Al-Q are working together, they must be working together. This administration would flunk a freshman level Logic class.
What I'm saying is that if this is what Bush saw and was led to believe, I'm not going to kill him about it.
i didnt dismiss it. I just dont see the great benefit of it now. Poor intelligence mixed in with poor decisions and peppered with tweaking of information to go to iraq. you prevent it by happening again by having better intelligence and actually getting boots on the ground (not militarily) rather than rely on technology and untrsutworthy informants.
The buck stops with the President. He appointed the people who created powerpoints of lies. He didn't have the ability, interest, desire, or knowledge to distinguish between crap and real intelligence. He had an ego that led him to become a "war President" and the venality to use it all for political gain. Sorry, but you can't say Bush was beholden to his administration. He's President and it is HIS administration.
If you'd read the docs and if you'd paid attention over the last several years, you'd see you're giving way too much credit to the administration. They had access to good intelligence. They chose to ignore it and cherrypick the stuff (in some cases even disrpoven stuff) that made their case. The didn't make poor decisions. They made deliberate decisions. Again, the intelligence wasn't "tweaked," it was reshaped for a purpose. You prevent it by discrediting the people that let it happen and never elect people like them again. Ever.
true, president put people around him that he trusts but lets not fool ourselves to think that the president (any president) is an expert in all the things he handles. Any president has to rely on the people around him for information and advice. but lets not forget that the case was presented and it was supported by a lot of other people. Now you can say it was b/c they were "lied" to, but then that doesnt say much about their ability to analyze either.
Speaking as a man who thinks Cheney is the real puppetmaster in all this, my defense of George Bush stopped at my last post. You make excellent points, all of which I agree with. I just can't bring myself to kill the man if this was what was presented to him.
Were these slides supposed to be an assessment of the situation or a jusification for a position already taken?? Were the 'senior WH people' the ones who were to decide what to do, or were they being briefed on what had already been decided?
Again, you're making an excuse based on Bush's incompetence. Bush is the President and while no President is an expert on everything, every President should know enough about things to ask questions that clarify and lead to understanding. All Presidents should let the facts drive the policy and not let the policy drive the facts. It was supported by others because they did not know all the facts, or thought that Bush was trying to bluff Saddam into further concessions, or for craven political calculations. Take your pick. I won't dispute that the Iraq war is a huge failure for our Presidency, our Congress, our two parties, our media, and ourselves. But again, it started with Bush and the people he appointed.
im not going to pretend that i know what they did and did not ignore just b/c i read a few things and a few people said this. I just think its a little niave for us to think that we know all the information. All this is hindsight and basically crying over spilled milk. DOes it suck? sure. But its really only constructive to those people that didnt think that the govt is/was/and always will be a little crooked. ok, but ultimately you dont know what you are electing b/c people will always surprise you in one form or another. there is no litmus test to find liars, cheats, etc etc
My suspicion is that it was nominally presented as an assesment of the situation, but it is clear to me at least that the message of the presentation was to reaffirm and justify the position already taken. I'm guessing "Senior" means, Bush, Cheney, Rove, and staff.
. how do you know he didnt ask these questions and just didnt get bogus responses? So bush is incompetent yet he is smart enough to create some huge conspiracy to lie and start a war? it just doesnt make sense. Did he make bad judgements? sure. But those bad judgments wouldnt have meant squat if others didnt make the same bad judgments
