Andy Rooney "If I were Bush's speechwriter"

http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/newsArticle.asp?id=1252


Andy Rooney: If I Were Bush's Speechwriter ...
Andy Rooney
CBS News
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/10/31/60minutes/rooney/main581171.shtml
Posted 11/3/2003 5:31:00 PM

November 2, 2003, Summary: Although a humorist, Andy Rooney shoots straight with this essay listing President George Bush's lies. Read his essay to see what former President George H. W. Bush said about occupying Iraq and urban warfare ...


Years ago, I was asked to write a speech for President Nixon.

I didn't do that, but I wish President Bush would ask me to write a speech for him now.

Here's what I'd write if he asked me to - which is unlikely:

My fellow Americans - (the word "fellow" includes women in political speeches):

My fellow Americans. One of the reasons we invaded Iraq was because I suggested Saddam Hussein had something to do with the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. No evidence that's so, I wish I hadn't said it.

I said we were going to get Saddam Hussein. To be honest, we don't know whether we got him or not. Probably not.

I said we'd get Osama bin Laden and wipe out al Qaeda. We haven't been able to do that, either. I'm as disappointed as you are.

I probably shouldn't have said Iraq had nuclear weapons. Our guys and the U.N. have looked under every bed in Iraq and can't find one.

In one speech, I told you Saddam Hussein tried to buy the makings of nuclear bombs from Africa. That was a mistake and I wish I hadn't said that. I get bad information sometimes just like you do.

On May 1, I declared major combat was over and gave you the impression the war was over. I shouldn't have declared that. Since then, 215 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq. As the person who sent them there, how terrible do you think that makes me feel?

I promised to leave no child behind when it comes to education. Then I asked for an additional $87 billion for Iraq. It has to come from somewhere. I hope the kids aren't going to have to pay for it - now in school or later when they're your age.

When I landed on the deck of the carrier, I wish they hadn't put up the sign saying MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. It isn't accomplished.

Maybe it should have been MISSION IMPOSSIBLE.

I've made some mistakes and I regret it. Let me just read you excerpts from something my father wrote five years ago in his book, “A World Transformed.”

I firmly believed we should not march into Baghdad ...To occupy Iraq would instantly shatter our coalition, turning the whole Arab world against us and make a broken tyrant, into a latter-day Arab hero …

This is my father writing this.

...assigning young soldiers to a fruitless hunt for a securely entrenched dictator and condemning them to fight in what would be an unwinnable urban guerrilla war.

We should all take our father's advice.

That's the speech I'd write for President Bush. No charge.

 

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2003/09/16/cheney_link_of_iraq_911_challenged/

Cheney link of Iraq, 9/11 challenged
By Anne E. Kornblut and Bryan Bender , Globe Staff and Globe Correspondent, 9/16/2003

WASHINGTON -- Vice President Dick Cheney, anxious to defend the White House foreign policy amid ongoing violence in Iraq, stunned intelligence analysts and even members of his own administration this week by failing to dismiss a widely discredited claim: that Saddam Hussein might have played a role in the Sept. 11 attacks.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A19822-2003Jun21?language=printer

Report Cast Doubt on Iraq-Al Qaeda Connection

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 22, 2003; Page A01


In a nationally televised address last October in which he sought to rally congressional support for a resolution authorizing war against Iraq, President Bush declared that the government of Saddam Hussein posed an immediate threat to the United States by outlining what he said was evidence pointing to its ongoing ties with al Qaeda.


http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-07-13-bush-alqaeda_x.htm

Bush overstated Iraq links to al-Qaeda, former intelligence officials say
WASHINGTON (AP) — As President Bush works to quiet a controversy over his discredited claim of Iraqi uranium shopping in Africa, another of his prewar assertions is coming under fire: the alleged link between Saddam Hussein's regime and al-Qaeda.
Before the war, Bush and members of his cabinet said Saddam was harboring top al-Qaeda operatives and suggested Iraq could slip the terrorist network chemical, biological or even nuclear weapons.

Critics attacked those assertions from the beginning for being counter to the ideologies of Saddam and al-Qaeda and short on corroborating evidence. Now, two former Bush administration intelligence officials say the evidence linking Saddam to the group responsible for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks was never more than sketchy at best.

"There was no significant pattern of cooperation between Iraq and the al-Qaeda terrorist operation," former State Department intelligence official Greg Thielmann said this week.

Intelligence agencies agreed on the "lack of a meaningful connection to al-Qaeda" and said so to the White House and Congress, said Thielmann, who left State's Bureau of Intelligence and Research last September.

Another former Bush administration intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, agreed there was no clear link between Saddam and al-Qaeda.

"The relationships that were plotted were episodic, not continuous," the former official said.

A United Nations terrorism committee says it has no evidence — other than Secretary of State Colin Powell's assertions in his Feb. 5 U.N. speech — of any ties between al-Qaeda and Iraq
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A61622-2003Jul15?language=printer

Analysis
Bush Faced Dwindling Data on Iraq Nuclear Bid

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 16, 2003; Page A01


In recent days, as the Bush administration has defended its assertion in the president's State of the Union address that Iraq had tried to buy African uranium, officials have said it was only one bit of intelligence that indicated former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was reconstituting his nuclear weapons program.



But a review of speeches and reports, plus interviews with present and former administration officials and intelligence analysts, suggests that between Oct. 7, when President Bush made a speech laying out the case for military action against Hussein, and Jan. 28, when he gave his State of the Union address, almost all the other evidence had either been undercut or disproved by U.N. inspectors in Iraq.

By Jan. 28, in fact, the intelligence report concerning Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa -- although now almost entirely disproved -- was the only publicly unchallenged element of the administration's case that Iraq had restarted its nuclear program. That may explain why the administration strived to keep the information in the speech and attribute it to the British, even though the CIA had challenged it earlier.

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http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030712-120532-3717r.htm



Bush faults CIA for error on Iraq nuclear bid


By Bill Sammon
THE WASHINGTON TIMES



ENTEBBE, Uganda — President Bush yesterday said the CIA approved the use of erroneous intelligence in his State of the Union address that accused Iraq of trying to buy nuclear weapons material from Africa, although the White House acknowledged its vetting needs to be tightened up.
Hours later in Washington, CIA Director George J. Tenet said his agency made a "mistake" by allowing Mr. Bush to cite the information provided by the British government even though analysts were concerned about its accuracy.
"These 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the president," Mr. Tenet said about the claim Iraq tried to get uranium from Niger.


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The only person in Britain who believes those nuclear claims is Tony Blair...

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1103/p02s02-uspo.html

USA > Domestic Politics
from the November 03, 2003 edition

The case for war under new focus

Congress broadens its probe beyond the CIA to the Pentagon and the White House, among others.

By Faye Bowers | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON – For the president and the public to move forward with confidence when confronting decisions such as going to war with Iraq, the country's intelligence system may have to be fully evaluated.
That process has been playing out out in Washington, with the focus mainly on the CIA. But last week, Congress broadened its probe into prewar Iraq intelligence to delve into the roles of the State Department, the Pentagon, and the president's National Security Council.




A Tenet of resilience at the CIA


The stakes are high. Besides worrying over their loss of credibility, members of the intelligence community worry about being spread too thin. Last year, as the US stepped up pressure on Saddam Hussein, sizable intelligence resources were drawn away from the pursuit of Al Qaeda and devoted to Iraq. Now, intelligence agencies are spending a great deal of time looking back.

"We have to be clearheaded, capable of looking forward at new and evolving threats," says one intelligence official.

Many agree there are problems with the system that need to be fixed - highlighted by the lack of postinvasion evidence that Mr. Hussein had an active weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program or ties with Al Qaeda.

"The US government can certainly do things that ... will restore the credibility of the intelligence community for future contingencies," says Greg Thielmann, former head of the nonproliferation and military affairs office in the State Department's intelligence arm. "Congress and the president need to be able to believe the intelligence community, and the country needs to be able to believe the president when he tells them about classified issues."

Two other governments that had access to the same intelligence have thoroughly examined their processes. Australia's Parliament voted earlier this month to censure Prime Minister John Howard for misleading the public on the justification for going to war. And the popularity of British Prime Minister Tony Blair has fallen to the lowest point of his term in office, following an unprecedented public airing of its intelligence-related decisions and the tragic suicide of one of its top weapons scientists.


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http://observer.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,997351,00.html

Blair ignored CIA weapons warning

Intelligence breakdown after Britain dismissed US doubts over Iraq nuclear link to Niger

Kamal Ahmed, political editor
Sunday July 13, 2003
The Observer

Britain and America suffered a complete breakdown in relations over vital evidence against Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction, refusing to share information and keeping each other in the dark over key elements of the case against the Iraqi dictator.
In a remarkable letter released last night, the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, reveals a catalogue of disputes between the two countries, lending more ammunition to critics of the war and exerting fresh pressure on the Prime Minister.

The letter to the Foreign Affairs Committee, which investigated the case for war against Iraq, reveals that Britain ignored a request from the CIA to remove claims that Saddam was trying to buy nuclear material from Niger, despite concerns that the allegations were bogus. It also details a government decision to block information going to the CIA because it was too sensitive.

As diplomatic relations between America and Britain become increasingly strained over Iraq's WMD, Straw said that the Government had separate evidence of the Niger link, which it has not shared with the US.

The revelations come just four days before Tony Blair travels to America for his toughest visit there since he came to power in 1997. As well as WMD, the Prime Minister will also raise Britain's 'serious concerns' over the treatment of British citizens held at Guantanamo Bay.

Straw's letter reveals:

· That evidence given to the CIA by the former US ambassador to Gabon, Joseph Wilson - that Niger officials had denied any link - was never shared with the British.

· That Foreign Office officials were left to read reports of Wilson's findings in the press only days before they were raised as part of the committee's inquiry into the war.

· That when the CIA, having seen a draft of the September dossier on Iraq's WMD, demanded that the Niger claim be removed, it was ignored because the agency did not back it up with 'any explanation'.

Although publicly the two governments are trying to maintain a united front, the admission two days ago by the head of the CIA, George Tenet, that President Bush should never have made the claim about the Niger connection to Iraq, has left British officials exposed.

Last night, Downing Street and Foreign Office sources said that 'they would not blink' over the Niger claims. One Downing Street figure said that they were based on intelligence from a third country that was reliable. 'We are not backing down,' he said.

Another official said that the claim was based on the 'intelligence assessment' made at the time, leaving the door open to a climbdown if the intelligence is found to be wrong.

'I want to make it clear that neither I nor, to the best of my knowledge, any UK officials were aware of Ambassador Wilson's visit until reference first appeared in the press,' Straw said in the letter.

'The media has reported that the CIA expressed reservations to us about this element [the Niger connection] of the September dossier. This is correct. However, the US comment was unsupported by explanation and UK officials were confident that the dossier's statement was based on reliable intelligence which had not been shared with the US. A judgment was therefore made to retain it.'

Straw said that the Joint Intelligence Committee's assessment of the Iraqi nuclear threat did not just rest on attempts to procure uranium. There was also other evidence of links between the two countries and attempts to sign export deals.

Robin Cook, the former Foreign Secretary who has become a trenchant critic of the Government's case for war against Iraq, said that it 'stretched credibility' to say that the Americans and the British had failed to share such basic information.

'From all I know of the intimate relationship between the CIA and the Secret Intelligence Services, I find it hard to credit that there was such a breakdown of communication between them,' Cook said.

'It is time the Government came clean and published the evidence. The longer it delays, the greater the suspicion will become that it didn't really believe it itself.

'There is one simple question it must answer. Why did its evidence of the uranium deal not convince the CIA? If it was not good enough to be in the President's address, it was not good enough to go in the Prime Minister's dossier.'

Yesterday, in another damaging broadside, Richard Butler, who was executive chairman of the United Nations Special Commission to Iraq from 1997 to 1999, said that anyone who had claimed that there was a link between Niger and Iraq should resign.

Referring to Australian politicians who had made similar claims, only to withdraw them and apologise later, Butler said: 'In the justification for the war, these claims were false and known to be false.

'A Minister who misleads Parliament must accept responsibility for it and resign. Ministers must be held responsible, not public servants.'

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