Iraq WMD, Case for War
What was the case for war? How was it justified?
Sunday, August 14, 2005
Senator Pat Roberts (R - KS) Helps to Fix the Intel
Intel Coverup: "Senator Pat Roberts (R - KS) Helps to Fix the Intel | By Larisa Alexandrovna and Muriel Kane
Shortly after 9/11 President Bush issues order asking CIA, FBI, DOD, NSA, and Cabinet members to restrict clearances greatly and limit all information to 8 members of Congress, effectively eliminating 92 clearances. The Presidential order can be found at Think Progress."
Intel Coverup: "Senator Pat Roberts (R - KS) Helps to Fix the Intel | By Larisa Alexandrovna and Muriel Kane
Shortly after 9/11 President Bush issues order asking CIA, FBI, DOD, NSA, and Cabinet members to restrict clearances greatly and limit all information to 8 members of Congress, effectively eliminating 92 clearances. The Presidential order can be found at Think Progress."
Saturday, August 13, 2005
Senate Intelligence chairman quietly 'fixed' intelligence, and diverted blame from White House over Iraq
The Raw Story | Senate Intelligence chairman quietly 'fixed' intelligence, and diverted blame from White House over Iraq: "Larisa Alexandrovna
Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, President George W. Bush issued an order to the Central Intelligence Agency, Department of Defense, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the State Department, and his cabinet members that severely curtailed intelligence oversight by restricting classified information to just eight members of Congress.
"The only Members of Congress whom you or your expressly designated officers may brief regarding classified or sensitive law enforcement information," he writes, "are the Speaker of the House, the House Minority Leader, the Senate Majority and Minority Leaders, and the Chairs and Ranking Members of the Intelligence Committees in the House and Senate.
But what was said to be an effort to protect the United States became a tool by which the Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee Pat Roberts (R-KS) ensured there was no serious investigation into how the administration fixed the intelligence that took the United States to war in Iraq or the fabricated documents used as evidence to do so.
...
By the late 1990s, members of the committees and their staffs were seeing more than 2,200 CIA reports and receiving more than 1,200 substantive briefings from agency officials each year to assist them in their role of providing proper oversight.
But the little-reported 2001 Bush directive changed that, ensuring that only two members of each committee received full briefings on intelligence operations, and preventing committee staffs from carrying out meaningful research.
...
Roberts appears to become an extension of the White House in selling the war beginning in January 2003. That month, he is appointed to chair the Senate Intelligence Committee, picking up one of the eight coveted clearances.
By the end of the month, Roberts is convinced that Saddam is harboring both al Qaeda and weapons of mass destruction. Much of what convinces Roberts is a series of briefings organized by then-Deputy National Security Advisor, Stephen Hadley. Hadley led a White House team to help sift through CIA intelligence, filtering information for Congressional briefings.
...
First, blame the CIA
In late October, 2003, Roberts puts together a report evaluating U.S. intelligence failures in the build-up to war. Even though Roberts was aware of the Niger forgeries earlier in the year and knew of the issues surrounding the White House false WMD claims and refused to investigate, the report exonerates the White House and the Senate and again places intelligence failures at the door of the CIA.
...
Second, blame the Democrats
...
"Fox News has obtained a document believed to have been written by the Democratic staff of the Senate Intelligence Committee that outlines a strategy for exposing what it calls "the administration's dubious motives" in the lead-up to the war in Iraq."
Roberts expresses his dismay.
...
Finally, blame Wilson and close the books
...
Republicans embed Roberts' false assertion that Valerie Wilson sent her husband to Niger in talking points and media fodder. Although both Wilson and the CIA correct the record, Roberts, White House staff and others continue to make the charge.
Roberts pitches the case for closing the book on the lead-up to war.
...
"I must say from a common sense standpoint, driving back and forth to work to the CIA headquarters, I don't know if that really qualifies as being, you know, covert," he tells CNN.
But that approach does not poll well. Roberts instead shifts the focus to the investigation and the Republican special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald himself.
According to the Boston Globe, Roberts intends to investigate what "covert protections for CIA agents" are really needed.
All eyes are now on Fitzgerald's probe.
...
Roberts soon announces he will hold a closed-door review of intelligence documentation and the lead-up to war. He begins to spin questions and skeptics of the war as politically motivated.
"I will not allow the committee to be politicized or to be used as an unwitting tool for any political strategist," he says.
...
As more questions surface on the Administration's lies about WMD and forged Niger documents, Roberts becomes a staunch Bush defender, deflecting pre-war "failures" away from the White House and pinning all blame on the CIA.
...
What follows is a series of White House salvos, aimed at Senate Democrats, the CIA and policy skeptics, aiming to shift blame away from the Administration. Classified documents and smears become White House tools of choice.
...
The Raw Story | Senate Intelligence chairman quietly 'fixed' intelligence, and diverted blame from White House over Iraq: "Larisa Alexandrovna
Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, President George W. Bush issued an order to the Central Intelligence Agency, Department of Defense, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the State Department, and his cabinet members that severely curtailed intelligence oversight by restricting classified information to just eight members of Congress.
"The only Members of Congress whom you or your expressly designated officers may brief regarding classified or sensitive law enforcement information," he writes, "are the Speaker of the House, the House Minority Leader, the Senate Majority and Minority Leaders, and the Chairs and Ranking Members of the Intelligence Committees in the House and Senate.
But what was said to be an effort to protect the United States became a tool by which the Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee Pat Roberts (R-KS) ensured there was no serious investigation into how the administration fixed the intelligence that took the United States to war in Iraq or the fabricated documents used as evidence to do so.
...
By the late 1990s, members of the committees and their staffs were seeing more than 2,200 CIA reports and receiving more than 1,200 substantive briefings from agency officials each year to assist them in their role of providing proper oversight.
But the little-reported 2001 Bush directive changed that, ensuring that only two members of each committee received full briefings on intelligence operations, and preventing committee staffs from carrying out meaningful research.
...
Roberts appears to become an extension of the White House in selling the war beginning in January 2003. That month, he is appointed to chair the Senate Intelligence Committee, picking up one of the eight coveted clearances.
By the end of the month, Roberts is convinced that Saddam is harboring both al Qaeda and weapons of mass destruction. Much of what convinces Roberts is a series of briefings organized by then-Deputy National Security Advisor, Stephen Hadley. Hadley led a White House team to help sift through CIA intelligence, filtering information for Congressional briefings.
...
First, blame the CIA
In late October, 2003, Roberts puts together a report evaluating U.S. intelligence failures in the build-up to war. Even though Roberts was aware of the Niger forgeries earlier in the year and knew of the issues surrounding the White House false WMD claims and refused to investigate, the report exonerates the White House and the Senate and again places intelligence failures at the door of the CIA.
...
Second, blame the Democrats
...
"Fox News has obtained a document believed to have been written by the Democratic staff of the Senate Intelligence Committee that outlines a strategy for exposing what it calls "the administration's dubious motives" in the lead-up to the war in Iraq."
Roberts expresses his dismay.
...
Finally, blame Wilson and close the books
...
Republicans embed Roberts' false assertion that Valerie Wilson sent her husband to Niger in talking points and media fodder. Although both Wilson and the CIA correct the record, Roberts, White House staff and others continue to make the charge.
Roberts pitches the case for closing the book on the lead-up to war.
...
"I must say from a common sense standpoint, driving back and forth to work to the CIA headquarters, I don't know if that really qualifies as being, you know, covert," he tells CNN.
But that approach does not poll well. Roberts instead shifts the focus to the investigation and the Republican special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald himself.
According to the Boston Globe, Roberts intends to investigate what "covert protections for CIA agents" are really needed.
All eyes are now on Fitzgerald's probe.
...
Roberts soon announces he will hold a closed-door review of intelligence documentation and the lead-up to war. He begins to spin questions and skeptics of the war as politically motivated.
"I will not allow the committee to be politicized or to be used as an unwitting tool for any political strategist," he says.
...
As more questions surface on the Administration's lies about WMD and forged Niger documents, Roberts becomes a staunch Bush defender, deflecting pre-war "failures" away from the White House and pinning all blame on the CIA.
...
What follows is a series of White House salvos, aimed at Senate Democrats, the CIA and policy skeptics, aiming to shift blame away from the Administration. Classified documents and smears become White House tools of choice.
...
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Am I emotional? Yes, my first born was murdered. Am I angry? Yes, he was killed for lies and for a PNAC Neo-Con agenda to benefit Israel.
Google Groups : bullyard: "Subject: Re: Fw: Nightline Tonight Mon., March 14, 2005
Cindy Sheehan ... March 15, 2005 ... To Whom it May Concern:
Imagine my distress when I turned Night Line on last night and I was confronted with the gory details of my son's murder in Sadr City, Baghdad, Iraq on 04/04/04. Imagine, also, my sorrow and rage at the side of the story that you presented to the American public.
...
The show last night was also not fair and balanced. To see all the wives being interviewed who had not lost their husbands and to hear what "hard work" it is to be left behind when their husbands are at war. How hard to you think it is to have a child killed in an illegal and immoral war? In this "wonderful" group of families left behind, we had exactly ONE of the wives call us..she is Diane Rose who was my son's Colonel, Frank Rose's wife. The last time we heard from Diane was in October and we feel we have been left behind by anyone connected to the 2-5 Cavalry. Is support only given if your loved one stays alive? One wife was quoted as saying that Sundays were the hardest for the families left behind. My son was killed on Palm Sunday last year..how does anybody think Sundays are for my family?
...
The General was also quoted as saying that the insurgency "surprised" them. Why? Has there ever been an invasion/occupation of a sovereign country that hasn't been resisted? Anyone with half a brain and an even rudimentary understanding of history would know that all occupations are resisted. The Pentagon and the Army brass did not plan adequately for an occupation. ...
...
... I may remind you and the General, that Iraqi elections was not the reason that our President and his Neo-Con war mongers invaded Iraq with our precious human resources. I will give the two reasons given for the invaseion here: Saddam had WMD's and he was an imminent threat to America. Saddam could have WMD's on our shores within 45 minutes. Condoleeza Rice used fear as a factor when she said: Don't let the smoking gun be a mushroom cloud. Rumsfeld and Colin Powell pointed out to us where the weapons were on a map.
The second reason that America was given before the invasion was that Saddam was the biggest sponsor of world terrorism and he supported Osama Bin Laden! Oh really??? The hijackers were predominantly Saudi Arabian as was Osama (who is still at large, by the way). The theory that Saddam had anything to do with 9/11 was disproven by the 9/11 commission's report. A huge factor in Americans believing all this bull is that our media..the Fourth Estate didn't do any research and expose the lies for what they were: justifications for invading a country that posed no imminent or long-term threat to America.
...
Am I emotional? Yes, my first born was murdered. Am I angry? Yes, he was killed for lies and for a PNAC Neo-Con agenda to benefit Israel. My son joined the Army to protect America, not Israel. Am I stupid? No, I know full-well that my son, my family, this nation, and this world were betrayed by a George Bush who was influenced by the neo-con PNAC agenda after 9/11. ...
...
Cindy Sheehan, Mother of Hero: Spc Casey Austin Sheehan KIA 04/04/04
Google Groups : bullyard: "Subject: Re: Fw: Nightline Tonight Mon., March 14, 2005
Cindy Sheehan ... March 15, 2005 ... To Whom it May Concern:
Imagine my distress when I turned Night Line on last night and I was confronted with the gory details of my son's murder in Sadr City, Baghdad, Iraq on 04/04/04. Imagine, also, my sorrow and rage at the side of the story that you presented to the American public.
...
The show last night was also not fair and balanced. To see all the wives being interviewed who had not lost their husbands and to hear what "hard work" it is to be left behind when their husbands are at war. How hard to you think it is to have a child killed in an illegal and immoral war? In this "wonderful" group of families left behind, we had exactly ONE of the wives call us..she is Diane Rose who was my son's Colonel, Frank Rose's wife. The last time we heard from Diane was in October and we feel we have been left behind by anyone connected to the 2-5 Cavalry. Is support only given if your loved one stays alive? One wife was quoted as saying that Sundays were the hardest for the families left behind. My son was killed on Palm Sunday last year..how does anybody think Sundays are for my family?
...
The General was also quoted as saying that the insurgency "surprised" them. Why? Has there ever been an invasion/occupation of a sovereign country that hasn't been resisted? Anyone with half a brain and an even rudimentary understanding of history would know that all occupations are resisted. The Pentagon and the Army brass did not plan adequately for an occupation. ...
...
... I may remind you and the General, that Iraqi elections was not the reason that our President and his Neo-Con war mongers invaded Iraq with our precious human resources. I will give the two reasons given for the invaseion here: Saddam had WMD's and he was an imminent threat to America. Saddam could have WMD's on our shores within 45 minutes. Condoleeza Rice used fear as a factor when she said: Don't let the smoking gun be a mushroom cloud. Rumsfeld and Colin Powell pointed out to us where the weapons were on a map.
The second reason that America was given before the invasion was that Saddam was the biggest sponsor of world terrorism and he supported Osama Bin Laden! Oh really??? The hijackers were predominantly Saudi Arabian as was Osama (who is still at large, by the way). The theory that Saddam had anything to do with 9/11 was disproven by the 9/11 commission's report. A huge factor in Americans believing all this bull is that our media..the Fourth Estate didn't do any research and expose the lies for what they were: justifications for invading a country that posed no imminent or long-term threat to America.
...
Am I emotional? Yes, my first born was murdered. Am I angry? Yes, he was killed for lies and for a PNAC Neo-Con agenda to benefit Israel. My son joined the Army to protect America, not Israel. Am I stupid? No, I know full-well that my son, my family, this nation, and this world were betrayed by a George Bush who was influenced by the neo-con PNAC agenda after 9/11. ...
...
Cindy Sheehan, Mother of Hero: Spc Casey Austin Sheehan KIA 04/04/04
