Today, the Senate Intelligence Committee released their report on pre-war intelligence. The report shows that many claims made by the Bush administration in the runup to the war could be substantiated. However, several very critical claims could not.

Simple question for debate:
Did the Bush Administration misuse intelligence to make a case for war with Iraq?

Simple answer: YES.

Many of the claims that could be backed up by some intel were weakened by other intel, but the Bush administration chose to ignore or gloss over that evidence that hurt their case. Worst of all, the administration interfered with the CIA's business and caused the intel to be colored by their own agenda.

Once again, I urge anyone who hasn't yet watched the episode of Frontline that I've pushed in the past, follow the link and watch it online.

Did the Bush Administration misuse intelligence to make a case for war with Iraq?
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I think it is clear that the Bush administration used political pressure and set up a special sho called the Office of Special Plans to interpret the intelligence available not on the standard of mostly likely interpretation of the best intelligence but on the much less effective worst case scenario to justify pushing the United States to war.

In the aftermath, the CIA was aimed at as the fall guy for vetting the Bush interpretations.

A casualty of all of this was Colin Powell.

I watched Senator Rockefeller, the Senate Intel committee responsible for the report read the findings on the Senate floor yesterday. Later his counterpart on the committee the Republican Senator Kit Bond came to the floor and denounced the findings published in the report. He went on to point out that all negative towards Bush information on the report was added by Democratic hacks working outside of the committee after the report was finalized by the committee. Then Bond read quotes from a damning speech given by Senator Rockefeller justifying his yes vote for the war... let's just say the words quoted from Rockefeller were not based on any alleged lies reported in the committee report and made the report ring hollow.

Yes. This is a political hack job that is a specious waste of time and money. Did Bush his points – you bet, but so did Clinton in ’98 and he had reams of Dems right behind him. And it was not just the Rockefeller speech but Dodd and numerous others including Hillary justifying their votes for the war.
This is the political posturing we can expect going forward – in the effort to beat up Bush and then tie him to McCain while covering the warts of Obama. LOL

I always wondered why Rockefeller got a pass for supporting the war from the beginning given his position to know what was in the intelligence reports. For some reason, he has never been questioned.

More on Rockefeller:
"This was Sen. Rockefeller’s judgment only four months after September 11th and a full year before President Bush had expressed any intention to go to war!
By its very nature, Sen. Rockefeller’s solo trip, his lofty rank on one of the senate’s most prestigious and sensitive committees, and most important his words were no doubt received for what they were — a clarion heads-up!
There is no doubt that even before he departed the palaces of his hosts, high officials from terrorist Syria, fair-weather-friend Saudi Arabia (that Sen. Rockefeller, with his Standard Oil inheritance, may feel very akin to), and even "moderate" Jordan, were telegraphing the president’s intentions to the Butcher of Baghdad: "Get ready! And whatever you have in the way of WMD, whatever can implicate us, get rid of them!"
What followed Sen. Rockefeller’s treachery was the lengthy and painstaking road to war and the prelude to ways that he and other leftists have tried to sabotage the president, compromise National Security and undermine our troops."

What About Those WMD
"Leave it to liberals to ignore the obvious. For the past two years, international security experts like John Loftus have been saying that because the U.N. and French obstructionists delayed the United States entrance into the Iraq war for over a year, Saddam Hussein — having been forewarned by Sen. Rockefeller’s solo mission to the Arab world — was busy ferreting his WMD out of Iraq.
Loftus, an attorney and former Justice Department prosecutor, once held some of the highest security clearances in the world, with special access to NATO Cosmic, CIA codeword, and Top Secret Nuclear files.
As early as January 2003, Loftus said, U.S. intelligence had identified a stream of tractor-trailer trucks moving from Iraq to Syria to Lebanon, but that "the significance of this sighting did not register on the CIA at the time." U.S. intelligence sources, Loftus continued, "believe the area contains extended-range Scud-based missiles and parts for chemical and biological warheads."
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2005/swirsky120305.htm

and here is what this man said in 2002:

Statement of Senator John D. Rockefeller IV on the Senate Floor On the Iraq Resolution
October 10, 2002

MR. ROCKEFELLER: Mr. President, we are here today to debate one of the most difficult decisions I have had to make in my 18 years in the Senate. There is no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein is a despicable dictator, a war criminal, a regional menace, and a real and growing threat to the United States. The difficulty of this decision is that while Saddam Hussein represents a threat, each of the options for dealing with him poses serious risks, to America’s servicemembers, to our citizens, and to our role in the world.
So, clearly there are many risks associated with the resolution we are considering today.
But it is equally clear that doing nothing and preserving the status quo also pose serious risks. Those risks are less visible, and their time frame is less certain. But after a great deal of consultation and soul-searching, I have come to the conclusion that the risks of doing nothing — for our citizens and for our nation — are too great to bear.

There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years. And that may happen sooner if he can obtain access to enriched uranium from foreign sources — something that is not that difficult in the current world. We also should remember we have always underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction.
When Saddam Hussein obtains nuclear capabilities, the constraints he feels will diminish dramatically, and the risk to America’s homeland, as well as to America’s allies, will increase even more dramatically. Our existing policies to contain or counter Saddam will become irrelevant.
Americans will return to a situation like that we faced in the Cold War, waking each morning knowing we are at risk from nuclear blackmail by a dictatorship that has declared itself to be our enemy. Only, back then, our communist foes were a rational and predictable bureaucracy; this time, our nuclear foe would be an unpredictable and often irrational individual, a dictator who has demonstrated that he is prepared to violate international law and initiate unprovoked attacks when he feels it serves his purposes to do so.

But this isn’t just a future threat. Saddam’s existing biological and chemical weapons capabilities pose a very real threat to America, now. Saddam has used chemical weapons before, both against Iraq’s enemies and against his own people. He is working to develop delivery systems like missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles that could bring these deadly weapons against U.S. forces and U.S. facilities in the Middle East.

And he could make those weapons available to many terrorist groups which have contact with his government, and those groups could bring those weapons into the U.S. and unleash a devastating attack against our citizens. I fear that greatly.

We cannot know for certain that Saddam will use the weapons of mass destruction he currently possesses, or that he will use them against us. But we do know Saddam has the capability. Rebuilding that capability has been a higher priority for Saddam than the welfare of his own people — and he has ill-will toward America.
I am forced to conclude, on all the evidence, that Saddam poses a significant risk.
http://sweetness-light.com/archive/obama-g...iraq-vote-wrong

Here is a link to the Republican press conference where they show the press that the report was made up of whole cloth lies by the Democrats. Scroll down to recent programs and select Senate Select Cmte. on Intelligence Press Conference: Republicans (June 5, 2008)
http://c-span.org/

Of course. Many of us suspected this from the beginning. As time has passed, the evidence just keeps mounting. And like the people who think evolution is a liberal conspiracy, the right wingnuts seem to share a cubicle with Winston in the Ministry of Truth - but without his capacity for change. We are at war with Eastasia. Haven't we always been?

Right wing fantasy websites may proclaim that unicorns are living in the basement of GW's ranch, and that they use invisible fairy wings to fly. Stooping to even addressing the kind of idiocy that's already been posted here would be like arguing about whether the fairy wings are actually invisible. Not worth the time or the effort. I guess, to try and be positive, this is the sort of thing you could later spin on a resume - "sticks to his guns..." (even in the face of facts)