Intelligence Didn't Back Bush Iraq Claims, Senate Reports Say

[BadGimp]

BLOOMBERG 9/8/2006

By William Roberts and James Rowley

Sept. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Bush administration claims justifying the war against Iraq were based on fragmented, conflicting, and at times unreliable intelligence, according to two reports released today by the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Administration statements that Saddam Hussein was allied with Osama bin Laden and was helping al-Qaeda obtain chemical and biological weapons proved wrong and misleading and weren't based on solid intelligence in its possession, the declassified Senate reports said.

Contrary to assertions by Vice President Dick Cheney and other senior Bush administration officials, Hussein didn't have links to al-Qaeda and the Sept. 11 terrorist plot, the reports said.

``Saddam Hussein was distrustful of al-Qaeda and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime,'' one of the reports said. Hussein refused all requests from al-Qaeda to provide material or operational support, said the reports.

condt......................

http://tinyurl.com/pqxx8

Well now. Ain't that a surprise. How pathetic that it has taken this long for this to see the light of day.

[rodeodance]

1. I liked the earlier ap and Reuters headlines better (NO link)

[peacebird]

2. I'm SHOCKED! Shocked I tell you! Those traitors in the Senate!

:sarcasm:

[PSPS]

3. HEY! IT MUST BE FRIDAY!

[andino]

4. I think this is the kinda thing that'll go over to next week...

[gratuitous]

17. The late afternoon Friday news dump returns

It's back and better than ever.

This time, it's personal.

And now you know . . . the rest of the story.

Any other cliches we can trot out to prettify this administration's continuing, gross, murderous incompetence? Why are you Democrats so angry? Why the FUCK aren't you Republicans angry?

[MrPrax]

5. These people

will be glad to hear the news...



Isabel Carrasquillo leans over to kiss her son, Spc. Jocelyn Carrasquillo, goodbye prior to the start of his funeral service Sunday, March 21, 2004, at The First Pentecostal Holiness Church in Goldsboro, N.C. Spc. Carrasquillo, with the 120th Infantry Regement of the North CArolina National Guard, was killed when his convoy hit a land mine in Iraq on March 13, 2004. (AP Photo/Karen Tam)



Cheryl Cope Hill, right, weeps with her sisters, Wendy Sikorski left, and Tamitha Cope, center, following a funeral for Hill's husband at Crown Memorial Park in Pineville, N.C. Thursday, March 18, 2004. Army Spc. Christopher K. Hill, 26, died March 11 after his vehicle hit a roadside bomb in Fallujah, Iraq. He was based at Fort Riley. Other survivors include his 1-year-old daughter, Cierra. (AP Photo/The Charlotte Observer, Todd Sumlin)


Capt. John F. Kurth's son, John, looks at one of his dad's medals that was given to him during his fathers funeral service Saturday, March 27, 2004, in Columbus, Wis. Kurth was serving in the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment and had been in Iraq less than a month when a roadside bomb exploded March 13 at Tikrit, killing him and a Maryland solider. Captain Kurth's mother, Retta Kurth, holds the Unites States flag that was on the casket. (AP Photo/Beaver Dam Daily Citzen, Cory Schaefer)-


Orlando Vicente, left, receives the flag from the casket of his son, Marine Cpl. David Vicente during funeral services, Saturday, March 27, 2004, in Methuen, Mass. Seated next to Vicente from left; his wife Celeste, son Daniel and Cpl. Vicente's fiancee Alexandra Jacobs. Cpl. Vicente, 25, died March 19 in a clash with insurgents near the town of Hit, Iraq. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division, based in Twentynine Palms, Calif. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)


A grieving couple, front, center, identified by church officials as the mother and father of U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Anthony S. Lagman, watch with other relatives and a funeral official as Lagman's body is carried by U.S. Army pallbearers from Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in Yonkers, New York, Tuesday, March 30, 2004. Lagman, 27, of the 2nd Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment of the Army's 10th Mountain Division, stationed at Fort Drum in upstate New York, was killed March 18 while fighting in Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Ed Bailey)

I hope every goddamned one of them is put in jail...

[sarcasmo]

6. Kick and Nom. The only day and time for truth, Friday at 4pm.

[leesa]

7. So another report says the same thing. Bush lied to get us into a war.

Your job is to make sure he is held accountable for his criminal behavior.

Hillary, the warmonger, said she was "disappointed by Bush" Does that sound like slamming his ass legally for lying to Congress for staring a war?

[DeepModem Mom]

8. WP,pg1: Iraq's Alleged Al-Qaeda Ties Were Disputed Before War: Report

Iraq's Alleged Al-Qaeda Ties Were Disputed Before War
Links Were Cited to Justify U.S. Invasion, Report Says
By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, September 9, 2006; Page A01

A declassified report released yesterday by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence revealed that U.S. intelligence analysts were strongly disputing the alleged links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda while senior Bush administration officials were publicly asserting those links to justify invading Iraq.

Far from aligning himself with al-Qaeda and Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Hussein repeatedly rebuffed al-Qaeda's overtures and tried to capture Zarqawi, the report said. Tariq Aziz, the detained former deputy prime minister, has told the FBI that Hussein "only expressed negative sentiments about bin Laden."

The report also said exiles from the Iraqi National Congress (INC) tried to influence U.S. policy by providing, through defectors, false information on Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons capabilities. After skeptical analysts warned that the group had been penetrated by hostile intelligence services, including Iran's, a 2002 White House directive ordered that U.S. funding for the INC be continued.

The newly declassified intelligence report provided administration critics with fresh ammunition, less than two months before midterm elections and in the middle of President Bush's campaign to refocus the public's attention away from Iraq and toward the threat of terrorism. Senior Senate Democrats immediately seized on the findings, using some of their strongest language yet to say the president continues to willfully and falsely connect Hussein to al-Qaeda....

***

"It is such a blatant misleading of the United States, its people, to prepare them, to position them, to, in fact, make them enthusiastic or feel that it's justified to go to war with Iraq," said Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), the committee's vice chairman. "That kind of public manipulation I don't know has any precedent in American history."...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/08/AR2006090800777.html?nav=hcmodule

[Ice4Clark]

9. Here is the report PDF

REPORT:Postwar findings about Iraq's WMD programs and links to terrorism and how they compare with prewar assessments

[DeepModem Mom]

11. Thanks, Ice! nt

[magellan]

10. According to John Fund

...this was all just a very complex mistake on the part of the administration. They were fooled by Chalibi and the INC, and all the intelligence agencies failed them.

You really need an aversion to reason to be a Bush** loyalist.

[bklyncowgirl]

12. This story's getting a bit lost among all the chatter about ABC

While it is a confirmation of what we already knew, the fact is that this is an incredibly damaging official report despite the best efforts of Republicans to supress it and tone it down.

[leftchick]

13. Friday news dump too!

I agree this is astounding news, especially the way tony baloney blew it off as "old news" when the chimp made the connection yet again just a couple of weeks ago!

:grr:

[rodeodance]

15. the ABC stuff is seductive--it captures peoples/media attention and yes

I agree, it is to some extent over riding another important news item.

[rodeodance]

14. I hope this Houseof Cards is crumbling!!

[ShortnFiery]

16. Then it was a COMMAND instead of an INTELLIGENCE failure. n/t

[rocktivity]

18. Candidate for this month's "You Call This NEWS?" award

Congrats, Senators, for finally noticing. I noticed that Bush's claims weren't intelligent right away!

:eyes:
rocknation

[0007]

19. Keep this thread on top

The government should be afraid of the people. The people should not be afraid of their government.