Yet MORE proof * lied the other day...Congressman Hoeffel (Pa.) - 2004

[Roland99]

http://www.house.gov/delahunt/iraqwatch_6-2-04.htm

Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, it is not just that mistakes were made by American policymakers, and it is not just that Chalabi gave us bad information. The other part of the equation is that the ideologues in the civilian leadership, in the Pentagon and in the White House simplified, distorted, took information and twisted it in such a way as to persuade the Congress and the American people that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and that we needed to invade to keep that part of the world and this country safe from attack.

Let us not forget the fact that the intelligence information being given to the White House in the fall of 2002, the Defense Intelligence Agency report of September, 2002, the National Intelligence Estimate of October, 2002, was not available to the three of us at that time when we had to vote but was made available to us 6 or 7 months later. Those intelligence reports given to the White House were replete with uncertainty and caveats about the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Now, they were wrong apparently to even think they might have been there, although we do know Saddam Hussein had them in the 1980s. They were wrong to conclude that he probably had them, but the reports were saying we think he has these weapons of mass destruction. He probably has them. We have been told he has them.

None of that uncertainty was passed on to the Congress in public statements or private briefings that we all attended, or to the American people in the fall of 2002 when we were asked to vote on the war authority. We were told with complete certainty that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and we had to go get them.

In fact, the one member of the administration who had the most credibility in my opinion, Colin Powell, repeated this didactic approach, these statements with complete certainty, 4 or 5 months later in February or March of 2003 when he spoke to the U.N. He identified where the weapons were. He showed us pictures. He told us how much they weighed. He has 500 pounds over here; he has such and such over there. They talked about those two mobile chemical labs on flatbed trucks. Colin Powell assured the United Nations and all of the world that these things existed. They did not.

The intelligence they were basing these statements on was full of uncertainties. They deceived us. They led us to war with deceptions, and we have to hold them accountable for that. It is not just the mistakes. It is not just Chalabi's lies. It is the fact that some in the Bush administration were willing to twist that information, and this goes to the President himself, to get us to go to war.

What a tangled web they weave.

[Demoiselle]

1. I like Joe Hoeffel. I know Joe Hoeffel. Decent man. Yea! eom

[prescole]

2. Bush has been given the benefit of the doubt for way too long

Now it's time he suffered the consequences of NOT doubting.

[patrice]

3. It is the fact that: Because of Chalabi, MANY more People have Died and

many MORE WILL die in the un-limited Time, as far as and more even than 10 years (according to Rice).

All other questions "being equal"/moot, one thing remains un-deniable, Chalabi has caused MORE People to suffer and die.