The truth is oozing out like a slime trail

I'm only musing, but I hope my gut feeling about GWBush lasting and David Letterman lasting is trying to compare apples and oranges - PLEASE! c.i.

So far we have 3 national leaders all claiming that intelligence was not passed on to them.

The lies get more putrid by the minute.

Here's a nice little piece from the Bergen Record (NJ) by an AP writer, that clearly shows the WH now taking spin in a new direction - spinning round and round............





Saturday, July 19, 2003

By TOM RAUM
ASSOCIATED PRESS



WASHINGTON - The White House released excerpts from a classified October 2002 intelligence document on Friday to demonstrate how flawed intelligence on Iraq's nuclear-weapons ambitions wound up in President Bush's State of the Union address.

The document cites "compelling evidence" of such a program - but it also reflects prewar divisions within the U.S. intelligence community, including a State Department dismissal of reports that Saddam Hussein was shopping for uranium ore in Africa as "highly dubious."

"We lack specific information on many key aspects of Iraq's WMD [weapons of mass destruction] program," the CIA and other intelligence agencies concluded, according to the documents.

The Bush administration released the material - a sanitized version of the top-secret National Intelligence Estimate prepared for the president - as it sought to shield Bush from rising criticism that he misled the public in making his case for war with Iraq in his Jan. 28 speech.

Administration aides suggested that the eight pages of excerpts, out of 90 in the document, demonstrate that the notion that Iraq was trying to reconstitute a nuclear weapons program permeated the U.S. intelligence community - and was not just based on a suspect British intelligence report that relied in part on forged documents.





What do you suppose this says? "Compelling evidence?" "Lack specific information?" "To shield Bush from rising criticism?"

Also, what is the National Intelligence Estimate? I looked it up and I'm still not clear. Is it official? Quasi? What is its importance?


I've never been able to take Letterman either. Never seen his appeal.

Bush's 45 minute attack claim discredited
washingtonpost.com - Sunday, July 20, 2003; Page A01
White House Didn't Gain CIA Nod for Claim On Iraqi Strikes
Gist Was Hussein Could Launch in 45 Minutes
By Dana Milbank, Washington Post Staff Writer
(Staff writer Walter Pincus contributed to this report.)

The White House, in the run-up to war in Iraq, did not seek CIA approval before charging that Saddam Hussein could launch a biological or chemical attack within 45 minutes, administration officials now say.

The claim, which has since been discredited, was made twice by President Bush, in a September Rose Garden appearance after meeting with lawmakers and in a Saturday radio address the same week. Bush attributed the claim to the British government, but in a "Global Message" issued Sept. 26 and still on the White House Web site, the White House claimed, without attribution, that Iraq "could launch a biological or chemical attack 45 minutes after the order is given."

The 45-minute claim is at the center of a scandal in Britain that led to the apparent suicide on Friday of a British weapons scientist who had questioned the government's use of the allegation. The scientist, David Kelly, was being investigated by the British parliament as the suspected source of a BBC report that the 45-minute claim was added to Britain's public "dossier" on Iraq in September at the insistence of an aide to Prime Minister Tony Blair -- and against the wishes of British intelligence, which said the charge was from a single source and was considered unreliable.

The White House embraced the claim, from a British dossier on Iraq, at the same time it began to promote the dossier's disputed claim that Iraq sought uranium in Africa.

Bush administration officials last week said the CIA was not consulted about the claim. A senior White House official did not dispute that account, saying presidential remarks such as radio addresses are typically "circulated at the staff level" within the White House only.

Virtually all of the focus on whether Bush exaggerated intelligence about Iraq's weapons ambitions has been on the credibility of a claim he made in the Jan. 28 State of the Union address about efforts to buy uranium in Africa. But an examination of other presidential remarks, which received little if any scrutiny by intelligence agencies, indicates Bush made more broad accusations on other intelligence matters related to Iraq.

For example, the same Rose Garden speech and Sept. 28 radio address that mentioned the 45-minute accusation also included blunt assertions by Bush that "there are al Qaeda terrorists inside Iraq." This claim was highly disputed among intelligence experts; a group called Ansar al-Islam in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq and Jordanian Abu Musab Zarqawi, who could have been in Iraq, were both believed to have al Qaeda contacts but were not themselves part of al Qaeda.

Bush was more qualified in his major Oct. 7 speech in Cincinnati, mentioning al Qaeda members who got training and medical treatment from Iraq. The State of the Union address was also more hedged about whether al Qaeda members were in Iraq, saying "Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of al Qaeda."

Bush did not mention Iraq in his radio address yesterday. Sen. Carl M. Levin (Mich.), delivering the Democratic radio address, suggested that the dispute over the uranium claim in the State of the Union "is about whether administration officials made a conscious and very troubling decision to create a false impression about the gravity and imminence of the threat that Iraq posed to America." Levin said there is evidence the uranium claim "was just one of many questionable statements and exaggerations by the intelligence community and administration officials in the buildup to the war."

The 45-minute accusation is particularly noteworthy because of the furor it has caused in Britain, where the charge originated. A parliamentary inquiry determined earlier this month that the claim "did not warrant the prominence given to it in the dossier, because it was based on intelligence from a single, uncorroborated source." The inquiry also concluded that "allegations of politically inspired meddling cannot credibly be established."

As it turns out, the 45-minute charge was not true; though forbidden weapons may yet be found in Iraq, an adviser to the Bush administration on arms issues said last week that such weapons were not ready to be used on short notice.

The 45-minute allegation did not appear in the major speeches Bush made about Iraq in Cincinnati in October or in his State of the Union address, both of which were made after consultation with the CIA. But the White House considered the 45-minute claim significant and drew attention to it the day the British dossier was released. Asked if there was a "smoking gun" in the British report, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer on Sept. 24 highlighted that charge and the charge that Iraq sought uranium in Africa.

"I think there was new information in there, particularly about the 45-minute threshold by which Saddam Hussein has got his biological and chemical weapons triggered to be launched," Fleischer said. "There was new information in there about Saddam Hussein's efforts to obtain uranium from African nations. That was new information."

The White House use of the 45-minute charge is another indication of its determination to build a case against Hussein even without the participation of U.S. intelligence services. The controversy over the administration's use of intelligence has largely focused on claims made about the Iraqi nuclear program, particularly attempts to buy uranium in Africa. But the accusation that Iraq could launch a chemical or biological attack on a moment's notice was significant because it added urgency to the administration's argument that Hussein had to be dealt with quickly.

Using the single-source British accusation appears to have violated the administration's own standard. In a briefing for reporters on Friday, a senior administration official, discussing the decision to remove from the Cincinnati speech an allegation that Iraq tried to buy uranium in Niger, said CIA Director George J. Tenet told the White House that "for a presidential speech, the standard ought to be higher than just relying upon one source. Oftentimes, a lot of these things that are embodied in this document are based on multiple sources. And in this case, that was a single source being cited, and he felt that that was not appropriate."

The British parliamentary inquiry reported this month that the claim came from one source, and "it appears that no evidence was found which corroborated the information supplied by the source, although it was consistent with a pattern of evidence of Iraq's military capability over time. Neither are we aware that there was any corroborating evidence from allies through the intelligence-sharing machinery. It is also significant that the US did not refer to the claim publicly." The report said the investigators "have not seen a satisfactory answer" to why the government gave the claim such visibility.

(And then there were the missiles which didn't have the range to do us or Israel any harm...)

I remember feeling chilled to the bone by the apparent passivity of Bush & Co. during the last moments of the 2000 campaign as though they knew they had it in the bag.

I remember feeling chilled again during the 2002 congressional elections by the same perception -- as though they had some special knowledge that they were going to succeed.

And I'm feeling the same chill right now as I watch a WH not dealing with all -- hey, not ANY! -- of the questions -- as though they know that, no matter what happens, the fix is in.

A new book is out titled the "Pinocchio Syndrome" by David Zeman. It has nothing to do with GWBush, because it's a novel, but the critic who wrote a article in our local newspaper claims it's "easily the most inventive and controversial political thriller I've ever read." c.i.

UK Arms Expert Lelley Was BBC Source revealed
UK Arms Expert Was BBC Source
LONDON, England, July 20, 2003 - CBS News

The British Broadcasting Corp. said Sunday that David Kelly, a Ministry of Defense scientist whose suicide intensified a fierce debate over intelligence used to justify war in Iraq, was its main source for a story at the center of the dispute.

"Having now informed Dr. Kelly's family, we can confirm that Dr. Kelly was the principal source" for a radio piece in which reporter Andrew Gilligan quoted an anonymous official as saying the government exaggerated claims of Iraqi weapons, the network said in a statement.

"The BBC believes we accurately interpreted and reported the factual information obtained by us during interviews with Dr. Kelly," the statement continued.

Kelly's death plunges British Prime Minister Tony Blair into a deeper political crisis over the intelligence used to justify war in Iraq, reports CBS News reporter Charles D'Agata.

The statement said Kelly, an internationally respected weapons expert, had also been the source for a piece by reporter Susan Watts on the BBC's "Newsnight" analysis program.

Kelly had told a Parliamentary committee he spoke privately to Gilligan but did not recognize his claims in the reporter's piece and believed he was not its main source.

The soft-spoken, bearded microbiologist took his own life Thursday, slitting his left wrist in the woods near his Oxfordshire home. The BBC and the government had been engaged for weeks in an angry public battle about Gilligan's story ?- with Kelly at the center of the political firestorm.

The reporter quoted his source as saying the government had "sexed up" its evidence on Iraqi weapons in order to justify war and insisted on publishing a claim that Saddam Hussein could deploy some chemical and biological weapons within 45 minutes, despite intelligence experts' doubts.

Gilligan later said the source had accused Alastair Campbell, Blair's communications adviser, of insisting the 45 minutes claim be included in a government dossier on Iraqi weapons. The House of Commons Foreign Affairs committee cleared Campbell of that charge.

"I believe I am not the main source," Kelly told the committee Tuesday. "From the conversation I had, I don't see how (Gilligan) could make the authoritative statement he was making."

He said the same to his Ministry of Defense bosses when he came forward voluntarily to tell them he'd met with Gilligan.

The BBC report helped prompt two Parliamentary probes into government weapons claims, and Blair aides have angrily demanded a retraction and an apology from the broadcaster.

Blair, who is on a whirlwind trip through east Asia, said through a spokesman that he was "pleased that the BBC has made this announcement."

"Whatever the differences, no one wanted this tragedy to happen," the spokesman quoted him as saying. "I know that everyone, including the BBC, has been shocked by it."

Polls show the British public is losing faith in Blair with a majority feeling they were misled about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction - the rationale for war, reports CBS News Correspondent Richard Roth.

He urged all those involved in the debate to demonstrate "respect and restraint, and no recrimination."

The BBC statement said the network would cooperate fully with a judge appointed to head an inquiry into the events leading to Kelly's death. It said it would provide full details of its two reporters' contacts with Kelly, including their notes.

"We continue to believe we were right to place Dr. Kelly's views in the public domain," the statement said. "However, the BBC is profoundly sorry that his involvement as our source has ended so tragically."

Blair also said he would testify in the inquiry.

Days after his name was leaked ?- reportedly by the Ministry of Defense ?- as the suspected source for Gilligan's May 29 report, Kelly was grilled last week by the Parliamentary committee. Two days later, on Thursday, his family reported him missing, adding a dark twist to a bitter political debate.

Police found Kelly's body Friday in a wooded area a few miles from his home in the rural village of Southmoor, 20 miles southwest of Oxford, his left wrist slashed and a partly empty package of painkillers nearby.

Throughout the bitter row, the BBC had refused to say whether Kelly, who was a top United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq in the 1990s, had been its source.

"Over the past few weeks we have been at pains to protect Dr. Kelly being identified as the source of these reports," the BBC statement said. "We clearly owed him a duty of confidentiality. Following his death, we now believe, in order to end the continuing speculation, it is important to release this information as swiftly as possible."

The statement said the BBC had waited until Sunday to make the announcement at the Kelly family's request.

Kelly's family said in a statement issued Saturday that "events over recent weeks have made David's life intolerable, and all of those involved should reflect long and hard on this fact."

"A loving, private and dignified man has been taken from us all," they added.

The lies and distortions that the Bush and Blair administrations have put forward as justification for a war that was at its foundation an exercise in empire building have begun to destroy both careers and lives. This is beyond the lives destroyed in the war they initiated with these lies and distortions. With Blair there is at least the option of removing him by a Parliamentary vote of no confidence. Bush by contrast holds power by virtue of a stolen election and a four year term of office. We a stuck with him and the damage he and his cohorts can wreak for at least the next 18 months.

...this feeling of dread (which I share) is not helped at all by the realization that this is possibly the most secretive administration ever.

Possibly? There was another?

Bush Adm. Stephen Hadley admits responsibility for 16 words
On July 17th, BBB wrote opening this thread: "Who is the Bush Administration Official the CIA's George Tenet revealed?

Remember these names: Robert G. Joseph and Stephen Hadley, members of Bush's National Security Council."

The Bush Administration, taking advantage of the news of the death of Saddam's two sons as cover, announced that Stephen Hadley and his boss, Condoleeza Rice, were taking responsiblity for the inclusion of the notorious 16 words in Bush's State of the Union speech.

Bush is hoping with this timing that the Saddam sons death news will divert media attention away from this admission.

---BumbleBeeBoogie

They're more stupid than I ever thought. c.i.

My bumper sticker for this evening, accordingly, will be:

BUSH DID IT, BLAMES CONDI.

Hope Rove got Bush some fancing dancing shoes, and dancing lessons, because that heavy-footed clog is beginning to weigh a little heavy. Lordy, this admin is kept busy looking for names to pin their misdeeds on.

They're running out of "who donnit." c.i.

The Bushies are corrupt, not stupid
The Boston Globe article says Stephen Hadley stated behind closed doors that he'd never read the speach.

Don't forget what Tenet said, or was reported that he said: An Administration official INSISTED that the 16 words be in Bush's speech.

"Who is the Bush Administration Official the CIA's George Tenet revealed?
Robert G. Joseph, a member of Bush's National Security Council.

Why hasn't Robert Joseph admitted that he is the one whom Tenet stated did the insisting? I think Hadley's confession is merely an attempted road block to reaching who insisted all the way to the top of the chain of command. We know that Bush ordered Condi Rice to put a stop to the issue. So Hadley was sacrificed to protect those further up the chain.

The Bushies must hope that the Media will forget Joseph following Hadley's confession and will also forget that both of these men work for Condi Rice.

The Bushies were very smart. They had Hadley confess immediately after the news of the killing of Saddam's sons because they knew the topic would be overshaddowed by the war news. But a confession under cover is still a confession and the Media and we should not forget it.

---BumbleBeeBoogie

BBB, This administration continues to develop subterfuge to confuse the American public, and in most cases it's working, because their performance rating is still high for these dangerous criminals. Go figure. c.i.

Bush is trying to protect Condi Rice, to whom he is VERY close: "Hadley said he had received two CIA memos challenging the British information last October, but forgot about them when he reviewed Bush's speech three months later. Rice also had been told of the CIA's concerns.

Rice apologized for her lapse through her deputy, but left it to Hadley to face reporters.

"I should have recalled at the time of the State of the Union speech that there was controversy," a contrite Hadley said. "I failed in that responsibility."

---BumbleBeeBoogie
----------------------------------

Posted on Tue, Jul. 22, 2003
Bush's critics still vocal despite major win in Iraq
By Ron Hutcheson and James Kuhnhenn
Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - The deaths of Saddam Hussein's sons Tuesday gave President Bush a rare break from mounting U.S. casualties and growing doubts about his rationale for war, but didn't silence his critics or solve his problems in Iraq.

Bush's critics haven't questioned whether the U.S. military could kill Iraqis; rather, they have accused the president of distorting evidence that Iraq posed an imminent threat to America and its interests, one requiring a pre-emptive war to eliminate. Critics also have called for Bush to seek more help from allies in policing postwar Iraq rather than having U.S. troops shoulder so much of the load.

The deaths of Saddam's sons are unlikely to silence the president's critics on either point unless Iraqi resistance to the American occupation ends with Odai and Qusai Hussein. And even Bush's supporters cautioned that the sons' demise is unlikely to end Iraqi attacks on U.S. troops or resistance to the occupation.

"We have to have some patience," said Rep. Porter Goss, R-Fla., the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. "People should be cheered, but this is not a short run, but a long run."

Democratic critics of the president's Iraq policy acknowledged the deaths of Saddam's sons as a welcome development, but tempered their praise for American troops by continuing to criticize the administration's occupation of Iraq.

"No one can underestimate the value of the developments today," said Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D. "But I would simply say that what many of us have said from the beginning is that in order to win the peace, we need more help. We need more resources, we need more personnel, we need more international involvement. This doesn't change that."

Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee and one of the Bush administration's most persistent critics on Iraq, said the deaths didn't end the danger American troops were facing.

"If they're any inspiration to the guerrillas, I'm glad they're gone," Durbin said. "The sad reality is that our troops are still in a dangerous situation. We can expect, unfortunately, more bad news."

White House officials have become increasingly concerned that public unease about problems in postwar Iraq could hurt Bush's prospects for re-election, and indeed, his approval ratings in polls have slipped.

In a series of meetings Tuesday on Capitol Hill, L. Paul Bremer, the top U.S. official in Iraq, sought to reassure lawmakers that the rebuilding effort is on track. His visit came a day after White House communications director Dan Bartlett urged Republican lawmakers to defend the president's record.

Bush monitored the developments in Mosul, where Saddam's sons were killed, in a series of telephone calls from Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, but didn't offer any public reaction to their deaths. Because of earlier inaccurate reports of Saddam's demise, White House officials reacted cautiously and relied on the Pentagon to confirm the deaths of his sons.

At the very moment that Pentagon officials were confirming the deaths, White House officials were preparing yet another briefing to explain Bush's use of flawed intelligence in January's State of the Union address.

National security adviser Condoleezza Rice and her deputy, Stephen Hadley, joined CIA director George Tenet in taking the blame for Bush's statement that Iraq had shopped in Africa for uranium that could be used in a nuclear bomb. Administration officials concede that the assertion, which the president attributed to British intelligence sources, was questionable and shouldn't have been used as a reason for war.

Hadley said he had received two CIA memos challenging the British information last October, but forgot about them when he reviewed Bush's speech three months later. Rice also had been told of the CIA's concerns.

Rice apologized for her lapse through her deputy, but left it to Hadley to face reporters.

"I should have recalled at the time of the State of the Union speech that there was controversy," a contrite Hadley said. "I failed in that responsibility."

Wolfowitz committee instructed White House to use Iraq/urani
EXCLUSIVE!
Wolfowitz committee instructed White House to use Iraq/uranium reference in State of the Union speech
By Jason Leopold - Online Journal Assistant Editor
http://www.onlinejournal.com/index.html

WASHINGTON, July 16, 2003?-A Pentagon committee led by Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, advised George W. Bush to include a reference in his January State of the Union address about Iraq trying to purchase 500 tons of uranium from Niger to bolster the case for war in Iraq, despite the fact that the CIA warned Wolfowitz's committee that the information was unreliable, according to a CIA intelligence official and four members of the Senate's intelligence committee who have been investigating the issue.

The senators and the CIA official said they could be forced out of government and brought up on criminal charges for leaking the information to this reporter and as a result requested anonymity. The senators said they plan to question CIA Director George Tenet in a closed-door hearing to find out whether Wolfowitz and members of a committee he headed misled Bush and if the Bush knew about the erroneous information prior to his State of the Union address.

Spokespeople for Wolfowitz and Tenet vehemently denied the accusations. Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director, would not return repeated calls for comment.

The revelations by the CIA official and the senators, if true, would prove that Tenet, who last week said he erred by allowing the uranium reference to be included in the State of the Union address, took the blame for an intelligence failure that he was not responsible for. The lawmakers said it could also lead to a widespread probe of prewar intelligence.

At issue is a secret committee set up in 2001 by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called the Office of Special Plans, which was headed by Wolfowitz, Abrum Shulsky and Douglas Feith, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, to probe allegations of links between Iraq and the terrorist organization al-Qaeda and whether the country was stockpiling a cache of weapons of mass destruction. The Special Plans committee disbanded in March after the start of the war in Iraq.

The committee's job, according to published reports, was to gather intelligence information on the Iraqi threat that the CIA and FBI could not uncover and present it to the White House to build a case for war in Iraq. The committee relied heavily on information provided by Iraqi defector Ahmad Chalabi, who has provided the White House with reams of intelligence on Saddam Hussein's weapons programs that has been disputed. Chalabi heads the Iraqi National Congress, a group of Iraqi exiles who have pushed for regime change in Iraq.

The Office of Special Plans, according to the CIA official and the senators, routinely provided Bush, Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney and National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice with questionable intelligence information on the Iraqi threat, much of which was included in various speeches by Bush and Cheney and some of which was called into question by the CIA.

In the months leading up to the war in Iraq, Rumsfeld became increasingly frustrated that the CIA could not find any evidence of Iraq's chemical, biological and nuclear weapons program, evidence that would have helped the White House build a solid case for war in Iraq.

In an article in the New York Times last October, the paper reported that Rumsfeld had ordered the Office of Special Plans to "to search for information on Iraq's hostile intentions or links to terrorists" that might have been overlooked by the CIA.

The CIA official and the senators said that's when Wolfowitz and his committee instructed the White House to have Bush use the now disputed line about Iraq's attempts to purchase 500 tons of uranium from Niger in a speech Bush was set to give in Cincinnati. But Tenet quickly intervened and informed Stephen Hadley, an aide to National Security Adviser Rice, that the information was unreliable.

Patrick Lang, a former director of Middle East analysis at the Defense Intelligence Agency, said in an interview with the New Yorker magazine in May that the Office of Special Plans "started picking out things that supported their thesis and stringing them into arguments that they could use with the President [sic]. It's not intelligence. It's political propaganda."

Lang said the CIA and Office of Special Plans often clashed on the accuracy of intelligence information provided to the White House by Wolfowitz.

Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, the author of a May New Yorker story on the Office of Special Plans, reported, "former CIA officers and analysts described the agency as increasingly demoralized. George knows he's being beaten up," one former officer said of George Tenet, the CIA director. "And his analysts are terrified. George used to protect his people, but he's been forced to do things their way." Because the CIA's analysts are now on the defensive, "they write reports justifying their intelligence rather than saying what's going on. The Defense Department and the Office of the Vice President write their own pieces, based on their own ideology. We collect so much stuff that you can find anything you want."

"They see themselves as outsiders, " a former C.I.A. expert, who spent the past decade immersed in Iraqi-exile affairs, told Hersh in regard to the Special Plans people. He added, "There's a high degree of paranoia. They've convinced themselves that they're on the side of angels, and everybody else in the government is a fool."

By last fall, the White House had virtually dismissed all of the intelligence on Iraq provided by the CIA, which failed to find any evidence of Iraq's weapons programs, in favor of the more critical information provided to the Bush administration by the Office of Special Plans

Hersh reported that the Special Plans Office "developed a close working relationship with the (Iraqi National Congress), and this strengthened its position in disputes with the C.I.A. and gave the Pentagon's pro-war leadership added leverage in its constant disputes with the State Department. Special Plans also became a conduit for intelligence reports from the I.N.C. to officials in the White House."

In a rare Pentagon briefing recently, Office of Special Plans co-director Douglas Feith said the committee was not an "intelligence project," but rather a group of 18 people that looked at intelligence information from a different point of view.

Feith said when the group had new "thoughts" on intelligence information it was given; they shared it with CIA Director Tenet.

"It was a matter of digesting other people's intelligence," Feith said of the main duties of his group. "Its job was to review this intelligence to help digest it for me and other policy makers, to help us develop Defense Department strategy for the war on terrorism."
-------------------------------------

Jason Leopold spent two years covering California's electricity crisis as bureau chief of Dow Jones Newswires. He has written more than 2,000 news stories on the issue and was the first journalist to report that energy companies were engaged in manipulative practices in California's newly deregulated electricity market. Mr. Leopold is also a regular contributor to CNBC and National Public Radio and has been the keynote speaker at more than two-dozen energy industry conferences around the country.

That number, 500 tons, sounds awfully familiar! c.i.