Posted on 02/05/2004 7:34:29 AM PST by Kaslin
WASHINGTON - In his first public defense of prewar intelligence, CIA (news - web sites) Director George Tenet said Thursday U.S. analysts never claimed before the war that Iraq (news - web sites) posed an imminent threat.
Tenet said analysts had varying opinions on the state of Iraq's chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs and those differences were spelled out in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate given to the White House. That report summarized intelligence on Iraq's weapons programs.
Analysts "painted an objective assessment for our policy makers of a brutal dictator who was continuing his efforts to deceive and build programs that might constantly surprise us and threaten our interests, " he said in a speech at Georgetown University.
"No one told us what to say or how to say it," Tenet said.
He said that "in the intelligence business, you are never completely wrong or completely right ... When the facts of Iraq are all in, we will neither be completely right nor completely wrong."
He also noted that the search for banned weapons is continuing and "despite some public statements, we are nowhere near 85 percent finished. " That was a direct rebuttal to claims made by David Kay, Tenet's former top adviser in the weapons search.
Since Kay resigned two weeks ago, his statements that Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s purported weapons didn't exist at the time of the U.S. invasion have sparked an intense debate over the prewar intelligence the Bush administration used to justify the war.
The failure to find weapons of mass destruction is turning into a major political issue ahead of the presidential election, calling into question the justification for the war as U.S. casualties mount. Republicans in Congress have increasingly been blaming poor intelligence and Tenet, who was originally appointed by President Clinton (news - web sites).
Democrats have said intelligence agencies deserved only part of the blame and have accused the White House of showcasing intelligence that bolstered the case for war, while ignoring dissenting opinions.
Bush was expected to announce another commission this week to review the intelligence community. At least five other inquiries into prewar intelligence are already under way.
The Senate Intelligence Committee, chaired by Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., scheduled a meeting Thursday to study a 200-plus-page report compiled by committee staff on the prewar intelligence.
Hm. You seem to have the misapprehension that this was a jury trial in a court of law. It was not.
In fact, you turn it on its head, insisting that we must believe all allegations until we prove the perpetrator is/was innocent.
Not "all" allegations. I do indeed believe that it is misplaced to give the benefit of the doubt to someone like a Saddam Hussein, and place the burden of proof on others, rather than vice versa.
Obviously, were this a jury trial in a court of law, the rules of evidence would be different. But this is not a jury trial in a court of law, like I've said. Why do you think/assume it is?
Believe what you will.
I'm puzzled as to what it is you think I "believe". I've already explained that I don't necessarily "believe" (or disbelieve) the drones/anthrax story, for example. I have not stated any "beliefs" of that nature in this thread. I don't know why you have such a difficult time understanding my posts. It's presumably some combination of (admittedly) me not explaining myself very well, and (I dare say) you not reading my posts very carefully let alone thinking about what is in them.
I'm glad to hear that, but still a little puzzled, because in the link you provide Kerry (or whatever Kerry flunky wrote that statement) DOES accuse Bush of having called Iraq an "imminent threat".
It really seems true: lefties and anti-war folks think that "imminent" is a magic word which can be wielded to win all arguments. All I can say is *shrug*
Oh I see, he "only" says this:
thats not what the Bush White House told the American people. They said Iraq posed [....] and, yes, an imminent threat
Yeah that's much different. (??)
I'm sure you have a great point here of some kind, I'm just not sure what it is.
Yes, I understand the nature and slipperiness of Kerry's circumlocution, and I congratulate him on it. Bravo Kerry. We'll see how far he gets with it.
What's your point exactly?
You fell for it.
That's right, I did. I interpreted his remarks to be an accusation that Bush said "imminent threat", as will everyone else. That is his intent, of course. (Because lefties think "imminent" is a magic word that, if they can JUST pin it on Bush directly or through slippery circumlocution, they win all arguments. I guess.)
Doesn't mean he's not engaging in deception when he does this. Deception is actually the intent, as you've explained nicely.
Still don't understand quite what your point is.
And everybody keeps bitching about the lies. Well, it's not an actual lie. It's a propaganda ruse,
Well then, allow me to retroactively explain that I have been bitching about (in Kerry's case) the deceptive propaganda ruse.
Got a problem with that?
About 90% of them have been here for 3-5 years. And we wonder why the sheeple don't catch this stuff!
Doesn't this just illustrate how deceptive and dishonest Kerry's ruse is? You seem to think that all this is somehow exculpatory of Kerry and anyone else who uses this lawyerspeak you've identified. I'm not sure why.
It's not exculpatory at all.
Just a pointer: one of the original missions of this forum was to expose media bias and half-truths.
And you've done so, you've identified Kerry's "the Bush White House" phrasing, which is certainly a half-truth.
But for some reason you seem to think it's OKAY for Kerry or someone else to do that, and that we are wrong to argue against it. Um, I beg to differ.
But I suppose that's not as much fun as blind fury and cheerleading.
Show me where I've engaged in "cheerleading". "fury"? perhaps. ;-) But "cheerleading", hell no. That's a load of bulls**t (he said furiously... ;-)
no he won't. Or rather, he'll get just as much "mileage" out of it as he would have gotten otherwise.
Kerry will say his ruse, I'll just say "BUSH never said that". like I've been saying. The fact that he has some verbal construction which is (for all I know) "legally accurate" makes the statement more deceptive, not less. I'll just include that in my complaint then.
So I'm not sure why we're talking about this. Your point is that the Kerry statement is a deceptive ruse. I agree. Good point! later,
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