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Bush wants to release the Saddam files but his intelligence chief stalls
THE WEEKLY STANDARD ^ | 03/20/2006 | Stephen F. Hayes

Posted on 03/11/2006 9:22:21 AM PST by kimosabe31

On February 16, President George W. Bush assembled a small group of congressional Republicans for a briefing on Iraq. Vice President Dick Cheney and National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley were there, and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad participated via teleconference from Baghdad. As the meeting was beginning, Mike Pence spoke up. The Indiana Republican, a leader of conservatives in the House, was seated next to Bush."Yesterday, Mr. President, the war had its best night on the network news since the war ended," Pence said."Is this the tapes thing?" Bush asked, referring to two ABC News reports that included excerpts of recordings Saddam Hussein made of meetings with his war cabinet in the years before the U.S. invasion. Bush had not seen the newscasts but had been briefed on them.

Pence framed his response as a question, quoting Abraham Lincoln: "One of your Republican predecessors said, 'Give the people the facts and the Republic will be saved.' There are 3,000 hours of Saddam tapes and millions of pages of other documents that we captured after the war. When will the American public get to see this information?

"Bush replied that he wanted the documents released. He turned to Hadley and asked for an update. Hadley explained that John Negroponte, Bush's Director of National Intelligence, "owns the documents" and that DNI lawyers were deciding how they might be handled.

Bush extended his arms in exasperation and worried aloud that people who see the documents in 10 years will wonder why they weren't released sooner. "If I knew then what I know now," Bush said in the voice of a war skeptic, "I would have been more supportive of the war.

"Bush told Hadley to expedite the release of the Iraq documents. "This stuff ought to be out. Put this stuff out."

(Excerpt) Read more at weeklystandard.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: 109th; bush; intelligencesummit; iraq; iraqdocs; negroponte; pence; prewardocs; saddam; saddamtapes; saddamtapesdocs; stephenhayes; wmd
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To: FreeReign
Negroponte has argued privately that while the documents may be of historical interest, they are not particularly valuable as intelligence product.

See above. What exactly don't you understand?

101 posted on 03/11/2006 12:23:36 PM PST by processing please hold (Be careful of charity and kindness, lest you do more harm with open hands than with a clinched fist)
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To: tsmith130
You are not making sense. Exactly what quote did you consider to be from a nebulous source?

You're making no sense. I didn't say that a quote was nebulous. I did say your cite of an unquoted statement in your post #82 was nebulous.


102 posted on 03/11/2006 12:23:58 PM PST by FreeReign
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To: pbrown
He's the king of Siam, right?

No, This is the King. In fact there are two Kings, one Queen, and One Juliet Prowse.


103 posted on 03/11/2006 12:25:55 PM PST by ASA Vet (Those who talk don't know, those who know don't talk.)
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To: pbrown
"I have an article where two Russian Generals were accepting medals for their help"

Yes - I remember that, and I recall reading a thread very much like the one you presented.

Thanks :^) !

I could probably dig a lot of things up on this subject too - I'm just lazy (and have things that need to be done).

If our socialist lefties are as supportive and sympathetic of al Qaeda as they are, imagine how the average socialist Ruskie or Chinaman might be. I really don't think it's a stretch to imagine these totalitarian entities conspiring together to defeat the greatest hope for freedom and liberty on the planet, while figuring they'll then deal with each other once America is pushed out of the way or made irrelevant. FWIW.

104 posted on 03/11/2006 12:25:59 PM PST by the anti-liberal (Hey, Al Qaeda: Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent)
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To: FreeReign
We aren't the only ones that have found his statements contradictory:

Perhaps anticipating the weakness of his "mere history" argument, Negroponte abruptly shifted his position last week. He still opposes releasing the documents, only now he claims that the information in these documents is so valuable that it cannot be made public. Negroponte gave a statement to Fox News responding to Hoekstra's call to release the captured documents. "These documents have provided, and continue to provide, actionable intelligence to ongoing operations. . . . It would be ill-advised to release these materials without careful screening because the material includes sensitive and potentially harmful information."

This new position raises two obvious questions: If the documents have provided actionable intelligence, why has the intelligence community exploited so few of them? And why hasn't Negroponte demanded more money and manpower for the DOCEX program?

105 posted on 03/11/2006 12:27:39 PM PST by tsmith130
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To: ASA Vet

My husband would agree there was only one true king...Elvis.


106 posted on 03/11/2006 12:30:13 PM PST by processing please hold (Be careful of charity and kindness, lest you do more harm with open hands than with a clinched fist)
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To: pbrown
Negroponte has argued privately that while the documents may be of historical interest, they are not particularly valuable as intelligence product.

See above. What exactly don't you understand?

Negroponte has "argued privately"? Says who?

You actually call that a reliabe source?

AS I said before, Negroponte is one of the all time anti-commie, hated-by-the-left good guys. You obviously by your "king of Siam" response have no idea who he is.

If I'm going to believe that John Negroponte is doing harm to this country by protecting an enemy of this country, I want better evidence than some vauge statement by some unnamed source who isn't even quoted.

What part of that can you possibly have trouble with?

107 posted on 03/11/2006 12:31:50 PM PST by FreeReign
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To: the anti-liberal
You're welcome.

I just need to take the time to go through all my bookmarks. A daunting task to be sure.

If our socialist lefties are as supportive and sympathetic of al Qaeda as they are, imagine how the average socialist Ruskie or Chinaman might be. I really don't think it's a stretch to imagine these totalitarian entities conspiring together to defeat the greatest hope for freedom and liberty on the planet, while figuring they'll then deal with each other once America is pushed out of the way or made irrelevant. FWIW.

Perfect!!!!!

108 posted on 03/11/2006 12:32:28 PM PST by processing please hold (Be careful of charity and kindness, lest you do more harm with open hands than with a clinched fist)
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To: FreeReign

You're not Negroponte...you're his son/daughter.


109 posted on 03/11/2006 12:34:35 PM PST by processing please hold (Be careful of charity and kindness, lest you do more harm with open hands than with a clinched fist)
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To: kimosabe31; All

"The president needs to call Negroponte in and inform him that "although these docs/tapes may 'belong' to you as head of DNI, YOU work for me. NOW get these documents released immediately or you AND your lawyers are out on the street"."


EXACTLY!! And .. the President can add - they also work for THE TAXPAYER and the taxpayer should be allowed to see what their tax dollars produced out of Iraq from launching a war.

If people are so afraid of being embarrassed - then they should clean up their act, instead of expecting others to protect their foolishness.

Start calling your congress people and yelling about this stuff being released.


110 posted on 03/11/2006 12:37:12 PM PST by CyberAnt (Democrats/Old Media: "controversy, crap and confusion" -- Amen!)
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To: pbrown
That photo was on the set in 1960 of the movie "GI Blues" in hollywierd.
Elvis and the King got along well and the King expressed his admiration of Elvis.

The Thai adored Elvis due to this event.

111 posted on 03/11/2006 12:38:58 PM PST by ASA Vet (Those who talk don't know, those who know don't talk.)
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To: FreeReign
Negroponte has "argued privately"? Says who?

You actually call that a reliabe source?

Ok, FreeReign, here is the entire paragraph:

For months, Negroponte has argued privately that while the documents may be of historical interest, they are not particularly valuable as intelligence product. A statement by his office in response to the recordings aired by ABC said, "Analysts from the CIA and the DIA reviewed the translations and found that, while fascinating from a historical perspective, the tapes do not reveal anything that changes their postwar analysis of Iraq's weapons programs."

The first sentence, which you seem to want to discount, is backed up and reiterated by the statement from his office.

112 posted on 03/11/2006 12:39:13 PM PST by tsmith130
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To: tsmith130
This new position raises two obvious questions: If the documents have provided actionable intelligence, why has the intelligence community exploited so few of them? And why hasn't Negroponte demanded more money and manpower for the DOCEX program?

Your two questions raise two new obvious questions: How do you know that the intelligence community has exploited so few actionable intelligence? How do you know that Negroponte hasn't demanded more money and manpower?

113 posted on 03/11/2006 12:40:18 PM PST by FreeReign
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To: pbrown
You're not Negroponte...you're his son/daughter.

That's your judgement: As usual it's based on nothing.

114 posted on 03/11/2006 12:41:39 PM PST by FreeReign
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To: FreeReign
This new position raises two obvious questions: If the documents have provided actionable intelligence, why has the intelligence community exploited so few of them? And why hasn't Negroponte demanded more money and manpower for the DOCEX program?

This paragraph was actually from the article. I must have missed an < i>. So they are Stephen Hayes' questions...not mine. Ask him.

115 posted on 03/11/2006 12:46:23 PM PST by tsmith130
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To: ASA Vet

There's an Elvis station on Sirius. When my hubby gets rained out, guess what he listens to? I like the 50's 60's channel myself. But hubby, Elvis all the way. :-)


116 posted on 03/11/2006 12:49:30 PM PST by processing please hold (Be careful of charity and kindness, lest you do more harm with open hands than with a clinched fist)
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To: kimosabe31
I believe that NO MATTER WHAT is divulged about Saddam and WMD the MSM and the Dims will spin it in such a way as to be at best a WASH for GW.

The American people have made up their collective minds and any new FACTS will be dismissed.

117 posted on 03/11/2006 12:56:05 PM PST by PISANO (We will not tire......We will not falter.......We will NOT FAIL!!! .........GW Bush [Oct 2001])
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To: tsmith130
"while fascinating from a historical perspective, the tapes do not reveal anything that changes their postwar analysis of Iraq's weapons programs."

As presented, the above quote is vague. I would like to see the full context. For instance, who is being referred to by the word "their"?

Besides that what exactly do you think the caper is?

We're talking about John Negroponte, a conservative hero. If the guy really was acting against national interests and if the guy really wanted to be deceptive why wouldn't he have just given the "national security" explanation the first time around?

118 posted on 03/11/2006 12:56:27 PM PST by FreeReign
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To: One_who_hopes_to_know

No it isn't. The original "classifier" has the authority to declassify. It isn't just a unilateral choice of the CINC to release everything.


119 posted on 03/11/2006 12:57:16 PM PST by tongue-tied
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To: PISANO

I believed Bush 100% in the run up to the war and still do. I'll never waver on his judgement about that. He was right.


120 posted on 03/11/2006 1:03:54 PM PST by processing please hold (Be careful of charity and kindness, lest you do more harm with open hands than with a clinched fist)
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