In a report which might alternately be termed “stunning” or “terrifying”, United Nations weapons inspectors confirmed last week not merely that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, but that he smuggled them out of his country, before, during and after the war.
THE LEGACY OF JAY ROCKEFELLER
Jay Rockefeller (Socialist, Democrat from West Virginia, also home to the Klansman Byrd) TOLD SYRIA AND JORDAN AND SAUDI ARABIA that Iraq was going to be invaded!
Here is the transcript:
WALLACE: ...in October of 2002 in which you authorized the use of force, you went further than the president ever did. Let's watch:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROCKEFELLER: I do believe that Iraq poses an imminent threat, but I also believe that after September 11th that question is increasingly outdated.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Now, the president never said that Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat. As you saw, you did say that. If anyone hyped the intelligence, isn't it Jay Rockefeller?
ROCKEFELLER: No. I mean, this question is asked a thousand times and I'll be happy to answer it a thousand times. I took a trip by myself in January of 2002 to Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria, and I told each of the heads of state that it was my view that George Bush had already made up his mind to go to war against Iraq, that that was a predetermined set course which had taken shape shortly after 9/11.
Now, the intelligence that they had and the intelligence that we had were probably different. We didn't get the presidential daily briefs. We got only a finished product, a finished product, a consensual view of the intelligence community, which does not allow for agencies like in the case of the aluminum tubes, the Department of Energy said these aren't thick enough to handle nuclear power.
They left that out and went ahead with, "They have aluminum tubes and they're going to develop nuclear power."
WALLACE: Senator, you're quite right. You didn't get the presidential daily brief or the senior executive intelligence brief. You got the national intelligence estimate.
But the Silberman commission, a presidential commission that looked into this, did get copies of those briefs, and they say that they were, if anything, even more alarmist, even less nuanced, than the intelligence you saw...
14 posted on 11/18/2005 5:28:03 PM EST by Recovering_Democrat -- bttt