Posted on 07/12/2003 12:52:33 PM PDT by Cathryn Crawford
George Tenet's admission last night that it was his mistake that caused President Bush to use faulty intelligence in his State of The Union address is interesting at the same time as it is convienent. In the statement itself, which is lengthy and filled with reasons as to the intelligence failure, Tenet wholeheartedly takes responsility for his agency.
"Let me be clear about several things right up front. First, CIA approved the President's State of the Union address before it was delivered. Second, I am responsible for the approval process in my Agency. And third, the President had every reason to believe that the text presented to him was sound. These 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the President. "
On the face of it, this admission seems like the perfect solution to the growing problems for both the Bush and Blair administration. It's all CIA's fault, they can claim. But is that really viable?
On the face of it, perhaps. But Bush is the President. He has to take final responsibility, doesn't he?
If Bush can truly claim to know absolutely nothing, then don't we have a serious problem - wouldn't that imply that Bush is either incompetent or is simply not paying attention?
For discussion purposes - has Bush been conned by Tenet? And if he has, isn't that rather serious?
And if he wasn't conned by Tenet, what is the alternative?
The point is, it's the article we're supposed to be commenting on, not Ms. Crawford's character, whether positive or negative.
Personally, I think she's a very nice person, but that's beside the point: I disagree totally with this article.
"[I]ntelligence that our sources had been unable to verify" is, in my opinion, "faulty intelligence" for purpose of inclusion in a president's State of the Union address.
I agree with the White House that it would have been much better to have excised those 16 words.
Well, I don't know what to tell you. I've gone back and read my posts on this thread and I remember feeling at all times very comfortable in voicing my views on the subject.
Nothing she or anyone else said made me feel crippled or unable to discuss the issues rationally. ;-)
I agree with the White House that it would have been much better to have excised those 16 words.
Personally, I just don't see the problem, but I don't see that the line added that much to the SOTU address either.
If you read my prior posts on this thread, I think you'll see that I agree with you that the mistake was a minor one. ;-)
Good question! Beats me! LOL. ;-)
No. A mistake in judgment on the part of the CIA may have occurred, but it's looking more and more likely that the intelligence on which the '16 words' were based was actually correct. (Haven't seen the news in the last couple of hours, but this morning, it sure looked that way.)
Exactly. Very minor.
That was why I took issue with the article here:
If Bush can truly claim to know absolutely nothing, then don't we have a serious problem - wouldn't that imply that Bush is either incompetent or is simply not paying attention?For discussion purposes - has Bush been conned by Tenet? And if he has, isn't that rather serious?
And if he wasn't conned by Tenet, what is the alternative?
The answers to the above questions are really very simple: we don't have a problem, serious or otherwise, with regards to the President's competency or credibility.
We do have a public relations problem, caused by the press making a mountain out of a molehill, and the situation is exacerbated by articles like this which seem to imply that the President included false information in the SOTU address and that the administration is either incompetent or dishonest.
That's why in my posts I tried to address those questions. You know me, if they'd been complicated questions, I would have been completely stumped. LOL
We do have a public relations problem,
I agree - that's why the inclusion of those 16 words was, in retrospect, a mistake.
I trust the American people to judge the facts fairly. The American people are not as stupid as a lot of folks seem to imply.
Given her drive; Yes, but we are JUST AS DRIVEN!
Given her ambition; Yes, but enough people hate her.
Given her connections; Yes, pinco commies/media love her.
Given her star status; AS A LIAR!
Given the masses who'd kill just to please her; If you are counting only fags.
Given the masses who'd bring society down around their own ears in her behalf; If you think that there are enough Americans who are proud to be openly communists.
Given her access and manipulations of the media; Correct, the majority of the media is liberal commies.
Given the demonic forces eager to boost her power; Let us expose fags, and commies.
Given the revisionism aflood in our society; FOX is keeping things in the up and up.
Given tooooo much apathy on the part of tooooooo many conservative patriots, Christians; THAT IS ONE SINGLE DANGER THAT WE ALL SHOULD BE AWARE OF. WE MUST BE VIGELANTS.
Given even overt and covert real witchcraft; I don't believe in that!
Yes, hindsight is 20/20, and it becomes all too easy to criticize others for not being able to foresee the future, doesn't it?
The American people are not as stupid as a lot of folks seem to imply.
True, and most people don't like being accused, even implicitly, of being stupid, do they?
that's a pretty poor excuse for foisting what was known to be weak intel on the nation in SOTU with the lame disclaimer "or so the brits say." this bit about obtaining uranium from africa was never, at least accord to tenet's statement, the strongest evidence of a nuclear reconstitution program in iraq. it was little more than a footnote in the NIE.
why would the president use the weakest part of the intelligence picture to make his case? can anyone here answer that question?
exceprt of tenet's statement:
"In October, the Intelligence Community (IC) produced a classified, 90-page National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq's WMD programs. There is a lengthy section in which most agencies of the intelligence community judged that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Let me emphasize, the NIE's key judgments cited six reasons for this assessment; the African uranium issue was not one of them."
The difference is Wilson stated on the record that Cheney would know the result of his tea-sipping trip (so what) and therefore "knew" the uranium story was bogus (which it has not been determined to be despite Wilson's claims).
However, Tenet says Wilson's report was not conclusive and the VP was NOT briefed on it.
See?
Here is Tenet's version:
Because this report, in our view, did not resolve whether Iraq was or was not seeking uranium from abroad, it was given a normal and wide distribution, but we did not brief it to the president, vice president or other senior administration officials. We also had to consider that the former Nigerian officials knew that what they were saying would reach the U.S. government and that this might have influenced what they said.
I hope you see by now Jethro, that I am absolutely correct in my original assessment of Wilson.
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