Free Republic

Not Bush. And That Might Be a Problem While it is almost certainly more crucial to America's future than, say, immigration, the question of what will happen between the United States and Iran in the next year or so is of surprisingly little public concern. Pollwatcher Stu Rothenberg tells me it's a complete nonissue in this year's midterm congressional elections. As for 2008's presidential race, well, what might be seen as the bellicosity of the Bush administration's Vulcans is drowned out by the mighty bellowing against Iran of prospective Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton. Sadly but not surprisingly, the American people,...

The sordid tale now making the rounds in the "mainstream" press of a rogue Pentagon intelligence operation has all the elements of an urban legend: heavy breathing, a secret basement office "down by the ramp" and government officials who form a hidden alliance based on long-ago ties to an obscure but influential university guru. Only the work of a few good men with the courage to face up to this "cabal" - and a few crusader-journalists to help them - can make the demons scatter and scare the dark ones into the light. Or so the story goes on those...

Since midsummer, the Senate Intelligence Committee has been attempting to solve the biggest mystery of the Iraq war: the disparity between the Bush Administration’s prewar assessment of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and what has actually been discovered. The committee is concentrating on the last ten years’ worth of reports by the C.I.A. Preliminary findings, one intelligence official told me, are disquieting. “The intelligence community made all kinds of errors and handled things sloppily,” he said. The problems range from a lack of quality control to different agencies’ reporting contradictory assessments at the same time. One finding, the official went...

Julian Borger in Washington and Ian TraynorTuesday January 18, 2005The Guardian President Bush's second inauguration on Thursday will provide the signal for an intense and urgent debate in Washington over whether or when to extend the "global war on terror" to Iran, according to officials and foreign policy analysts in Washington. That debate is being driven by "neo-conservatives" at the Pentagon who emerged from the post-election Bush reshuffle unscathed, despite their involvement in collecting misleading intelligence on Iraq's weapons in the run-up to the 2003 invasion. Washington has stood aside from recent European negotiations with Iran and Pentagon hardliners are...

ASHINGTON, Oct. 2 — The Central Intelligence Agency has refused to provide Congress a comprehensive report on its role in a possible American campaign against Iraq, setting off a bitter dispute between the agency and leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Congressional leaders said today.In a contentious, closed-door Senate hearing today, agency officials refused to comply with a request from the committee for a broad review of how the intelligence community's clandestine role against the government of Saddam Hussein would be coordinated with the diplomatic and military actions that the Bush administration is planning. Lawmakers said they were further...

US Ministry of Defense Secret office exaggerated Iraq reports In the Pentagon allegedly reports about Iraq were systematically exaggerated under the direction of vice-president Cheney and sent to the White House. Since August 2002 all Iraq dossiers were provided with prefabricated text modules, reports the Zeit. The weekly paper for its on Wednesday first published report refers to witnesses from US authorities. In the so called "Office of Special Plans" of the Pentagon since August 2002 under the direction of vice-president Dick Cheney all dossiers on Iraq were provided with prefabricated text modules, reports a former female employee of the...

One key argument for war was the peril from weapons of mass destruction. Now top officials are worried by repeated failures to find the proof - and US intelligence agencies are engaged in a struggle to avoid the blame The Iraqi military base at Taji does not look like a place of global importance. It is a desolate expanse of bunkers and hangars surrounded by barbed wire and battered look-out posts. It is deserted apart from American sentries at the gate. Yet Taji, north of Baghdad, is the key to a furious debate. Where are Saddam's weapons of mass destruction?...