Dana, The Chicago Trib had an article on this as well and unfortunately, only 1 sentence of the report was released. For the record, my opinion is that:
1. We had no "hard" intelligence that they had WMD's. By hard meaning our own people on the ground who saw the stuff. I believe that the administration said something similar in the September time frame. 2. We had intelligence that indicated that they didn't have WMD's as well as intel that indicated that they did 3. That only the supporting information was either filtered up or was believed by the administration The fundamental question for me is did the administration properly question the information that it received to create a balanced view and go into this situation with a solid understanding. If the information that they received was balanced in that it had both supporting and dissenting views and the supporting views outweighed the negative then I'm ok with the way they sold the war (I am using this approach to try to isolate the repetitive discussion on whether the war was right even without WMD's). If they did not get a full picture from which to base there decision, either they weren't asking or the intelligence community wasn't was passing up all of the information at hand or asking enough why's. In this case, we need a thorough analysis of the intelligence community and the Bush administration should be held responsible for a lousy decision making process. If Bush believed that there were no WMD's but decided not to tell us because he believed we still needed to overthrow Saddam, then he also needs to be held responsible for lying to the American people. Fundamentally, I do not believe that the ends justifies the means. I just try not to react as each side in the political battle leaks out one thing or another. We just don't know yet what really happened and may not know until latter when an insider decides to speak out about the process. Andy -----Original Message----- From: Dana Tierney [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, June 07, 2003 9:31 PM To: CF-Community Subject: Re: US Intelligence report analysis.. Andy If you follow the link there is a whole special feature there. The initial story looks substantial and to my eye fairly balanced. You and I disagree about balance however :) Anyway, I haven't read the whole thing so I am not prepared to discuss it, but I think it says somethng when MSNBC starts questioning the process. Likewise the Albuquerque Journal, which as I have previously noted is pro business, pro war and pro Bush, recently came out against a nuclear production facility in NM, the stated reason being more or less distrust of the feds and of the current administration in particular... Dana Andy Ousterhout writes: > Gel, > > Interesting sentence. Not saying that this isn't important, it is just > unfair to pull out one sentence and then define it's meaning in the context > of the whole. This is just one item that is helping create the picture of > the decision making process. Not saying the process isn't flawed. Just > saying that we don't know enough to say it was. > > Andy > > -----Original Message----- > From: Angel Stewart [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Saturday, June 07, 2003 3:42 PM > To: CF-Community > Subject: US Intelligence report analysis.. > > > "The Pentagon's intelligence agency had no hard evidence of Iraqi > chemical weapons last fall but believed Iraq had a program in place to > produce them, the agency's chief said Friday. The assessment suggests a > higher degree of uncertainty about the immediacy of an Iraqi threat - at > least with regard to one portion of its banned weapons programs - than > the Bush administration indicated publicly in building its case for > disarming Iraq, with force if necessary." > > http://msnbc.com/news/923165.asp?0si=- > > Well there ya go. > > -Gel > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/index.cfm?forumid=5 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/index.cfm?method=subscribe&forumid=5 Host with the leader in ColdFusion hosting. Voted #1 ColdFusion host by CF Developers. Offering shared and dedicated hosting options. www.cfxhosting.com/default.cfm?redirect=10481 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
