Anyone with a sense of balance should take any single sentence extract from large report with a degree of skepticism, unless that sentence was in the summary. Even then, why only one sentence, not a paragraph or a sentence with some supporting details? Perhaps it is because all of the other sentences diminished the impact or in fact completely changed it's meaning. Frankly, if the report was all that much in support of Bush shenanigans, more would have been leaked out. A wonderful part of our system of government is that it is incredibly hard to hide things. Not impossible, just hard.
Hopefully, I have/had have the same approach even when it is/was convenient to do otherwise. Andy -----Original Message----- From: Dana Tierney [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, June 08, 2003 10:53 AM To: CF-Community Subject: Re: US Intelligence report analysis.. A reasonable position. I thought the "one sentence" was the one Gel quoted, but you are saying the story only quotes one sentence of the report? I guess if I were an agnostic leaning pro Bush rather than an agnostic leaning to not believiing Bush I would not rush to change my position based on that either. Dana On Sun, 8 Jun 2003 07:06:41 -0500, Andy Ousterhout <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > 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 This list and all House of Fusion resources hosted by CFHosting.com. The place for dependable ColdFusion Hosting. http://www.cfhosting.com Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
