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"Intelligence doesn't necessarily mean something is true," Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a Pentagon news briefing after major combat ended in Iraq. "You know, it's your best estimate of the situation. It doesn't mean it's a fact. I mean, that's not what intelligence is."
If Gen. Myers is right, why hasn't he explained it to the President, so he'll stop insisting that those WMD were there and will be found.
Have you noticed how difficult it can be to pindown this straight-talking regular American guy who is our President? His mastery of and comfort with empty language and profound tautological impulses protect him from getting caught saying anything too specific.
Something this article makes clear, the blurring of the distinction between Saddam bfore and after the Gulf War was part of the the way this war was sold through-out last year. Bait and switch indeed; Donald Rumsfeld has never said anything more true:
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Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld offered a nuanced analysis to Congress last week about the role that American intelligence played as the administration built its case against Mr. Hussein.
"The coalition did not act in Iraq because we had discovered dramatic new evidence of Iraq's pursuit of weapons of mass murder," he said. "We acted because we saw the existing evidence in a new light, through the prism of our experience on Sept. 11."
What they saw, whether they realize it or not, was a way to move up a prime objective this administration had when it came to power - to depose Saddam, as a first step in remaking the Middle East, from which would follow, as night follows day, that most sacred of projects for this new American century, a Pax Americana, the very thing, let us not forget, that President John Kennedy explicitly rejected, by name, in his speech at American University announcing the first step for a nuclear weapons test ban.
Hard to believe that Condi Rice doesn't know what she's trying to distract from with this little bit of vamping.
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Condoleezza Rice, Mr. Bush's national security adviser, said today that the question of new evidence versus old was beside the point. "The question of what is new after 1998 is not an interesting question," she said. "There is a body of evidence since 1991. You have to look at that body of evidence and say what does this require the United States to do? Then you are compelled to act.
"To my mind, the most telling and eye-catching point in the judgment of five of the six intelligence agencies was that if left unchecked, Iraq would most likely have a nuclear weapon in this decade. The president of the United States could not afford to trust Saddam's motives or give him the benefit of the doubt," she said.
Well, who on earth was it who was telling anyone in that administration to trust Saddam Hussein's anything?
The article makes excruciatingly clear how difficult it was for either the Clinton or Bush administrations to get hard intelligence about Iraq or Saddam post the withdrawal of the inspectors in 1998.
Whatever Ms. Rice says now, here's Paul Wolfowitz in Janruary of this year, right before the SOTU:
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"It is a case grounded in current intelligence," he told the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, "current intelligence that comes not only from sophisticated overhead satellites and our ability to intercept communications, but from brave people who told us the truth at the risk of their lives. We have that; it is very convincing."
Who's kidding who, here? And who said this is an administration that speaks with one voice?
The article goes into stunning detail about how Secretary Powell put together his Janruary UN presentation. I'd be interested to know what any of you think about how he fits into this mess. Is Powell really the mature voice of reality, or is he a willing shill for the Bush doctrine, lending it a gravitas that even the SCLM can no longer pretend not to notice has gone awol on the President?
EDITED to include missing material.