60 Min: CIA Official Reveals Bush Told Iraq Had No WMD in Fall 2002

[Hugo Chavez]

BRADLEY: According to Drumheller, CIA Director George Tenet delivered the news about the Iraqi foreign minister at a high level meeting at the White House.

DRUMHELLER: The President, the Vice President, Dr. Rice…

BRADLEY: And at that meeting…?

DRUMHELLER: They were enthusiastic because they said they were excited that we had a high-level penetration of Iraqis.

BRADLEY: And what did this high level source tell you?

DRUMHELLER: He told us that they had no active weapons of mass destruction program.

BRADLEY: So, in the fall of 2002, before going to war, we had it on good authority from a source within Saddam's inner circle that he didn't have an active program for weapons of mass destruction?

DRUMHELLER: Yes.

BRADLEY: There's no doubt in your mind about that?

DRUMHELLER: No doubt in my mind at all.

BRADLEY: It directly contradicts, though, what the President and his staff were telling us.

DRUMHELLER: The policy was set. The war in Iraq was coming, and they were looking for intelligence to fit into the policy, to justify the policy.

[Camel Jockey]

Where is Intestone to defend the Iraq war now? fuckin morons!

[Hugo Chavez]

How many things have now come out showing Bush intentionally lied to the American People and Congress...   So funny, now the idiots have resigned to the fact that Bush lied his ass off and are now justifying it by saying the end justifies the means... That is we need oil, we need to rule the world, bla bla bla...    This line of thinking is about as un-American as it gets.

[a_joker10]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14030-2004Jun3.html

Yet his legacy may distill into a taunting shorthand: slam-dunk.

As in, it was a "slam-dunk" that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. Or so Tenet said, with the kind of unambiguous self-assurance that Bush so admires. These will go down as Tenet's famous last words, even though he uttered them more than a year ago.

Tenet him self said it was a slam dunk they had weapons of mass destruction.

So who's telling the truth.

[240 is Back]

we have to clarify joker-

are you referring to an active WMD program?

Or some shit shells of mustard gas buried in the desert?

Cause every nation in the world (nearly) has shit munitions burned in the dirt somewhere.  We DID NOT invade for these.  We invaded for the imminent new threat, the WMD mnfg, etc etc, which never materialized.

It's all for naught.  History will have the full collection of declassified docs over the next 10 years, and history will tell us (what many believe now) that the WMD line was just a lie.

[a_joker10]

I am refer to Tenet's slam dunk.

His statement that finding an active WMD program was a slam dunk.

Either he changed his story directly before the invasion under pressure from the white house or he actually believed there was an active WMD program.

I tend to believe Tenets words since they were directly said to him and by Powell at the UN.

http://www.factcheck.org/article358.html

What is a problem are the huge mistakes being made by the CIA.
If you can't trust the information being gathered, then they are more harm then good.

[240 is Back]

WIth so much dissent in our own nation, we should have deferred to the findings of the UN team, on the ground in Iraq.  Kay/Blix told the world repeatedly that there were not traces of WMD.  Those traces we smelled in Iran immediately- they didn't show up in Iraq. 

Seriously, the only evidence we had was aerial view of milk trucks, and Bush/Cheney on Meet the Press telling us the world was about to end.  No chem signatures like you see in every other nation with WMD (NK, Iran, etc). 

If there was conflict and reasonable doubt with the story here, and UK said no WMD, and UN said no WMD... why did they choose to follow the 10% of people telling them what they wanted to hear?

[a_joker10]

WIth so much dissent in our own nation, we should have deferred to the findings of the UN team, on the ground in Iraq.  Kay/Blix told the world repeatedly that there were not traces of WMD.  Those traces we smelled in Iran immediately- they didn't show up in Iraq. 

Seriously, the only evidence we had was aerial view of milk trucks, and Bush/Cheney on Meet the Press telling us the world was about to end.  No chem signatures like you see in every other nation with WMD (NK, Iran, etc). 

If there was conflict and reasonable doubt with the story here, and UK said no WMD, and UN said no WMD... why did they choose to follow the 10% of people telling them what they wanted to hear?

That's easy, people only listen to people that they believe are right.
This isn't the first time poor intelligence has caused a major blunder.
WW2, Vietnam, 9-11, Iraq are just a few of the many times bad intelligence in the hands of someone that wants to believe it causes serious problems.
Also America tends to believe their own information and discounts everyone elses.

Recently Maher Arar was detained and tortured in Syria do to bad intelligence offered by the RCMP and the FBI. America won't investigate and still has him on their watch list.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maher_Arar

[240 is Back]

That's easy, people only listen to people that they believe are right.
This isn't the first time poor intelligence has caused a major blunder.
WW2, Vietnam, 9-11, Iraq are just a few of the many times bad intelligence in the hands of someone that wants to believe it causes serious problems.
Also America tends to believe their own information and discounts everyone elses.

Recently Maher Arar was detained and tortured in Syria do to bad intelligence offered by the RCMP and the FBI. America won't investigate and still has him on their watch list.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maher_Arar

joker -

In your heart, do you believe we're in Iraq because

1) Poor intel caused a blunder, or

2) Bush Admin was given conflicting information, and chose the far more unlikely set of info to use when making decisions because it served their own financial and ideological purposes?



(unlikely based upon the fact that a majority of the worlds intel agencies including UK and UN believe no WMD)

[a_joker10]

I think it is a combination of both.

Personally, I think he was trying to finish what his father couldn't.
He was looking for a precondition to go to war and this fit the bill.

I also think the UN dropped the ball on this because they couldn't build consensus and all the abstainers were paid of by Saddam.

The UN has lost its relevance IMO.
If you look at what is happening in the Great Lakes region of Africa or the Horn of Africa. The UN dropped the ball because certain members of the UN, the French in particular don't want to give up their post colonial standing and are helping to fuel the hatred shown by both sides.

[240 is Back]

I agree the UN is becoming impotent quickly.  But I'd put it at a 90% "We're starting this fucking war!" to a 10% "we're very worried about the threat", behind closed doors.

The attitude of the admin at the time, from "bring it on", to "dead or alive!", etc etc, tell me that they tossed diplomacy and problem solving to the wind and just wanted to smack with world with their big military cock, which they promptly did.

[Hugo Chavez]

Joker, instead of looking at one man to make your case why in the hell wouldn't you look at all the testimonies that have come forth on this matter that ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL LLLLLLL say Bush intended on fixing the intelligence around the policy...