Posted on 02/03/2004 1:14:59 AM PST by FairOpinion
Edited on 04/13/2004 2:11:30 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
WASHINGTON -- The White House announced yesterday that its inquiry into intelligence failures would include Libya, North Korea, and Iran in addition to Iraq, sparking quick criticism that the panel will be a long-delayed and watered-down examination of the intelligence that the Bush administration cited to justify the war in Iraq.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
The Dems are demonstrating that they couldn't care less about the intelligence, they just want to "get Bush".
"One of the major questions that needs to be addressed is whether senior administration officials, including members of the Cabinet and senior White House officials misled Congress and the public about the nature of the threat from Iraq," said a letter to Bush signed by five lawmakers. The lawmakers included Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, and Representative Nancy Pelosi of California.
I didn't know about this letter that Daschle, Lieberman and Pelosi signed -- but so much for my slight sympathy for Lieberman.
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Why should it? Are we just going to open up the hearings and share with terrorists the same sort of intelligence the CIA, FBI and NSA deal with on a daily basis? This nation's security is at risk, and the WOT would essentially be shot to hell in a hurry.
Even if it was closed. Jerks like Patrick Leahy would be leaking vital and sensitive information to the media. The same media the terrorists watch.
Imteresting that Blair is making noise about doing the same. Both governments formed OSP type groups in the last couple years to bypass the normal intel groups, both seem to want to make sure no investigation goes there.
I think they'll throw Tenet to the wolves and call it "solved". Probably the only reason they kept him around.
A good sign that this commission has a chance to actually be fair.
That is exactly right. The dims are treating this as if all the intelligence problems are Pres. Bush's fault -- nothing could be farther from the truth. The problem is lack of human intelligence assets on the ground, that started with the Church committee back in the late 70s.
Then the intelligence community were restrained, by congress, to hire choir boys as assets -- which obviously had shortcomings -- these restrictions came into play in the 80s and 90s. Hardly the time frame that Pres. Bush was in office.
So Pres. Bush comes along and experiences the results of the long standing policy failures and wants to fix it. Meanwhile the dims and Congress had all this time to "correct" the policy failures they imposed, have done nothing. For them to sanctimoniously cry about the structure of the commission is like the fox protesting about not guarding the hen house. It is Pres. Bush's problem to fix and he should have every right to choose the method of getting to the bottom of the problems and fixing them. I'd say: "Damn the dim's torpedoes, full speed ahead!"
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