Phase II - Just in Time For Nothing

[Bonestorm]

Just it time for . . . well, nothing actually. In any event, the Senate Intelligence Committee has released the final portions of the Phase II reports on prewar intelligence. There are two parts to the report, one on the "Administration prewar statements that, on numerous occasions, misrepresented the intelligence and the threat from Iraq" and a second on the "inappropriate, sensitive intelligence activities conducted by the DoD’s Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, without the knowledge of the Intelligence Community or the State Department."

The nickel version according to the press release is as follows:

The Committee’s report cites several conclusions in which the Administration’s public statements were NOT supported by the intelligence. They include:

Ø Statements and implications by the President and Secretary of State suggesting that Iraq and al-Qa’ida had a partnership, or that Iraq had provided al-Qa’ida with weapons training, were not substantiated by the intelligence.

Ø Statements by the President and the Vice President indicating that Saddam Hussein was prepared to give weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups for attacks against the United States were contradicted by available intelligence information.

Ø Statements by President Bush and Vice President Cheney regarding the postwar situation in Iraq, in terms of the political, security, and economic, did not reflect the concerns and uncertainties expressed in the intelligence products.

Ø Statements by the President and Vice President prior to the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate regarding Iraq’s chemical weapons production capability and activities did not reflect the intelligence community’s uncertainties as to whether such production was ongoing.

Ø The Secretary of Defense’s statement that the Iraqi government operated underground WMD facilities that were not vulnerable to conventional airstrikes because they were underground and deeply buried was not substantiated by available intelligence information.

Ø The Intelligence Community did not confirm that Muhammad Atta met an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in 2001 as the Vice President repeatedly claimed.

In other words, everything you think was true was true.

I personally want to thank the Senate Intelligence Committee for waiting forever to issue this report and I hereby nominate them for the Scott McClellan Award for Faux Courageous Acts of Confirming Things that Would Have Been Nice to Have Confirmed A Long Fucking Time Ago. I mean, it isn't as though the question of whether and how badly we were lied to was important to anything that occurred from 2003-2008.


Press Release:

http://intelligence.senate.gov/press/record.cfm?id=298775

First Report (pdf):

http://intelligence.senate.gov/080605/phase2a.pdf

Second Report (pdf):

http://intelligence.senate.gov/080605/phase2b.pdf

 

[Onceler]

I'm so tired of the parsing conservatives do between "lying" and "misleading." Oh, Bush may have stacked the intel & presented the case in a dishonest way, but he didn't actually LIE.

Bush lied, kids died, period. I was wondering when this part of the investigation would come out; hope it gets some airplay.

 

[uscitizen]

Some airplay in the liberal media ? Not a chance, after all it would be embaressing to conservatives.