Tuesday, July 27, 2004

 

America Deserves Better # 23

Dear Friends,
By now you have all heard at least a little bit about the Senate Intelligence Committee report on the evidence supporting The Bush administration's arguments for a war in Iraq. A bowdlerized version of the actual report can be found at:
http://news.findlaw.com/legalnews/lit/iraq/documents.html
The committee concluded that faulty intelligence was the problem, and that there was no evidence that the intelligence community was pressured to come up with the desired story. As the report is over 500 pages long I have not read it all, but I did read one section in detail, the section dealing with Iraq's nuclear program. When you read this section, and the conclusions at the end of the section, it is clear that, in order to reach unanimity, the committee pulled their punches. It may not be a whitewash, but the conclusions are a far cry from the actuality.
The body of the report makes it clear that the CIA analysts who prepared the intelligence reports concerning the famous aluminum tubes consciously fabricated supposed intelligence, interpreted intelligence in unlikely ways that supported the desired conclusions, reported known data selectively, reported data falsely, ignored other reports or failed to mention known reports that disputed their conclusions, lied about other data, lied about the results of their own experiments and lied about other known uses of the tubes in question. Their "National Intelligence Assessment" was a farrago of lies, distortions, half truths, selective data and knowingly improbable analysis. The reinterpretation of the data started in April 2001, and reached a peak in Sept. 2002.
With one exception the wording of the committee's conclusions gets no stronger than to state that various conclusions were wrong.
There is no way that the conclusions were wrong due to faulty intelligence or to lack of "humint". The conclusions were the result of conscious distortions, omissions and fabrications, but that is never stated. The commitee's understatements come pretty close to whitewash.
One should ask oneself why the CIA began to consciously and falsely reinterpret their intelligence starting in April 2001 if they were under no pressure to do so. Remember Paul O'Neal's input that discussions of war on Iraq started at Bush's first cabinet meeting. Do you think that is a coincidence?
Regretably the media has played along with the game rather than exposing the real meat of the report. If any of you doubt me I beg you to read the report for yourself, or at least read the section on the Nuclear Program to assure yourself that I am not exaggerating.
The administration didn't simply act on poor intelligence, they acted on intelligence that was consciously changed and falsified, and that was done so only after this administration took office. You can reach your own conclusions. I conclude that there was pressure to produce the desired intelligence, and that sycophants in the intelligence community responded to that pressure as desired. Intelligence was clearly fabricated to persuade Congress to support a war of choice, a decision they would not otherwise have made.
We cannot let such deceit continue to be the basis for national policy. America deserves better. Defeat this administration.
Yours, in shock,
Murray


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