Unprovoked War
Recently, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller released a majority report with the support of two committee Republicans, which demonstrates that Bush and members of his staff lied to Congress and the American people to justify launching the first unprovoked war in this nations history.
Rockefeller said: “There is nothing more serious in public life than the decision to go to war. In too many instances in making the case for war, administration officials distorted the facts or said things that were not supported by the facts, said things that they knew or should have known were not true.”
The report has created new problems for Bush’s would be successor John McCain, who recently claimed that every intelligence agency in the world and every intelligence assessment reported that Hussein had WMDs. McCain should have known these claims were false even before the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report pointed out that both the State and Energy Department intelligence agencies had raised questions about the WMD claims, which Bush ignored.
This was not a case of 20/20 hindsight. This is a case of information that was available at the time being ignored. The National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq and weapons of mass destruction was read by only seven senators before they voted to go to war.
In 2002, the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Nancy Pelosi and, her counterpart in the Senate, Bob Graham the chairman of the Intelligence Committee were briefed extensively on the intelligence leading up to the vote to give Bush the power to invade Iraq.
At the time, Pelosi said there was nothing in that intelligence, which indicated that Iraq was an imminent threat to the United States. On the floor of the Senate, Graham said: “I‘m chairman of the Intelligence Committee. The NIE is not persuasive. There’s not a good case here for this war.”
Both Rep. Pelosi and Senator Graham voted against the Iraq War Resolution. The two Democrats, who had the most operational intelligence at their disposal, were joined by 21 Senators in voting against that resolution.
Rockefeller said: “There is nothing more serious in public life than the decision to go to war. In too many instances in making the case for war, administration officials distorted the facts or said things that were not supported by the facts, said things that they knew or should have known were not true.”
The report has created new problems for Bush’s would be successor John McCain, who recently claimed that every intelligence agency in the world and every intelligence assessment reported that Hussein had WMDs. McCain should have known these claims were false even before the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report pointed out that both the State and Energy Department intelligence agencies had raised questions about the WMD claims, which Bush ignored.
This was not a case of 20/20 hindsight. This is a case of information that was available at the time being ignored. The National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq and weapons of mass destruction was read by only seven senators before they voted to go to war.
In 2002, the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Nancy Pelosi and, her counterpart in the Senate, Bob Graham the chairman of the Intelligence Committee were briefed extensively on the intelligence leading up to the vote to give Bush the power to invade Iraq.
At the time, Pelosi said there was nothing in that intelligence, which indicated that Iraq was an imminent threat to the United States. On the floor of the Senate, Graham said: “I‘m chairman of the Intelligence Committee. The NIE is not persuasive. There’s not a good case here for this war.”
Both Rep. Pelosi and Senator Graham voted against the Iraq War Resolution. The two Democrats, who had the most operational intelligence at their disposal, were joined by 21 Senators in voting against that resolution.
posted by Jim O'Leary | 12:00 AM
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