Bush attacks critics claim pre-war intel was manipulated. Huge balls or delusional?

I thought the fact that the intelligence used to justify going to was in Iraq was manipulated, cherry picked and massaged (based on numerous accounts of what actually went on) was more or less a given fact at this point. Apparently Bush disagrees, as he come out swinging at people who hold these views and claims that his administration was fully exonerated by a detailed investigation of the use of pre-war intelligence.

Either I’m out of the news loop and am believing scurrilous lies by evil journalists and ex-administration officials, or Bush is delusional and/or has balls the size of blue ribbon pumpkins. Does Bush have a point and people are trying to “re-write history” regarding how the Iraq war began? Which is it?

Bush: Critics try to rewrite Iraq war history - He calls new questions about prewar intelligence ‘deeply irresponsible’

Technically there’s already a thread on this in GD, but the OP was rather incoherent and it’s almost certainly Pit bound, so I’ll repost here what I posted there:

I think the president has huge balls and is delusional.

Or maybe you’ve only been listening to one side of the argument. Here’s another:

Who is Lying About Iraq?

Here’s what Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s chief of staff had to say (and he was praised by the left for attacking the war not long ago):

As for the aluminum tubes:

Kenneth Pollack, who served on the National Security Council under Clinton, said this about a 2002 meeting:

And of course, the charge of manipulation of intelligence has already been investigated by the Senate Intelligence Committee (which has its own independent intelligence gathering), and found to be not true. The Robb-Silverman investigation found the same thing. NO ONE has ever found evidence that the Bush administration in any way attempted to influence the intelligence community or its conclusions.

You should read the whole article.

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Bush is delusional. With this week’s breakdown of the republican order on the hill (ANWR, budget cuts, tax cuts) it’ll soon be every congressman for himself. Some republicans have good reason to pull out their knives:

Sam, thank you for taking the trouble to post that information. If only it would make a difference.

Since 2000, people have been increasingly viewing the world through the prism of their partisanship. I’ll admit I’m guilty of it myself. If you already think someone is full of crap, when they say something else, you are almost going to discount it out of hand. I think that’s what’s happening with GWB. He is so hated that anything he says simply must be wrong.

This leads opponents of the president to continue to repeat something they either know is not true, or can’t let go of because it’s now an article of faith.

And they get away with it because the majority of Americans can’t even name the Secretary of State, let alone intelligently discuss the buildup to the Iraq war.

What bothers me the most is the refusal of some people to face the fact that they are undercutting the troops when they are undercutting the president. Like it or not, if they see the people in this country claiming that the war is unjust, they will see it as a sign of weakness and take encouragement from that.

Oh come on, these claims pale in Huge Ballness compared with his claims shortly after the Iraq war that his administration never called Saddam an imminent threat.

That attitude only promotes perpetual war, so no President ever has to face questions. Besides, the war is unjust; if they get killed for an evil cause, tough luck.

I vote delusional and no balls; let’s see him assert this in front of a neutral or hostile audience.

Assuming for the minute that that’s a valid criticism, which is the greater evil? Undercutting a corrupt and incompetent president now, which might cost the lives of more troops? Or letting him stand unchallenged, so that he can continue to make corrupt and incompetent decisions for the rest of his presidency that will condemn far, far more of our troops to an untimely death?

Yeah, yeah, I know: you don’t think Bush is corrupt or incompetent. I do. What else can I do, but everything within my lawful ability to see that his influence is curbed? Trying to make me feel guilty for doing what is, to me, clearly the most moral path isn’t going to gain you any traction.

From the same article:

This timeline from In These Times fits most of was discussed before in the SDMB:

http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/707/

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/unmovic/2003/0630selling.htm

This last quote fits with the Downing Street memos

The efforts of the OSP

The use of torture to get FALSE evidence to support the war

The use of shady characters like Chalabi and his Iraqi “defectors”

The Plame outing, and the poisoning of the media to support the war.

I vote for delusional; Bush was and remains a leader that can be lead around, which is why he was selected.

I think it’s been fairly well documented at this point that regardless of what the Bush Administration believed, or or more importantly, wanted to believe, that the intelligence used to justify the war was quite deliberately filtered and cherry picked by a group of neo-cons operating as a virtual extension of Cheney’s office. The depth and nature of this confederacy of Ex-patriot Iraqi con men, ambitious neo cons trying to protect Israel’s security by re-arranging the MENA political landscape, pliant, eager to please upper-level intelligence officials, and a president with a take Saddam down agenda has yet to be fully plumbed, but the parts of this puzzle revealed so far are both frightening and disturbing.

At what point in your scheme of things are we allowed to declare that the Emperor has no clothes, if, in fact, he is clothes free?

And what if the war is actually unjust?

One main theme of GW and his defenders is that every intelligence agency that he had access to was telling him that Saddam had chemical and biological weapons and was working on a nuclear program. This argument ignores the plain fact that those in the UN inspection who were actually on the ground and not reading tea leaves were saying that they couldn’t find any evidence of such things. For that the inspectors were thought of as inept, or worse. Dr. Blix, leader of the inspection team, was dismissed as just another one of those peace loving Scandinavians who couldn’t find a muddy elephant in a snowdrift.

When it was obvious that GW was going to war the inspectors were pulled for their safety and it remained for the US operator, David Kay, to find the same facts a year later.

Whether is was ineptitude or chicanery makes little difference. GW comitted the US to war, perhaps the most dire committment a President can make, in haste while dismissing the best evidence, that of those people actually on the ground in Iraq.

Exactly, big giant brass balls. This administration called Iraq a direct threat, a grave and growing threat and an immediate threat. McLellan the press secretary described Iraq as an imminent threat on more than one occasion. The administration spent months talking about the danger Iraq was to America then it had the balls to argue that it didn’t call Iraq an immeninent thread, despite the press secretary using that word and the administration using countless synonms. It takes a gigantic pair to do that.

Or irrationality; these people aren’t part of the “reality based community”, remember. They may very well think the past doesn’t count if the say it doesn’t count.

What criteria would you use do decide whether the Iraq war was just or unjust?

I can’t believe that any soldier anywhere is made safer by sweeping under the rug the reliance of his leaders on exaggerated claims in order to go to war.

Really, that attitude doesn’t foster meaningful debate, it just cuts it off. If you really think that everyone who opposes your view is completely nuts, why do you feel the need to engage? It’s childish, unless you are intentionally trying to cut off debate or some reason. I’m on the fence with a lot of this stuff, and I am interested in both sides weighing in with substance. But if you feel you must interfere with that, do what you must…

But that is not the point. Whether the claims were exaggerated or not doesn’t matter one iota to people in the field. The decision was made, past tense. The people are over there in harm’s way—now. But I think you’re using the right criteria: can you believe that any soldier is made safer by constantly throwing accusations at the President and trying to undermine his authority?