# Bush attacks critics claim pre-war intel was manipulated. Huge balls or delusional? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 12, 2005, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-attacks-critics-claim-pre-war-intel-was-manipulated-huge-balls-or-delusional/330676 "2005-11-12T03:58:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2005, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-attacks-critics-claim-pre-war-intel-was-manipulated-huge-balls-or-delusional/330676/1 "2005-11-12T03:58:49Z")
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’](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10004606/) ---
**Author:** ![Malodorous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e47774/32.png) [@Malodorous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malodorous)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2005, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-attacks-critics-claim-pre-war-intel-was-manipulated-huge-balls-or-delusional/330676/2 "2005-11-12T04:06:34Z")
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: > [@Me](#): > > If I were one of the prez’s handlers, I’d tell him to ignore the accusations made by the senate Dems regarding the lead up to the war. Mentioning it is just gonna keep it in the news, and there are others able to make Bush’s case for the Iraq war far more convincingly then Bush himself, without giving the critisism the extra news-worthiness that a rebutal from the POTUS gives it. ---
**Author:** ![Metacom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecae2f/32.png) [@Metacom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Metacom)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2005, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-attacks-critics-claim-pre-war-intel-was-manipulated-huge-balls-or-delusional/330676/3 "2005-11-12T04:11:54Z")
I think the president has huge balls _and_ is delusional. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2005, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-attacks-critics-claim-pre-war-intel-was-manipulated-huge-balls-or-delusional/330676/4 "2005-11-12T04:13:12Z")
Or maybe you’ve only been listening to one side of the argument. Here’s another: [Who is Lying About Iraq?](http://www.commentarymagazine.com/Production/files/podhoretz1205advance.html) > [@](#): > > The main “lie” that George W. Bush is accused of telling us is that Saddam Hussein possessed an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, or WMD as they have invariably come to be called. From this followed the subsidiary “lie” that Iraq under Saddam’s regime posed a two-edged mortal threat. On the one hand, we were informed, there was a distinct (or even “imminent”) possibility that Saddam himself would use these weapons against us and/or our allies; and on the other hand, there was the still more dangerous possibility that he would supply them to terrorists like those who had already attacked us on 9/11 and to whom he was linked. > > … > > Yet even stipulating—which I do only for the sake of argument—that no weapons of mass destruction existed in Iraq in the period leading up to the invasion, it defies all reason to think that Bush was lying when he asserted that they did. To lie means to say something one knows to be false. But it is as close to certainty as we can get that Bush believed in the truth of what he was saying about WMD in Iraq. > > How indeed could it have been otherwise? George Tenet, his own CIA director, assured him that the case was “a slam dunk.” This phrase would later become notorious, but in using it, Tenet had the backing of all fifteen agencies involved in gathering intelligence for the United States. In the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) of 2002, where their collective views were summarized, one of the conclusions offered with “high confidence” was that > > Iraq is continuing, and in some areas expanding its chemical, biological, nuclear, and missile programs contrary to UN resolutions. > > The intelligence agencies of Britain, Germany, Russia, China, Israel, and—yes—France all agreed with this judgment. And even Hans Blix—who headed the UN team of inspectors trying to determine whether Saddam had complied with the demands of the Security Council that he get rid of the weapons of mass destruction he was known to have had in the past—lent further credibility to the case in a report he issued only a few months before the invasion: > > The discovery of a number of 122-mm chemical rocket warheads in a bunker at a storage depot 170 km southwest of Baghdad was much publicized. This was a relatively new bunker, and therefore the rockets must have been moved there in the past few years, at a time when Iraq should not have had such munitions. . . . They could also be the tip of a submerged iceberg. The discovery of a few rockets does not resolve but rather points to the issue of several thousands of chemical rockets that are unaccounted for. > > Blix now claims that he was only being “cautious” here, but if, as he now also adds, the Bush administration “misled itself” in interpreting the evidence before it, he at the very least lent it a helping hand. 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): > [@](#): > > I can’t tell you why the French, the Germans, the Brits, and us thought that most of the material, if not all of it, that we presented at the UN on 5 February 2003 was the truth. I can’t. I’ve wrestled with it. [But] when you see a satellite photograph of all the signs of the chemical-weapons ASP—Ammunition Supply Point—with chemical weapons, and you match all those signs with your matrix on what should show a chemical ASP, and they’re there, you have to conclude that it’s a chemical ASP, especially when you see the next satellite photograph which shows the UN inspectors wheeling in their white vehicles with black markings on them to that same ASP, and everything is changed, everything is clean. . . . But George [Tenet] was convinced, John McLaughlin [Tenet’s deputy] was convinced, that what we were presented [for Powell’s UN speech] was accurate. > > People say, well, INR [the State Department] dissented. That’s a bunch of bull. INR dissented that the nuclear program was up and running. That’s all INR dissented on. They were right there with the chems and the bios. As for the aluminum tubes: > [@](#): > > The French came in in the middle of my deliberations at the CIA and said, we have just spun aluminum tubes, and by God, we did it to this RPM, et cetera, et cetera, and it was all, you know, proof positive that the aluminum tubes were not for mortar casings or artillery casings, they were for centrifuges. Otherwise, why would you have such exquisite instruments? Kenneth Pollack, who served on the National Security Council under Clinton, said this about a 2002 meeting: > [@](#): > > I participated in a Washington meeting about Iraqi WMD. Those present included nearly twenty former inspectors from the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM), the force established in 1991 to oversee the elimination of WMD in Iraq. One of the senior people put a question to the group: did anyone in the room doubt that Iraq was currently operating a secret centrifuge plant? No one did. Three people added that they believed Iraq was also operating a secret calutron plant (a facility for separating uranium isotopes). 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. [/quote] ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2005, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-attacks-critics-claim-pre-war-intel-was-manipulated-huge-balls-or-delusional/330676/5 "2005-11-12T04:23:15Z")
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:](http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/iraq/20051111-1423-bush.html) > [@](#): > > Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., who is weighing a run for president in 2008, has said he agrees with Democrats who are pressing the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee to move forward with an investigation into whether the administration manipulated intelligence. > > “I was probably the main driver on the Republican side because I thought we needed the answers to whether intelligence was misused, intentionally or unintentionally,” Hagel told the Omaha World-Herald in a story published Friday. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_One](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/45deac/32.png) [@Evil\_One](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_One)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2005, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-attacks-critics-claim-pre-war-intel-was-manipulated-huge-balls-or-delusional/330676/6 "2005-11-12T04:28:08Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2005, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-attacks-critics-claim-pre-war-intel-was-manipulated-huge-balls-or-delusional/330676/7 "2005-11-12T04:35:37Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2005, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-attacks-critics-claim-pre-war-intel-was-manipulated-huge-balls-or-delusional/330676/8 "2005-11-12T04:36:45Z")
> [@Evil One](#): > > 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. 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. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2005, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-attacks-critics-claim-pre-war-intel-was-manipulated-huge-balls-or-delusional/330676/9 "2005-11-12T04:44:41Z")
> [@Evil One](#): > > 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. 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. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2005, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-attacks-critics-claim-pre-war-intel-was-manipulated-huge-balls-or-delusional/330676/10 "2005-11-12T04:50:29Z")
> [@treis](#): > > 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. From the same article: > [@](#): > > Still, even many who believed that Saddam did possess WMD, and was ruthless enough to use them, accused Bush of telling a different sort of lie by characterizing the risk as “imminent.” But this, too, is false: Bush consistently rejected imminence as a justification for war.4 Thus, in the State of the Union address he delivered only three months after 9/11, Bush declared that he would “not wait on events while dangers gather” and that he would “not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer.” Then, in a speech at West Point six months later, he reiterated the same point: “If we wait for threats to materialize, we will have waited too long.” And as if that were not clear enough, he went out of his way in his State of the Union address in 2003 (that is, three months before the invasion), to bring up the word “imminent” itself precisely in order to repudiate it: > > > [@](#): > > > > Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2005, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-attacks-critics-claim-pre-war-intel-was-manipulated-huge-balls-or-delusional/330676/11 "2005-11-12T04:51:52Z")
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.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/707/) > [@](#): > > Concentrating only on the area before the war: > > September 2001 > > Days after 9/11, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Assistant Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith set up an independent intelligence committee called the Office of Special Plans (OSP). News reports indicate that OSP was created to find the missing evidence that would prove what Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz already believed: Saddam was in cahoots with al-Qaeda and had amassed chemical, biological and had even nuclear weapons. OSP analysts rely on discredited intelligence gathered by the INC. > > 2002 > > Cheney, his chief-of-staff Lewis Libby and Pentagon “consultant” Newt Gingrich make repeated trips to Langley to advocate a more “forward-leaning” interpretation of the Iraqi threat. Cheney has close ties to the OSP, whose operations are overseen by William Luti, an ex-aide to Cheney. > > February-March 2002 > > The vice president’s office asks the CIA to confirm a document showing that Niger sold yellowcake uranium to Iraq. The CIA sends former ambassador Joseph Wilson on a fact-finding mission. Upon his return, Wilson briefs CIA officers that the sale never took place. > > _[To Check what was going on here, see the next quotes article below]_ > > August 2002 > > Reports that intelligence from the OSP was channeled to Cheney to be used in speeches appear to be substantiated by Cheney’s remarks at the Veterans of Foreign Wars National Convention: “There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.” > > October 2002 > > Deputy National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley receives two memos and a phone call from CIA Director George Tenet warning him to delete references to yellowcake uranium in Bush’s October 7 address. > > December 2002 > > The State Department publishes a fact sheet that references the yellowcake sale. > > January 2003 > > Bush remarks in his State of the Union address, “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” > > February 2003 > > Preparing for his U.N. address, Powell removes dozens of pages of unsubstantiated evidence provided by OSP. A frustrated Powell yells, “I’m not reading this. This is bullshit.” > > March 2003 > > The United States attacks Iraq. [http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/unmovic/2003/0630selling.htm](http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/unmovic/2003/0630selling.htm) > [@](#): > > In speeches and interviews, administration officials also warned of the connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda. On September 25, 2002, Rice insisted, “There clearly are contacts between Al Qaeda and Iraq. … There clearly is testimony that some of the contacts have been important contacts and that there’s a relationship there.” On the same day, President Bush warned of the danger that “Al Qaeda becomes an extension of Saddam’s madness.” Rice, like Rumsfeld–who the next day would call evidence of a Saddam-bin Laden link “bulletproof”–said she could not share the administration’s evidence with the public without endangering intelligence sources. But Bob Graham, the Florida Democrat who chaired the Senate Intelligence Committee, disagreed. On September 27, Paul Anderson, a spokesman for Graham, told USA Today that the senator had seen nothing in the CIA’s classified reports that established a link between Saddam and Al Qaeda. > > The Senate Intelligence Committee, in fact, was the greatest congressional obstacle to the administration’s push for war. Under the lead of Graham and Illinois Senator Richard Durbin, the committee enjoyed respect and deference in the Senate and the House, and its members could speak authoritatively, based on their access to classified information, about whether Iraq was developing nuclear weapons or had ties to Al Qaeda. And, in this case, the classified information available to the committee did not support the public pronouncements being made by the CIA. > > In the late summer of 2002, Graham had requested from Tenet an analysis of the Iraqi threat. According to knowledgeable sources, he received a 25-page classified response reflecting the balanced view that had prevailed earlier among the intelligence agencies–noting, for example, that evidence of an Iraqi nuclear program or a link to Al Qaeda was inconclusive. Early that September, the committee also received the DIA’s classified analysis, which reflected the same cautious assessments. But committee members became worried when, midway through the month, they received a new CIA analysis of the threat that highlighted the Bush administration’s claims and consigned skepticism to footnotes. According to one congressional staffer who read the document, it highlighted “extensive Iraqi chem-bio programs and nuclear programs and links to terrorism” but then included a footnote that read, “This information comes from a source known to fabricate in the past.” The staffer concluded that “they didn’t do analysis. What they did was they just amassed everything they could that said anything bad about Iraq and put it into a document.” > > Graham and Durbin had been demanding for more than a month that the CIA produce an NIE on the Iraqi threat–a summary of the available intelligence, reflecting the judgment of the entire intelligence community–and toward the end of September, it was delivered. Like Tenet’s earlier letter, the classified NIE was balanced in its assessments. Graham called on Tenet to produce a declassified version of the report that could guide members in voting on the resolution. Graham and Durbin both hoped the declassified report would rebut the kinds of overheated claims they were hearing from administration spokespeople. As Durbin tells TNR, “The most frustrating thing I find is when you have credible evidence on the intelligence committee that is directly contradictory to statements made by the administration.” > > On October 1, 2002, Tenet produced a declassified NIE. But Graham and Durbin were outraged to find that it omitted the qualifications and countervailing evidence that had characterized the classified version and played up the claims that strengthened the administration’s case for war. For instance, the intelligence report cited the much-disputed aluminum tubes as evidence that Saddam “remains intent on acquiring” nuclear weapons. And it claimed, “All intelligence experts agree that Iraq is seeking nuclear weapons and that these tubes could be used in a centrifuge enrichment program”–a blatant mischaracterization. Subsequently, the NIE allowed that “some” experts might disagree but insisted that “most” did not, never mentioning that the DOE’s expert analysts had determined the tubes were not suitable for a nuclear weapons program. The NIE also said that Iraq had “begun renewed production of chemical warfare agents”–which the DIA report had left pointedly in doubt. Graham demanded that the CIA declassify dissenting portions. > > In response, Tenet produced a single-page letter. It satisfied one of Graham’s requests: It included a statement that there was a “low” likelihood of Iraq launching an unprovoked attack on the United States. But it also contained a sop to the administration, stating without qualification that the CIA had “solid reporting of senior-level contacts between Iraq and al-Qaeda going back a decade.” Graham demanded that Tenet declassify more of the report, and Tenet promised to fax over additional material. But, later that evening, Graham received a call from the CIA, informing him that the White House had ordered Tenet not to release anything more. > > That same evening, October 7, 2002, Bush gave a major speech in Cincinnati defending the resolution now before Congress and laying out the case for war. Bush’s speech brought together all the misinformation and exaggeration that the White House had been disseminating that fall. “The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program,” the president declared. “Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.” Bush also argued that, through its ties to Al Qaeda, Iraq would be able to use biological and chemical weapons against the United States. “Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists,” he warned. If Iraq had to deliver these weapons on its own, Bush said, Iraq could use the new unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that it was developing. “We have also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas,” he said. “We are concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVs for missions targeting the United States.” This claim represented the height of absurdity. Iraq’s UAVs had ranges of, at most, 300 miles. They could not make the flight from Baghdad to Tel Aviv, let alone to New York. > > After the speech, when reporters pointed out that Bush’s warning of an imminent threat was contradicted by Tenet’s statement the same day that there was little likelihood of an Iraqi attack, Tenet dutifully offered a clarification, explaining that there was “no inconsistency” between the president’s statement and his own and that he had personally fact-checked the president’s speech. He also issued a public statement that read, “There is no question that the likelihood of Saddam using weapons of mass destruction against the United States or our allies … grows as his arsenal continues to build.” > > Five of the nine Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, including Graham and Durbin, ultimately voted against the resolution, but they were unable to convince other committee members or a majority in the Senate itself. This was at least in part because they were not allowed to divulge what they knew: While Graham and Durbin could complain that the administration’s and Tenet’s own statements contradicted the classified reports they had read, they could not say what was actually in those reports. > [@](#): > > The administration hadn’t won an outright endorsement of its analysis of the Iraqi threat, but it had undermined and intimidated its potential critics in the intelligence community. This last quote fits with the [Downing Street memos](http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/) [The efforts of the OSP](http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0506-06.htm) [The use of torture to get FALSE evidence to support the war](http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?050214fa_fact6) [The use of shady characters like Chalabi and his Iraqi “defectors”](http://www.cjr.org/issues/2004/4/mccollam-list.asp) [The Plame outing, and the poisoning of the media to support the war.](http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_171.shtml) I vote for delusional; Bush was and remains a leader that can be lead around, which is why he was selected. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2005, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-attacks-critics-claim-pre-war-intel-was-manipulated-huge-balls-or-delusional/330676/12 "2005-11-12T04:55:17Z")
> [@Evil One](#): > > 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. 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? ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2005, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-attacks-critics-claim-pre-war-intel-was-manipulated-huge-balls-or-delusional/330676/13 "2005-11-12T04:58:20Z")
> [@Evil One](#): > > 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. And what if the war is actually unjust? ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2005, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-attacks-critics-claim-pre-war-intel-was-manipulated-huge-balls-or-delusional/330676/14 "2005-11-12T05:02:23Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2005, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-attacks-critics-claim-pre-war-intel-was-manipulated-huge-balls-or-delusional/330676/15 "2005-11-12T05:06:50Z")
> [@Sam Stone](#): > > From the same article: 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. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2005, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-attacks-critics-claim-pre-war-intel-was-manipulated-huge-balls-or-delusional/330676/16 "2005-11-12T05:15:01Z")
> [@treis](#): > > 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. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2005, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-attacks-critics-claim-pre-war-intel-was-manipulated-huge-balls-or-delusional/330676/17 "2005-11-12T05:30:55Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > And what if the war is actually unjust? What criteria would you use do decide whether the Iraq war was just or unjust? ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2005, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-attacks-critics-claim-pre-war-intel-was-manipulated-huge-balls-or-delusional/330676/18 "2005-11-12T05:31:26Z")
> [@Evil One](#): > > 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. 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. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2005, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-attacks-critics-claim-pre-war-intel-was-manipulated-huge-balls-or-delusional/330676/19 "2005-11-12T05:39:17Z")
> [@Der Trihs](#): > > 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. 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… ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2005, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-attacks-critics-claim-pre-war-intel-was-manipulated-huge-balls-or-delusional/330676/20 "2005-11-12T05:46:51Z")
> [@David Simmons](#): > > 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. 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? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-attacks-critics-claim-pre-war-intel-was-manipulated-huge-balls-or-delusional/330676.md?page=2)