[QUOTE=SteveG1]
Republican Congresswoman Jean Schmidt called Jack Murtha a coward this afternoon, unworthy of the Marines, on the House floor. Money quote:
The fiery, emotional debate climaxed when Rep. Jean Schmidt, R-Ohio, the most junior member of the House, told of a phone call she received from a Marine colonel. "He asked me to send Congress a message - stay the course. He also asked me to send Congressman Murtha a message - that cowards cut and run, Marines never do," Schmidt said. Also, the "Marine" she was "quoting" was never in Viet Nam. His career was a long string of noncombat, and some would say, cushy jobs. I can't remember his name. but he had no right to make his "coward" comment either. Bubka, Bubkis, something like that.
I saw the exchange, but thanks for the cite. I do not agree that what she said claimed him to be a coward. I read it, possibly at it’s most benign, as being a reminder from one marine to another: “Watch where you’re going there, friend. Remember, you’re a Marine.”. I think Murtha probably would even agree with the statement itself (Marines don’t cut and run."), but NOT with the notion that the proposal he made should be characterized as “cut and run”. As has been pointed out repeatedly, even on these boards, possibly in this very thread, that is not a fair characterization of his proposal. If you agree with that, then he was NOT being called a coward, as he didn’t hold a position of cut and run.
I just read elswhere that Danny Bubh did not serve in Vietnam. I stand corrected. Thanks for pointing it out.
I agree completely with that. And it’s converse (or is it inverse?). Do you?
I notice that while Podhoretz brings up these issues -
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.
he never gets around to addressing them.
While the use of the word ‘possibility’ is technically faultless it does not address the ‘probability’ as assessed by the US Intel Community.
He also doesn’t address the plan to keep all these WMDs that we were apparently so sure Saddam had safe and secure and out of the hands of terrorists. Man, is there anyone besides Sam Stone and a few really extremist neo-cons who take Norman Podhoretz seriously. His last paragraph:
This guy must be someone who took “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” too seriously and clearly is not part of the reality-based community. I guess this is the sort of stuff Sam Stone and company read to maintain their cognitive dissonance.
I have always had a vague belief that the Executive branch had manipulated and cherry picked intelligence and the bulk of this thread seems to support that, but there is much noise in this thread as well.
Help me in understanding the charges against the current administration. I’ve been reading opinion pieces on both sides and it is getting muddy.
The Senate Intelligence Committee in 2004 summed:
“The Committee found no evidence that the IC’s mischaracterization exaggeration of the intelligence on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) capabilities was the result of political pressure.”
I’ve seen several folks indicating that pronouncement has not yet taken place as the Silverman-Robb report did not directly address questions of coercion or cherry picking on the administration’s part, but the conclusions from the initial IC summary seem to place the blame for cherry picking and mischaracterization on the IC not the administration.
It is always easy to Monday morning quarterback and criticize decision makers after the fact, but what evidence is there that the Administration is specifically at fault?
The SSCI did not examine the issue of the Admin’s use of the intel.
Examine the terms of reference for the SSCI’s reports: http://roberts.senate.gov/02-13-2004.htm
Whether public statements and reports and testimony regarding Iraq by U.S. Government officials made between the Gulf War period and the commencement of Operation Iraqi Freedom were substantiated by intelligence information has yet to be examined by the SSCI.
For a more thorough, though somewhat oudated discussion w/ references : Put an End to the Well-Founded Rumors Surrounding GWB Admin’s Use of Intel re Iraq
I read through the conclusions of Senate Intelligence Committee in 2004 and it seems to focus on the mistakes made by the CIA and other Intelligence gathering bodies. The thing that I was left with at the end was that there was indeed pressure, but the pressure was to not repeat the mistakes made prior to 9/11. That pressure led the intelligence communities in the U.S. to focus on any possible threats and connections between Iraq and al-Qaida so as not to overlook something that would lead to the U.S. being attacked yet again.
I have no doubt that the Administration was ready and willing to invade Iraq, but it seems to me (someone very far from Right Wing and very far from a Bush supporter) that the reasons that the Administration gave for regime change were primarily based on faulty evidence that indicated there was a threat not ‘lies and cherry picking’.
If the administration can be clearly judged for anything it would be (in my mind) dereliction of duty:
Does that not speak to the use of the intelligence towards the decision(s) made by the Administration? If the decision(s) made were not ‘substantiated by intelligence information’ would that not have come to light in the report?
Yes. My man Patriot X, Googlemeister. He seeks it out and slaps it on the page, and if he tells you an ant is just about to haul a bale of hay into your living room, move the coffee table.
The players are all career politicians, so it’s hardly neutral.
Here’s a link to the current progress of the Phase II:
But it comes from some Dems. AFAIK, the GOP has not released a similar item.
As to the two phases the press release covers which will be in which report.
Items 1 - 4 are the Phase I report and items 5A - 5G are for the Phase II Report.
What kind of thing are you looking for that’d be better than the (more or less) primary sources that I’m providing?
Wolf: “We turn now to Timmy! Russert, at the White House. Timmy!, we understand that this news from National Journal directly contradicts White House insistence that all the information they had was shared with Congress…”
Timmy!: "That’s right, Wolf, and we are expecting an immediate and categorical response from the White House any moment now. Any moment, we expect a complete and comprehensive explanation of what appears to be, at least on the surface, a “bald face lie”…
(…)
(…)
(…)
Wolf: “Timmy!, what kind of crickets are those we hear chirping?”
Timmy!: “Wolf, our senior entomological correspondent advises me that those are probably common field crickets…”
* When it was reported that the Vice President's Chief of Staff Scooter Libby and the National Security Council prepared a draft speech making the intelligence case against Iraq and sent it to the CIA for Secretary of State Powell to give before the United Nations in February of 2003, my staff asked that the committee obtain the NSC, National Security Council, document as part of our ongoing review of how the Powell speech was formulated. Our requests were denied by the majority.
Given the quality of what Powell did not refuse to say, I too have wondered about what “bullshit” got thrown out.
Senator Rockefeller some more:
* Because of this denial, I personally wrote to the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Mr. Tenet, requesting the Libby/NSC input into the Powell speech--it was important to have that information--and other documents in October of 2003. Director Tenet did not respond to my letter, nor did he respond to my two subsequent letters for the NSC paper in January and March of 2003.
* ... last week's National Journal article, which reports that Vice President Cheney and his Chief of Staff Libby overruled White House lawyers and withheld this information--withheld these documents--[re Powell's UN speech] from us, and other documents from the Senate Intelligence Committee.
* When, during the committee's Iraq investigation, my staff requested that the committee interview the White House speechwriter who wrote the President's 2003 State of the Union Address to better understand how the debunked claim that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger made it into the President's speech--how it got in there, when the same claim was removed, at the CIA's insistence, a few months earlier in Cincinnati--our request was denied by the majority.
* **When we requested that the committee obtain a copy of the one-page summary of the Intelligence Community's National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs that was prepared for the President in October 2002, our request was denied by the majority**.
What I’m looking for is somewhere that outlines the two phases and the decisions behind splitting up the investigation into two phases. Also the decisions behind creating the Silberman-Robb panel in addition to the SSCI’s reports. I’m battling the repeated statement “Multiple investigations have been done! Those whiney democrats just keep pushing for more investigations…”.
Again, my gut reaction to phase one of the SSCI report is that the intelligence communities did not want to discount or overlook any threats or connections for fear of making the same mistakes as happened leading up to 9/11. It appears that the bulk of the information presented to all parties pointed to Iraq as a threat. The fact that the information was incorrect does not rest on the shoulders of the Administration as far as I can see.
Now, the questions that have yet to be answered and are to be addressed by Phase II are of great concern and I share the mistrust of the administration with many of the critics here on the boards, but it does seem to me that my prior belief that extensive cherry picking and obfuscation by the Administration was hasty based on the large amount of (now found false) incriminatory data gathered and presented to the Administration.
I’m not sure that there is an omnibus item like this. There’re numerous interviews of Rockefeller and Roberts together where they discuss these things. I could get you these.
The CIA says differently. Before the invasion the NIE line was that Iraq was drawing a line short of attacking the US and the NIE testimony before the SSCI was that Hussein was unlikely to attack the US directly or by proxy in “the foreseeable future.” Further despite “exhaustive and repetitive searches” the US Intel Community “remainded firm” in their assessement that there was no "operational or collaborative relationship between Hussein and al-Qa’ida.
I’m having issues w/ my link stash at the moment otherwise I would have sprinkled them generously in this post. Things should work later though.
I’m not sure that there is an omnibus item like this. There’re numerous interviews of Rockefeller and Roberts together where they discuss these things. I could get you these [inaminnit].
I’m not sure that there is an omnibus item like this. There’re numerous interviews of Rockefeller and Roberts together where they discuss these things. I could get you these.
No problem. I think Frau Blucher thought she could get away with it, and she found out different. She did apologize, afterwards (I think so, I didn’t bother to check).