STANSFIELD TURNER ----------- That’s absolutely hilarious. Who’s next “Crusader Rabbit”.
I’m sure december will be by any minute now to remind us that Turner served under Jimmy Carter’s term, and is therefore an untrustworthy Democrat lackey who is not fit to lick Rush Limbaugh’s shoes.
Well, obviously it’s because of the evil liberal media, silly! :rolleyes:
(Sorry if this seems trite, I’m just getting a tad fed up with the high-RPM excuses the Bushistas keep coming up with on a daily basis)
Let me recall,Stansfield Turner. Oh yeah,he was the idiot behind the botched Iranian hostage rescue. Now that’s a real expert on massive screwups.
Right. Sure. Cooked it all up himself, those Pentagon guys were dead set against it all the way. Uh-huh. You bet.
I missed this earlier.
Minty said:
I think it needs more than one word.
The facts (and if anyone feels the need to correct them, please do so,) is that an intelligence report came into the hands of the Bush administration. By all accounts this report detailed Iraq’s attempt to get uranium illegally from Niger in order to make a nuclear weapon. By all accounts this report turned out to be wholly fraudulent.
To my knowledge the actual report itself has not been made public.
The allegations have been made that this report was obviously fraudulent and that this report was given undue credence by the Bush Administration in making the case against Iraq, because it said what the Bush administration wanted to hear. Furthermore it has been asserted that proper skeptical treatment of the report would have easily uncovered its fraudulent nature.
Based on these facts some have called into question Bush’s rationale for war, his competance and integrity.
I think that covers the basic facts.
My opinion is that we don’t have enough information to judge what this actually means.
I would like to see this report, and I would like to see it analyzed by several different expert third parties. I would like a strong effort to be made to determine its exact origins.
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It is quite possible that the report was wholly manufactured to justify the war by members of or under the orders of the Bush administaration.
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It is quite possible that the report was credible and accepted with due skepticism and integrity.
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It is quite possible that the report was given undue credence and demonstrates dishonesty, gamesmanship, annd/or incompetance by the Bush Administration.
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It is even possible that the report was specifically manufacture by an enemy or enemies of the Bush administration specifically so that its fraudulent nature could be exposed and Bush’s administration damaged (France is the fashionable bad guy for those that fabvor this scenario.)
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Something else that I haven’t thought of could be the issue.
I am open to any and all of those possibilites. I am unwilling to select one until I can evaluate the report and accompanying analysis, as well as any other information that can be brought to bear on the issue.
I beleive that that is a fair and rational stance. I beleive that anything else at this moment is simply founded upon opinion rather than fact. I however, remain open to be convinced by dissenting parties who may have more knowledge or a more penetrating analysis.
At this particular point in time I favor but am not attached to scenarios two and three and perhaps an unexcluded middle ground between them.
Like I said before: I beleive that more than one word is necessary on this issue.
If I might offer an additional note to your post, Scylla, it’s not that people like myself are necessarily claiming that the Niger evidence was obviously fraudulent. It may have been so, and certainly the IAEA thought so.
But what’s more important to me is the fact that highly placed officials in the Bush administration- officials in the CIA, Pentagon, State Department, and Vice President’s Office- have publically said that they knew the document to be fraudulent before it was used by Bush in his live TV address. Whether the document is “obviously” fraudulent is irrelevant. People knew it was fraudulent. When Rice claims that maybe someone “deep in the bowels” of the CIA knew it was fraudulent, her claims are blatantly out of kilter with reality.
I believe, therefore, that it’s time to start asking who knew what, and when did they know it. Is it possible that of Powell, Rumsfeld, Tenet, and Cheney, none knew that the document was fraudulent, even though people very close to them in the chain of command of their own departments knew? I don’t think so. I certainly don’t think it’s an illegitimate question, and I’m hoping that the Republicans catch hell for stopping the investigation.
If they’re going to protect us from terrorism, shouldn’t we figure out who was at fault in this intelligence failure? If none of the people whom I have named knew what their underlings knew, shouldn’t somebody’s head roll over that?
Yes, it does need another word. Howzabout “bogus”? Or maybe “Bushwah”?
About the only people who don’t thoroughly know all about this special little bit of crapola are those residing in caves on Mars. Conjecture #2 is strictly from Cloud Cukoo Land. Show me one, one cite where such a conjectures is put forward with a straight face.
“You can’t polish a turd, Beavis.”
Ben:
You make sense. I have no argument with what you have asserted.
Elucidator:
I am not endorsing possibility number 2, just mentioning its possibility. There’s a lot of room in an unexcluded middle between possibilities 2 and 3 which I confess to being partisan to.
In addition to the important point that high-level officials at CIA, State, and Defense knew the report was fake many months before Bush trumpeted it to the nation and the world . . .
Even assuming that Bush honestly had no idea that the Niger thing was a fabrication . . .
He didn’t fucking ask? Nobody on his staff fucking asked “So what’s the latest on this 9-month-old report about African nuke stuff? Have we tracked that shit down yet, maybe found some more sales receipts?”
In my profession, we call that “reckless disregard for the truth.”
You’re an analyst for Smith Barney?
Actually, screwing up now and then is valuable experience, if one learns from it.
elucidator, that was the funniest thing I’ve read on these boards in a long time! 
Scylla:
No.
Had those who supported war been half as circumspect with regard to the evidence presented by the Bush administration in relation to Iraq’s possession “WMDs” as you now are with the considerably stronger evidence that Bush and his cronies have lied, this war would never have taken place.
Why should we wait for an investigation into this matter before passing judgement? Those who cried “War!” scoffed when we requested more information, or suggested that the inspectors have more time. But now that the shoe is on the other foot, you want to wait, investigate, and give the benefit of the doubt?
You employ a double standard, sir.
Svin:
You’re right. We should use the same standard. Give Bush 12 years before you go after him.
FYI:
The above is another one of my not-to-be-taken-literally sort of posts. I’m really not arguing for a twelve year wait. My statement is actually a rhetorical device meant to point out an underlying flaw in Svin’s assumption, which is that the two things he is equating actually do not equate.
(explaining these things takes the fun out of it, but such is the environment)
Scylla:
?
I don’t get you. We never gave Hussein 12 years.
I suggest we begin with full-scale economic sanctions of Washington, D.C., establish no-fly zones over the south half and the north third of the city, and demand that an international inspection team be granted unfettered rights to search the basements of the Capitol, the White House, and the Pentagon in order to uncover the evidence you so fervently desire.
Naturally, if we fail to uncover such evidence, we will automatically interpret that as proof that Bush is hiding the evidence from us.
And if Bush refuses to abide by these policies – given what we know at this point regarding his lies – then I suggest we use the Tomahawks.
As a hard-liner, you will no doubt agree that this is the only way we can deal with the situation, yes?
Svin:
Sure we did. He got 12 years to prove his compliance with the agreements he made with the cessation of hostilities after Gulf War I.
It’s only fair that we give Bush 12 years to prove his case as well, isn’t it.
[Minty disclaimer] Another nonliteral post[/Minty disclaimer]
Scylla:
What cessation of hostilities?
In what bizarro world do bi-weekly bombing raids equate to a “cessation of hostilities?”
Anyway, you realize of course that I’m being tongue-in-cheek as well. But to the serious point: the US government prosecuted a war, with much popular support, on a far weaker evidential basis than what we now have against Bush. My question is:
When you saw all of this bullshit coming out of the White House about Iraq’s “WMDs,” you chose to believe it, over the protests of lo us many skeptics.
Now you have scads of very strong evidence at your fingertips that Bush lied to you in prosecuting this war. (Must we go through all of it again?) Yet, in the face of this very strong evidence, you seek to remain “fair-minded,” and want more time for an investigation?
Why this conspicuous difference in standards?
Svin:
There is none. I tend to believe my government and leaders and I realize these things are complex.
I believed that Clinton was doing what he thought was right in 1998, and I beleive Bush was doing what he thought was right now.
I don’t understand your viewpoint either. If you beleive we rushed to judgement against Hussein, why would you think repeating the mistake with Bush is a good idea?
Scylla
Do you believe we did rush to judgment on Hussein?