I'MMA LET YOU FINISH
...or Karl Rove. Right.
The WaPo is running a new Pincus article which is detailing the October speech in which Director Tenet personally intervened and had the niger claim thrown out. He alerted Rice's staff 3 months before the SOTU. This story is far from over. The media have just wetted their appetites. Check it out.
One lie seems to be entering the CW and the SCLM. Cool.
Now please give the same attention to drone planes attacking the USA. And Iraq 6 months from The Bomb. And Al Queda operating in Iraq.
Go on, now. Git! Git!
Got a URL on the drones?
A now more interesting statement from an all too rare press conference - November 2002.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/r...20021107-
7.html
QUESTION: Your CIA Director told Congress just last month that it appears that Saddam Hussein "now appears to be drawing a line short of conducting terrorist attacks against the United States." But if we attacked him he would "probably become much less constrained." Is he wrong about that?
THE PRESIDENT: No. I think that -- I think that if you would read the full -- I'm sure he said other sentences. Let me just put it to you, I know George Tenet well. I meet with him every single day. He sees Saddam Hussein as a threat. I don't know what the context of that quote is. I'm telling you, the guy knows what I know, that he is a problem and we must deal with him.
Now, let me get this straight. Tenet and Bush were meeting every single day. Tenet had, according to WaPo, just prevailed in getting the Niger claim thrown out of an October speech, and no discussion about the sketchy nature of the Iraq uranium claims passed between POTUS and the DCI? Bush was in the dark until January?
This totally blows out of the water the Bushistas' "Well, we didn't know it was bogus because the CIA didn't warn us!" excuse. (As if the fact that Ambassador Wilson hadn't said as much to the State Department back in March of 2002 wasn't good enough...)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp...ml?
nav=hptop_tb
CIA Got Uranium Reference Cut in October 2002
Why Bush Cited It In Jan. Is Unclear
By Walter Pincus and Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, July 13, 2003; Page A01
CIA Director George J. Tenet successfully intervened with White House officials to have a reference to Iraq seeking uranium from Niger removed from a presidential speech last October, three months before a less specific reference to the same intelligence appeared in the State of the Union address, according to senior administration officials.
Tenet argued personally to White House officials, including deputy national security adviser Stephen Hadley, that the allegation should not be used because it came from only a single source, according to one senior official. Another senior official with knowledge of the intelligence said the CIA had doubts about the accuracy of the documents underlying the allegation, which months later turned out to be forged.
The new disclosure suggests how eager the White House was in January to make Iraq's nuclear program a part of its case against Saddam Hussein even in the face of earlier objections by its own CIA director. It also appears to raise questions about the administration's explanation of how the faulty allegations were included in the State of the Union speech.
It is unclear why Tenet failed to intervene in January to prevent the questionable intelligence from appearing in the president's address to Congress when Tenet had intervened three months earlier in a much less symbolic speech. That failure may underlie his action Friday in taking responsibility for not stepping in again to question the reference. "I am responsible for the approval process in my agency," he said in Friday's statement.
[more at the link above]
The WP article is excellent , especially lines like It also appears to raise questions about the administration's explanation of how the faulty allegations were included in the State of the Union speech., and But it is clear from the new disclosure about Tenet's intervention last October that the controversy continues to boil, and as new facts emerge a different picture is being presented than the administration has given to date.
No the WP, at least, is not going to let it drop.
The Maureen Dowd op-ed is equally excellent. Great conclusion I'm happy that Mr. Bush's mental landscape is so cloudless. But it is our doubts he needs to assuage, and, of course, the frequent use of the charge Clintonian. Yes, we all know that W.'s lies are far more criminal, but it is devastating to their portrait of themselves as the anti-Clinton.
Don't speeches, specially the SOTU speeches take weeks or months to prepare? Aren't they checked and double checked continuously by a team of speechwriters that includes shrinks and logicians able to make sure the speech can say up is down, or white is black, without actually saying it?
Don't these things go through several rough drafts that are first approved and reapproved by the prez' and his top cabinet members?
Aren't the claims made in the speeches verified, not once, but several times based on the most recent, hour to hour Intel updates?
When we take into account the following:
1. Intel community members were complaining prior to the war that they were being pressured to provide Intel favorable to the admin's policies?
2. Wasn't the invasion of Iraq a policy point of interest for several years, and a plank in the parties' platform?
3. Wasn't the Intel debunked in a major way well in advance of the invasion let alone the speech?
Then doesn't this let us naturally assume that Tenet couldn't have approved this claim being used since it would have meant defying everything he knew up to that point, and falls into line with the knowledge that they were being told to comply with the decisions of the admin, regardless of their legitimacy?
Tenet wasn't the one with a serious hard-on for Iraq, so he wouldn't have been the only one with the motive to lie.
We already knew all of this, but it seems to me that the timetable combined with the logic doesn't add up worth a god-damn, and some or most of these idiot Dem candidates should start making this vital point known to the country?
So far they have been spitting the same old expected 'polite' rhetoric about the controversy, but no one is actually saying anything?
The accusations are being looked at as being 'same o' same o' acts of opposition parties, and are being ignored, so why aren't they breathing some fire and talking logic?
These people are insane!
I hope all of you have a good weekend.
MYOB'
.
Also LA Times tomorrow, second paragraph:
But the administration effort to have Tenet accept responsibility triggered new recriminations Saturday — including a sharp rebuke from a key Democrat on Capitol Hill — that suggest the issue is far from closed.
And a little further below:
But the administration effort to have Tenet accept responsibility triggered new recriminations Saturday — including a sharp rebuke from a key Democrat on Capitol Hill — that suggest the issue is far from closed.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nati...-home-
headlines
Nice discovery Simplicissimus! THanks.
Now, let me get this straight. Tenet and Bush were meeting every single day. Tenet had, according to WaPo, just prevailed in getting the Niger claim thrown out of an October speech, and no discussion about the sketchy nature of the Iraq uranium claims passed between POTUS and the DCI? Bush was in the dark until January?
Very, very well put and worthy of much repeating. For once we can say: Bush could not have possibly been as ignorant as he claimed.
Holy crap, she fingered Cheney! And Rice! In one article. That's on the money, with a great headline.
Great pickup, Simplicissimus. Does anyone want to mail that to the press, like the WaPo or the NYT? nytimes.com, bottom of page. It takes about two minutes. I'd do it, but I've emailed them twice with stuff in the past two days, so they might ignore me. Bush saying he saw Tenet daily seems to me HUGE if anyone wants the smoking gun in Bush's hand. Email title: "Bush says he saw Tenet daily." That should get their attention. Please, someone, mail that to the NYT or the Post.
EssJay -- got a good pointer to the drone story? I have to go put fresh cut flowers in the boardroom at the Mighty Casio so it will be ready for the Sunday talk shows.
Gary: Prepare the duck pit. Pekings, Mallards, Muscovys. We'll have some high-ranking visitors making an appearance pretty soon, if the SCLM can keep up with this strange behavior of earning their pay.
Oh man, the duck pit's seemed like such a distant fantasy. Not lately.
Please, please let this be the demise of these "leaders" and any notion of their "leadership ability" in every mind in the land!!
I think constantly of our troops in this hopeless fiasco. And of the bullshit, hopeless, murderous, crazy-ass relationship into which they have been forced with the Iraqi citizenry, totally unnecessarily. It makes me fucking crazy. Please make them pay for this barbarism, please, please god please.
("Them" meaning the bush family evil empire, not the troops)
(And there are not enough lifetimes for us all to apologize to the Iraqis for allowing this grotesque, inhuman exercise to be visited on them in the name of our nation.)
lambert strether--
Here is a reference to uggabugga, where jesse lists many of the adminstrations' "matters of emphasis", including Powell's drone fiction:
http://uggabugga.blogspot.com/
20...e.html#94463165
Glen Rangwala dissects Powell's claims (including drones):
http://www.iraqwatch.org/perspec...well-
020503.htm
Here's the story about the duct tape drones:
http://
www.informationclearingho...article2066.htm
Picture references link to yahoo, but seem to be dangling.
Still haven't been able to find the drone pictures. Anyone?
"No. I think that -- I think that if you would read the full -- I'm sure he said other sentences. Let me just put it to you, I know George Tenet well. I meet with him every single day. He sees Saddam Hussein as a threat. I don't know what the context of that quote is. I'm telling you, the guy knows what I know, that he is a problem and we must deal with him."
And this is from an official government web-site? I too am sure that in his full "--" George Tenet "said other sentences".
This is a man gibbering, that is producing gibberish. And even this was probably cleaned up before publication.
The only thing I learn from this is that Bush is certainly willing to "put it to you", which we knew, painfully.
Felix: a picture
http://ming.tv/flemming2.php/__s...a000010-000655/
I found this via a Google search on "Iraqi drone picture" and didn't pursue all the links, I am sure that you can find more pictures should you want.
Yes, prepare the Duck Pit. I'm emailing that comment to the NYT this morning.
If you ever email stuff to the Times, I recommend cutting and pasting all their news emails (all right there) into your message. It's only natural for one person to delete a story that doesn't fit what they want: sending it to six people betters the odds.
Busholini says: "There is no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein was a threat to world peace." (REGIONAL peace at best. But the quickness of his regime's fall indicates that his threat to outsiders was limited.)
"And there's no doubt in my mind that the United States, along with allies and friends, did the right thing in removing him from power." (Yes, it was the right thing to do. Too bad you had to deceive and spin it dishonestly.)
"And there's no doubt in my mind, when it's all said and done, the facts will show the world the truth." (Yep. The facts are coming out now and showing the world the truth. Of course, it's not the truth you were thinking, huh George?)
MoDo redeems herself with this column after her tripe last Weds saying with feminazi glee that men will evolve themselves into obsoletion. Dammit... still no Friedman. Hope Krugman's back this week. It's been hell without my two favorite NYTimes columnists.
don't forget mergansers. But i really think you have to include geese.
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