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If any of you
watched the McLaughlin Group this evening, you witnessed a sometimes hilarious
exchange of opinion about the credibility gap the Bush2 administration has on
this issue. Even Pat Buchanon says
it is a growing problem even if Mom and Pop America is just now tuning in. Much effort
has been made to point the finger at the CIA and the British. But, as MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell asks “since
when does the United States go to war based on British intelligence?” Repeatedly, he said the problem was the
Prez himself did not have the analytical ability to differentiate whether he
was duped or not. He also reminds
us the Seymour Hersch reported this story back in March. It’s a cruelty
to be exposed as a fraud. - KWC TIME A Question of Trust @ http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101030721/story.html NBC Moran: Bush Team United Front Unravels @ http://www.msnbc.com/news/937576.asp?0dm=O1AMN The New Republic’s Memo to Powell @ http://www.tnr.com/etc.mhtml CIA Got Uranium Reference Cut in
Oct. 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. I’m betting
the trail leads back to Cheney, who may soon become Bush2’s Spiro Agnew. So, what do you think? On a scale of 1 – 10, how big is this
credibility gap? |
