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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>The following are the last few pages of the epilogue of Bob Woodward's
book written March 1, 2004. and so, before George W Bush was
re-elected</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>and before a new Iraqi government had been established, if indeed it can
said to be established even now. </FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3></FONT> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>I got a lot out of the book, because I wanted to know the mind of George
W Bush and some of the key players in his administration about the Iraq war
and I thought Bob Woodward of 'Watergate' and of The Washington Post
would tell the story accurately. He was able to inview the people
including the president personally. Others may be interested also, and
may want to read the book. I recommend it. I think it might
become an interesting historical document if George W Bush, Dick Cheney, and
Donald Rumsfeld are impeached. </FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3></FONT> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>--------------</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3></FONT> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>On February 5, 2004, the one-year anniversary of Powell's WMD
presentation to the U.N., he [George Tenet CIA director] made a rare speech at
<?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
/><st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Georgetown</st1:PlaceName>
<st1:PlaceType w:st="on">University</st1:PlaceType></st1:place>.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><?xml:namespace prefix = o ns =
"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face="Times New Roman">"We are nowhere near 85 percent finished," he said of the
WMD search, directly disputing Kay's public statement. "Any call I make today is
necessarily provisional. </FONT></FONT><FONT size=3><FONT
face="Times New Roman">Why? Because we need more time and we need more data." He
said that they had </FONT></FONT><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>discovered
that <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region> had research and development,
intent and capability to produce chemical and biological weapons. Halfway
through the speech he acknowledged they had not found biological or chemical
weapons.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>The CIA was reviewing and examining everything in order to improve its
performance, and had discovered that one of their sources had "fabricated"
information, Tenet said. He noted that the CIA's human spies had provided the
information that had led to the capture of some top al Qaeda leaders, including
Khalid Sheik Muhammad, the mastermind of the </FONT><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>9/11 attacks, and had played a key role in uncovering the secret nuclear
proliferation network of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of the Pakistani nuclear
program who had helped Libya, Iran and North Korea with their nuclear programs.
During the ongoing investigations and reviews, they would have to be careful he
warned. "We cannot afford an environment to develop where analysts are afraid to
make a call, where judgments are held back because analysts fear they will be
wrong."</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>In a sense, Tenet was asking that there be little or no price to pay for
being wrong. Given the aftermath of 9/11 and the ongoing al Qaeda threat, the
CIA had adopted a mentality of warning-at-any-cost. For years the problem had
been getting the attention of the policy makers and the public. Of course, it
was one thing to be wrong about warning of an attack on the <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">United States</st1:place></st1:country-region>.
Tenet and all the senior officials in the CIA were certain al Qaeda would attack
again. Deputy Director for Operations James Pavitt told associates in early
2004, "We'll still get hit again. We'll still get a massive hit of some kind.
Absolutely. Absolutely." But, he added, "If five years passes, six years, seven
years passes and we don't have one, I will be perfectly satisfied and
comfortable having been wrong." But being wrong about information that Saddam
possessed biological and chemical weapons - the basis for war - could hardly
leave anyone satisfied and comfortable.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>As Tenet went over the intelligence again and again, he acknowledged to
associates that the CIA and he should have stated up front in the NIE and in
other intelligence that the evidence was not ironclad, that it did not include a
smoking gun.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>"HOLY SHIT!" Powell said to himself as he read a copy of Tenet's speech.
Here was the CIA director saying that the aluminum tubes they had previously
been so confident were for use as centrifuges for enriching uranium were
possibly for regular artillery shells. Powell remembered that he had challenged
them on this before his U.N. presentation a year ago. John McLaughlin had gone
into a long recitation about the thickness of the walls of the tubes and the
spinning rates, arguing they had to be for centrifuges. Now Tenet was saying,
"We have additional data to collect and more sources to question," and his
agency "may have overestimated" the progress Saddam was making on development of
nuclear weapons. Powell felt let down. </FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>Tenet was backing away from previous assertions of certainty on the
alleged mobile biological labs. The CIA had earlier said it had five human
sources for the claim, Powell remembered. Now Tenet was saying there was no
consensus : "And I must tell you that we are finding discrepancies in some
claims made by human sources about mobile biological weapons production before
the war."</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>Powell let out another holy shit! He knew very well that Tenet had told
the president "in brash <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">New
York</st1:place></st1:State> language," as Powell once put it, that the case on
WMD was a "slam dunk".</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>The president was the most visible manifestation of someone who had
bought in. Powell was the second most visible, and he realized he was
expendable. He knew that Tenet felt bad, and that as director he was looking out
for the CIA. But this was a real mess. Powell found himself now asking the most
intense and penetrating questions about anything the CIA said or told him.
</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>Powell did not share Armitage's concern that the two of them had been
enablers for the Cheney-Rumsfeld hard-line policies. When he sorted out all the
issues Powell felt that the State Department had done a good job and did not get
sufficient credit for some of its successes such as improved relationships with
<st1:country-region w:st="on">China</st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Russia</st1:place></st1:country-region>.
</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>Whenever anyone suggested that Powell should have pangs of conscience on
the war, Powell said he had done everything in his power. In August 2002 he had
nearly broken his spear, laying before the president all the difficulties of a
war - the potential consequences and downsides. It was at a time when he thought
the president was not getting the whole picture. He had warned the president. It
was the president's decision, not his. Now the <st1:country-region
w:st="on">United States</st1:country-region> owned <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region>. Bush owned
it. But Powell felt he had done his job. </FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>After Tenet's speech, the president had one message for this intelligence
chief. "You did a great job," Bush told Tenet in a phone call.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>For Rice, the process of going to war had been hard, and, she though, it
should be hard. The aftermath was troubling, particularly the failure to find
WMD.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>She knew that intelligence is not fact. From all her years dealing with
intelligence, going back to her time watching <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Russia</st1:place></st1:country-region> on Bush
senior's NSC staff, she was keenly aware that they relied on intelligence when
they didn't know something. Though the CIA's intelligence on Iraq WMD was among
the most categorical she had ever seen, intelligence has limitations as the
basis for policy. It is more suggestive, reflecting possibilities and shadows
rather than certainties. She had personally quizzed the agency's</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>national intelligence officer on the conclusions about Iraq WMD, asking
at one point if </FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>the assertions were a fact or a judgment.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>"It is a judgment," the officer had said.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>As national security advisor, Rice did not dare to influence the CIA's
National Intelligence Estimate, but given her closeness and status with Bush, if
anyone could have warned the president to moderate his own categorical
statements about WMD, it was Rice.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>But Cheney had effectively preempted that issue on August 26, 2002, when
he declared that there was "no doubt" <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region> had WMD. And the president had
soon followed with his own statements of certainty even before the CIA's October
NIE was issued.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>As the WMD controversy grew in 2004, the president expressed his concerns
to Rice. To air all the CIA's problems could have two negatives he wanted to
avoid. First, the controversy would lead to congressional investigations like
the Church and Pike Committees in 1975-1976 that revealed CIA spying on
<st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">U.S.</st1:place></st1:country-region> citizens, drug testing and
assassination plots on foreign leaders. He did not want a new witch hunt,
mindful of the history of investigations that he believed had demoralized the
workforce and made the CIA risk-averse for a long time. Second, Bush did not
want a future president hampered if there was a need to take preemptive action
against another threat.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>At 1.30 p.m. Friday, February 6, the president appeared in the press
briefing room to announce what was now old news. He said he would appoint a
nine-member commission to look at American intelligence capabilities and the
intelligent about WMD worldwide.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>It was to determine why some prewar intelligence about
<st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region>'s alleged WMD had not been
confirmed on the ground. Bush praised the people who work for the intelligence
agencies as "dedicated professionals engaged in difficult and complex work.
<st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>'s enemies are secretive. They
are ruthless and they are resourceful. And in tracking and disrupting their
activities our nation must bring to bear every tool and advantage at our
command."</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>Then the president added, "Members if the commission will issue their
report by March 31st, 2005."</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>One theme that emerged repeated in all the hours I spent interviewing the
president and the hundreds of hours I spent interviewing others close to him or
involved in the Iraq War decisions is Bush's conviction that he had made the
right decision.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>In the second interview with him, December 11, 2003, the president said
he had once told Rice, " 'I am prepared to risk my presidency to do what I think
is right.' I was going to act. And if it could cost the presidency, I fully
realized that. But I felt so strongly that it was the right thing to do that I
was prepared to do so."</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>I asked if, as he had said at one of the meetings in the run-up to the
war: "I would like to be a two-term president, but if I am a one-term president,
so be it."</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>"That's right," the president replied. "That is my attitude. Absolutely
right." He noted that things could have gone wrong on the ground, in the run-up,
or they could have become trapped with endless U.N. weapons
inspections.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>"And if this decision costs you the election?" I asked.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>"The presidency - that's the way it is," Bush said. "Fully prepared to
live with it."</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>That day, after two hours, we stood in the Oval Office and started to
walk out. Darkness was beginning to settle in outside. The upcoming presidential
election would perhaps be the most immediate judgment on the war, but certainly
not the last. How would history judges his Iraq War? I asked.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>It would be impossible to get the meaning right in the short run, the
president said, adding he thought it would take about ten years to understand
the impact and true significance of the war. </FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>There will probably be cycles, I said. As Karl Rove believes, I reminded
him, all history gets measured by outcomes.</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3> </FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>Bush smiled. "History," he said, shrugging, taking his hands out of his
pockets, extending his arms out and suggesting with his body language that it
was so far off. "We won't know. We'll all be dead."</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>-----</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3></FONT> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3></FONT> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>Brett Paatsch</FONT></P></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>