[ExI] Regarding Wickedness (was beowolf)

[Harvey Newstrom]

On Sunday, November 25, 2007 12:36 PM, spike wrote:
> > A case in point would be the misleading statements used to 
> > get us into the war in Iraq...
> 
> Whose?  Bush's?  Powell's?  Tenet's?

Any or all of these.  I think Bush deliberately lied.  I think Powell was
seriously upset when he found out the truth about what he was given to brief
to the UN.  I think Tenet gave Bush exactly what he wanted.

But besides the top politico's, I think the general intelligence gatherers
and interpreters knew this stuff was bogus.  The records are full of
instances where they said so.  Their reports were selectively edited
together to weave a complete story that no intelligence officer actually
presented.

> Who in the intelligence community knew this?  Harvey, does 
> this comment take into account the information found in (then 
> CIA director George) Tenet's book At the Center of the Storm? 
>  The CIA director was convinced Saddam had chem and bio 
> weapons, and either had or was trying to get nukes.  He 
> comments that the decision to invade Iraq was a slam dunk.  

Yes.  But there was no evidence for this belief.  Such "evidence" came from
Bush's political appointees and not through regular intelligence channels.
The big tragedy in all this is that people think the American Intelligence
gathering was flawed.  It wasn't.  It was deliberately distorted by higher
ups.

> The case that Tenet makes in Storm and the later declassified 
> documents:  [....]

All true.  But our intelligence reported that there was no evidence of
Saddam's lies.  Our intelligence reported that the sources were unreliable
and seemed to be fabricating stories for the money we paid them.  The
intelligence community did know that Saddam was bluffing.  It was for
political purposes that the administration didn't want to believe it.

--
Harvey Newstrom 
CISSP CISA CISM CIFI NSA-IAM GSEC ISSAP ISSMP ISSPCS IBMCP