Reply #6: Contrary to popular belief [View All]

The Senate did NOT see the raw intelligence data that Bush* did...they only saw what he wanted them to see and it was skewed in every way possible.


Ninety-two Senators are stripped of their Security Clearances after an order is issued that limits access to classified intelligence only to 8 members of Congress — the Speaker of the House, House Minority Leader, Senate Majority Leader, Senate Minority Leader, and chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate intelligence committees.

http://thinkprogress.org/wp-images/upload/bushrestrictedintel.pdf



Minutes from a summer 2002 meeting involving British Prime Minister Tony Blair reveal that the Bush administration was ''fixing" the intelligence to justify invading Iraq.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1593607,00.html



Excerpt from PNAC 101 - Rise of the Neocons (See link in sig line.)

The Office of Special Plans (OSP) was a secret group of analysts and policy advisors with no status in the intelligence community. Nevertheless they reported directly to the White House and National Security office with cherry-picked intelligence from questionable sources to support the case for invading Iraq. The OSP circumvented formal, well-established oversight procedures, ignored intelligence that didn't further their agenda, expanded the intelligence on weapons beyond what was justified and over-emphasized the national security risk. They became more influential than the C.I.A. or the Defense Intelligence Agency who didn't even know the ultra-secret OSP existed for at least a year.

Because they were based in the Pentagon, it was assumed that the OSP was an intelligence-gathering agency that was second-guessing the C.I.A. but in actuality it was the White House Military Marketing Machine charged with the task of writing the PNAC's "Get Saddam" sales pitch for the public. Shading and bending reality to suit their own purpose, it wasn't important for the OSP's stories about Saddam to be factual, only that the average American believed them to be - in true Hollywood fashion.

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030512fa_fact


Jay Rockefeller was on the Intelligence Committee then and now. After the initial Senate Intelligence Committee Report he said “It was clear to all of us in this room who were watching that, and to many others, that they had made up their mind that they were going to go to war. And I believe to this day, and I always have and I’ve said so publicly many times in regretting my vote, that there was a predetermination, even going back to 1998 in a letter to Bill Clinton, saying, "The time for diplomacy has ended and now is the time for the use of military force."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38650-2004Jul9_3.html

To fully appreciate the gravity of Rockefeller’s insight, please refer to the link my in sig line and give a copy to your sister.