Dean calls intelligence handling a disaster. CNN Jonathan Karl.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/07/11/cnna.karl.dean/

SNIP...."KARL: The president and his national security adviser are saying that the CIA, and George Tenet specifically, cleared this speech and signed off on it. Does that get the president off the hook?

DEAN: We don't know that. The fact is that Ambassador Wilson, in a public statement in The New York Times, has indicated that his report showing that there was no involvement between Niger and Iraq in terms of the uranium deal went to the office of the vice president, the secretary of state and the CIA. So I don't know what the president knew and when the president knew it, but I know that this intelligence-handling is a disaster for the administration at best, and either no one got to the secretary of defense or the president, or his own senior advisors withheld information.

So this is a serious credibility problem, and it's a lot deeper than just the Iraq-Niger deal, it has to do with assertions by the secretary of defense that he knew where weapons were that turned out not to be there, it has to do with assertions by the vice president there was a nuclear program that turned out not to exist, and assertions made by the president himself, not just about the acquisition of uranium, but also about the ability of Saddam to use chemical weapons on the United States. We need a full-blown public investigation not held in Congress but by an outside bipartisan commission......"

Good interview.

:-)

...who have known this all along.

The facts are out there. We have all read them, or heard them on TV. Howard Dean is simply taking Dobbs on a walk down Memory Lane of stuff that unfolded on the network he works on -- the very cool, absolutely assured macho statements that we were fed in order to believe Saddam was going to hit the US with another Sept 11.

I know there are mixed feelings about the Dean candidacy here -- but by golly -- he is not saying this "to emerge as a front runner" -- he's saying it because it MUST be said -- and that is one of the reasons some of us here at DU are enthusiastically supporting him.

He is not being partisan; he is not bullying -- he's just calling them on their bullshit, and has enough faith in our country that the bastards are eventually going to face the consequences of their ambitious adventure at the expense of our nation's treasure, our credibility, and the blood of our beloved serving men and women, and the innocents of the world caught in the crossfire of crony capitalist turf wars.

I appreciate his speaking out. I think he is sincere and not just campaigning.

It is infuriating to hear some politicians half-way respond to it, rather apologetically.

I was impressed because he pointed out all the other things that are being ignored right now. We here have known all this for months, and it is refreshing to hear it said.

My heart aches for those in the military in Iraq, and it aches for their families. Maybe a valuable lesson has been learned this time, but it is shameful so many had to die to learn it. Sometimes I think there was no other way for people to see the truth than for it to happen.

And some still excuse it.

This is a linch-pin: When the 9-11 reports come out, alot of screw ups from bushco will be aired--more problems handling intelligence. Americans will come to realize we didn't need a brand new office of Homeland Security, we needed someone in the WH who paid attention to intelligence!