Can you help me with my argument on pre-war intelligence?

I've been having an ongoing argument with a family member about pre-war intelligence and who knew what when and all that other good stuff. She claims she's a liberal, and even sometimes a progressive, but she's really much more in line with Hillary than say, Boxer. Anyway, I am trying to find quotes from members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, most specifically, and the rest of the Seante, more generally, about what they saw as evidence, why they voted the way they did, and how they feel now. But I can't seem to find a list of the members of the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2002. Does anybody know who was on it then? I've got the current list and the full Senate vote on the IWR so I'm good there. I just need the specifics of the '02 Intelligence Committee.

And, if you kind folks, happen to have a quote or two and some facts that could help me...I'll be in your debt.

Thanks in advance for any help you can give.

Perhaps I should mention, before clicking "post" that said family member seems to think that the Congress knew just what the White House did. And if they didn't know just what the WH did, we'll never know the truth because, due to the intelligence nature of the argument, no one ever has to, and perhaps never will, say the truth. Which is kind of whacked in my humble opinion. But that's the argument.

Thanks again.

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:yourock:

Do you have any pre-war quotes from Republicans in there?

for the Congress to have the access to the same pre-war intel that Bush had. I'll say it again - impossible.

First of all, the Senate and Congress do not get daily Presidential briefs on intelligence matters. Perhaps if the Senate and Congress had the same intelligence reports, they might have not ignored the PDB on August 6, 2001 saying that Osama Bin Ladin was about to strike the US. Bush appears to have completely ignored this nice little warning.

Secondly, the analogy I use for how the Senate and Congress were given evidence to appear to give a plausible reason to attack Iraq goes this way: the Bush administration fixed the deck before they dealt the cards.

The Bush administration took out key sources of intelligence that proved that Saddam was not a threat and cherry-picked dubious evidence to support their mission, which was basically marching orders from the Project for a New American Century (PNAC). If you look at the signatories to many of PNACs initiatives, they are chickenhawks within the White House...namely Cheney, Perle, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Libby and others.

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.