Bush knew and LIED — Iran NIE edition

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/12/17/bush-knew-iran-nie-edition/

Bush knew — Iran NIE edition.

President Bush has said he first learned that there was new intelligence on Iran’s nuclear program “in August” when DNI Mike McConnell told him “we have some new information.” The White House later revealed that Bush was told at that time that Iran’s nuclear weapons program “may be suspended.” Porter of IPS News writes that “it now appears” that “Bush likely knew about that intelligence as early as February or March 2007,” months before the White House has conceded.

He wanted to get another war on - how sick is that?

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http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40503

POLITICS-US: Did Bush Get New Iran Intel Last Winter?
Analysis by Gareth Porter*

WASHINGTON, Dec 17 (IPS) - White House officials have now admitted that George W. Bush was told that the intelligence assessment on a covert Iranian nuclear programme might change last August, but they have avoided answering the question of when the president was first informed about the new intelligence that led to that revised assessment.

That evasion is necessary, it now appears, to conceal the fact that Bush likely knew about that intelligence as early as February or March 2007.

The White House evasions began on the day the "key judgments" in the Iran National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) were released. At his Dec. 3 press conference, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley was asked, "So was it recent weeks that this intelligence came in?" Hadley answered, "What the intelligence community has said is in the last few months."

In fact, no intelligence official had commented on when the crucial intelligence had been first obtained.

Then a journalist asked, "Steve, when was the first time the president was given the inkling of something? ...Was this months ago, when the first information started to become available to intelligence agencies?" This time Hadley responded, "You ought to go back to the intelligence community."

The evidence now available strongly suggests, however, that Hadley dodged the question not because he did not know the answer, but because he did not wish to reveal that Bush had been informed about the new intelligence months before the August meeting with Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell.

The key development that altered the course of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, according to intelligence sources, was the defection of a senior official of the Iranian Ministry of Defence, Ali Reza Asgari, on a visit to Turkey last February, as widely reported in international news media in subsequent weeks. The Washington Post's Dafna Linzer, citing a "senior U.S. official", reported on Mar. 8 that Asgari, who had been deputy minister of defence for eight years under the reformist President Mohammad Khatami from 1997 to 2005, was already providing information to U.S. intelligence.

more...

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40503

What's surprising is HE'S STILL IN THE WH!!

Bush knew -- and lied -- about 9-11, too.

But the recent case can be documented from A to Z. And We are at Z+20.

Proud to K&R. Thanks for the heads-up on a most important article by a most important author, babylonsister.