Senior CIA Official: Bush Lied

[Chris Alger]

As if we needed more to prove Bush's war criminality, the highest ranking CIA officer on Middle East intelligence prior to and during the invasion is now, in effect, calling Bush a liar. Paul R. Pillar was the CIA's National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia from 2000 until last year, probably the highest-ranking intelligence officer regarding Iraq. In a new article in Foreign Affairs, Pillar confirms what most of the world believes to be obvious: "intelligence on Iraqi weapons programs did not drive its [the White House's] decision to go to war," despite Bush's constant claims to the contrary. Any policy implication of actual intelligence "was to avoid war -- or, if war was going to be launched, to prepare for a messy aftermath." Bush had to ignore actual intelligence to depart from the "broadly held view" in the U.S. and elsewhere that "deterrence of Iraq was working, that Saddam was being 'kept in his box,' and that the best way to deal with the weapons problem was through an aggressive inspections program to supplement the sanctions already in place."

Pillar's description of what the intelligence community really believed is hardly surprising given that Powell and Rice publicly said as much before Bush played the Arab hatred card. But it amounts to the most damning eye-witness evidence that our elected officials lied every time they spoke about Iraq, and indeed continue to do so. As a result of this clumsy propaganda hoax, thousands of GI's are dead, tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians are dead, more are dying every day, Iraq is materially worse off than the days under Saddam, and the U.S. is engaged in a possibly unwinnable war with no end in sight. And don't forget the "war on terror": formerly quiet Iraq is now a gigantic hive of American-hating terrorists, the war has rocketed anti-U.S. hatred to unprecedented heights, there are more terrorist attacks now than ever before, the resources we've lost in Iraq could have been spent on real anti-terrorism, and hardly any Iranians or North Koreans thinks their countries are safe from the U.S. if they remain just as defenseless. The positive side of the balance sheet are campaign-free elections that have pushed Iraq toward a Mullah-ruled theocracy and crystallized formerly blurred ethno-religious lines, helping propel it toward fragmentation and civil war.

Nor, thanks to the Republicans, is there much that Americans can do about it. Staunch Republican support for the war means the U.S. cannot begin to extricate itself from Iraq despite the wishes of the vast majority of Americans and Iraqis that it do so. We can't even investigate the PR campaign that caused the problem.

All this for only $1.1 billion per week for the indefinite future. Applauding this insanity is what Republicans call "patriotism." Criticizing it is what they call "unpatriotic," and worse.

Contrary to Bush's constant invoking of intelligence, Pillar argues that the White House cared nothing about intelligence on Iraq. <ul type="square">"The administration used intelligence not to inform decision-making, but to justify a decision already made. It went to war without requesting -- and evidently without being influenced by -- any strategic-level intelligence assessments on any aspect of Iraq . . . . Congress, not the administration, asked for the now-infamous October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq's unconventional weapons programs, although few members of Congress actually read it. (According to several congressional aides responsible for safeguarding the classified material, no more than six senators and only a handful of House members got beyond the five-page executive summary.) As the national intelligence officer for the Middle East, I was in charge of coordinating all of the intelligence community's assessments regarding Iraq; the first request I received from any administration policymaker for any such assessment was not until a year into the war."[/list]So what, according to Pillar, were Bush's real reasons for initiating the war? He offers two, encrypted in the usual lofty rhetoric: (1) "the desire to shake up the sclerotic power structures of the Middle East" and (2) to "hasten the spread of more liberal politics and economics in the region." We can laugh away the first as the no one thinks that Bush wanted to undermine any "power structure" of what Bush calls our "allies" in the war on terror (Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, the AUE, etc.) or that "shaking up" our friends required war with a regime they all despised. Foreign Affairs readers are used to decoding the rest: "liberal politics" means U.S. power and "liberal economics" means U.S. money. Anyone with common sense will tell you: a country whose leaders gull them into a war of aggression for money and power needs to spend more time fixing what lies within its borders than in spreading its tentacles elsewhere. This is why America under Bush remains a million miles away from simple decency and common sense.

[Myrtle]

Chris,

Eventually, it will all come out in the wash.

The question then will be.....Will we have learned any meaningful lessons?

[FlFishOn]

Nice post.

Now what moves America forward? You can finger point all you like and no progress is made. Offer something positive for the future.

How do we procede with the GWOT?

Iran?

N.Korea?

What is likely with GWB as pres and both houses Rep?

[Myrtle]

[ QUOTE ]
Nice post.

Now what moves America forward? You can finger point all you like and no progress is made. Offer something positive for the future.

How do we procede with the GWOT?

Iran?

N.Korea?

[/ QUOTE ]

....short form answer??

We first must right the ship.

Then we must make good decisions from that time forward.

[FlFishOn]

"We first must right the ship."

OK. Here's the outlook from Tradesports:

SENATE.GOP.2006 86.1%
HOUSE.GOP.2006 74.0%
PRESIDENT.DEM2008 47.3%
PRESIDENT.REP2008 50.3%

These are probabilities backed by people's money today. Your ship righting chance falls somewhere between slim and none. President Hillary is the most likely of all the unlikely events but still a dog.

Politics is the art of the possible. What's possible?

[Myrtle]

[ QUOTE ]
"We first must right the ship."

OK. Here's the outlook from Tradesports:

SENATE.GOP.2006 86.1%
HOUSE.GOP.2006 74.0%
PRESIDENT.DEM2008 47.3%
PRESIDENT.REP2008 50.3%

These are probabilities backed by people's money today. Your ship righting chance falls somewhere between slim and none. President Hillary is the most likely of all the unlikely events but still a dog.

Politics is the art of the possible. What's possible?

[/ QUOTE ]

....I hear what your saying, but simply because the correct or best action is highly improbable, does that mean that it should be abandoned?

[FlFishOn]

"..I hear what your saying, but simply because the correct or best action is highly improbable, does that mean that it should be abandoned? "

You must deal with issues from current reality and potential future reality. An example:

Bush Lied, People Died. OK, now what? He's president for 3 more years, what do you propose? Convince me. I vote. I contribute my time to the GOP.

I honestly believe you have no forward-going proposals. Prove me wrong.

[Myrtle]

[ QUOTE ]
"..I hear what your saying, but simply because the correct or best action is highly improbable, does that mean that it should be abandoned? "

You must deal with issues from current reality and potential future reality. An example:

Bush Lied, People Died. OK, now what? He's president for 3 more years, what do you propose? Convince me. I vote. I contribute my time to the GOP.

I honestly believe you have no forward-going proposals. Prove me wrong.

[/ QUOTE ]

....big boy...one issue at a time.

Working on your Wal-Mart response.

[ElliotR]

[ QUOTE ]
"..I hear what your saying, but simply because the correct or best action is highly improbable, does that mean that it should be abandoned? "

You must deal with issues from current reality and potential future reality. An example:

Bush Lied, People Died. OK, now what? He's president for 3 more years, what do you propose? Convince me. I vote. I contribute my time to the GOP.

I honestly believe you have no forward-going proposals. Prove me wrong.

[/ QUOTE ]


hahahahahaha I'm sure this was your attitude toward the Clinton impeachment, too.

Here's a forward looking proposal: Bush resigns. Cheney too. Also Rumsfeld and Gross. Your turn.

[FlFishOn]

Yet another empty vessel. You prove my point.