“Conventional Wisdom” of the intelligence community, Irene. Not of your nutcase demonstrators. No president is going to listen to them, but he will listen to his intelligence community. He may get some bright young men to review the existing intelligence, but he will use it; which he did. Now (and here one needs to understand the meaning of the word “lie”) if that information turns out to be false, then a mistake was made. If the president believed that wrong information; then he made a mistake – but an understandable one – at least it ought to be understandable because everyone else “in the know” made the same mistake. This has nothing to do with Bush’s intelligence. Hillary made that same mistake for example. A whole litany of Democrats have been quoted as believing the same things Bush did.
Part of our “intelligence” problem was that the CIA had been eviscerated during the Clinton administration. We cut back on our intelligence as a bonus for having won the Cold War. What did we need intelligence for? We discovered what we were missing after 9/11. We had no assets on the ground in Iraq. We had to rely on the testimony of Iraqis escaping from Iraq. The CIA vetted them and made recommendations, but this “intelligence” reflected what Saddam wanted us to believe about his weaponry.
I followed this closely at the time which I previously described and which you obviously didn’t read. Blitz didn’t say Saddam didn’t have WMDs. He said that Saddam refused to provide the evidence that he didn’t have WMDs. Saddam was also refusing to allow inspectors, inspectors into certain areas, etc. He was having a good time jerking us around. Just about everyone at the time said he had WMDs. He behaved as though he had WMDs. Saddam’s generals thought he had WMDs. His generals weren’t involved in a lie. They were as mislead as almost everyone else. After the fact we learned that Saddam was purposely implying that he had WMDs so as not to lose face amongst the surrounding nations.
Lawrence
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Andy Amago
Sent: Saturday, February 24, 2007 3:32 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: '08 Democrats
The world demonstrated against invasion. Blix said over and over there were no WMD. The Nigerian yellowcake, the fuel rods, the Downing Street memo, the 12 missing words, and on and on. If we went to war based on conventional wisdom and misinformation, then we are idiots beyond belief. I'd rather think Bush lied. Are we so absolutely idiotic Lawrence, that we would start a war on conventional wisdom, especially when it was event to the world, including to nobodies like me, that it was all fabricated. Fabricated is a fancy way of spelling lie. Our choice as Americans: our president lied, or we're idiots. Which one is it, Lawrence?
-----Original Message-----
From: Lawrence Helm
Sent: Feb 24, 2007 6:12 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: '08 Democrats
Irony valid only for those not knowing the meaning of the word “lie.”
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Andy Amago
Sent: Saturday, February 24, 2007 2:51 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: '08 Democrats
Sounds right. Obsess over cheating on one's wife but applaud excuses for invading a country and then botching it. Nothing wrong with this picture.
