{"id":8413,"date":"2006-09-08T15:45:59","date_gmt":"2006-09-08T19:45:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/8413.html"},"modified":"2006-09-08T15:45:59","modified_gmt":"2006-09-08T19:45:59","slug":"phase-ii-at-least-some-parts-of-it-offer-yet-another-embarrassment-for-bush","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/phase-ii-at-least-some-parts-of-it-offer-yet-another-embarrassment-for-bush\/","title":{"rendered":"Phase II — at least some parts of it — offer yet another embarrassment for Bush"},"content":{"rendered":"

Before we get into what’s missing from the Senate Intelligence Committee report, let’s first acknowledge the conclusions that were released this afternoon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There’s no evidence [tag]Saddam Hussein[\/tag] had ties with [tag]al-Qaida[\/tag], according to a Senate report on prewar intelligence that Democrats say undercuts President [tag]Bush[\/tag]’s justification for invading Iraq.<\/p>\n

Bush administration officials have insisted on a link between the Iraqi regime and terror leader Abu Musab al-[tag]Zarqawi[\/tag]. Intelligence agencies, however, concluded there was none.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As the AP explained, today’s report also notes that 2002 claims that postwar findings do not support a 2002 intelligence community report that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program, possessed biological weapons or ever developed mobile facilities for producing biological warfare agents.<\/p>\n

But it’s the Zarqawi revelation that’s probably the most significant news of the day. Top White House officials, including the President and Vice President, have claimed that Zarqawi’s presence in Iraq bolstered the notion of a Saddam-[tag]al Qaeda[\/tag] relationship. Today’s report highlighted the a previously-classified CIA assessment that concluded that prior to the war Saddam’s government “did not have a relationship, harbor, or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi and his associates.”<\/p>\n

[tag]White House[\/tag] Press Secretary Tony Snow responded to the report by saying that lawmakers “got a good look at the intelligence we had and they came to the very same conclusions about what was going on.” Of course, as Snow must realize, he’s completely wrong — the president and Congress did not<\/i> have access to the same intelligence, a point that’s been highlighted repeatedly<\/a> for several years now.<\/p>\n

Having said that, let’s also consider for a moment what isn’t<\/i> in today’s report.
\n
\nAll of this is part of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s comprehensive investigation into pre-war intelligence. Initially, the committee was prepared to release one authoritative document on the intelligence, what it said, and how it was handled. Then Roberts split the report in two — one on how wrong the intelligence community and agencies were (released before the 2004 presidential election) and another on how the White House used\/misused\/abused the available information (released after the 2004 presidential election).<\/p>\n

[tag]Senate Intelligence Committee[\/tag] Chairman [tag]Pat Roberts[\/tag] (R-Kan.) has been all over the map on this. First he said publicly that he’d “try” to have Phase Two available to the public before the 2004 election. He didn’t. Then Roberts then gave his word, in writing<\/a>, that members of the Senate Intelligence Committee would have a draft report on controversial “public statements” from administration officials by April 5. He lied about that too. Then he indicated that he might just give up<\/a> on the second part of the investigation altogether.<\/p>\n

So, what’s today’s report? It’s two subparts<\/i><\/a> of Phase Two — one that looks at what Ahmed Chalabi and other well-paid Iraqi exiles told the administration, the other that compares pre-war estimates of Iraq’s weapons capabilities with what U.S. forces actually found.<\/p>\n

As it is, today’s conclusions are yet another embarrassment for an administration that can hardly afford to look more foolish on national security matters. I can only imagine what the other subparts — the ones Pat Roberts is resisting with all his might — have to say.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before we get into what’s missing from the Senate Intelligence Committee report, let’s first acknowledge the conclusions that were released this afternoon. There’s no evidence [tag]Saddam Hussein[\/tag] had ties with [tag]al-Qaida[\/tag], according to a Senate report on prewar intelligence that Democrats say undercuts President [tag]Bush[\/tag]’s justification for invading Iraq. Bush administration officials have insisted on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8413\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}