georgephillip
Diamond Member
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- #81
What moral basis is there for demonizing Iran's nuclear programs while saying nothing about Israel's 200-plus nuclear weapons?On October 7, 2002 George W. Bush delivered a speech to the nation claiming Saddam Hussein was a great danger to the most powerful Failed State in history either by directly attacking the US with weapons of mass destruction or by supplying some terrorist group with said (fictional) weapons.
Bush, who ducked his fight in Vietnam, went one step further by claiming the attack could happen on any given day, in other words--the attack was imminent.
A big problem Chicken George would face if he ever faced prosecution for the murder of over 4000 US service members is that six days earlier the CIA had supplied him with its National Intelligence Estimate for 2002.
"Page 8 clearly and unequivocally says that Saddam Hussein was not an imminent threat to the security of this country. In fact the report says that Hussein would only use whatever weapons of mass destruction he had against us if he feared America was about to attack him.
"We know that Bush was telling millions upon millions of unsuspecting Americans exactly the opposite of what his own CIA was telling him...We know that George Bush took this nation to war on a lie..."
So says Vincent Bugliosi, former LA prosecutor and author of The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder.
Vincent makes for a wonderful Monday Morning Quarterback.
His quote from "Page 8" clearly shows that the CIA's 2002 NIE thought Iraq had WMD:
"the report says that Hussein would only use whatever weapons of mass destruction he had against us if he feared America was about to attack him."
Now, let's suppose, that shortly after 9/11, which the CIA did not prevent, and the Invasion of Kuwait, which took the CIA by surprise, and the gassing of Kurdish Iraqis, Bush came on TV and said:
RELAX! The CIA says that Hussein would only use whatever weapons of mass destruction he had against us if he feared America was about to attack him."
Given the context, the CIA's opinion of whatever Hussrin would do with WMD isn't terribly credible.
In October 2007 the suspicions were rampant in the left that President Bush intended invading Iran. These lines appear in an October 2007 article in Esquire Magazine titled - The Secret History of the Impending War with Iran That the White House Doesn't Want You to Know
In the years after 9/11, Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann worked at the highest levels of the Bush administration as Middle East policy experts for the National Security Council. Mann conducted secret negotiations with Iran. Leverett traveled with Colin Powell and advised Condoleezza Rice. They each played crucial roles in formulating policy for the region leading up to the war in Iraq. But when they left the White House, they left with a growing sense of alarm -- not only was the Bush administration headed straight for war with Iran, it had been set on this course for years. That was what people didn't realize. It was just like Iraq, when the White House was so eager for war it couldn't wait for the UN inspectors to leave. The steps have been many and steady and all in the same direction. And now things are getting much worse. We are getting closer and closer to the tripline, they say.
Going along with those rampant accusations against the Bush Administration, in an obvious attempt to undermine any useful policy vis-à-vis Iran, and just in the right moment in November of 2007 a classified CIA NIE (National Intelligence Estimate) was released to the public press, which in part stated that Iran [in 2003 had] halted its efforts to acquire nuclear weapons and had not since restarted them. That finding was based solely on the Intelligence Communitys judgment that Iran had stopped working on weaponization, i.e., designing bombs and acquiring and making their components. A FOOTNOTE clarified that this finding did not cover Irans declared civil work related to uranium conversion and enrichment.
Immediately the left seized on this NIE to support their claim that Bush was planning another Iraq type invasion and here was solid information from his own CIA that UNDERMINED his justification, specifically that Iran had even sought nuclear weapon capacity since 2003.
Since the same technology used to make reactor fuel can easily produce fissile material usable for a weapon, and since producing such material is by far the hardest part of making a nuclear weapon, the FOOTNOTE essentially cut the guts out of the main texts finding.
Later in 2008, testifying before Congress Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell , the NIE's putative author, said The only thing that theyve halted was nuclear weapons design, which is probably the least significant part of the program. So if Id had until now to think about it, I probably would have changed a thing or two.
The timing of the release of that NIE and the way it undermined the credibility of the Bush administration, was an epilogue to add credibility in the hysteria that Bush Lied, people died', that, because he was so insanely bellicose, a cowboy, he would do anything to to start another war in the Middle East.
There are rogue employees in the CIA who clearly would put their partisan agenda ahead of the security of their country. Because of its own agenda, or to position themselves agtainst a Republican President, the CIA has been proven not to be worthy of our trust.
What is that partisan agenda? Undermine, and delegitimize the very duty that presidents are elected for: leadership, and national security, and promulgation of policies that advance that aim.