"The CIA laid out several scenarios. It said that life could be lousy, life could be OK, life could be better. And they were just guessing as to what the conditions might be like," Bush told reporters during a picture-taking session with Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. The classified document, known as a National Intelligence Estimate, predicted three possible scenarios ranging from a tenuous stability to political fragmentation and civil war. The CIA says Iraq has weapons of mass destruction so we have to go to war right away. Thousands dead and Billions lost with no end in sight. The CIA says things are getting worse, which they are a lot worse, and now the President dismisses it as a guess. Is he in some kind of denial or something. I hear stay the course a lot but I know if you dig a hole you can't get out of you don't keep digging down you change your course and start digging up before you are completely buried.
Things just keep getting better and better. You know its funny that Rather gets hung for using bad "intelligence", but Bush can lead a country to war on even worse intelligence and people(Republcians) just dismiss it as a simple mistake.
Rather didnt get hung for "Bad intelligence". He got hung for "Forged documents." Bad intelligence implies that the methods to gather the information were incomplete and need to be revised so that the whole picture can be displayed. Forged documents imply that the whole thing was made up to begin with. You tell me the difference, PJ?
Sounds to me like you are saying that the CIA intelligence used prior to the war was faulty and should not have been relied upon. But now we should take everything the CIA says as gospel. Could it be that you judge the veracity of intelligence based on whether or not the alleged information suits your agenda?
Forged documents also played a part in the intelligence gathering process prior to invasion of Iraq, e.g the forged uranium documents in the yellowcake dossier.
Sorry Neo-- this was a well spoken sentiment, but everyone's gonna jump on Palestinian Jew's sub-comment rather than direct much attention to your post unless you follow-up, I think.
Merlin, I think he's pointing out the inconsistancy in the reliance of CIA intelligence based on what appears to be whether or not the information suits the agenda of the Bush administation. Why doesn't Bush believe the CIA *now*. Neo, Merlin also makes a good point, why DO you believe the CIA *now*?
Why are we picking on the CIA - when the CIA was not then, nor is now the end-all in the intelligence community. There are perhaps a dozen respected Intel agencies, across the world, which agreed w/ the CIA apprasial of the situation.
