Pat Roberts on Critical Thinking
Or, lack thereof..You decide. WaPo has this bit on Roberts' appearance on the holder of truth, Fox news.
The obvious question is, "Why did so many of you in Congress(both upper and lower houses) vote for the resolution to give the president the authority to go to war in the first place?"
The facts about pre-war intelligence were disputed at lots of points prior to the invasion. I know that National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley has been trotting the assertion that "we all looked at the same intelligence." This is obviously a case of the 'good soldier' doing his soldiering, rather than giving an accurate portrayal of the facts to us, the American public. The White House had lots of additional information. Much of which would have severely weakened it's case for war.
Hell, I'm no weapons expert..I'm a silicon engineer, but when I saw Powell's dog and pony show for the UN Security Council's 'benefit', even I smelled the distinct odor of baking bull.
Slight digression: I find it morbidly humorous that the link to the WH's page on Powell's UN presentation is headlined: "Iraq - Denial and Deception." There was certainly denial and deception tasking place, but little of it seems to have originated in Iraq.
Hopefully, there are truly lessons learned here. Congress was the enabler. It as much their collective faults as it is the administration's. Sure, it would have been a politically unpopular move at the time. In hindsight - and maybe with a little closer examination of the disputed 'facts' - this ugly chapter in US history could have been avoided.
When the White House caught those patriots questioning the threat assessment from Iraq's WMD, they got the full-on smear treatment. From Scott Ritter to Joseph Wilson, telling the truth was a serious liability.
I'll give Roberts credit for not using the tattered, "We were all wrong" line. He knows that some people got it right. Rice and Powell even had it right - but somehow both lost their ways. See below.
Flashback: A video clip, and text of both Bush Sec.s of State(Powell and Rice) in 2001 on air stating unequivocally that Iraq is a neutered state without any real conventional military, and more importantly, no WMD capability.
The Republican chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence said yesterday that one lesson of the faulty prewar intelligence on Iraq is that senators would take a hard look at intelligence before voting to go to war.(more at link)
"I think a lot of us would really stop and think a moment before we would ever vote for war or to go and take military action," Sen. Pat Roberts (Kan.) said on "Fox News Sunday."
Senators "don't accept this intelligence at face value anymore," said Pat Roberts, left, chairman of the Senate intelligence committee. Sen. Carl M. Levin said Iraq became a center of terrorism after its invasion in March 2003.
"We don't accept this intelligence at face value anymore," he added. "We get into preemptive oversight and do digging in regards to our hard targets."
He said that agreement has been reached on the Phase 2 review that the intelligence panel is doing to look into whether the Bush administration exaggerated or misused prewar intelligence. The review may not be finished this year, he said.
The obvious question is, "Why did so many of you in Congress(both upper and lower houses) vote for the resolution to give the president the authority to go to war in the first place?"
The facts about pre-war intelligence were disputed at lots of points prior to the invasion. I know that National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley has been trotting the assertion that "we all looked at the same intelligence." This is obviously a case of the 'good soldier' doing his soldiering, rather than giving an accurate portrayal of the facts to us, the American public. The White House had lots of additional information. Much of which would have severely weakened it's case for war.
Hell, I'm no weapons expert..I'm a silicon engineer, but when I saw Powell's dog and pony show for the UN Security Council's 'benefit', even I smelled the distinct odor of baking bull.
Slight digression: I find it morbidly humorous that the link to the WH's page on Powell's UN presentation is headlined: "Iraq - Denial and Deception." There was certainly denial and deception tasking place, but little of it seems to have originated in Iraq.
Hopefully, there are truly lessons learned here. Congress was the enabler. It as much their collective faults as it is the administration's. Sure, it would have been a politically unpopular move at the time. In hindsight - and maybe with a little closer examination of the disputed 'facts' - this ugly chapter in US history could have been avoided.
When the White House caught those patriots questioning the threat assessment from Iraq's WMD, they got the full-on smear treatment. From Scott Ritter to Joseph Wilson, telling the truth was a serious liability.
I'll give Roberts credit for not using the tattered, "We were all wrong" line. He knows that some people got it right. Rice and Powell even had it right - but somehow both lost their ways. See below.
Flashback: A video clip, and text of both Bush Sec.s of State(Powell and Rice) in 2001 on air stating unequivocally that Iraq is a neutered state without any real conventional military, and more importantly, no WMD capability.
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