Playing Politics With Intel Report

That's my conclusion based on reading Jay Rockefeller's statement in this Forbes article and the Phase I report released in 2004.
The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, said the report will confirm that "the Bush administration's case for war in Iraq was fundamentally misleading."
Expect to hear more of this. It's part of the Democrats' plan, with Mr. Rockefeller likely taking the lead on this, to accuse the Bush Administration of distorting the pre-war intelligence. Of course, that flies in the face of what their Phase I report said.

I just took a quick glimpse at the Phase II Report's Table of Contents. Imagine my surprise in seeing a section titled "Additional Views of Senators Roberts, Hatch and Chambliss." I've also noticed that Sens. Snowe and Hagel voted with the Democrats to essentially contradict several of the report's factual findings. Color me unsurprised by that.

The rumor going around is that Democrats simply wanted the headlines to sound provocative because they realize that the Agenda Media seldom looks further than the headlines on these reports. I'm going to be reading the report later to see if that rumor is accurate or not. I suspect that it is. Another rumor making the rounds is that Democrats intend to use Libby's and Cheney's names as often as possible in talking about the Intel Committee's findings, with the implication that they tried to manipulate the intelligence.

The first report deals with the accuracy of the pre-war intelligence while the second report deals with how the intelligence community used information provided by Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress. The first report concludes that the intelligence on WMD's was wrong, which we already knew. It also concludes that the connections between al Qaida and Saddam's government were difficult to prove, though there definitely were contacts made between AQ and Saddam's regime.

Though you wouldn't know it from Democrats' statements, the factual findings state that the INC did not intentionally mislead the intel community. Nor is it accurate to state that the intel coming from the INC played a great role in the Bush Administration's deciding to go to war. Expect Democrats to make that case early and often. Also expect them to get thwarted in their attempts to mischaracterize these conclusions by people armed with the factual findings of the report.

Check back later this evening for more on this report after I've read more of the report.



Posted Friday, September 8, 2006 3:19 PM

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