Thursday, November 17, 2005
Knight-Ridder: "Bush Lied"
Unfortunately, they didn't come right out and say the L-word, they just say he tinkers with truth. But they do spell out the evidence in detail. For one of Bush's and Cheney's many lies, they do come right out and call it as they see it. This one's especially important, because it specifically attacks the Democrats who criticizing Bush's misuse of the intel.
ASSERTION: In his speech, Bush noted that "more than a hundred Democrats in the House and the Senate - who had access to the same intelligence - voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power." CONTEXT: This isn't true. The Congress didn't have access to the President's Daily Brief, a top-secret compendium of intelligence on the most pressing national security issues that was sent to the president every morning by former CIA Director George Tenet. As for prewar intelligence on Iraq, senior administration officials had access to other information and sources that weren't available to lawmakers. [...] Moreover, officials in the White House and the Pentagon received information directly from the Iraqi National Congress (INC), an exile group, circumventing U.S. intelligence agencies, which greatly distrusted the organization. [...] War hawks at the Pentagon also created a special unit that produced a prewar report - one not shared with Congress - that alleged that Iraq was in league with al-Qaida. [...] Meanwhile, lawmakers didn't have access to intelligence products that may have been more temperate than what they got, even after they investigated the prewar intelligence assessment. [...] The resolution that authorized use of force against Iraq didn't specifically address removing Saddam. It gave Bush the power to "defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq" and to "enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq."
More blogs about politics.
