Jeb Bush Says His Brother Was Misled Into War By Faulty Intelligence. That's NOT What Happened.

[n2doc]

He and other Republican presidential contenders have a new and bogus spin on how the Iraq war began.
—By David Corn

Last week, Jeb Bush stepped in it. It took the all-but-announced Republican presidential candidate several attempts to answer the most obvious question: knowing what we know now, would you have launched the Iraq war? Yes, I would have, he initially declared, noting he would not dump on his brother for initiating the unpopular war. "So would almost everyone that was confronted with the intelligence they got," Bush said. In a subsequent and quickly-offered back-pedaling remark—on his way to saying he would have made "different decisions"—Bush emphasized that a main problem with the Bush-Cheney invasion was "mistakes as it related to faulty intelligence in the lead-up to the war." And as his Republican rivals jumped on Bush, they, too, blamed bad intelligence for causing the war. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), insisting that he would not have favored the war (if he knew there were no weapons of mass destruction), commented, "President Bush has said that he regrets that the intelligence was faulty." And former CEO Carly Fiorina noted, "The intelligence was clearly wrong. And so had we known that the intelligence was wrong, no, I would not have gone in."

But here's the truth Jeb Bush and the others are hiding or eliding: George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Co. were not misled by lousy intelligence; they used lousy intelligence to mislead the public.

Throughout the run-up to the war, Bush, Cheney, and their lieutenants repeatedly stated assertions to justify the war that were not supported by the intel. They also hyped or mischaracterized existing intelligence to bolster their case for war. The book I wrote with Michael Isikoff, Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War, chronicles the elaborate Bush-Cheney campaign to misuse and misrepresent the intelligence. Certainly, there was some information within the intelligence community (which turned out to be wrong) indicating that Saddam Hussein was trying to revive programs to develop biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons. As the Bush White House was selling the possibility of war, the intelligence agencies did quickly produce a National Intelligence Estimate in October 2002 that said Iraq had "continued its weapons of mass destruction program." But there was other intelligence and analysis—some of it mentioned in that intelligence estimate—casting plenty of doubt on this. In fact, on many of the key elements of the Bush administration's case for war, the intelligence was, at best, iffy. Yet in this post-9/11 period, Bush and Cheney frequently declared there was no uncertainty: Saddam was pursuing WMDs to threaten the United States, and, worse, he was in league with Al Qaeda.

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http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/05/jeb-bush-marco-rubio-iraq-war-intelligence

[Brother Buzz]

1. Isn't Paul Wolfowitz in Jeb's camp?

Perhaps Jeb should have Paul Wolfowitz brief him on Office of Special Plans (OSP) and just what stovepiping actually is.

[Octafish]

2. BFEE Judge Lawrence Silberman wrote anyone who says Bush lied America into war is like a NAZI.

Federal Appeals Judge Compares People Who Say Bush Lied To Rise Of Nazis

A federal appeals judge wrote in a column published on Sunday that people who accuse former President George W. Bush of lying about the Iraq War are peddling myths like those that led to the rise of Hitler.

Laurence H. Silberman, a federal appellate judge appointed by President Ronald Reagan, wrote in the Wall Street Journal that the idea the Bush administration "lied us into Iraq" has gone from "antiwar slogan to journalistic fact."

"It is one thing to assert, then or now, that the Iraq war was ill-advised," he wrote. "It is quite another to make the horrendous charge that President Bush lied to or deceived the American people about the threat from Saddam."

After re-litigating the case for invading Iraq, Silberman wrote that the charge could have "potentially dire consequences."

"I am reminded of a similarly baseless accusation that helped the Nazis come to power in Germany: that the German army had not really lost World War I, that the soldiers instead had been 'stabbed in the back' by politicians," he wrote.

SOURCE: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/laurence-silberman-bush-lied-nazis

[niyad]

3. of course, those here on du knew this all along--along with the entire rest of the world.

[Lodestar]

4. Hillary bought it too. Very telling moment. n/t

[maindawg]

6. She really shot herself in the foot

She is tied to it also. The whole stinking mess. And I am glad they are rolling this out. I dont know who is behind this effort to remind us of the crime that was perpetrated upon us. And Hillarys fingerprints are all over that scene too. They lied us into that war. While Jeb tries to rewrite history with a polished new lie, we all were there not too long ago to remember. They lied about the WMD's. We are still dealing with the mess they made. We know the Saudis did it too . We know that as a fact. Its not 1930. We have access to the information and we have video.
The other crime they committed was when the crashed the economy and wrecked our house value. Never forget, they cost us all many thousands of dollars while the 1 % actually got richer.

[rurallib]

5. Wow - day in, day out, Jeb is determined to prove to the world

that he, not George W., is by far the dumbest Bush.

No fucking wonder Mama tried to talk him out of running for president. She knew he could only bring more shame to a family that slops around in shame.

Got to wonder what's next? Rekindling the flat earth debate?

[ProfessorGAC]

8. How About We Just Call It A Tie?

He's appearing AS dumb as Silverspoon I, but Silverspoon II is not exactly impressing many people. And, it's hard to believe he could actually be dumber than Silverspoon I.

[Jefferson23]

7. Of course that is not true, and it is up to every Democrat running to make that abundantly

clear over and over again. Do not let that degenerate get away with it., big
differences between Bush and those Dems that voted yes.