Case for war confected, say top US officials

[0rganism]

Case for war confected, say top US officials
Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles
09 November 2003

An unprecedented array of US intelligence professionals, diplomats and former Pentagon officials have gone on record to lambast the Bush administration for its distortion of the case for war against Iraq. In their view, the very foundations of intelligence-gathering have been damaged in ways that could take years, even decades, to repair.

A new documentary film beginning to circulate in the United States features one powerful condemnation after another, from the sort of people who usually stay discreetly in the shadows - a former director of the CIA, two former assistant secretaries of defence, a former ambassador to Saudi Arabia and even the man who served as President Bush's Secretary of the Army until just a few months ago.

Between them, the two dozen interviewees reveal how the pre-war intelligence record on Iraq showed virtually the opposite of the picture the administration painted to Congress, to US voters and to the world. They also reconstruct the way senior White House officials - notably Vice-President Dick Cheney - leaned on the CIA to find evidence that would fit a preordained set of conclusions.

read more

[VolcanoJen]

1. The link doesn't work, Organism...

... could you edit your message with a working link?

[0rganism]

3. D'oh! Forgot to strip the http stuff out of the link tag

Thanks for the reminder.

I always forget to do that.

:dunce:

[1songbird]

2. Are you sure the link is okay for this story

I tried it a few times and it didn't work.

[0rganism]

4. try it now

Trust the computer. The computer is your friend.

[1songbird]

5. Much better

[Media_Lies_Daily]

6. The article seems to be casting quite a bit of blame on Tenet....

...and I don't think that's the direction toward which very much blame should go at all. In fact, this article seems to be what the CIA would call a limited hang-out, even though the CIA is not doing this one.

First, the article claims the following:

"By early September, intelligence experts in Congress were clamouring for a so-called National Intelligence Estimate, a full rundown of everything known about Iraq's weapons programmes. Usually NIEs take months to produce, but George Tenet, the CIA director, came up with a 100-page document in just three weeks.

The man he picked to write it, the weapons expert Robert Walpole, had a track record of going back over old intelligence assessments and reworking them in accordance with the wishes of a specific political interest group. In 1998, he had come up with an estimate of the missile capabilities of various rogue states that managed to sound considerably more alarming than a previous CIA estimate issued three years earlier. On that occasion, he was acting at the behest of a congressional commission anxious to make the case for a missile defence system; the commission chairman was none other than Donald Rumsfeld, now Secretary of Defence and a key architect of the Iraq war."

Why would Tenet pick Walpole for anything, knowing his past record? My guess is that this information was gathered at the request of Cheney, Rumsfeld and others looking for justification for a war on Iraq.

"Mr Walpole's NIE on Iraq threw together all the elements that have now been discredited - Niger, the alumin- ium tubes, and so on. It also gave the misleading impression that intelligence analysts were in broad agreement about the Iraqi threat, relegating most of the doubts and misgivings to footnotes and appendices.

By the time parts of the NIE were made public, even those few qualifications were excised. When President Bush's speechwriters got to work - starting with the address to Congress on 7 October that led to a resolution authorising the use of force against Iraq - the language became even stronger."

Okay, what am I to make of the preceding information? How much of a role did Tenet really play? Tenet has been consistently in opposition to using certain language in the public speeches given by the Bushies.

"Mr Tenet fact-checked the 7 October speech, and seems to have played a major role in every subsequent policy address, including Colin Powell's powerful presentation to the United Nations Security Council on 5 February. Of that pivotal speech, Mr McGovern says in the film: "It was a masterful performance, but none of it was true."

I agree that none of Powell's speech was true. It is probably also true that Tenet was a fact-checker...indeed he may have been the only fact-checker. As noted above, Tenet has been opposed to the use of certain language in the public speeches given by the Bushies because that language cannot be verified in any factual way.

[0rganism]

9. For whatever reasons, Tenet played along with shrubco

Tenet caved to pressure from Cheney, if this article has it right. He had Walpole cook something up, the BFEE worked it into a presentation, and then he signed off on it.

What kind of leverage did the bushies use on Tenet? We'll probably never know. Why he let this happen is anyone's guess, but it seems like Tenet's defenders want to have it both ways: he let it happen, but it's not his fault. No, the blame doesn't rest entirely with him alone, but he could have put a stop to it and chose to let the chips fall, instead.

If the CIA was prostituted, then Tenet was the chief pimp. He can turn it around, any day, and start exposing the johns -- indeed, having a documentary of this sort released may be that very thing. He could probably pull miracles in removing shrubco from office next year, it's entirely up to him. How Tenet arranges his place in history is very much within his control, IMHO.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

13. WRONG!!! The ARTICLE states that Tenet cooperated. BUT,....

...as I tried to spell out in my previous post, the actual facts are that the CIA and Tenet have resisted the Bushies every step of the way. There have been quite a few articles over the past year that discussed the fact that Tenet opposed the 16 words that still managed to find their way into the last State of the Union Address and Powell's speech to the UN. You can choose to ignore that if you like, but those are the facts.

Additionally, it's not just the Plame story that has gotten the CIA pissed off at the Bushies. On a WIDE range of issues since January 2001, they have provided good intelligence to the Bushies only to find something else entirely being stated to the American people and world at large. You do remember Rummy stating in the past that he wanted to create a separate group to provide intelligence because they weren't getting what they wanted from the CIA? That led to the formation of the OSP...a supposed "intel" group that works out of the Pentagon. Let me repeat myself...the CIA and George Tenet have resisted the Bushies at every viable opportunity.

This story in the Independent is typical of what I mentioned before...it is a limited hangout. It is a story planted in the foreign press in hopes that the American mainstream press will pick it up and use it as gospel. Some truth is being told about the situation in hopes that enough people will buy that and quit looking for the WHOLE truth. The Bushies are continuing to try to pin the blame for Iraq on the CIA despite the damage they have suffered to date from all of the recent leaks.

Too many of the CIA's attackers see the CIA only in black-and-white terms that are completely inflexible. Believe it or not, the CIA is at war with the Bushies. Evidence of that is in terms of the information already leaked to the press that only the CIA could possibly know. More evidence includes the number of former CIA operatives/analysts that have gone public in hearings and the press stating that the Bushies are lying on a wide range of subjects.

[Elidor]

20. Perhaps you see Tenet in black & white

He has indeed resisted the Bushies, but you're lumping him together with the CIA as a whole. He is a bureaucrat playing a complicated game, and he does not have the luxury of resisting everything his political bosses want. It's not inconceivable that he is at least somewhat culpable for what has transpired, if only by not standing up to the administration more forcefully.

Has the Independent ever been revealed as a paper that runs planted stories? I've generally found it to be a good publication.

I once had the intention of cataloging all the reporters known to run CIA stories unfiltered, but I just don't have the time to research it.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

22. Neither one of us could live long enough to compile a list...

...of reporters known to run CIA stories. First off, you'd have to go back to the late 1940s when Operation Mockingbird was initiated by the CIA. Quite a few reporters have come and gone since then. In the 1940s, the CIA began a systematic infiltration of the mainstream media, a process that often included direct takeover of major news outlets. CBS, NBC, and ABC were all affected to one degree or another. So was most of the print media to include the NY Times, the Washington Post, Life Magazine, etc.

And no, I'm not seeing Tenet completely in "black & white". Based on my own research, Tenet has been associated with the CIA since he was most probably recruited while still in school in the 1970s. Quite a few bad operations have gone over the CIA dam without Tenet having been tarnished by at least some of it. Please note below that his first public position was with the American Hellenic Institute in Washington, DC, as a Research Director...a classic CIA front which allowed him to travel back and forth to Europe with a good cover story.

Tenet is well-educated and has become very well-connected with leaders in both major parties. His popularity with both sides of the aisle has been the major factor in the inability of the Bushies to replace him with someone more friendly to their way of thinking.

My problem, as I clearly stated, are those people who see the entire CIA as nothing but the "bad guys", without giving any credit for the actions they take which are helpful. Right now, the actions of both former and current CIA officers has become very helpful to the cause of removing the Bushies from power. IMHO, they could not be helpful without at least the tacit approval of Tenet.

As far as the Independent is concerned, just about every newspaper in the world has run CIA-planted stories at one time or another. They don't even have to know that they're doing it.

===============================
RESUME:
George Tenet
Director, Central Intelligence
---------------------------------

EXPERIENCE:
1995-Present
Central Intelligence Agency

Director, July 1997 - Present

George John Tenet was sworn in as Director of Central Intelligence on 11 July 1997 following a unanimous vote by both the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the full Senate. In this position he heads the Intelligence Community (all foreign intelligence agencies of the United States) and directs the Central Intelligence Agency. In January 2001, Tenet was asked by Bush to stay on indefinitely as Director, Central Intelligence.

Acting Director, December 1996 - July 1997

Following the departure of John Deutch in December 1996, he served as Acting Director.

Deputy Director Central Intelligence, July 1995 - December 1996

Served as the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, having been confirmed in that position in July 1995.

1993 - 1995
National Security Council
Senior Director for Intelligence Programs
Special Assistant to the President

Mr. Tenet previously served as Special Assistant to the President (Clinton) and Senior Director for Intelligence Programs at the National Security Council. While at the NSC, he coordinated Presidential Decision Directives on ''Intelligence Priorities,'' ''Security Policy Coordination,'' ''US Counterintelligence Effectiveness,'' and ''US Policy on Remote Sensing Space Capabilities.'' He also was responsible for coordinating all interagency activities concerning covert action.

1992-1993
Presidential National Security Transition Team

Prior to serving at the National Security Council, he served on President Clinton's national security transition team. In this capacity, he coordinated the evaluation of the US Intelligence Community.

1987-1992
Office of Sen. David Boren, D-OK
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
Staff Director

Mr. Tenet also served as Staff Director of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence for over four years under the chairmanship of Senator David Boren. In this capacity he was responsible for coordinating all of the Committee's oversight and legislative activities including the strengthening of covert action reporting requirements, the creation of a statutory Inspector General at CIA, and the introduction of comprehensive legislation to reorganize US intelligence.

1985-1987
Office of Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-VT
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
Staff Director
Staff Member

Three years later, he joined the Senate Select Committee under Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., helping direct the committee's oversight of arms control negotiations between the United States and Soviet Union. He ultimately assumed the role of staff director of the committee. Prior to his appointment as Staff Director, Mr. Tenet directed the Committee's oversight of all arms control negotiations between the Soviet Union and the United States, culminating in the preparation of a report to the US Senate on ``The Ability of US Intelligence to Monitor the Intermediate Nuclear Force Treaty."

1982-1985
Office of Sen. John Heinz, R-PA
Legislative Assistant

Served as a legislative assistant to Sen. John Heinz, R-Pa., dealing with defense, energy and foreign affairs issues. as both a legislative assistant covering national security and energy issues and as legislative director.

Solar Industries Association
Research Director

American Hellenic Institute, Washington, DC
Research Director
<http://www.ahiworld.com/history.pdf>

EDUCATION:
1979 - Masters in International Affairs - Columbia University, New York, NY
1977 - BS Foreign Service - Georgetown University, Washington, DC

PRE-COLLEGE BACKGROUND:
His father and mother emigrated from Greece and operated a delicatessen in a middle-class Flushing, Queens, neighborhood, where Tenet worked while growing up. George and his twin brother Bill, now a cardiologist in New York, graduated in 1973 from public school at Benjamin N. Cardozo High School. They attended religious classes and served as altar boys at a Greek Orthodox Church.Born in New York in 1955, George Tenet is 50 years old as of October 2003. He is married to A. Stephanie Glakas-Tenet, and they have one son, John Michael.

=================================================
NOTES:

Senator David Boren Biography:
<http://davidboren.org/>
Yale grad and Bonesman. Rhodes Scholar.
"Another interesting Bonesman is David Lyle Boren, the Senate Democrat from Oklahoma. While he is not an employee of the CIA (some say this is open to question), Boren nevertheless is part of the intelligence community because he is the chair of the Select Committee on Intelligence."

Senator Patrick Leahy Biography:
<http://leahy.senate.go/biography/sketch03.html>

Senator John Heinz Biography:
<http://zeeb.library.cmu.edu/Libraries/Heinz/HJH_Bio.html#death>

REFERENCES:
George Tenet, Director of the CIA
<http://media.abcnews.com/sections/politics/DailyNews/bush_advisors_tenet.html>

CIA FACELIFT, March 19, 1997
<http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/fedagencies/march97/cia_3-19.html>

Remarks by Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet on the
"Worldwide Threat 2001: National Security in a Changing World"
<http://www.departmentofintelligence.com/en/ressource/renseignement/003.html>

[Elidor]

23. Impressive

Are you the writer of the blog of the same name?

[jamesinca]

7. Great story

The hour-long film - entitled Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War - was put together by Robert Greenwald,

I think I am going to do a little online shopping for a movie to buy!!

[Paschall]

8. Robert Baer, Ray McGovern, and others...

...interviewed in this film, were featured in "CIA: Secret Wars," a three-part series aired this past month on ARTE, a Franco-German public television network that broadcasts in French and German and reaches Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. Baer is very good; the information he provides is particularly compelling because--unlike the folks who drove the spin--he speaks Arabic.

Glad to know these guys' testimony is available in North America. But who will air this documentary in the US? Sounds like it's time to badger PBS.

[sprockets]

10. website with screenings, dvd purchase options

http://www.truthuncovered.com/

[0rganism]

11. thanks! That'll be a valuable addition to my library

Will the spooks bring down the shrub? Time will tell.

[kayell]

12. Kick

Because this story goes so well with this one http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=208588 and because I almost missed this. Thanks Thankfully_in_Britain.

[Gin]

14. is this the one moveon.org is offering for a donation?

gin

[UTUSN]

15. Yes. Great Article, Link, Everything. Thanks. n/t

[TheDalaiMama]

18. Mine is on the way..

:)

[gratuitous]

16. Oh phew! I was worried this might have run stateside

Glad to see it's just in some obscure foreign rag that can be safely ignored by the talking chuckleheads on the "news" programs. Instead, we in Portland are treated to "analysis" like Lyin' Bill O'Reilly's comment that liberals' criticism of Lil George is so over-the-top and vitriolic that legitimate criticism gets lost. "Legitimate," you know, like is George W. Bush merely greater than Jefferson, or actually on a level with Jesus.

[0007]

24. Great Comment!

Portland is one of the most alive and aware cities in the U.S.

I like your statement, " is George W. Bush merely greater than Jefferson, or actually on a level with Jesus. We know what the freepers would say!

[tom_paine]

17. Nice to see so many True Patriots in these days of degenerate Empire

Stay out of small planes, people...

[Carolina]

19. what continues to

burn me up over this is why these same people didn't speak out before so much bloodshed and destruction occurred. Why weren't they making the rounds in 2002 during all the breathless buildup to this fiasco of an occupation following a senseless, NEEDLESS invasion. It's too damn little, too frigging late.

I guess late is better than never, but they all have blood on their hands because things should never have reached this stage. Is this their last ditch effort to undo what they have wrought and at the same time assuage their guilt?

We are surrounded by those in high places -- so-called 'leaders'-- who have neither moral or political courage. Leadership has joined journalism ... in the realm of lost, the past and the compromised.

[0007]

21. Fantastic Article!

This would make a swell opera. With some snappy music and lots of strong foreign voices, (that everyone could understand that is) it could be the most popular world wide protest in the history of mankind.

Ah, if I could only wirte music scores and lyrics. The words would come easy!. and ..and..I wish I could sing!

This could be a Big Big Broadway hit!!!! Hope someone will grab the idea and run with it --

[Nancy Waterman]

25. It is noit just Tenet that looks bad here

Cheney's role is pointed out as is Rumsfeld's and his buddy Walpole's.

The starting point for the tarnishing of the CIA was a speech by Vice-President Cheney on 26 August 2002, in which he told the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Nashville that Saddam was reconstituting his nuclear weapons programme and was thus threatening to inflict "death on a massive scale - in his own region or beyond".

According to numerous sources, Mr Cheney followed up his speech with a series of highly unorthodox visits to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, in which he badgered low-level analysts to come up with information to substantiate the extremely alarming - but entirely bogus - contents of his speech.

By early September, intelligence experts in Congress were clamouring for a so-called National Intelligence Estimate, a full rundown of everything known about Iraq's weapons programmes. Usually NIEs take months to produce, but George Tenet, the CIA director, came up with a 100-page document in just three weeks.

The man he picked to write it, the weapons expert Robert Walpole, had a track record of going back over old intelligence assessments and reworking them in accordance with the wishes of a specific political interest group. In 1998, he had come up with an estimate of the missile capabilities of various rogue states that managed to sound considerably more alarming than a previous CIA estimate issued three years earlier. On that occasion, he was acting at the behest of a congressional commission anxious to make the case for a missile defence system; the commission chairman was none other than Donald Rumsfeld, now Secretary of Defence and a key architect of the Iraq war.

Mr Walpole's NIE on Iraq threw together all the elements that have now been discredited - Niger, the alumin- ium tubes, and so on. It also gave the misleading impression that intelligence analysts were in broad agreement about the Iraqi threat, relegating most of the doubts and misgivings to footnotes and appendices.