LAT: Bush, CIA at Odds on Iran

[DeepModem Mom]

Bush, CIA at Odds on Iran
The president's interest in a possible 9/11 link goes against the agency leader's assessment. They also disagree over intelligence reforms.

By Edwin Chen and Greg Miller, Times Staff Writers


WASHINGTON — President Bush said Monday that his administration was investigating possible links between Iran and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a statement that distanced the president from acting CIA Director John McLaughlin, who had downplayed a possible connection a day earlier.

"As to direct connections with Sept. 11, we're digging into the facts to determine if there was one," Bush said of Iran.

In a second sign of a potential rift between the White House and the intelligence agency, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan told reporters that McLaughlin was not speaking for the president when he said it was unnecessary to create a new, more powerful intelligence czar, despite faulty information before the Iraq war....

***

The independent commission is widely expected to report that some of the Sept. 11 hijackers had traveled freely between Iran and Afghanistan during 2000 and 2001. Last month, the panel's chairman, former New Jersey Gov. Thomas H. Kean, said in a television interview that Al Qaeda had "a lot more active contacts, frankly, with Iran and with Pakistan than there were with Iraq."

Iran's emerging prominence in the Sept. 11 investigations looms as a potentially difficult issue for the White House, because it could raise new questions about why Bush led a war against Iraq but so far has taken a distinctly less bellicose stance toward Iran....

***

McLaughlin had said Sunday that although "about eight" of the Sept. 11 hijackers may have passed through Iran before their mission, the CIA had "no evidence that there is some sort of official connection between Iran and 9/11."...


http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-bushiran20jul20,1,4496904.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[radfringe]

1. booga-booga for the election season

dispite NY Times "apologizing" for kissing-bush-butt in a group-think rally, and other media outlets "sort-of" admitting the same regarding the WMD-booga-booga build up -- it appears the media has not learned

last night I channeled surfed through the news shows -- "reports" on Iran and 9-11 ranged from a straight recitation of "facts" to 'experts' blathering about how Iran was a big threat.

seems to me if our "intelligence agencies" failed on 9-11, and failed regarding Iraq/WMDs that the prudent course of action would be to question and re-question the intelligence citing Iran as the (new/improved)terror threat ---especially since this is an election year and bush*'s polling numbers are in the toilet.

bush* inc. has stated many times that bush* doesn't govern by polls. Polls are a snapshot of how people are feeling -- but bush* doesn't pay attention to 90% of the people -- he just pays attention to the "haves and have-mores"

[doctorbombeigh]

2. THREE years later.. now they want to "look into" Iran...

More bullshit, more lies, more deflection of American attention away from the reality we're dying every day in Iraq into the ever escalating wargame fantasy structure of BushRove, Fucheney, Rummy, Wolfie, et al.

It's just unconscionable, with administration talking points that are eerily reminiscent of the Iraq run-up as is the press regurgitation of them. On a more positive note, at least they're recycling.

[wickerwoman]

3. LOL.

Hope you don't mind if I use that recycling bit myself.

Cheers. :-)

[doctorbombeigh]

19. Please do use it, if you like. n/t

[cthrumatrix]

4. they have no proof of the hijackers...yet they "passed thru Iran".....BS

[biftonnorton]

12. They Passed Thru Many Places

and seemed to have gotten key assistance from our own flight schools. I don't think anyone would advocate invading FL to destroy its "terrorist flight training schools." :)

[leesa]

18. They don't know who hijacked the planes, if anyone did.

The guy who helped author PNAC, also was CEO of the company that designed the software that would allow someone to remotely take over the control of up to five airliners at a time in the event they were hijacked, or you wanted it to look that way.

Since 7 of the "hijackers" were proved to be alive and well after the crash, since none of the flight passenger info fit the descriptions handily provided by the WH, it's doubtful it was done by the ones they say did it.

[0007]

5. Did McLaughlin flunk the interview?

Snotty McClellan told reporters that McLaughlin was not speaking for junior and his gang of thugs. McLaughling said it was needless to create a powerful intelligence czar, despite faulty information and lies to start the Iraq war.

"McClellan said Monday that McLaughlin was "someone who is very capable and is doing a good job at the CIA."

[DeepModem Mom]

7. McLaughlin doesn't have same "rapport" w/ Bush as "gregarious" Tenet...

From the article:

"But it also appears that the professorial McLaughlin, who came up through the analytical side of the CIA, doesn't have the sort of rapport with Bush that the backslapping, gregarious Tenet did.

An anecdote in a recent book by Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward describes McLaughlin giving a key briefing to Bush and other senior White House officials on the evidence against Iraq before the war. Bush was unimpressed by the presentation and complained that the evidence was weak, prompting Tenet to call the case against Iraq a 'slam dunk.'"

I wouldn't look for McLaughlin to be named permanent CIA head.

[0007]

8. Your absolutely right on!

junior knows he can't mount McLaughlin from the back side and whisper sweet nothings in his ear.

[doctorbombeigh]

20. Oh, Bush can Cheney McLaughlin all day long, lube-free...

but he still won't name him as permanent CIA chief.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

10. The only proof that Tenet actually said the words, "slam dunk"...

...comes from Woodward's recent book using NeoCons as his ONLY sources. I find it very interesting that the NeoCons just happen to have vested interests in blaming the CIA for "faulty intelligence" on Iraqi WMDs.

Think about that for a moment.

Now think back to one of Woodward's past "interviews" where Woodward was the ONLY witness to the late CIA director William Casey's last reported words on Iran-Contra. Somehow, if the story can be believed, Woodward managed to slip by the heavy security into Casey's hospital room to get this information. Casey's family members stated that Casey had been heavily medicated prior to his surgery and disputed that Casey was able to talk about anything. Casey died while undergoing brain surgery in 1987 to remove a cancer tumor the day after Woodward's alleged "interview". Coincidently, or maybe not, Casey was also being sought by the Iran-Contra investigators looking into the roles played by both Reagan and George H. W. Bush in the "arms for hostages" scandal.

Think also about Woodward's role in getting the scoop on Watergate with only six months at the Washington Post and about a year and a half total experience as a newspaper reporter. What kind of contacts did Woodward have back then, and at what levels did they work to have the kind of information Woodward and Bernstein reported? How does a rookie reporter have those kinds of sources ready to go?

Also, take a look at Woodward's background and suspected connections in the link below:

<http://www.webcom.com/ctka/pr196-woodward.html>

[yardwork]

6. Here we go again!

Stupid stupid stupid.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

9. But will the American people buy another war?

We're stretched thin as it is. Another war means more troops, and where are we going to get them? The rest of the world thinks we've gone mad; our 'coalition' will stay only as long as they are paid. This means either every Guard/Reserve unit is overseas or we institute the draft. And we make the deficit deeper and deeper as Shrub gives sweetheart contracts and tax cuts to his cronies while gutting all social programs.

I think Americans will say enough is enough.

[Wright Patman]

11. Just MHO, but I think

the reason we "have to" do this is because Israel has said it will if we don't. So we have to "preempt" an Israeli attack. So I don't think it really matters what the public or the military thinks, not that it ever did.

[snippy]

14. The Next Bush War should be a huge election issue.

I think you are right that "Americans will say enough is enough."

[leesa]

13. Israel orders us to attack Iran and there we go.

[bobthedrummer]

15. It's PNAC in action, then. Jason Leopold wrote about Iran regime change

being "planned" on really thin intelligence-just like today's news.
Here's the link that article: "Despite Thin Intelligence Reports, US Plans To Overthrow Iranian Regime", from May 2003!
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/LEO305C.html

[underpants]

16. It is time once again to visit "The Men from Jinsa and the CSP"

Great article and scarey
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020902&s=vest&c=1

For example, the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board--chaired by JINSA/CSP adviser and former Reagan Administration Defense Department official Richard Perle, and stacked with advisers from both groups--recently made news by listening to a briefing that cast Saudi Arabia as an enemy to be brought to heel through a number of potential mechanisms, many of which mirror JINSA's recommendations, and which reflect the JINSA/CSP crowd's preoccupation with Egypt. (The final slide of the Defense Policy Board presentation proposed that "Grand Strategy for the Middle East" should concentrate on "Iraq as the tactical pivot, Saudi Arabia as the strategic pivot Egypt as the prize.")

[Bush was AWOL]

17. This Iran stuff makes Bush look bad

end of story. I still don't understand why you guys think he likes this????????

[stickdog]

21. Bush: "See, I was only one letter off!"

[LibDemAlways]

22. Uh, the hijackers

passed through lots of places in the US - places like Florida, California, and Nevada. Does this mean there's a connection between those states and 9/11? Using the chimp's warped logic, it seems so.

[struggle4progress]

23. kick

:kick: