Sidney Blumenthal: Bush knew Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction.

[speedoo]

http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2007/09/06/bush_wmd/

(snip)

On Sept. 18, 2002, CIA director George Tenet briefed President Bush in the Oval Office on top-secret intelligence that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, according to two former senior CIA officers. Bush dismissed as worthless this information from the Iraqi foreign minister, a member of Saddam's inner circle, although it turned out to be accurate in every detail. Tenet never brought it up again.

Nor was the intelligence included in the National Intelligence Estimate of October 2002, which stated categorically that Iraq possessed WMD. No one in Congress was aware of the secret intelligence that Saddam had no WMD as the House of Representatives and the Senate voted, a week after the submission of the NIE, on the Authorization for Use of Military Force in Iraq. The information, moreover, was not circulated within the CIA among those agents involved in operations to prove whether Saddam had WMD.

On April 23, 2006, CBS's "60 Minutes" interviewed Tyler Drumheller, the former CIA chief of clandestine operations for Europe, who disclosed that the agency had received documentary intelligence from Naji Sabri, Saddam's foreign minister, that Saddam did not have WMD. "We continued to validate him the whole way through," said Drumheller. "The policy was set. The war in Iraq was coming, and they were looking for intelligence to fit into the policy, to justify the policy."

Now two former senior CIA officers have confirmed Drumheller's account to me and provided the background to the story of how the information that might have stopped the invasion of Iraq was twisted in order to justify it. They described what Tenet said to Bush about the lack of WMD, and how Bush responded, and noted that Tenet never shared Sabri's intelligence with then Secretary of State Colin Powell. According to the former officers, the intelligence was also never shared with the senior military planning the invasion, which required U.S. soldiers to receive medical shots against the ill effects of WMD and to wear protective uniforms in the desert.

(snip)

We all knew it of course, but Sidney proves it.

[upi402]

1. k/r n/t

[StClone]

2. Donkey Kicked

Bush knew Saddam was without WMDs so why did we invade -- for War Crimes that's why. We start healing as a country when Bush is taken out of power! Information in this article should be exhibit 'A'.

[emilyg]

3. K&R that bastard

[superkia]

4. Before he starts killing innocent children in Iran too!

[EVDebs]

5. WH reporters knew too but went along with the official story

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0TnqUlB4Gg

The sick puppies applauded and laughed right along. So sickening.

[peacetalksforall]

6. I respect Salon. I respect Blumenthal. I can't swallow this:

"No one in Congress was aware of the secret intelligence that Saddam had no WMD as the House of Representatives and the Senate voted, a week after the submission of the NIE, on the Authorization for Use of Military Force in Iraq. The information, moreover, was not circulated within the CIA among those agents involved in operations to prove whether Saddam had WMD."

Congress didn't know that there were no wmd.

Is Blumenthal trying to protect Hillary Clinton?

We knew. Bush knew. Tenet knew. And Congress didn't have ears? Gimme a break.
This is the same old rant. I'll never forgive Congress. And now on to Iran with Congress approving?

Paul Wellstone - his first and last votes in the Senate - againts Iraq War I and Iraq War II.

[cutlassmama]

7. I'm with you. Congress betrayed our trust.

We, the American people, trusted them to do the "right thing". They didn't and still aren't. I'm all for getting them all out of there and voting new peole in that aren't as corrupt.

[mike_c]

8. agreed, 100 percent-- if all congress knew was what Bush told them...

...then those who voted AGAINST invading Iraq were fools for not wanting to stop the slavering madman from Baghdad bent on world domination, blah blah blah. Their votes give the lie to all attempts to provide cover for congress members who voted to invade Iraq.

[Igel]

9. Dunno.

I have trouble with much of it.

I think my definition of 'lie' and his definition are incompatible. I would define it as "to say something you know is false, presenting it as true in order for others to believe it to be true" and he has to go with "to say something you should have known is false, presenting it as true," although I don't know if "should" necessarily results from "having seen evidence to show that the assertion involved is false" or if it only imply "something I suspected to be false". I find my definition useful in deciding when to assign guilt and blame, but it certainly doesn't feed my sense of outrage or partisan anger and sometimes means there's a bit of a hurdle I have to overcome before sitting in judgment. And sitting in judgment is such fun.

I apply my definition to the Congress, as well. I suspect at least some members saw evidence that called into question the claim "Saddam has WMD". But I think that they also, when confronted with contradictory evidence and called upon to decide which is correct, mis-evaluated the evidence. It might have been an honest misevaluation; it might have been an attempt at playing politics; it might have been because of laziness or having an idiot staffer summarize 500 pages into a 5 minute briefing. But even Blix, in saying he didn't believe Saddam had WMD in 2003, went on long and hard in his report about the WMDs that they had documented Saddam as having had but couldn't verify were destroyed as of late 2002 or early 2003; he knew the difference between "believe" and "know".

Blumenthal may be trying to protect HRC or any number of other dems. Or he might be trying to say that * is really, really, double super bad--not only did he lie to the public, but he lied to Congress as well. And that, my friend, is grounds for impeachment.

[Raster]

10. I suspect Blumenthal may be trying to give Congress an honorable out.

Which I find preposterous. Of course Congress knew. HRC CERTAINLY knew. She is married to the previous POTUS. Billary had--and still does, for that matter--access to some of the best intel money can buy. And Congress, didn't they all slap each other's backs and congratulate each other after GWI when the United Nations VERIFIED BEYOND DOUBT that Iraq no longer had (a) any weapons of mass destruction; nor (b) had the infrastructure to produce any future weapons. And to the crowd that said he acquired them after Gulf War I, I ask how? Every move Hussein made was watched. Every dollar he spent was scrutinized. The finest observation and surveillance system on the planet watched Iraq continuously. And as they say, we knew exactly what Hussein did have in his arsenal, because we had the receipts. No, I don't buy the "Congress didn't know" line. Smells to HIGH HEAVEN!

[Briar]

11. Well of course he did!

We were saying that in 2003. We knew that when the US attacked Iraq. We knew the intention was to intimidate the whole world via shock and awe, and that the neocons reasoned that only by picking a weak enemy who could not strike back could deliver the message explicitly. Such ruthlessness would be most shocking and most awesome. It's been the policy of the US to attack weak enemies since WW2 (and consistently it has run aground on the fact that people will fight for their homes and families, whatever their government). The fact that the US knew there were no WMD was evident from the start - how many combat troops actually in Iraq (not staging alerts for the benefit of cameras in Kuwait) wore protective gear?