Sept. 8th, 2004: Bushs claims about 3/4 captured/killed Al-Q = bullsh@t

[BUSHOUT]

Catching Al Qaeda

Bush now claims that 75 percent of the group’s key members are out of commission. Some experts say that number is meaningless

By Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball
Newsweek
Updated: 4:58 p.m. ET Sept. 8, 2004

Sept. 8 - Without any public explanation, President George W. Bush last week increased the estimate of Al Qaeda leaders who have been killed or captured after receiving a revised U.S. intelligence analysis delivered the day before his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, NEWSWEEK has learned.
<snip>
White House and U.S. intelligence officials declined to provide any back-up data for how they developed the new number—or even to explain the methodology that was used, which they said was classified. The absence of any explanation, as well as the timing, prompted some counterterrorism experts to deride the figure as “meaningless” and predict the revision could fuel allegations that the administration is massaging terrorism data for political purposes.

“It’s like a shell game,” said Vince Cannistraro, a former top CIA counterterrorism official. “This kind of thing is susceptible to all kinds of manipulation.”

An official with the recently disbanded 9/11 commission also dismissed the new number, noting that it was impossible to get a firm handle on precisely the number of Al Qaeda “leaders” that were in place at the time of the September 11 attacks—the definition that the CIA says it used as its baseline for the estimate.

“It was meaningless when they said two thirds and it’s meaningless when they said three fourths,” said the official, who asked not to be identified. “This sounds like it was pulled out of somebody’s orifice.”

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5945061/site/newsweek/

More lies from Bush. How nice.

[Lefty48197]

1. Osama is 100% alive. Let's invade Greenland as a distraction.

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