from deluded Edwards supporters who will go to any lengths to demean his reputation in the interest of making Edwards' failures of leadership seem palatable. Saying Durbin is following Edwards' leadership, as you do, is not quite in that class; however, it has the same end. Because Edwards has spent six years running for president, updating and revising his platform, issues papers and history to suit his political needs, in some demented race to say I WAS FIRST! does not make him a leader and does not mean somebody like Durbin would ever follow him.
Dick Durbin was on the Intelligence Committee with Edwards. Dick Durbin knows first hand, I'd suppose, that in the face of the full intelligence supplied the committee, Edwards coldly and calculatedly decided to carry Bush's banner into war and co-sponsor the IWR for Bush, hawk it for Bush, and turn around and leave the Senate and Senators like Dick Durbin to clean up after him.
He (Edwards) did not feel the information he got as a member of the Senate Intelligence committee in the lead-up to the Iraq war was inconsistent with what the administration was saying publicly. Another member of the panel, Sen.
Dick Durbin, D-Ill., has said the classified information the committee got directly contradicted the public case for war.
“My view was that the evidence was very consistent about weapons of mass destruction. It turns out it was wrong,” Edwards said.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=3152277 October 2002
Durbin: “I serve on the Intelligence Committee and I would not disclose anything I learned there because it is classified and top secret, but some things I can say because they are public knowledge… There is scant if little evidence that Iraq has a nuclear weapon. “
http://durbin.senate.gov/issues/iraq101002a.cfmEdwards: My position is very clear: The time has come for decisive action to eliminate the threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. I am a co-sponsor of the bipartisan resolution we’re currently considering. Saddam Hussein’s regime is a grave threat to America and our allies — including our vital ally, Israel. ...
At the end of the day, there must be no question that America and our allies are willing to use force to eliminate the threat of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction once and for all. And I believe if America leads, the world will join us.
Though shorn of the original resolution's more sweeping language, the measure approved by Congress is clear. It expands presidents' powers and undercuts Adams' doctrine of defense. On Thursday, Sen. Richard
Durbin (D-Ill.) warned: "We have said historically we are a defensive nation. This new foreign policy ... is a dramatic departure from that.... I beg and caution my colleagues to think twice about that."
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/attack/2002/1011resolution.htmIn November 2005 Senator Bob Graham wrote:
At a meeting of the Senate intelligence committee on Sept. 5, 2002, CIA Director George Tenet was asked what the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) provided as the rationale for a preemptive war in Iraq. An NIE is the product of the entire intelligence community, and its most comprehensive assessment. I was stunned when Tenet said that no NIE had been requested by the White House and none had been prepared. Invoking our rarely used senatorial authority, I directed the completion of an NIE.
Tenet objected, saying that his people were too committed to other assignments to analyze Saddam Hussein’s capabilities and will to use chemical, biological and possibly nuclear weapons. We insisted, and three weeks later the community produced a classified NIE.
There were troubling aspects to this 90-page document. While slanted toward the conclusion that Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction stored or produced at 550 sites, it contained vigorous dissents on key parts of the information, especially by the departments of State and Energy. Particular skepticism was raised about aluminum tubes that were offered as evidence Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program. As to Hussein’s will to use whatever weapons he might have, the estimate indicated he would not do so unless he was first attacked.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/18/AR2005111802397.htmlFive of the nine Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, including Graham and Durbin, ultimately voted against the resolution, but they were unable to convince other committee members or a majority in the Senate itself. This was at least in part because they were not allowed to divulge what they knew: While Graham and Durbin could complain that the administration’s and Tenet’s own statements contradicted the classified reports they had read, they could not say what was actually in those reports.
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/unmovic/2003/0630selling.htmThey couldn't say, but they would do their best to dissuade their colleagues to vote NO. Edwards couldn't say, either, but he would do his best to persuade his colleagues to vote YES.
Where was the leadership?
It was Graham, Durbin and Levin who insisted the National Intelligence Estimate be submitted to the Intelligence Committee; not John Edwards.
It was Graham, Durbin and Levin who read the NIE and found the discrepancies between the conclusions and the intel; not John Edwards and he was the ONLY member of that committee NOT to read it (or so he says now) .
It was Graham, Durbin and Levin who insisted a declassified version of the NIE be released to Congress; not John Edwards.
It was Graham, Durbin and Levin who implored their colleagues with lesser security clearances to vote against the IWR; it was John Edwards encouraged the YES votes.
It was Durbin and Levin who offered two of the alternative amendments, which would have restricted Bush's powers; it was John Edwards who voted against every one of them.
It was Durbin who said in August of 2005: " I walked out of those <2002 intelligence committee> hearings having heard something that was truthful and accurate and picked up the newspaper and saw someone from the White House or administration has just said the opposite, or they've said it much differently. I am bound by law not to go to the press and say, something's wrong here. I can't do it."
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0508/21/cp.01.htmlIt was Edwards who said in November of 2005: "Almost three years ago we went into Iraq to remove what we were told — and what many of us believed and argued — was a threat to America. But in fact we now know that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction when our forces invaded Iraq in 2003. The intelligence was deeply flawed and, in some cases, manipulated to fit a political agenda."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/11/AR2005111101623_pf.htmlIn fact, Edwards knew then. He couldn't have sat on that committee and not known. Edwards knew and chose not to lead and then abandoned his responsibility to run for president. So do not hold John Edwards up as a leader compared to Dick Durbin. There is simply no comparison.
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