Pat Roberts Indicates Bu$h Used Poor Judgement In Invading Iraq

[Zorra]

Pat Roberts is the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, whose report exposed the fact that Bu$h and members of his administration invaded Iraq under false pretenses.

But Bu$h is still defending his decision to pre-emptively invade Iraq anyway.

CIA official counters criticism of intelligence
Acting chief cites lack of debate over Iraqi threat
New York Times
WASHINGTON - The country's new acting intelligence chief said yesterday that American intelligence agencies should not be blamed if there was inadequate debate about the decision to go to war against Iraq.
snip---------
But in an hour long interview yesterday morning in his office, Roberts said he was "not too sure" that the administration would have invaded if it had known how flimsy the intelligence was on Iraq and its illicit weapons. Instead, the senator said, Bush might well have advocated efforts to maintain sanctions against Iraq and to continue to try to unearth the truth through the work of U.N. inspectors.

"I don't think the president would have said that military action is justified right now," Roberts said. If the administration had been presented with "accurate intelligence," he said, Bush "might have said, 'Saddam's a bad guy, and we've got to continue with the no-fly zones and with inspections.'"

http://www.marinij.com/Stories/0,1413,234~24410~2273800,00.html

Bush Defends Decision to Invade Iraq
Monday July 12, 2004 11:16 PM
By DEB RIECHMANN
Associated Press Writer
snip

``Although we have not found stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, we were right to go into Iraq,'' Bush told lab employees assembled in an auditorium. ``We removed a declared enemy of America who had the capability of producing weapons of mass murder and could have passed that capability to terrorists bent on acquiring them. In the world after September the 11th, that was a risk we could not afford to take.''

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-4303783,00.html

[MasonJar]

1. Pat Roberts is scum; he is not doing his duty of oversight and,

furthermore, he knows it. Why else not finish the rest of the report before the election. Watching him, one could tell Jay Rockefeller didn't believe Roberts' promise to continue later and disagreed with the Pug's interpretation of the findings. I am really surprised that the CIA doesn't take down the whole cadre of liars. Maybe there is still hope. We have to get the Senate back, as well as the Presidency.

[Zorra]

2. True. Do you remember Richard Shelby, the previous (republican)

head of intelligence oversight? The one that fought tooth and nail to make sure that President Clinton's nominee for CIA director, Anthony Lake, did not get confirmed? The one who spoke so highly of George Tenet, and whose committee easily confirmed George Tenet for CIA director? Now Roberts and Shelby are both saying that George Tenet did a lousy job of being CIA Director. Yet, both Shelby and Roberts were responsible for overseeing the CIA.

I believe that they used Tenet for a fall guy.

It is possible that Tenet was in their pocket and agreed to be the fall guy for 9/11 and Iraq. Now that Tenet is no longer covered by Executive Privilege in some circumstances, it will be interesting to see if he is served with a subpoena and asked to testify in some Congressional investigation, such as the Plame scandal, about what he knows.

If Tenet is not ever called to testify before any Congressional investigation, it will indicate to me that he agreed to be the fall guy for the PNAC and the Bu$h administration.

Putting a republican in charge of Intelligence oversight is oxymoronic. Republicans obviously lack the intelligence to oversee Intelligence.

Either that, or they do not have the best interests of the US as a consideration.