"We looked at the same intelligence"-- info please

[gottaB]

Can anybody explain the difference between the version of the National Intelligence Assesment on Iraq that Senator Kerry was shown, and the version that George Bush had access to?

ON Edit: Added a verbatim quote. Bush claimed about five times that they both saw the same intelligence.

Transcript from Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/debatereferee/debate_0930.html

[Roland99]

1. Yeah...that burned me up, too!

Why didn't Kerry light into the neocons and Chalabi and the Pentagon's OSP?

Kerry didn't have access to that info.

[TexasBushwhacker]

7. I don't know if Kerry had a chance to rebut

but if he did, he should have said, "Coming from the Pentagon and having your seal of approval, I assumed it was true. I wasn't aware that as a senator I was to assume that you and your administration had given us false or poorly researched information."

[DenverDem]

2. busholini knew it was cooked, Johnny K believed it was true.

busholini inc made the shit up, and junior knew it.

[ewagner]

3. Been thinking about that

I think the intelligence briefings Congress got were the briefings without the footnotes warning that the sources/data etc were unsound. I wish Kerry would have mentioned that.

[gottaB]

5. that was my understanding n/t

[librechik]

4. so why do the freepers keep bleating that * had special "secret:" info

about WMD etc? That's their excuse for the total lack of rational reasons for the war. Jesus W Bush is not at liberty to tell America the truth!

[gottaB]

9. Those people have already made up their minds

You could go bonkers trying to make sense out of it.

[SoCalDemocrat]

6. Sure

The version the Senate saw was the unclassified version that the Bush administration had heavily edited, altered.

The classified version was quite different.

If you search you will find articles with citations from both. Bush camp actually released some of the classified versions to try and deflect criticism and got further crucified over it.

[fob]

8. You are correct. The version Kerry et al were shown had all the

qualifiers removed.

Example - al-queda may have some desires to do some terror attacks (bush* version)

Kerry version - al-queda to do some terror attacks