From Monday's Washington Times: Senators reject Kerry's claim Bush misled U.S. By Audrey Hudson THE WASHINGTON TIMES Senate leaders from both parties heading an inquiry of intelligence information on Iraq yesterday repudiated Sen. John Kerry's accusation that the Bush administration misled the country into war, and accused him of political posturing. Sen. Pat Roberts, Kansas Republican and chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV, West Virginia Democrat and ranking committee member, dismissed the comments as political while appearing on "Fox News Sunday." "The senator is running for president," Mr. Rockefeller said. "And I think that Pat Roberts and I make a distinction between people who are running for president and therefore need to capture attention, and what we on the Intelligence Committee have to do, which is to get the facts and to get the intelligence, the counterintelligence and then try and decide," Mr. Rockefeller said. Mr. Roberts criticized Mr. Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat, for "beating up on the president [and] the intelligence community" and said "now is not the time to be doing that." "As far as John Kerry is concerned ... nothing hurts the truth so much as stretching it," Mr. Roberts said. Mr. Kerry made the accusations against Mr. Bush while campaigning in Lebanon, N.H., on Wednesday. "I will not let [Mr. Bush] off the hook throughout this campaign with respect to America's credibility and credibility to me, because if he lied, he lied to me personally. I believe I can hold President Bush accountable if they have misled us," Mr. Kerry said. Sen. George Allen, Virginia Republican, suggested Mr. Kerry's comments were due to his opposition to the war, but pointed out Mr. Kerry supported President Clinton's military strikes against Saddam Hussein in 1997 and 1998. "The whole world recognized that he had the biological and chemical weapons," Mr. Allen said on CBS' "Face the Nation." Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, another Democratic contender, followed Mr. Kerry's lead yesterday with a similar accusation on NBC's "Meet the Press." "We were misled," Mr. Dean said. "The question is, did the president do that on purpose or was he misled by his own intelligence people?" The committee began hearings behind closed doors last week and staff members are poring over thousands of pages of classified documents from the CIA. Mr. Roberts said one public hearing may be held, and that the committee expects to issue one public and one classified report of its findings. Mr. Roberts said he has no evidence that Mr. Bush portrayed speculative estimates to the public as near-certainties. "I don't believe that is true. We've heard a little bit of politics, I think, from some who have questioned that, but as of this date, I know of no interference on the part of the president or no conclusion that's not backed up by good intelligence," Mr. Roberts said. Terry McAuliffe, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said there are inconsistencies in the information provided by the intelligence community, creating "a huge credibility gap." "We now have members of the Central Intelligence Agency that say they were pressured to give information. They felt that the information they were providing was puffed up, exaggerated," Mr. McAuliffe said. Mr. Roberts has asked for anyone with information about being intimidated or coerced to come forward. "They have an obligation to come to the committee," Mr. Roberts said. "None has come forward to date, although we've had a lot of anonymous assertions in the press." Back to National/Politics
All hail to the pods AL Kennedy Tuesday June 10, 2003 Remember those films in which alien pods would appear for no good reason in cellars and massage parlours and the like and one unsuspecting night almost everyone goes to sleep and disappears, because the pod people have killed them, reproduced their bodies and then woken up bright and early the following morning and taken control of the world? Those films used to worry me a lot. I would imagine I'd be one of the few nocturnal types that managed to escape being podded and then ended up in an environment run by militant aliens, with everything familiar turned inhospitable and scary. Well, it's happened. The pods came, the day shift nodded off and the rest of us survivors are stuffed. (By the way, read this very carefully - there may be a pod person watching you for signs of incipient dissent.) Massive podding in high places is the only thing that can really explain most of this century, with particular reference to the last few weeks. For example, only a pod person would stand up in public and claim that, because something can't be found, it must be there. And don't think that hasn't tempted me over to the pod side more than somewhat. After all, according to pod logic, that means that I must be enjoying a mature, varied and satisfying sex life. I must be swinging from my light fitments in a sweating haze of glory before somersaulting into the fur-lined gondola that is my bed, swiping a few of the hot, buttered dwarfs out of my way and getting down to something utterly unnatural. There's not a shred of evidence that anything like this has happened, is happening, will, or ever could - so it must be real. All hail to the pods. Goodness, I'm glad to be having so much fun - and that so many Iraqi children are also having fun, scampering about between the cluster bombs and playing catch with all their extremities indubitably in place. Because clearly, if even fully qualified reconstructive surgeons can no longer locate the kiddies' hands and feet, this must mean that they're absolutely there. All hail to the pods. These are the same pods who can prove the Axis of Good is just dripping with freedom, because there's hardly a shred of it remaining. Westminster is surrounded with breeze blocks and razor wire, trainspotters are being pre-emptively boiled in acid and over in George W's kingdom, human rights are fairly blossoming. Take the entirely innocent Mr Oliverio Martinez, shot five times by police due to a night-time confusion provoked by Mr Martinez's suspiciously squeaky bicycle. Wounded in the eyes, legs and spine, lucky Mr Martinez had the democratic privilege of being questioned repeatedly in the ambulance and during his hospital treatment. For 45 minutes he screamed, begged and denied that his injuries were his own fault, until his medication finally rendered him unconscious. But, in these times of terrorist menace, the supreme court has wisely ruled that Mr Martinez's treatment in no way violated his fifth amendment rights. He is now paralysed and blind. Coincidentally, independent observers are still being barred from several US holding and interrogation facilities in Iraq. All hail to the pods. Of course, pod reasoning works equally well in reverse. If something is right there in front of you and undeniably exists, then it cannot be so. Therefore veterans of the first Gulf war who exhibit innumerable signs of serious illness and disability have nothing whatever wrong with them - even those among them who are dead now. And there is nothing remotely approaching a present casualty rate of 30%, due to chemical mishap and depleted uranium poisoning. This is the same depleted uranium that hasn't been dumped in hundreds of tons all over Afghanistan and Iraq and doesn't continue to poison civilians and troops of various nations, even as I type. The evidence is overwhelming, so it can't possibly be true. And - hey - while we're ignoring our armed forces, why not slash every kind of support for the disabled, vulnerable and poor, because they plainly don't exist, either. Far better to spend our money on stoking and suppressing the endless terrors we create. All hail to the pods. The pods are the reason the world's most powerful bankrupt nation is ruled by an unelected Texan, rather than Bill Hicks. (I'd pick a dead comedian over a live fundamentalist flake any day.) They're why the bend in Clinton's dick provoked more outrage and investigation than Georgie's bloodlust ever will. They're why we make money arming countries - so we can bomb them to hell and back. They're why we haven't simply drowned Tony Blair in a bucket of his own, conniving sweat. All hail to the pods - they're here to stay.
Is this a political issue? Damn straight. Politics is essentially about the use, and abuse of power. Political agendas, without power or the ability to gain power are impotent. Bush is clearly pushing forth his agenda, no question. The concern by those not in power is whether that exercise of power is completely "kosher." If Bush & Company did abuse their power, or exercise power that was not their right to exercise, that is a political issue. Why would we want to live in a society where people did not question the president or the administration in power, and demand that reasonable doubt be addressed? You expect the Republicans, who are in power to raise these questions? Wasn't it the Republicans who raised questions constantly, and rightly so, about Clinton's abuse of power?
Of course if Democrats raise the issue it's branded "political" as if that somehow negates the questions. I suspect as Republicans boldly raise the issue (c'mon, it's possible there's a few who don't march in lock-step) those individuals will be branded by their own party as politically motivated, running for re-election, you name it, etc. Good thing Mr. Bush's jetting down to that aircraft carrier wasn't a political action, and was probably critical to national security....
Magna, The point is that a Democrat was the one who said the presidential aspirants were playing politics with the issue. He's the vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee, so he might be in a good position to know the facts.
Huhu Mr Rockfeller John D. someone can reply to you : http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/zbig.html Dr. Johannes B. Koeppl, Ph.D. a former German defense ministry official and advisor to former NATO Secretary General Manfred Werner. On November 6, he told FTW, "The interests behind the Bush Administration, such as the CFR, The Trilateral Commission - founded by Brzezinski for David Rockefeller - and the Bilderberger Group, have prepared for and are now moving to implement open world dictatorship within the next five years. They are not fighting against terrorists. They are fighting against citizens."