CIA Director, George Tenet said Thursday that U.S. analysts had never claimed Iraq was an imminent threat, the main argument used by President Bush for going to war. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...0040205/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/intelligence_cia_16
But we all know this already....Even Maverick knows this not to be the real reason....this WAR was for freedom ( yeah right )..... Mexico and its puppet army near the border are more of a threat to us than Iraq ever was.....as far as terrorism is goes....
An emasculated loser running an agency chock full of losers. The best and the brightest have been in the private sector for half a generation now and somehow this costly relic stumbles on under the guise "you never see our successes." That's for sure. I don't know why Clinton or Bush didn't fire Tenet.
Bush is paying the price now for not cleaning house at the CIA. He has had plenty of legitimate reasons to fire Tenet and no one outside the Michael Moore nutcase wing of the Democrat party would have faulted him. The CIA has been going downhill for 30 years. The infamous Church Committee and Jimmy Carter devastated it. Human intelligence, ie spies, has been devalued. In truth, it must be next to impossible to recruit spies. Anyone with half a brain knows that they could be exposed by some politician. Policies have been put in place to prevent hiring "undesirables" as sources. Left wing congressmen like Chuck Schumer object to using sources with less than pristine records. They were outraged that the CIA had some Latin American colonel on the payroll who was involved in human rights abuses. Now the agency faces the prospect that one of its worst enemies over the years, John Kerry, may actually be president. He would no doubt finish the job that Carter and Church started and destroy it for good.
But the article also makes clear that the CIA thought Saddam was continuing to build and amass dangerous weapons. And we all know that Bush NEVER said that Iraq was an imminent threat. He said they could become a threat quickly and without warning, just as North Korea was able to do after fooling the naive Clinton administration.
AAA come on man this is getting old!!! stop defending the crooks http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=24456&highlight=factoid [one of the many excerpts:] .... The President has maintained that this resolution is necessary at this time based on his assessment of the imminent threat to the United States posed by Iraq. If the President believes based on the intelligence that he has received that an imminent threat exists, then it is my belief that we must support him. ....As the President pursues diplomatic negotiations to end this imminent threat, it is ....He [GW] now seeks Congressional authorization to use military force in Iraq based on his assessment of the imminent threat presented by the untrustworthiness
and bill clinton was referring only to a specific meaning of the word "is"... of all the disingenuous garbage rove/perle have shoveled, that line might just be the worst yet
I am still waiting for someone to show me Bush's words where he said there was an imminent threat. In fact he was very clear to say there was not one at that time but one could develop quickly. Given how badly the CIA deteriorated under Clinton appointee Tenet, the President was justifiably worried. Of course he could have followed the Clinton strategy and waited for Saddam to develop nuclear weapons like the North Koreans did on Clinton's "watch."