[Lanny_MacDonald]

Originally Posted by Azure

Yes, all those 'insiders.'

I'm surprised that the Senate Report never mentioned them. Surely if they have 100% verified proof that Bush and his 'cronies' hand-picked evidence, they'd have brought it up.

Curveball was a intelligence 'failure.'

Originally Posted by Azure

Tenet was responsible for bringing him in and using his so-called intelligence as a major requisite for going to war.

No, it was an intelligence disaster, completely preventable by which happened because of manipulations by the Bush Administration and some memory lapses by the CIA. The whole Curveball source is very well outlined in ex-CIA Director George Tenet’s book, At the Center of the Storm, My Years at the CIA. To summarize the Curveball saga, the BND (the German CIA) had this chemical engineer walk into one of their refugee camps making al sorts of outrageous claims. Because some of his descriptions were plausible they took the guy in and identified him as an asset. The information they got was shared with the Americans, but no American agent was every allowed to interview the guy. When the Americans finally pressed, to confirm for themselves the guy was real, the Germans said the guy was not a reliable source of information and thought he was mentally unstable. Tyler Drumheller, head of the European Division met with BND himself and got this information, so there was zero potential for misunderstanding. Curveball was known to the intelligence community as a failed asset. In his testimony to the Silberman-Robb Commission, Drumheller stated that this information was disseminated throughout the agency and that he actually talked to John McLaughlin directly about the Curveball data included in Colin Powell’s speech to the UN. McLaughlin has taken a stance of “I don’t recall” which is a wise move since it would be his head that would roll. The BND called several times before the UN speech to make sure that the Curveball data was not included, but those calls “never reached the appropriate levels” even though the BND claim to have talked directly to Tenet (Tenet, 2007, p. 375-383).

So, Tenet never brought the guy in, never talked with the guy, and no American agent ever had one word with this guy. That directly from the head of the CIA.

Seriously, if the guy in charge of my intelligence comes up to me and says with 100% certainty that the intelligence they have gathered is correct....I'd go to war too. Unless of course you believe Tenet was in on the whole deal to cook the evidence. They must have not paid him enough though....as he left the CIA and wrote a book blaming Bush about everything.

That’s funny, because no one ever said there was any certainty of anything. The only person who actually had the cojones to stand up and say, with certainty, that anything was going on was Joe Wilson (Tenet, 2007, p. 453-454). He stood up and said the whole story was BS and he provided the data to support the position. For that, his CIA asset wife was outed in an act of treason by someone within the White House (hello Dick Cheney).

'Slam Dunk.' I bet his publisher said that too.

That comment is taken completely out of context and has been discussed over and over. A whole chapter is in Tenet’s book outlining the comment and the circumstances surrounding the comment itself. The “slam dunk” comment was made:

• Ten months after the President saw the first war plan for Iraq.
• Four months after the Vice President’s speech to Veterans of Foreign Wars where he said the was “no doubt” about Saddam’s possession of WMDs.
• Three months after the President told the United Nations that the Iraqi regime should immediately disclose, remove or destroy WMDs and related materials.
• Several months after the United States repositioned assets to be used in a war with in the Middle East.
• Two months after Congress has authorized the use of force, based on falty intelligence.
• Two weeks after the Pentagon had issued first military deployment orders.

In fact, the sound bite comes from a meeting where John McLaughlin mad a presentation of the “intelligence” to the select few cabinet members. Once McLaughlin was done it was obvious the intel was not good enough and would have to be re-crafted before it was presented to the UN and the American people. Tenet told Bush that strengthening the public presentation was a “slam dunk”. In other words, the public presentation needed to be reworked and strengthen (which also indicates Tenet knew the story was bogus). This comment was published in Bob Woodward’s (admittedly faulty) book Plan of Attack. Never did Tenet say that the intel was a slam dunk (Tenet, 2007, p.359-364).

Course, it didn't help that the Germans kept their mouths shut about his validity. Guess they were concerned about the whole oil for food scandal .

The Germans did try communicate with the Americans. It was their asset to begin with and they told the Americans that the information was suspect and not to be trusted (Tenet, 2007, p. 377). Speaking of not to be trusted, you may also want to do a little more research on the whole “oil for food” scandal. That is the biggest red herring ever to be floated in the whole Iraq mess. American and British companies took advantage of the program in the same way companies from every other country did. In fact, a British MP was caught up in the mess, but this was ignored, along with the American involvement, but the hawkish RW media. Ironically, not many sources cared to follow this story at all, except this RW media outlets with an agenda.

I believe Saddam had WMD at one point....but I think the

US intelligence community really screwed up the 'when' portion of that argument. Obviously he never had them when they invaded.

Yeah, they sure did. The United States provided the technology and materials for them to build them. The United States also idly sat by while Saddam used them on his own people.

Of course the United States know the Iraqis didn’t have WMDs. The UN inspectors said so. The United States inspectors said so (Ritter, 2005). The intelligence community said it was unsure, but backed their inspection teams. The military didn’t believe it and stated flatly that Iraq was no threat to anyone, even in the region. Everyone said it was unlikely except for the Bushies.