[Agamemnon]

Originally Posted by Azure

Yes you believe what? Pretty hard to understand what you were trying to say there.

Yeah, I added a few words, "Yes I do believe they manipulated the intelligence"... as has been my contention all along. Its hard for you to understand because you're not actually digesting what I'm saying. Its right there in the same sentence you quoted... I'm kind of surprised you quoted that sentence while at the same time ignoring it.

Indeed.

Lame.

Ah, so you admit the Bush was provided with the intelligence from numerous sources, that Iraq 'had' WMD, and he decided to act upon it?

Um... no... I believe he went and collected all the intelligence by himself, with Rummy and Cheney at his side.

I realize that the information that he recieved was vague, or seems to have been, but that really doesn't matter.

No... there was information to lead to many conclusions. They picked a conclusion (WMD's in Iraq) and then selected the intelligence that backed it up. Thats different than 'receiving vague intelligence'.

Poor intelligence(so it seems) results in no WMD being found.

What if some intelligence said there were no WMD's, but it was ignored because it didn't suit the goals of the Administration? Jeez, you act like the Administration just receives info and passes it along to John Q Public without politicizing it... that seems naive.

I believe the CIA/NSA/DIA provided the Bush adminstration with evidence, faulty or not, and the Bush administration acted upon it. Do we have a page for page analysis of the evidence provided?

No... but we know the US foreign affairs official who pointed out the bogus claim that Saddam was trying to get nuclear material from Africa had his wife out'ed as a CIA agent by the Administration in response. Obviously some politics was going on here...

Someone was screwing up the whole thing....and it seems to me you place the blame on those who acted upon the information given to them, rather then those who provided the information.

Yes... because I believe they had access to information that said many different things. They picked what they wanted the intelligence to support, then selected the appropriate peices to deliver to the public.

Honestly, if the US intelligence community is that terrible at their jobs (which I don't believe), than the US is in some serious trouble.