As exasperating as I found Bush, I could never conclude that he "lied" to us about the Iraqi war, for the simple reason that he never convinced me that he had a clue what the truth was. The most telling after-the-fact disclosure to me was the list of people whose opinion to go or no-go on Iraq he didn't even request. He did NOT ask the straight-forward "go or no-go" question of the following officials in his own administration: Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Powell, CIA Director Tenet. Who, pray tell, did he ask? The authors of the three most authoritative histories of the decision to go to war cannot even agree on WHEN the decision to go to war was made.

But the facts around another decision, the decision to hold prisoners of war at Gitmo, is much clearer and, I suggest, instructive. Ignoring all of the official channels set up to review how the prisoners of war should be handled, Bush casually signed an executive order put in front of him by Cheney as he was walking out the WH door for a weekend at Camp David (or somewhere). With all of the focus you might expect to be brought to a decision between choosing, say, Wheaties vs Cheerios for breakfast, Bush simply signed the order, oblivious to the consequences. Is there any reason to believe that the decision to go to war, months earlier, had any clearer focus?

Which suggests that the focus on lies in the lead up to the Iraqi War, should not be on Bush (who wouldn't have recognized the truth if it sat on him) but on those around him who obviously found him to be an easily manipulated dunce. Cheney discovered that earlier than anyone by chairing Bush's campaign committee to come up with a VP nominee: "Well, Sir, I guess it's me." Remember the botched line about fool me once, shame on you? Cheney did!

So it is Cheney, who was paid $44 million dollars by Halliburton in the five-years he shilled for them prior to the Vice Presidency (and God only knows how many millions of "severance pay" in the following eight years), that deserves attention. Bush Sr's National Security Advisor stated he didn't recognize the Cheney that later served Bush Jr., with good reason; he wasn't the same Cheney. He was a newly annointed prince of darkness, annointed with money in amounts that would spin any mind.

Lincoln observed that most men can survive adversity, but if you really want to know a man's character, give him power. We did, and now we do -- to our eternal regret.

I remember the memoir of his first Secretary of the Treasury (don't even remember his name) but he wrote that the Bush Cheney Neo-Cons went into office with the idea they were going to oust Saddam Hussein.

Paul O'Neil? In a book written by anti-Bush Suskind? Here's a point of perspective:

Saddam was a constant menace throughout the 90's, and Iraq was a key national security issue inherited from the Clinton administration.

They were just looking for a reason.

And yet right after 9/11 hit, we went straight into Iraq, huh? Nope. In the Sunday right after Tuesday's 9/11, Russert flatout asked Cheney if Iraq had anything to do with 9/11. Cheney's flatout answer was a terse "No."

During deliberations in how to approach the war on terror, Iraq was discussed, as were other terror-sponsoring nations. In the end (at this point) Bush left Iraq off the tables and we focused on Afghanistan.

I remember another story that the administration knew there were no nuclear weapons in Iraq, maybe chemical weapons of mass destruction but not nuclear, but they went ahead and used that ambiguous term to sell the war to the American people.

They used both, and it should be understood that they were very careful in the language that they used. Most of the quotes pre-2003 invasion were about the uncertainty; which was part of the case for war: We just didn't know. And that was the point. The overwhelming belief, even amongst those who did not want to opt for war, was that Saddam was hiding something. That was his behavior then, and throughout the previous decade; a decade of defiance and deception. The case for war was built around a lot more than just wmd POSSESSION; but that belief certainly drummed up public support.

And it was the CIA who sold us on the flawed WMD angle.

Are either one of those memories true? I don't know but that is what I remember.

And this is the problem. What most people remember are half-truths and distorted quotes and impressions shaped by misleading media headlines and soundbytes: "Bush lied, people died."

My blogpost here is a good case in point on how Cheney's statements have been misremembered with accuracy, but with partisan memory from the critics, who heard what they wanted to hear:

http://www.floppingaces.net/2008/09/13/did-president-bush-link-saddam-hussein-to-911/

Where are you getting your information for the decision on Gitmo, the "least bad option"?

You wrote:

So it is Cheney, who was paid $44 million dollars by Halliburton in the five-years he shilled for them prior to the Vice Presidency (and God only knows how many millions of "severance pay" in the following eight years), that deserves attention.

Might I suggest Factcheck.org:

It is true that Cheney has received just under $2 million from Halliburton since his election, but nearly $1.6 million of that total was paid before Cheney actually took office on Jan. 20, 2001. Saying Cheney got that much "as vice president" is simply false.

We asked Cheney's personal attorney to document that, and he did, supplying several documents never released publicly before:

*
A Halliburton pay statement dated Jan 2, 2001 shows just under $147,579 was paid that day as "elect defrl payou," meaning payout of salary from the company's Elective Deferral Plan. That was salary Cheney had earned in 1999, but which he had chosen previously to receive in five installments spread over five years.
*
Another pay statement dated Jan. 18 shows $1,451,398 was paid that day under the company's "Incentive Plan C" for senior executives. That was Cheney's incentive compensation -- bonus money -- paid on the basis of the company's performance in 2000. Cheney had formally resigned from the company the previous September to campaign full time, but the amount of his bonus couldn't be calculated until the full year's financial results were known.

Cheney's personal financial disclosure forms, together with the pay statements just mentioned, show that Cheney has received $398,548 in deferred salary from Halliburton "as vice president." And of course, all of that is money he earned when he was the company's chief executive officer. Cheney was due to receive another payment in 2004, and a final payment in 2005.

~~~

The $398,548 Halliburton has paid to Cheney while in office is all deferred compensation, a common practice that high-salaried executives use to reduce their tax bills by spreading income over several years. In Cheney's case, he signed a Halliburton form in December of 1998 choosing to have 50% of his salary for the next year, and 90% of any bonus money for that year, spread out over five years. (As it turned out, there was no bonus for 1999.) We asked Cheney's personal attorney to document the deferral agreement as well, and he supplied us with a copy of the form, posted here publicly for the first time.

Legally, Halliburton can't increase or reduce the amount of the deferred compensation no matter what Cheney does as vice president. So Cheney's deferred payments from Halliburton wouldn't increase no matter how much money the company makes, or how many government contracts it receives.

On the other hand, there is a possibility that if the company went bankrupt it would be unable to pay. That raises the theoretical possibility of a conflict of interest -- if the public interest somehow demanded that Cheney take action that would hurt Halliburton it could conceivably end up costing him money personally. So to insulate himself from that possible conflict, Cheney purchased an insurance policy (which cost him $14,903) that promises to pay him all the deferred compensation that Halliburton owes him even if the company goes bust and refuses to pay. The policy does contain escape clauses allowing the insurance company to refuse payment in the unlikely events that Cheney files a claim resulting "directly or indirectly" from a change in law or regulation, or from a "prepackaged" bankruptcy in which creditors agree on terms prior to filing. But otherwise it ensures Cheney will get what Halliburton owes him should it go under.

Cheney aides supplied a copy of that policy to us -- blacking out only some personal information about Cheney -- which we have posted here publicly for the first time.

Stock Options

That still would leave the possibility that Cheney could profit from his Halliburton stock options if the company's stock rises in value. However, Cheney and his wife Lynne have assigned any future profits from their stock options in Halliburton and several other companies to charity. And we're not just taking the Cheney's word for this -- we asked for a copy of the legal agreement they signed, which we post here publicly for the first time.

The "Gift Trust Agreement" the Cheney's signed two days before he took office turns over power of attorney to a trust administrator to sell the options at some future time and to give the after-tax profits to three charities. The agreement specifies that 40% will go to the University of Wyoming (Cheney's home state), 40% will go to George Washington University's medical faculty to be used for tax-exempt charitable purposes, and 20% will go to Capital Partners for Education, a charity that provides financial aid for low-income students in Washington, DC to attend private and religious schools.

The agreement states that it is "irrevocable and may not be terminated, waived or amended," so the Cheney's can't take back their options later.

The options owned by the Cheney's have been valued at nearly $8 million, his attorney says. Such valuations are rough estimates only -- the actual value will depend on what happens to stock prices in the future, which of course can't be known beforehand. But it is clear that giving up rights to the future profits constitutes a significant financial sacrifice, and a sizable donation to the chosen charities.

Kunino wrote:

The fact remains, however, that the veep profited by way of large sums of cash paid to him by a private-enterprise source while he held high public office. Whether or not he was the first person to do this, it was clearly improper. The payments arose from a 1998 deal written at his request at a time when his planning to win high public office would have been clear in his mind.

Cheney gave up millions to go back into public office, at the request of President Bush. He didn't do it for money and he didn't do it for power (don't see him interested in running for the presidency, do you?). He didn't plan to go back into public office, when Bush approached him to help him vett potential VP candidates.

Do the critics have any proof that Cheney had anything to do with Halliburton's no-bid contract? I'd be very much surprised if there's anything there, since Halliburton won the competitive bidding process for LOGCAP in 1992. (Logistics Civil Augmentation Program created by the United States Army. It is a program that uses a competitive bidding process to award a contract to a corporation to be on call to provide whatever services the Army might need. The Army concluded that the competitive bidding process for logistics and services was better handled before a time of war rather than during.

Halliburton then lost that bidding process 5 years later in 1997. Despite this, President Clinton awarded a no-bid contract to Halliburton to support U.S. peacekeeping actions in the Balkans. Why? Because quite frankly, they are good at what they do, and one of the few companies that do it. There was no bidding, then, either. So where was the uproar? The simple non-conspiratorial fact is, Halliburton is a go-to company that’s been used for decades before Bush ever came into office.

In 2001, it’s time for bidding on the LOGCAP contract again (before there was any Iraq war). Halliburton wins the bid. This means that at the time of the Iraq War Halliburton had the bid for providing logistical and other services to the U.S. government. Does anyone really believe in all sanity that Cheney- the VP- went to war to supposedly get his Halliburton friends rich? Or that he entered public office to make money himself?!

From the 2000 debate with the decent Lieberman:

Lieberman: "I'm pleased to see, Dick, from the newspapers that you're better off than you were eight years ago, too."

Cheney: "I can tell you, Joe, the government had absolutely nothing to do with it."

Lieberman: "I can see my wife and I think she's saying, 'I think he should go out into the private sector.' "

Cheney: "I'll help you do that, Joe."

Classic Cheney!

The February 16, 2004 New Yorker Magazine, "Letter from Washington" by Jane Mayer (no doubt a favorite of yours) reports in the second paragraph the one "fact" I stated: "Cheney earned forty-four million dollars during his tenure at Halliburton." She also mentions efforts at avoiding conflicts of interest. Here is the url:

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/02/16/040216fa_fact#ixzz0jZCpqBVQ

My claim about the next eight years was that God only knew how much he got. Apparently you and God share that data base, and you are gracious enough to pass on the information. The answer: on the order of $2,000,000 -- and proceed to describe in detail efforts to avoid a conflict of interest.

My point was what the first $44,000,000 had done to Cheney (and would do to anyone) -- convince him he not only walked on water; his feet barely made contact. Whether the money was "earned" before or after Jan 20, 2001 is irrelevant for my analysis, as is the tedious recitation of conflict of interest avoidance efforts.

The Rothschilds defined "rich" as being able to live on "the interest on your interest." At 5% the $44 mill would earn $2.2 mill per year. At 5%, the $2.2 mill would earn $110,000 per year, about 80% of a Congressman's $145,100 salary in January 2001. www.senate.gov/reference/resources/pdf/97-1011.pdf

In my book at least, Halliburton made Cheney rich beyond most Americans' imagination, and I adhere to the view that this change affected his self-confidence positively -- and our politics negatively. Very negatively.

You offer no rebuttal to the major thesis -- that Cheney dominated Bush, got his signature on what you call the "least bad option" (please tell us what is worse than conspiring to commit war crimes?) by short circuiting the existing decision making process, and that the decision making process on Gitmo informs our judgment as to how the "go, no go" decision on Iraq was made.

Cheney, not Bush, should be the focus of any analysis of "lies" about Iraq. The fact that Cheney wanted to go to war with Iraq is reinforced by the fact that his pre 9/11/2001 energy task force gathered, among many other things, maps of the Iraqi oil fields (just curious I guess) and the fact that he repeatedly brow beat CIA analysts who didn't reach conclusions he wanted.

To get support for his preconceptions Cheney set up his own stovepipe "intelligence" agency at the DOD office of the laughably (at least when you can stop crying) incompetent Douglas Feith (described by General Tommy Franks as "the f**king stupidest guy on the face of the earth." http://www.slate.com/id/2100899/ These were the folks who brought us the history making intelligence coup on Iraq's purported efforts to obtain "yellow cake" out of Niger (oops, based on forged documents). http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2003/10/27/031027fa_fact?currentPage=3

Some of us who supported the Democratic nominee for President in 2000, actually took some measure of comfort when Cheney was nominated (albeit by himself) as Vice President; well, at least someone in the White House will know what that red telephone is for, we thought.

As it developed, Cheney is the man to focus on when it comes to deceptions, calculated or incompetent, that led to the decision to wage the Iraqi war. We too did not recognize the man who later emerged, not as a safety valve from incompetence, but as the principal source of danger.

DIAPALINO wrote:

:The February 16, 2004 New Yorker Magazine, "Letter from Washington" by Jane Mayer (no doubt a favorite of yours)

Lol...you are so right! I recently read her book review of Theissen's "Courting Disaster". Not surprised by her review, given Thiessen takes her to task in it.

DIAPALINO wrote

reports in the second paragraph the one "fact" I stated: "Cheney earned forty-four million dollars during his tenure at Halliburton." She also mentions efforts at avoiding conflicts of interest. Here is the url:
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/02/16/040216fa_fact#ixzz0jZCpqBVQ

Thanks for the link! Greatly appreciate it. I don't dispute the figure, earned during his tenure with Halliburton (which contradicts any claims to Cheney becoming VP to "get rich"; he was doing just fine in the private sector); just not sure why it should be a cause for alarm and consternation. And Cheney did attempt to avoid a conflict of interest, as shown in the factcheck.org piece.

DIAPALINO wrote:

My claim about the next eight years was that God only knew how much he got. Apparently you and God share that data base, and you are gracious enough to pass on the information. The answer: on the order of $2,000,000 -- and proceed to describe in detail efforts to avoid a conflict of interest.

Lol. My one source was the factcheck.org link. I haven't lost sleep over how much Cheney brings home at the end of each year.
The Cheneys, btw, have consistently donated generously to charities each year, up to around 3/4's of their income one yr.

My point was what the first $44,000,000 had done to Cheney (and would do to anyone) -- convince him he not only walked on water; his feet barely made contact. Whether the money was "earned" before or after Jan 20, 2001 is irrelevant for my analysis, as is the tedious recitation of conflict of interest avoidance efforts.

So you are psycho-analyzing him? Thinking that anyone who made that kind of money must think he's "above the law"/God" and "power corrupts"?
How do you know he's not "a nice guy" and went back into public office to serve his country in the best way he knew how? And that after he was called back into it for 8 more yrs, he's happy to retire back to just spending time with family and grandchildren? If he were power-hungry, I'd think he would have wanted to try running for the presidency.
DIAPALINO wrote

The Rothschilds defined "rich" as being able to live on "the interest on your interest." At 5% the $44 mill would earn $2.2 mill per year. At 5%, the $2.2 mill would earn $110,000 per year, about 80% of a Congressman's $145,100 salary in January 2001. www.senate.gov/reference/resources/pdf/97-1011.pdf
In my book at least, Halliburton made Cheney rich beyond most Americans' imagination, and I adhere to the view that this change affected his self-confidence positively -- and our politics negatively. Very negatively.

Hmm....I still don't know why you are focusing on this hypothetical on what the "filthy rich" think and do.
DIAPALINO wrote

You offer no rebuttal to the major thesis

Excuse me, I didn't know you had one I was supposed to "rebutt".

DIAPALINO wrote

-- that Cheney dominated Bush, got his signature on what you call the "least bad option" (please tell us what is worse than conspiring to commit war crimes?) by short circuiting the existing decision making process, and that the decision making process on Gitmo informs our judgment as to how the "go, no go" decision on Iraq was made.

Ok, Cheney didn't "dominate Bush"; but he did play an active role in the Administration, to great effect. Bush chose him, and he chose well; but Bush was the man in charge.
As far as Gitmo, Cheney was not "the decider" on this. And I reject your characterization that he "conspired war crimes". As many as 70,000 Taliban and al Qaeda fighters were captured on the battlefield of Afghanistan. More than 10,000 were vetted on the spot and released. Less than 10% of those screened made it to Gitmo. Of that number, a tiny one-tenth of 1% were deemed to be of high intelligence value or too dangerous to let loose. They had to be held somewhere. The selection for Guantanamo and its immediate use was done in crisis mode for an unforeseen contingency: What to do with captured enemy combatants?
The decision for Gitmo wasn't entirely a DoD decision. According to Brigadier General Hemmingway, it was a Dept of Justice idea. Rumsfeld hated the notion of being "the world's jailer" and foresaw that it would bring with it, trouble.
DIAPALINO wrote

Cheney, not Bush, should be the focus of any analysis of "lies" about Iraq. The fact that Cheney wanted to go to war with Iraq is reinforced by the fact that his pre 9/11/2001 energy task force gathered, among many other things, maps of the Iraqi oil fields (just curious I guess)

The fact is, there's spin and misinformation, here. You say Cheney wanted to invade Iraq before 9/11; other conspiratorial critics say Bush. I say it's all supposition based upon spin and partisan political hatred for the two men.
The maps for the Iraqi oil fields were not what Suskind claims they were. Besides a map of Iraq and a list of Iraqi oil projects, the document also includes same maps and similar lists of projects for the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
The document in question, entitled 'Foreign Suitors for Iraq Oilfield Contracts', was part of the Energy Project that was the focus of Cheney's attention prior to 9/11, and had nothing to do with post-war Iraq. It belonged to part of a larger study dealing with global oil supplies. Check here: http://www.judicialwatch.org/071703.c_.shtml
The study includes projects in Iraq by other countries, such as Vietnam, who would not have been part of any "post-war" planning.
DIAPALINO wrote

and the fact that he repeatedly brow beat CIA analysts who didn't reach conclusions he wanted.

Again, as I've stated elsewhere on here, the Robb-Silbermann Report and the SSCI Report on Iraq Prewar Intelligence
exonerates any "browbeating of CIA analysts":

Excerpt from the Silberman-Robb Report:
The Commission also found no evidence of “politicization” even under the broader definition used by the CIA’s Ombudsman for Politicization, which is not limited solely to the case in which a policymaker applies overt pressure on an analyst to change an assessment. The definition adopted by the CIA is broader, and includes any “unprofessional manipulation of information and judgments” by intelligence officers to please what those officers perceive to be policymakers’ preferences (p. 188).
We conclude that good-faith efforts by intelligence consumers to understand the bases for analytic judgments, far from constituting “politicization,” are entirely legitimate. This is the case even if policymakers raise questions because they do not like the conclusions or are seeking evidence to support policy preferences. Those who must use intelligence are entitled to insist that they be fully informed as to both the evidence and the analysis (p. 189; footnote omitted).
Excerpt from the SSCI Report on Iraq Prewar Intelligence:
The Committee did not find any evidence that Administration officials attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to change their judgements related to Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction capabilities (p. 284).
The Committee found that none of the analysts or other people interviewed by the Committee said that they were pressured to change their conclusions related to Iraq’s links to terrorism. (p. 363)

DIAPALINO wrote:

To get support for his preconceptions Cheney set up his own stovepipe "intelligence" agency at the DOD office of the laughably (at least when you can stop crying) incompetent Douglas Feith (described by General Tommy Franks as "the f**king stupidest guy on the face of the earth." http://www.slate.com/id/2100899/ These were the folks who brought us the history making intelligence coup on Iraq's purported efforts to obtain "yellow cake" out of Niger (oops, based on forged documents). http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2003/10/27/031027fa_fact?currentPage=3

The 16 words in the SotU weren't based upon the forged Niger documents (lots on this in Timmerman's highly partisan book, "Shadow Warriors"), and didn't come from Feith's Office of Special Plans. Furthermore, it wasn't an "intelligence agency" at all. *sigh*....so much BDS distortions, so little time to correct....

Franks- God bless him- was impatient with Pentagon civilian "bosses" and did not want to pre-occupy himself with post-war planning (discussions involving Feith). But Franks has also tempered his language when asked about that quote. Also, Franks’s statement is not shared by Marine General Peter Pace, who says of Feith, “Early on, he didn’t realize that the way he presented his positions, the way he was being perceived, put him in a bit of a hole. But he changed his ways.”; and called Feith a “true American patriot”. Ok, whatever. Don't see the point in bringing up the Franks quote, other than wanting to believe the worst about your political foes, ready to embrace anything and everything that demonizes them in the worst possible light.

DIAPALINO wrote

As it developed, Cheney is the man to focus on when it comes to deceptions, calculated or incompetent, that led to the decision to wage the Iraqi war. We too did not recognize the man who later emerged, not as a safety valve from incompetence, but as the principal source of danger.

Wow...you really have it in bad, for Cheney, don't you?

The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa

Didn't specify Niger. Didn't say "obtained". And the Brits have stuck by the claim. Yes, Tenet regretted that the statement was included in the SotU address, but the sentence wasn't "fixed" around a fake Nigerian “yellow cake” letter (which neither Castelli nor Drumheller tried to expose as forgeries; the Robb-Silberman Commission investigating wmd claims found their reporting actually buttressed the claims on Iraq wmds) and Joe Wilson's report (which he mispresented in his NYTimes piece). 2 British Parliamentary reports made the claim that there was credible evidence that Iraq attempted to acquire uranium from Niger in 1999.

2002 Senate Intell report on pre-war claims concluded that no CIA official had bothered to tell the NSC to have the 16 words removed from the SotU, at the time.

It's a fact that Iraqi officials visited Niger in 1999. Since uranium constitutes about 3/4s of Niger's exports, and I doubt Saddam was interested in cowpeas and onions which they also export, it wasn't far-fetched to conclude uranium is what was sought.

It is dishonest to say that the British government "has learned" something that the US itself does not believe based on the same information.

Of course, any allegation of a lie can always be countered by a claim of ignorance. I find this one hard to buy, however. Can you imagine being president, being told that the British believe something that has significant national security implications, and not asking what the position of US intelligence is on this?

The Robb-Silbermann Commission on Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction delivered a 610-page report on the topic on March of '05. It states that at the time of Bush's SotU speech, the CIA continued to believe in the authenticity of the Niger documents that are now known to be forgeries (and which the 16 words were not based upon, but upon the claim of British Intelligence). Apparently, "no one in the Intelligence Community had asked that the line be removed." The CIA claims it never actually looked at the forged documents until after the scandal of the 16 words broke, because they had other sources laying claim to the conclusion that Saddam sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

I know, that sounds fishy to me, too, that they wouldn't have examined the famous Niger forgeries at that point.

The 2007 Senate Select intell committee report issued May 25th says "the Intelligence community used or cleared the Niger-Iraq uranium intelligence fifteen times before the president's State of the Union address and four times after, saying in several papers that Iraq was 'vigorously pursuing uranium from Africa' ".

Dearlove in 2007 also told Richard Perle that that the British assessment had nothing to do with the Niger forgeries.

The NIC prepared a memo outlining its conclusion that the Niger uranium claim was baseless. This memo arrived at the white house in January 2003, prior to the SOTU.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/08/AR2006040800916_2.html

Tenet did not believe a claim of uranium-seeking could be supported.

Bush could not base a strong claim of uranium-seeking on US intelligence. That is why he sidestepped it and cited the UK.

wrote:

The NIC prepared a memo outlining its conclusion that the Niger uranium claim was baseless

Not sure that's how to conclude what is in the estimate.

Looking at the Oct 2002 NIE, here's what it says:

* A foreign government service reported that as of early 2001, Niger planned to send several tons of "pure uranium" (probably yellowcake) to Iraq. As of early 2001, Niger and Iraq reportedly were still working out arrangements for this deal, which could be for up to 500 tons of yellowcake. We do not know the status of this arrangement.

* Reports indicate Iraq also has sought uranium ore from Somalia and possibly the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

We cannot confirm whether Iraq succeeded in acquiring uranium ore and/or yellowcake from these sources. Reports suggest Iraq is shifting from domestic mining and milling of uranium to foreign acquisition.

The mention of Somalia and Congo are important, imo, which is why in the 16-words, I placed emphasis earlier on the use of the word "Africa" instead of singling out "Niger". The forged documents in question were specifically on purported procurement from Niger. The WaPo article itself notes this:

Unknown to the reporters, the uranium claim lay deeper inside the estimate, where it said a fresh supply of uranium ore would "shorten the time Baghdad needs to produce nuclear weapons." But it also said U.S. intelligence did not know the status of Iraq's procurement efforts, "cannot confirm" any success and had "inconclusive" evidence about Iraq's domestic uranium operations.

The next paragraph begins:

Iraq's alleged uranium shopping had been strongly disputed in the intelligence community from the start. In a closed Senate hearing in late September 2002, shortly before the October NIE was completed, then-director of central intelligence George J. Tenet and his top weapons analyst, Robert Walpole, expressed strong doubts about the uranium story, which had recently been unveiled publicly by the British government. The State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, likewise, called the claim "highly dubious." For those reasons, the uranium story was relegated to a brief inside passage in the October estimate.

The forged documents seem to have began with an information seller named Rocco Martino. He provided the French with authentic documents regarding Wissam Al Zawahie's visit to Niger in 1999 in a plan to expand trade (Zawahie, incidentally, was a well-known figure in Iraq's nuclear weapons establishment and had been Iraq's representative to the IAEA in the late '80's), apparently through clandestine uranium sales. This was separate from the forged Niger documents in question.

These appear to have been circulated through the French and Italian agencies. CIA station chief Jeff Castelli received the 1st glimpse of the forgeries in Oct 15, 2001. Through him and Tyler Drumheller, this information was first circulated through the CIA. And despite their claims after retiring to become vocal critics of the Administration, neither of the two ever tried to expose the forgeries at the time. Robb-Silbermann found that their reporting did just the opposite.

Martino also shopped his forgeries to the Brits; but they claim their own contributions forwarded to Washington were only in part based upon the fake documents.

Anyway, there seem to be quite a bit of confusion and finger-pointing as to who knew what and when; and questions as to whether the State Dept's intelligence bureau ever bothered to report their suspicions up the chain of command, to Powell or the White House.

From what I've read, either Drumheller is lying or grossly incompetent in regards to his role in all this.

WOLFBOY wrote:

Tenet did not believe a claim of uranium-seeking could be supported.

Regarding Tenet in the piece, Tenet also said in his book, "Later some would allege that this handful of words was critical to the decision that led the nation to war. Contemporaneous evidence doesn't support that, but just try convincing people of that today."

He had it removed from the Cincinnati speech; too bad it made its way in the SotU.

WaPo:

Bush put his prestige behind the uranium story in his Jan. 28, 2003, State of the Union address. Less than two months later, the International Atomic Energy Agency exposed the principal U.S. evidence as bogus. A Bush-appointed commission later concluded that the evidence, a set of contracts and correspondence sold by an Italian informant, was "transparently forged."

ElBaradei and Martino.

Martino, btw, went on to be summoned by an Italian investigating magistrate, Franco Ionta, to give sworn testimony on the forged documents. According to Martino, he not only supplied the French with the fake documents but he did so at their request, who then paid him to get the docs laundered through the system "as part of a sting operation to 'set up' the U.S.". Italian diplomats told the Daily Telegraph that France "was trying to 'set up' Britain and America in the hope that when the mistake was revealed it would undermine the case for war, which it wanted to prevent." Source.

And Joe Wilson, brought up in the WaPo piece, we know, misrepresented his own findings. According to the 2004 SSIC,

-Wilson's oral debriefing to the CIA on March 5, 2002, did not debunk the intelligence reports of a potential uranium deal with Saddam. Instead, he spoke of "expanding commercial relations" between Niger and Iraq, which the CIA interpreted- as did former government officials Wilson spoke to in Niger- as meaning uranium sales. (pg 43).

-Wilson confirmed that an Iraqi commercial delegation (which was led by Iraqi nuclear expert Wissam al-Zawahie) had come to Niger in February 1999. The CIA report on the Wilson trip, issued on March 8, 2002, concluded that "the delegation wanted to discuss uranium yellowcake sales." (p. 43).

-Instead of proving Saddam had never tried to purchase uranium from Niger, in the eyes of most analysts Wilson's report "lent more credibility to the original Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reports on hte uranium deal," the committee concluded. (p. 73)

The Senate report also notes that Wilson had "never seen the CIA reports" and "had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports", in regards to the forged Niger documents.

The final phase II report from the SSIC's investigations into pre-war intell has this to conclude:

(U) Conclusion 1: Statements by the President, Vice President, Secretary of State and the National Security Advisor regarding a possible Iraqi nuclear weapons program were generally substantiated by intelligence community estimates, but did not convey the substantial disagreements that existed in the intelligence community. Prior to the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, some intelligence agencies assessed that the Iraqi government was reconstituting a nuclear weapons program, while others disagreed or expressed doubts about the evidence. The Estimate itself expressed the majority view that the program was being reconstituted, but included clear dissenting views from the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, which argued that reconstitution was not underway, and the Department of Energy, which argued that aluminum tubes sought by Iraq were probably not intended for a nuclear program.

Amendment 42 – strike the conclusion as drafted and insert All policymaker statements reviewed in this section were substantiated by the available intelligence.

Comment -It is impossible for us to properly analyze the claims in this conclusion without knowing which specific statements the report is referencing. Also, it is incorrect to say that “others” disagreed or expressed doubts about the evidence of a reconstituted nuclear program. At most, only one agency expressed any doubt about the reconstitution judgment and not in any document published outside its own agency prior to publication of the NIE. Although not stated definitely we believe that the statements this conclusion is referencing were made prior to the publication of the NIE, so the inclusion of INR’s dissent referenced in the NIE is irrelevant and unfair to those speakers. Additionally, it is misleading to discuss DOE’s dissent on the aluminum tubes but not include the fact that DOE agreed that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program.

wrote:

hence the early and wrong-headed decision to disband the Iraqi army and "de-Bathification". The Bushies had no plan for what was to be done after they removed Saddam from power. They simply had not thought that far ahead. Of course Rumsfeld's arrogance and stubborn belief that the war could be prosecuted on the cheap, and the Cheney notion that the Iraqi people would welcome foreign occupiers with open arms helped. Its share of problems indeed!

The original idea was indeed “liberation not occupation”, and to model Iraq’s aftermath after Afghanistan and put an Iraqi face to the interim government as soon as possible. I believe it was Peter Rodman, one of Rumsfeld's policy advisors who wrote an influential paper trying to draw an analogous link between the liberation of Iraq and WWII's France. Flawed, but the fact is we were greeted as liberators, initially. Read my post.

Being the armchair general that I am, I think Rumsfeld’s streamlining of the military was brilliant; one of the hardest things to do is to move a bureaucracy to implement innovative changes and think outside the box. The decision to go in with a streamlined military force and make a sprint to Baghdad probably saved more American lives during major combat operations, with the Regime collapsing after a 3 week war. Recall that Saddam had begun rigging bridges, oil fields, and infrastructure as he had done during the first Gulf War. He was under the impression that he had more time to prepare, not anticipating the start-date of the war. Since the U.S. 4th Infantry Division wasn’t able to launch from Turkey, Saddam didn’t think the U.S. would start the invasion; not until the 4th ID was in place. Franks adapted to the setback, in a manner that Saddam failed to anticipate.

The other criticism you make, often leveled at the Administration in regards to not enough boots on the ground, is in regards to “disbanding the Iraqi Army and police force”.

Bremer (yes, Bush’s man) seems to have unilaterally made that decision, himself. I’m aware of his letter to the NYTimes defending himself, but the accounts are all a convoluted mess to make sense of in regards to who is responsible for that decision.

Originally, for the purposes of liberation and not occupation, the White House and Pentagon did want to keep the Iraqi Army intact for post-war security.

Initial reports from Franks, too, indicates that leaflets were dropped telling personnel to stay in uniform, as the intent was to utilize them; but many didn’t. The Iraq army simply dissolved. Military personnel did come back looking for work and sheikhs also offering security work. Bremer screwed that one up. Of course, there was also the problem of corruption and lack of a real officer’s corp in the Iraq army to build from. There were elements of State and CIA that were never fully on board with the White House and Pentagon planning.

CENTCOM planners and Bill Luti had anticipated and averted almost every possible contingency except for the ones that did occur. I believe it was CIA that felt the police force and army would remain intact to provide security after the fall of the Regime. Didn’t happen. In his book, Franks said on April 10th, they ordered Iraqi troops “to remain in uniform at all times. Maintain unit integrity and good order and discipline in your units.”

“I wanted to see those defeated enemy troops kept in coherent units, commanded by their own officers, and paid in a combination of humanitarian assistance food and cash….[and] put to work for the Coalition on reconstruction.” As for the police, according to Luti, “the CIA told us that all we had to do was lop off the top layer of leadership, but when we did we found that the corruption went so deep that we had to start from scratch. Was that a mistake? You bet. But it was a mistake based on faulty intelligence.”

According to Luti, even though Bremer came to put out an order to disband the Iraqi Army, the Army had all but disbanded itself initially. Millions of leaflets were even dropped and warnings broadcast in Arabic by the Commando Solo aircraft for Iraqi soldiers to lay down their arms but remain in uniform. Instead of entire army units, U.S. troops often found empty uniforms neatly piled, even with rifles. Apparently Iraqi officers ordered their soldiers to simply go home.

You wrote:

Bush used the term "imminent threat," which is a lie.

The "lie" or distorted claim, is that Bush ever said Iraq was an imminent threat. What he warned was that we had to act before the threat became imminent. Do you know who did make claims of immediacy, however? It was prominent Democrats using that language when they were for the invasion of Iraq before they were against it.

Could Bush have sold the war if he admitted that his determination to occupy Iraq was independent of the existence of WMD programs?

Douglas Feith thinks the case for war could have and should have been sold without so much emphasis on wmd possession.

However, I'm not sure, however justified, if it could have been sold to the American people. Perhaps, if they had better communication skills on why after 12 years of defiance of the original cease-fire agreement (not a peace treaty) and subsequent 16+1 UNSCRs that were violated, in a post-9/11 world, leaving a known state-sponsor of terror and lover of acquiring wmd capabilities in power just wasn't a good thing.

I believe the UN's failure to enforce its own mandates only emboldened Saddam and made the world less safe. Why should he take the UN seriously?

You wrote:

Consider:

"I've not made up our mind about military action. Hopefully, this can be done peacefully...” (3/6/2003)

and

“We are doing everything we can to avoid war in Iraq.” (3/8/2003)

These statements are very difficult to reconcile with what we now know about Saddam's efforts to avoid war (see Wikipedia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_invasion_of_Iraq] at 'Attempts to avoid war' , for example); Saddam's reported offers to leave the country; and Bush's later assertion that the war was proper and would have been justified and appropriate even had the US known that there were no WMD.

Saddam initially didn't take the threat of war seriously. He believed that all he would need do is weather a few bombing runs of more aspirin factories, as he did during the Clinton yrs. Then it'd be back to the status quo.

The essential issue was one of disarmament. Not UN inspections. Somehow, over the course of the yrs, the world's desire to avoid war at all costs saw fit to appease rather than enforce. Under UNSCR 687, Saddam was obligated to disarm. Rather than providing confidence and cooperation, Saddam shifted the burden of proof from itself and onto the UN. UNMOVIC and UNSCOM were never intended to be weapons hunters.

As far as Bush quotes and timelines, Douglas Feith makes mention in his book, War and Decision, pg 342, that he first heard Bush make a comment, "I think war is inevitable", which he had never heard the president express before, on December 18th, 2002. It wasn't so much a declaration of determination to go to war as it was of pessimism that war would be unavoidable (with the burden on Saddam to comply). I think at this point, there was just a zero-tolerance of being strung along for another 12 years by Saddam's cat-and-mouse games of letting inspectors back in, but still playing hide-and-seek with them. Just check out Blix' "Unresolved Disarmament Issues". The dangers of Saddam weren't fabricated, but interpreted based upon not only intell assessments of the time, but also on the UN's own reports.

Saddam failed to meet his obligations under 678 and 687 and failed to build "confidence" that Iraq had in fact "disarmed".

"Perhaps, if they had better communication skills on why after 12 years of defiance of the original cease-fire agreement (not a peace treaty) and subsequent 16+1 UNSCRs that were violated, in a post-9/11 world, leaving a known state-sponsor of terror and lover of acquiring wmd capabilities in power just wasn't a good thing."

This is exactly my point. Bush was determined to remove Saddam from power. The inspections did not advance this goal and thus it was inevitable that Bush would ultimately say that the inspections were not working and initiate military action. To the American people, however, he claimed otherwise.

wrote:

Bush in the campaign promised a "humble" foreign policy and promised to forgo the entanglements of nation-building.

And if it weren't for the events of 9/11, that's probably what we would have gotten.

He didn't tell us that he was already half-committed to war with Iraq, nor that one factor was his desire for the powers connected to the role of commander-in-chief - which he hoped would help him prevail on his domestic agenda so he could go down in history as a great president.

Mickey Herskowitz regretted how his retelling of Bush's off-the-cuff remarks were characterized. It is a stretch to conclude from that interview that "Bush wanted to go to war with Iraq" from day one.

Suskind and O'Neill either deliberately lied or ignorantly misrepresented their supposed Pentagon document (it was not) entitled, 'Foreign Suitors for Iraq Oilfield Contracts' that were NOT about postwar planning for Iraq.

And as I mentioned earlier elsewhere in this comment thread, there is nothing at all alarmist about mentioning Iraq from early on. Saddam was a key national security issue inherited from the Clinton administration. What would have been odd is to have not talked about the dangers he posed to peace and stability in the Middle East.

He didn't tell the American public that he'd decided to abandon the focus on terrorist incidents and individual terrorists in order to adopt the grand strategy of stopping terrorism by starting a grand democratic transformation of the Middle East.

Can you please be more specific?

My blogpost says, "No." Please take a look.

Because no one can find a quote anywhere of Bush saying "Saddam had a hand in 9/11", critics then have to backpedal into claiming, "Well it was suggested/insinuated/etc".

People also don't seem to understand that the statement "there were links between al Qaeda and Iraq" is not the same argument as "Iraq had something to do with 9/11".

Nor do people seem to get that it is a global jihad network. It is more properly the al Qaeda network and affiliates who we are at war with. Don't get fixated on the name "al Qaeda". KSM and Zubaydah were not officially part of al Qaeda pre-9/11, for example. But they are part of the war. It's a whole terror network with cross-overs where the boundaries that separates and dinstinguishes one from the other gets blurred; and shared funding and training and purpose.

This is why President Bush, early on, said the following:

“Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.”
-President Bush in an address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People, United States Capitol, Washington D.C., September 20, 2001.

Not just "al Qaeda".

Look back on bin Laden's fatwa declaring war on America, signed by others under the umbrella monniker, "World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders".