I don't think so.

Post #285,247 by bepatient 5/23/07 10:56:59 AM Reply	I don't think so. Others, like Rockefeller cite "unmistakable evidence" of Iraq's pursuit of nukes. He, Dick Durbin and John Edwards were all quoted similarly...and they were on the Senate Intel committee at the time..seeing the same things the administration was seeing at the same time. They cannot say the admin lied to convince them...unless, of course, they admit to not doing their job...which I supposes is always a possibility. Too much of today's music is fashionable crap dressed as artistry._{Adrian Belew}
Post #285,248 by Another Scott 5/23/07 11:10:50 AM Reply	Not so. He, Dick Durbin and John Edwards were all quoted similarly...and they were on the Senate Intel committee at the time..seeing the same things the administration was seeing at the same time. You shouldn't keep repeating Bush and Cheney's talking points, Bill... The Senate and House intelligence committees [link\|http://nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/stories/2005/1122nj1.htm\|only sees what the Administration lets them see]. They didn't see the "same" intelligence that Bush and Cheney saw. Ten days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President Bush was told in a highly classified briefing that the U.S. intelligence community had no evidence linking the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein to the attacks and that there was scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al Qaeda, according to government records and current and former officials with firsthand knowledge of the matter. The information was provided to Bush on September 21, 2001 during the "President's Daily Brief," a 30- to 45-minute early-morning national security briefing. Information for PDBs has routinely been derived from electronic intercepts, human agents, and reports from foreign intelligence services, as well as more mundane sources such as news reports and public statements by foreign leaders. One of the more intriguing things that Bush was told during the briefing was that the few credible reports of contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda involved attempts by Saddam Hussein to monitor the terrorist group. Saddam viewed Al Qaeda as well as other theocratic radical Islamist organizations as a potential threat to his secular regime. At one point, analysts believed, Saddam considered infiltrating the ranks of Al Qaeda with Iraqi nationals or even Iraqi intelligence operatives to learn more about its inner workings, according to records and sources. The September 21, 2001, briefing was prepared at the request of the president, who was eager in the days following the terrorist attacks to learn all that he could about any possible connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda. Much of the contents of the September 21 PDB were later incorporated, albeit in a slightly different form, into a lengthier CIA analysis examining not only Al Qaeda's contacts with Iraq, but also Iraq's support for international terrorism. Although the CIA found scant evidence of collaboration between Iraq and Al Qaeda, the agency reported that it had long since established that Iraq had previously supported the notorious Abu Nidal terrorist organization, and had provided tens of millions of dollars and logistical support to Palestinian groups, including payments to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. The highly classified CIA assessment was distributed to President Bush, Vice President Cheney, the president's national security adviser and deputy national security adviser, the secretaries and undersecretaries of State and Defense, and various other senior Bush administration policy makers, according to government records. The Senate Intelligence Committee has asked the White House for the CIA assessment, the PDB of September 21, 2001, and dozens of other PDBs as part of the committee's ongoing investigation into whether the Bush administration misrepresented intelligence information in the run-up to war with Iraq. The Bush administration has refused to turn over these documents. Indeed, the existence of the September 21 PDB was not disclosed to the Intelligence Committee until the summer of 2004, according to congressional sources. Both Republicans and Democrats requested then that it be turned over. The administration has refused to provide it, even on a classified basis, and won't say anything more about it other than to acknowledge that it exists. [...] Emphasis added. Cheers, Scott.
Post #285,256 by bepatient 5/23/07 1:40:09 PM Reply	Ok, so they don't get the President's Daily Brief. Then again, they aren't the president. USSSCOI Created pursuant to S.Res. 400, 94th Congress: to oversee and make continuing studies of the intelligence activities and programs of the United States Government, and to submit to the Senate appropriate proposals for legislation and report to the Senate concerning such intelligence activities and programs. In carrying out this purpose, the Select Committee on Intelligence shall make every effort to assure that the appropriate departments and agencies of the United States provide informed and timely intelligence necessary for the executive and legislative branches to make sound decisions affecting the security and vital interests of the Nation. It is further the purpose of this resolution to provide vigilant legislative oversight over the intelligence activities of the United States to assure that such activities are in conformity with the Constitution and laws of the United States. Like I said, they can't say they didn't know without admitting that they weren't doing their job. Too much of today's music is fashionable crap dressed as artistry._{Adrian Belew}
Post #285,261 by Another Scott 5/23/07 2:49:22 PM Reply	The "You didn't catch me, so it's not my fault" defense? :-/
Post #285,268 by bepatient 5/23/07 6:24:43 PM Reply	Hardly Wondering what summaries of intel are being dealt to the President when you are responsible for the agencies creating that brief seems...well...a little backwards, don't you think? Too much of today's music is fashionable crap dressed as artistry._{Adrian Belew}
Post #285,274 by Another Scott 5/23/07 7:11:00 PM Reply	You do remember who ran the Senate until Jan 2007, right? The Republican party had control of the Senate and House leadership. They weren't much interested in investigating the Administration or doing vigorous oversight. [link\|http://rawstory.com/news/2005/HowSenate_Intelligence_chairman_fixed_intelligence_and_diverted_blame_fromWhite_House__0811.html\|Raw Story]: Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, President George W. Bush issued an [link\|http://thinkprogress.org/wp-images/upload/bushrestrictedintel.pdf\|order] to the Central Intelligence Agency, Department of Defense, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the State Department, and his cabinet members that severely curtailed intelligence oversight by restricting classified information to just eight members of Congress. "The only Members of Congress whom you or your expressly designated officers may brief regarding classified or sensitive law enforcement information," he writes, "are the Speaker of the House, the House Minority Leader, the Senate Majority and Minority Leaders, and the Chairs and Ranking Members of the Intelligence Committees in the House and Senate." The order is aimed at protecting "military security" and "sensitive law enforcement." [...] The Senate and House intelligence committees were created in the 1970s after a series of congressional investigations found that the CIA had acted like a "rogue elephant" carrying out illegal covert action abroad. By the late 1990s, members of the committees and their staffs were seeing more than 2,200 CIA reports and receiving more than 1,200 substantive briefings from agency officials each year to assist them in their role of providing proper oversight. But the little-reported 2001 Bush directive changed that, ensuring that only two members of each committee received full briefings on intelligence operations, and preventing committee staffs from carrying out meaningful research. Tom Reynolds, spokesman for the ranking Democrat on the House Select Committee on Intelligence, Jane Harman (D-CA), downplayed the significance of the order, saying members continued to have access. He acknowledged, however, that the "gang of eight" had higher-level clearances. The spokesman for the Senate Intelligence Committee deferred comment to the White House; the White House did not return requests for comment. [...] Whether Roberts actually saw the Niger forgeries during Hadley\ufffds briefings is unclear. What is clear is that by March of 2003, the Intelligence chairman was in a position to head off any serious investigation into concerns raised by Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), the committee's ranking Democrat and vice-chair. Rockefeller has grave concerns about deceptive intelligence, so serious that he pens a formal letter to FBI director Robert Mueller. Rockefeller urges Mueller to investigate the Niger forgeries as part of what he feared to be "\ufffda larger deception campaign aimed at manipulating public opinion and foreign policy regarding Iraq," writes the New Yorker's Seymour Hersh. Roberts declines to sign the Rockefeller letter, seeing the involvement of the FBI as inappropriate. As a result, Rockefeller's letter falls on deaf ears. On July 11, 2003, faced with public pressure to investigate the Niger forgeries, Roberts blames the CIA and defends the White House. [...] It's hard to have oversight when the information is so restricted to so few people, when the interests of the Party superscede the oversight functions, and when too many people don't ask probing questions. I fear we aren't going to make much additional progress on this topic, so I'll let you have the last word. Cheers, Scott.
Post #285,686 by lincoln 5/29/07 10:44:35 AM Reply	Re: I don't think so. (new thread) Created as new thread #285685 titled [link\|/forums/render/content/show?contentid=285685\|Re: I don't think so.] lincoln "Chicago to my mind was the only place to be. ... I above all liked the city because it was filled with people all a-bustle, and the clatter of hooves and carriages, and with delivery wagons and drays and peddlers and the boom and clank of freight trains. And when those black clouds came sailing in from the west, pouring thunderstorms upon us so that you couldn't hear the cries or curses of humankind, I liked that best of all. Chicago could stand up to the worst God had to offer. I understood why it was built--a place for trade, of course, with railroads and ships and so on, but mostly to give all of us a magnitude of defiance that is not provided by one house on the plains. And the plains is where those storms come from." -- E.L. Doctorow Never apply a Star Trek solution to a Babylon 5 problem. I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a *Citizen* of the United States. [link\|mailto:golf_lover44@yahoo.com\|contact me]

Welcome to IWETHEY!