Here Today... Gone To Hell!

Tenet: White House eyed Iraq long before 9/11
Book by ex-CIA chief highly critical of Cheney; Bush official rejects claims

White House and Pentagon officials, and particularly Vice President Cheney, were determined to attack Iraq from the first days of the Bush administration, long before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and repeatedly stretched available intelligence to build support for the war, according to a new book by former CIA director George J. Tenet.

Although Tenet does not question the threat Saddam Hussein posed or the sincerity of administration beliefs, he recounts numerous efforts by aides to Cheney and then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to insert "crap" into public justifications for the war. Tenet also describes an ongoing fear within the intelligence community of the administration's willingness to "mischaracterize complex intelligence information."

"There was never a serious debate that I know of within the administration about the imminence of the Iraq threat," Tenet writes in "At the Center of the Storm," to be released Monday by HarperCollins. The debate "was not about imminence but about acting before Saddam did."

Bartlett: Tenet a ?patriot,? but wrong
White House counselor Dan Bartlett yesterday called Tenet a "true patriot" but disputed his conclusions, saying "the president did wrestle with those very serious questions." Responding to reports from the book in yesterday's New York Times, Bartlett suggested that the former CIA director might have been unaware of all the discussions. President Bush, Bartlett said on NBC's "Today Show," "weighed all the various consequences before he did make a decision."

In their threat briefings for the incoming Bush administration in late 2000, Tenet writes, CIA officials did not even mention Iraq. But Cheney, he says, asked for an Iraq briefing and requested that the outgoing Clinton administration's defense secretary, William S. Cohen, provide information on Iraq for Bush.

Fears al-Qaida ?is here and waiting?
A speech by Cheney in August 2002 "went well beyond what our analysis could support," Tenet writes. The speech charged, among other things, that Hussein had restarted his nuclear program and would "acquire nuclear weapons fairly soon . . . perhaps within a year." Caught off-guard by the remarks, which had not been cleared by the CIA, Tenet says he considered confronting the vice president on the subject but did not.

"Would that have changed his future approach?" he asks. "I doubt it but I should not have let silence imply an agreement." Policymakers, he writes, "have a right to their own opinions, but not their own set of facts."

New details about the origins of the current terrorist threat -- and the way the Clinton and Bush White Houses dealt with it -- add to a growing body of information about the tumultuous late 1990s and the first years of the new century. For the future, Tenet describes his deepest fear as "the nuclear one." He is convinced, he writes, that this is where Osama bin Laden "and his operatives desperately want to go. They understand that bombings by cars, trucks, trains and planes will get them some headlines, to be sure. But if they manage to set off a mushroom cloud, they will make history."

Despite all efforts to thwart them, he says, "I do know one thing in my gut: al-Qa'ida is here and waiting."
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The story continues, with less relevant details.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18348452/

Tenet was there, supporting the cherry picking of CIA data and playing the game instead of doing what he was hired to do. While I believe he is telling the truth now, it is sadly too late to save the half a million people who have died because he wanted to suck GWB's cock instead of refuse to be a patsy for Bush's war. Same with Durbin. There was a time to be a hero. That time passed long ago. They should all be held accountable for their decisions and actions. Both guys enabled Bush and Cheney to carry out their bullshitting of America. Both guys could have stopped him cold. Telling us that now is not good enough to earn any forgiveness.

True, so the question becomes; why now?

Is there a job waiting, or is it just another step towards creating a 'new agenda' constructed to fit the goals of the 'new' administration?

im waiting on the government to release how they actually committed 9/11 themselves to give themselves a reason to go to iraq. I do believe  terrorists are real, and attacking, like london 05, but 9/11 i have my doubts, im honestly starting to believe, when thingsl ike this come out, your (americans) own government did it.

Don't get too comfortable with that notion. The London attacks got alot of red flags attached to it, and plenty similarities to the 911 attacks.

Are you serious? That is so absurd!

A bombing in London by these Islamic terrorist ,and of course they are real. But 9/11 isn't? Come on. So I guess it was the U.S. goverment behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing(Another failure by Clinton  ::) ) and the plot to blow up American planes over the Pacific in the early 1990's?

Can you expound on this? 

Now can you expound on this?

If the U.S. goverment is behind these attacks, I suppose mrlee would tend to believe that Clinton would have been behind the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993.

"We need an initiative spark, like a new Pearl Harbor."

Cheney, Rumsfeld, Jeb Bush & others
"The New American Century", 2000

Link?

I cited it from the memory. Just look up Google or Wikipedia, I'm sure you'll find it.

With that I don't say that the US government was behind the attacks. I just say that the official version is most liklely a lie, but who would be surprised by that?

One thing at least is for sure: It was widely known before 9/11 that something would happen, bot noone did anything to prevent it. The suggestive question is: Why?

Further, the process of transformation,
even if it brings revolutionary change, is
likely to be a long one, absent some
catastrophic and catalyzing event ? like a
new Pearl Harbor.

http://www.newamericancentury.org/defensenationalsecurity.htm

?By some estimates there will be an average of two per cent annual growth in global oil demand over the years ahead along with conservatively a three per cent natural decline in production from existing reserves. That means by 2010 we will need on the order of an additional fifty million barrels a day. So where is the oil going to come from? Governments and the national oil companies are obviously controlling about ninety per cent of the assets. Oil remains fundamentally a government business. While many regions of the world offer great oil opportunities, the Middle East with two thirds of the world?s oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies???

Dick Cheney's speech at the Institute of Petroleum Autumn lunch, 1999

If this war was purely about securing oil and keeping it (relatively) inexpensive, then they've sure fucked up that plan. 

well ... yeah  :hihi:

i watched a DVD in which it put very valid facts across to show how these views could be correct. including the new pearl harbor quote.

im unsure, but i think the one i watched is up at

www.tv-links.co.uk

click movies i think its on top right, but theres a few.

The one i saw had a man from new york wh orecorded the bombs going off with his cam corder (which apparently were what made the towers fall straight down).

For the most up to date conspiracy theory info, I recommend prisonplanet.com. 

Look, I'm all for not trusting the government, but the 9/11 conspiracy theories are just too difficult to believe. 

agreed - most if it is way over the top and would make a good movie, but misses when it comes to fact.

What didn't they fuck up over there?

Anybody catch Tenet on 60 minutes tonight? Boy was he spirited.

Well, if a goal was to get Saddam, then it's been accomplished.  Not exactly worthwhile, though.

Yup.

To be honest, despite whatever mistakes he's made, he seems like a decent guy. I thought he was going to punch the interviewer in the face though...

Ex-CIA analyst: Forged 'yellowcake' memo 'leads right back to' Cheney

A former CIA analyst claims that falsified documents which were meant to show that Iraq's Saddam Hussein regime had been trying to procure yellowcake uranium from Niger can be traced back to Vice President Dick Cheney.

Appearing on MSNBC's Tucker Carlson Show, Ray McGovern who served in the CIA for twenty-seven years, said, "the [forged] memo leads right back to the doorstep of the Vice President of the United States."

According to McGovern, former CIA Director George Tenet told his "coterie of malleable managers" at the CIA to create a National Intelligence Estimate "to the terms of reference of Dick Cheney's speech of August 26, 2002, where Dick Cheney said for the first time Saddam Hussein could have a nuclear weapon in a year, he's got all kinds of chemical, he's got all kinds of biological weapons."

McGovern, who at one time chaired National Intelligence Estimates and prepared the President's Daily Brief, also claimed to have evidence that the memo leads back to Cheney, but he would not say what it was, except that the names of the people involved were "in the public domain."

In an op-ed posted at Buzzflash, McGovern argues, "If any good can come out of the intelligence/policy debacle regarding Iraq, it would be the clear lesson that intelligence crafted to dovetail with the predilections of policymakers can bring disaster. The role that Tenet, McLaughlin, and their small coterie of malleable managers played as willing accomplices in the corruption of intelligence has made a mockery of the verse chiseled into the marble at the entrance to CIA headquarters: 'You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.'"

McGovern also calls Tenet a "pathetic figure" who is trying to "justify himself for unjustifiable activity." Tenet, in his new book, claims that the Bush administration distorted his use of the term "slam dunk" in reference to intelligence that ultimately led to the Iraq war.

It's interesting to hear the left slamming Tenet for his book, while still accepting many of its details.  I do agree that Tenet is trying to shed a favorable light on himself, but that certainly can't lead us to ignore the basic accusation of his book.

I don't know much of anything about Mr. McGovern, but if true, his own allegations are very disheartening.  Iraq could very well become, to today's youth, what Watergate was to previous generations: a reason to have a strong distrust of government.  Unfortunately, this carries with it, commonly, the side effect of being disengaged from the process, meaning that those we DON'T trust will have an even tighter stranglehold on the reins of power. 

Who is doing that on the left?

too many people would have to be involved. it would be too big of a cover up.

There's gonna be some other stupid war(s) and the people will wrap themselves in the flag and pin yellow ribbons on trees, and then they will be against it when kids start coming home in body bags. The cycle will go on and on...

Oh, the talking heads, mostly...and Arianna Huffington, if she counts for anything.  Though I'm not criticizing them for it!  Tenet deserves a little bashing...I just hope it doesn't take away from the REAL story, which is his accusation of Bush's EARLY plans to invade. 

I've seen nothing but the usual smear job from the right towards Tenant, I'll check out Huffington post and see what she is saying.

I saw a quote from her (presumably from her site) that was in the Chicago Tribune. 

The right's response is typical and expected.