British intelligence
 

I'm sure that all the conservatives who were so willing to trust the views of British intelligence re the bogus yellowcake documents will be equally willing to credit the British intelligence that reveals that Bush was misrepresenting the case for war:

• The first and now infamous Downing Street memo chronicled a high-level briefing for Blair that occurred in July 2003, during which the head of British intelligence said Bush was already committed to war and intelligence and facts were being "fixed around the policy" and during which Foreign Minister Jack Straw reported the WMD case for war was "thin." (See my previous column on the memo.) Months before this secret meeting, British officials were already sharing similar sentiments among themselves (not with the public, of course). In a March 22, 2002, memo for Straw, Peter Ricketts, political director of Britain's foreign service, noted that "even the best survey of Iraq's WMD programmes will not show much advance in recent years on the nuclear, missile or [chemical weapons/biological weapons] fronts." He also reported that the "US scrambling to establish a link between Iraq and Al Aaida [sic] is so far frankly unconvincing."
  
  A March 8, 2002, options paper prepared by Blair's national security aides noted that Iraq's nuclear weapons program was "effectively frozen," its missile program "severely restricted," and its chemical and biological weapons programs "hindered." Saddam Hussein, it reported, "has not succeeded in seriously threatening his neighbors." This paper also said the intelligence on Iraq's supposed WMD program was "poor." It noted that there was no "recent evidence" of Iraqi ties to al Qaeda.
  
  All of this contradicts what Bush told Americans before the invasion of Iraq. He and his aides claimed that Iraq had reconstituted its nuclear weapons program, that Hussein was producing and stockpiling biological and chemical weapons, that Baghdad was in cahoots with al Qaeda, and that the intelligence obtained by the United States and other governments (presumably including the Brits) left "no doubt" that Iraq posed a direct WMD threat to the United States.
  
  The British memos are further evidence that Bush overstated the main reasons for the war. They also show that his key line of defense is bunk. When confronted with questions about the lack of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Bush and his allies have consistently pointed to bad intelligence. But the previously released Downing Street memos and the new ones indicate that the Brits--who had access to the prewar intelligence--saw that the WMD case (based on that intelligence) was, as Jack Straw observed, weak. One might ask, why did they have such a different take than the one Bush shared with the public?
  
  These memos demonstrate that the issue is not whether Bush was unwittingly duped by bad intelligence. (Bad, George Tenet, bad.) No, Bush tried to sell lousy--or "thin"--intelligence as the basis for the war he desired. According to the new documents, the Brits saw through this.

Eric Alterman

British intelligence
 

Did you support the war when you thought there were weapons of mass destruction? It seems to me that the people that didn't support the war even when we thought there were weapons of mass destruction are the ones complaining about the evidence. What does the evidence matter if you were against the war either way. And the people that were for the war don't seem to mind that there were not weapons of mass destruction (I certainly don't care). The only ones that have a gripe are the ones that only supported the war because they thought there were weapons of mass destruction. Are there many congressman that have come out and said that they would not have supported the war if there were not weapons of Mass Destruction? Otherwise this is just political hot air.

Spreading that Democracy
 

Author of "Countdown to Crisis," Kenneth Timmerman was on the Daily show last night and he said that a poll was conducted in Iran, among the Iranians, and 74% of Iranians think that the US military presence in Iraq will help bring democratic reforms to Iran.

Spreading that Democracy
 

I hope you read about this.

Because if you actually watched this, I'm kicking you in the nads the next time I see you - on mere principle.

British intelligence
 

Spanky, I am one of those people who supported the war initially because I believed what the administration was saying at the time. Where the evidence seemed thin, I assumed it was because they knew something, but could not divulge the source. I gave them the benefit of the doubt. I fucked up - I trusted them.

Now I feel horribly duped. I think those that still support the administration in the decision go to war see it as a no harm, no foul sort of thing: Saddam Hussein was a very bad man, and we have a need for vengeance after 9/11 that Afghanistan didn't seem to fulfill, so what are a few lies if they were necessary to take him out?

I don't see it that way. I feel that an administration that would lie about something as horribly grave as reasons for going to war will lie about anything. And what of the honest mistakes in intelligence? Taking a nation to war deserves at least as much due diligence as a commercial real estate transaction. That wasn't done here, or, to the extent that it was done, it was done with an eye toward inflating the value of the property with an intent to convince the client to proceed.

Spreading that Democracy
 

Since when do we allow our foreign policy to be dictated by opinion polls of camel schtuppers?

SS annecdote
 

No, she's not really working now; she effectively retired about 2 years ago. For her, the question isn't "is the new income enough to replace the income I must forego to receive it," but more "how do I maximize this new income stream." Not everyone has that set of choices, obviously.

(i) Gain over the aggregate amount of the payments she will get over the 5 years between 65 and 70. E.g.: if she gets $15K per year if she retires now, she grosses $75,000 between now and 70. If she gets $20K per year if she waits until 70 to get register, it will be 15 years before that extra $5K/year equals the $75K she didn't get between 65 and 70. (Ignoring the fact that $75K later is worth less than $75K sooner.)

(ii) Agreed. The point was that it was a complete softball for me to taunt my mother about deriding the idea of privatizing any SS funds in theory but effectively deciding to do it herself in practice.

Jeb Bush refuses to admit that he was wrong.

Jesus fucking christ.

Does the Holocaust Rule Apply
 

The people being tortured are not citizens. The people whose property rights are protected are. Certainly, you don't suggest that we adopt a policy that everyone be treated as though he was a citizen of this country? That'd be very Bushian, in line with his "everyone needs to live in an American democracy" message. People of various countries have their unique cultures, freedoms and rights. And when we catch them engaging in terrorist acts, they don't suddenly acquire the rights of a US citizen in custody.

You're comparing apples and oranges, but you knew that. Thats why you wrote "individual" instead of "citizen."

What a complete idiot. He's using a television interview for impeachment purposes? 15 years after the fact? What's he going to do--have him charged with murder?

Even Frist, who holds on to issues far longer than it politically sensible, has already acknowledged that he was wrong (well, by saying he never took a different position).

Isn't Bush up for reelection? Does he figure all the retirees will be up north during the election?

Worse. Jeb is using the difference between trial testimony about an event 1-2 years after the fact and a television interview about an event 13 years after the fact for impeachment purposes. The difference is an issue of Schaivo's recollection of timing, 30 minutes either way.

The implication is that Schiavo might just be guilty of some crime or another -- and that the state should use law enforcement resources to inevstigate this 15 years later -- but that in any event is Schiavo is a bad, bad, man.

Jeb Bush is doing so even though the medical evidence suggests that both of Schiavo's recollections were inaccurate, and that he _must_ have found her unconscious closer to the time he called 911 at 5:40 a.m. (or she'd have been truly and completely dead).

Bush knows that no prosecutor in the world would ever investigate this "discrepancy." He must feel that he will get some type of political benefit from this. If only to try to cancel any negative effect of the autopsy findings on the perception of his actions during the "crisis." The man is really not stupid. This is reprehensible political grandstanding.

For Club
 

Sen. Dick Durbin (D - Ill.) has also engaged, recently, in reprehensible political granstanding and hyperbole over Gitmo.

He is probably also a bad politician -- in that what he has done cannot possibly help the Party.

That said, its good to see the fire still burns on the lunatic fringe. Shows that the Dems aren't beaten down into quiet acceptance of minority status, and is one of many good signs for us in 2006 and 2008.

S_A_M

British intelligence
 

I was against the war from the start, not because I am knee-jerk anti-war but because the evidence presented by the Administration for the existence of WMDs in Iraq did not rise to the level necessary to put American lives at risk, in my opinion. The more they said, Iraq has WMDs, but we can't show you how we know that, you have to take our word for it, the more suspicious I became. I mean, c'mon, Powell went before the UN after several days of going over everything we had, and that was the best he could do? A vial of talcum powder and an ambiguous telephone intercept? Had BushCo presented more compelling evidence I was ready to go along, but they did not. Now we know it's because they never had the evidence.

Once we went, the only thing I cared about was that we went in there with sufficient resources to do the job right. They screwed that up too.

Does the Holocaust Rule Apply
 

Interesting -- "who they are" is a given (i.e., you just know they are terrorists), but the treatment is merely "alleged".

British intelligence
 

I supported going to war because of the WMD.

I think I have a pretty serious "gripe."