"C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action."
Emphasis added.
And whilst I'm adding emphases around here, let me just emphasize that nothing we have learned about the decisionmaking process for the US invasion of Iraq has countered the basic principle evidenced here: that the Bush administration decided what they wanted to do, then did their best to sculpt - that's my polite way of saying "fabricate" - information and opinion to make it happen.
And then, adding insult to injury, when things started coming out about the Administration "cooking the books", got mad at the intelligence community over the bad intel they themselves created!
I've only got three words: vote them out. Vote. Them. Out.
The Current Memo
The Smoking Gun Memo, and Proof Bush Fixed the Facts
Cooking the Books
The Price of Loyalty, by Ron Suskind
Cooking the Books
The Iraq–Al Qaeda connection. General Wesley Clark...appeared on Meet the Press. As reported by Jim Lobe in a piece he wrote last week for the Web site TomPaine.com, Clark made a startling allegation. "I got a call on 9/11," Clark told host Tim Russert. "I was on CNN, and I got a call at my home saying, 'You got to say this is connected. This is state-sponsored terrorism. This has to be connected to Saddam Hussein.' I said, 'But — I’m willing to say it — but what’s your evidence?' And I never got any evidence.")
Some administration officials expressing misgivings on Iraq
"...intelligence analysts are under intense pressure to produce reports supporting the White House's argument that Saddam poses such an immediate threat to the United States that pre-emptive military action is necessary."
Despite the April 2002 CIA assessment, the May 2002 fabrication notice and the July 2002 assessment suggesting the source may have fabricated information, the source was highlighted in the October 2002 NIE, and he was one of the four HUMINT sources specifically referred to in the part of Secretary Powell's February 2003 speech before the UN Security Council that discussed the mobile BW production units.
Senate Intelligence Bad
On Oct. 6, 2002, the DCI called the deputy national security advisor directly to outline the CIA's concerns. The DCI testified to the SSCI on July 16, 2003, that he told the deputy national security advisor that the..."reporting was weak." (page 56)
On Oct. 6, 2002, the CIA sent a second fax to the White House that said, "More on why we recommend removing the sentence [from the State of the Union address] about procuring uranium oxide from Africa: Three points (1) The evidence is weak [emphasis added]. One of the two mines cited by the source as the location of the uranium oxide is flooded. The other mine cited by the source is under the control of the French authorities. (2) The procurement is not particularly significant to Iraq's nuclear ambitions because the Iraqis already have a large stock of uranium oxide in their inventory. And (3) we have shared points one and two with Congress, telling them that the Africa story is overblown and telling them this is one of the two issues where we differed with the British." (page 56)
And, Now, Blaming the Other Guy
Report: Iraq intelligence 'dead wrong'
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