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[David Minton <dminton AT mindspring.com>]

On 10/20/04 11:02 AM, "Tony Spencer" <tony AT tonyspencer.com> wrote:

>>>> whose leaders were appointed by this president? the CIA
>>> 
>>> George Tenet was appointed by Bush?  I don't think so.
>> 
>> As far as I understand it, the DCI (Director of Central
>> Intelligence) serves
>> at the whim of the President. While Tenet was first appointed by the
>> previous administration, he could have been booted with the
>> rest of them in
>> January of 2001, so Bush, in essence" reappointed him.
> 
> Ah.  Now the dots are all connected for me.  I can see how Bush fooled the
> entire world into believing Iraq had WMD's all the while knowing it to be
> false so he could commit political suicide.  ;)

I believe the problem is that he surrounded himself with "yes men" and "true
believers." When he asked them to find evidence of WMDs, they provided it,
and he didn't question it, even when there was contradictory evidence.

You need to consider the ramifications of Bush's character. He really
believes what he says, though he has no problem attributing his beliefs to
his "gut" rather than to research or evidence. While he may not have lied
about WMDs, he told an untruth due to his negligence in not considering
contrary evidence.

Here is a Washington Post article covering the topic of Bush's selective use
of intelligence:


http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A61622-2003Jul15?language=printer

"By Jan. 28, in fact, the intelligence report concerning Iraqi attempts to
buy uranium from Africa -- although now almost entirely disproved -- was the
only publicly unchallenged element of the administration's case that Iraq
had restarted its nuclear program. That may explain why the administration
strived to keep the information in the speech and attribute it to the
British, even though the CIA had challenged it earlier.

For example, in his Oct. 7 speech, Bush said that "satellite photographs
reveal that Iraq is rebuilding facilities at [past nuclear] sites." He also
cited Hussein's "numerous meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists" as further
evidence that the program was being reconstituted, along with Iraq's
attempts to buy high-strength aluminum tubes "needed" for centrifuges used
to enrich uranium. 

But on Jan. 27 -- the day before the State of the Union address -- the head
of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported to the U.N.
Security Council that two months of inspections in Iraq had found that no
prohibited nuclear activities had taken place at former Iraqi nuclear sites.
As for Iraqi nuclear scientists, Mohamed ElBaradei told the Security
Council, U.N. inspectors had "useful" interviews with some of them, though
not in private. And preliminary analysis, he said, suggested that the
aluminum tubes, "unless modified, would not be suitable for manufacturing
centrifuges." "


You should read Plan of Attack, by Bob Woodward. It is a non-partisan book,
for which all of the major players (including President Bush) met with
Woodward for interviews.

David