how is it that bush cherry picking the intelligence reports to support his iraq war isnt illegal?

Question

3000+ dead US troops, and its based on what bush told the world......only now do we learn he chose not to include all the facts.....are americans willing to allow this and then support sending more to die for this national disgrace?

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200702/s1844712.htm

Answer 1

While I am loath to defend Bush, I think a lot of people have a misconception of how the Intelligence system works:
1. The Intelligence community, civilian and military agencies, are tasked to answer certain questions that the executive has.
2. The community, or rather one or more agencies of the community, collect what they feel is the relevant data to answer the question the executive branch has, using spies, sattellite, the newspaper. whatever. There are fairly strict laws on who, what, when , where, and how the community can collect.
3. The agency takes the data, analysts examine it, and write reports based on the data. unlike collection, there are few laws concerning how these reports are written. Sometimes political appointees have the final say, sometimes proffessional bureaucrats. Sometimes the authors are biased one way or another on a topic, sometimes not.
4. These reports are reviewed by agency policy makers or their staffs. The number of reports that actually go to the white house is fairly small, since literally thousands of these reports are being written.
5. Let's say the white house staff gets a report saying Bin Laden was framed for 9/11 by the United Kingdom. Well, the staffers think this doesn't sound right, so they reach out into the community, and pull some more reports on the topic. Since there are thousands of reports, many contradictory, it is easy to find one saying what you want. Since human beings are by nature lazy creatures, we tend to stop looking for additional information once we have found the answer that satisfies us. In the industry, this is called "satisficing".

Now, that is cherry picking intelligence. At no point does the staffer or president feel they are doing anything wrong. If anything, they are rather proud that they went out there and went to all the trouble to find the "right" answer. How do you make that illegal? How do you even prove it happpened? It is a dilema that the intelligence community has struggled with for decades. Bush is not the first, nor will he be the last to do this.

Answer 2

It is. However, nothing will be done because it is covered by the greater crime; that being the illusion our political leaders have created that there is a two party system.

The Democrats and Republicans are members of their own club. The political debate is only for show. The real objective for both parties is personal power and wealth. Party power and wealth is just a side bet. It also supports the a illusion that they actually care about something other than themselves.

Bush will not be held accountable because everyone inside the Beltway has something on someone (this simultaneously keeps group members somewhat in line, feeds the crime bank, protects the crime machine, and assures future security of the club and its members by immediately co-opting new members who may have been naïve enough to think that they were serving their country).

A simplistic but telling example occurred during the last election when DC became a ‘smoke free’ zone. That is, smoking is restricted except for members of Congress who can still smoke in the federal office buildings. How is that not an example that we now have a ruling class that is exempt from even the most basic laws?

To the specifics of your question. Not only was the invasion immoral and illegal, it was an immensely stupid idea doomed only to failure, the further destabilization of an already politically volatile region, and contrary to America’s long-term interests in the Middle east and the world.

Everyone has known for years now that Iraq is a failure and complete disaster. Yet, there is no effort to stop it. Again, both political parties are in on the crime and both are profiting from it. The democrats are just as guilty because they have not really made any effort to stop it.

Even with control of Congress, they dance with republicans while everything continues unchanged.

The nations political leaders are, by and large, career criminals who are pathologically selfish and do not give a damn about America or it citizens.

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Chance20_... ---

That is precisely the complaint the CIA has with the Bush Administration. Rather than take the work of CIA analysts, the administration (Cheney in particular) cherry-picked the raw intelligence favorable to the decision that had already been made.

The White House did get a report saying that Bin-Laden was planning an attack inside the US, that he might use airliners, and that the targets would be America’s financial and political symbols. What more could they have asked for?

This, on the heals of increasing traffic and indications that an attack was imminent, and after the outgoing Clinton staff had stressed to the incoming Bush staff that Bin-Laden and Al-Qaeda were the greatest threat to the safety of the American people.

All of this should have been irrelevant however, since every non-partisan Middle East expert in the world (and, in fact, everyone with any knowledge of the region) predicted that removing Hussein from power would result in a civil war and would threaten regional and world-wide peace and political stability.

For crying out loud, Bush’s own father explained this very position in his 1998 book ‘A World Transformed’. And, Colin Powell warned Bush, “if you break it, you own it”. Undoubtedly, the CIA understood this as well.

As for the intel from other countries, the Bush administration misused that as well. The only exception might be Israel, but only if they were deliberately lying. Israeli intelligence knows everything that happens in the Middle East. Their agents have penetrated every group that could conceivable pose a threat to them. If Hussein picked his nose, Israel knew about it.


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RedStaple... --

1998 was 1998 - the same year Clinton bombed and destroyed all of Saddam's WMD manufacturing facilities.

Produce a Clinton quote post-1998.

Answer 3

An excellent point! Since we are cherry picking the President, why not the Democrats and Republicans on the Intelligence committees? Or those who voted for the war, since only Congress has the right to declare war? What bothers me however isn't the 3000+ body count. It is the fact that when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, it was not in a state, but a territory. They attacked a U.S. Navy base and we went to war and lost 14,000+ in under two months at the Battle of Okinawa, yet there was no doubt we were going to defeat the Japanese no matter the cost. Arabs and Muslims attacked the World Trade Center in New York City. They attacked the headquarters, not Navy Base, HQ for our entire military and had plans for the White House, the Capitol Building, and the Sears Tower. Sorry, I would rather keep them fighting in their country's instead of attacking mine. We have grown lazy, fat, soft and to easily distracted by BS minutia, it is time to recognize that. When the elections came, our country's economy was the strongest it has ever been, the housing bubble burst and settled fairly quickly, and unemployment was at its lowest point in 30 years. What else did you want?

Answer 4

Wow, did you know that Clinton also believed he had weapons of mass destruction. Actually every intelligence agency in the world did. Most of congress saw detailed intelligence reports and they believed Sadam had wmds also. We need to do something about all that cherry picking. Instead of figuring out why the intelligence was misread lets go after Bush. Just like Chavez said, he is satan. It feels good to have a scapegoat for all the problem in the world.

Answer 5

of path. nuclear potential flora and nuclear weapons require 2 diverse strategies in maximum situations; the technologies of one would not equate to the different any greater than a toaster can replace your flat tire. Likewise the radioactive cloth needed for nuclear weapons is of a plenty harder to offer kind than the gasoline nuclear potential flora can use. weapons-grade plutonium isn't what you're gonig to locate at 3 Mile Island or the different potential plant. Bush and corporation have given definitely no reason to point they're being any greater common than they have been final fiasco.

Answer 6

In response to the people doubting that cherry picking occured:

Airing Tuesday on PBS at 9 p.m. EST (check local listings), "Secrets, Sources & Spin" lays out how the government peddled its point of view to major media outlets by planting confidential tips that supported administration claims about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Such tips sparked stories which the government then cited as bolstering its claim.

Answer 7

So he is not allowed to come to his own conclusions? He used the exact same intelligence that Clinton used in 1998. Did Clinton manipulate intel?

Over 5,000 US Teenagers die in the US each year due to reckless driving. That is 15,000 Teenagers in 3 years. Where is the outrage? Those teenagers didn't volunteer to put their lives on the line either. While our troops do it to defend us.

Bush told the world exactly what Bill Clinton told the world in 1998.

Saddam used WMD on 15 documented occasions:

Here they are:

! Location !! WMD used !! Date !! Casualties
|-
|Haij Umran || Mustard || August 1983 || fewer than 100 Iranian/Kurdish
|-
|Panjwin || Mustard || October-November 1983 || 3,000 Iranian/Kurdish
|-
|Majnoon Island || Mustard || February-March 1984 || 2,500 Iranians
|-
|al-Basrah || Tabun || March 1984 || 50-100 Iranians
|-
|Hawizah Marsh || Mustard & Tabun || March 1985 || 3,000 Iranians
|-
|[[al-Faw]] || Mustard & Tabun || February 1986 || 8,000 to 10,000 Iranians
|-
|Um ar-Rasas || Mustard || December 1986 || 1,000s Iranians
|-
|[[al-Basrah]] || Mustard & Tabun || April 1987 || 5,000 Iranians
|-
|Sumar/Mehran || Mustard & nerve agent || October 1987 || 3,000 Iranians
|-
|[[Halabjah]] || Mustard & nerve agent || March 1988 || 7,000s Kurdish/Iranian
|-
|al-Faw || Mustard & nerve agent || April 1988 || 1,000s Iranians
|-
|Fish Lake || Mustard & nerve agent || May 1988 || 100s or 1,000s Iranians
|-
|Majnoon Islands || Mustard & nerve agent || June 1988 || 100s or 1,000s Iranians
|-
|South-central border || Mustard & nerve agent || July 1988 || 100s or 1,000s Iranians
|-
|[[an-Najaf]] -
[[Karbala]] area || Nerve agent & CS || March 1991 || Shi’a casualties not known

Answer 8

All politicians cherry pick facts to support their views, grow up. I am sick of people thinking any politician that they don't like somehow does things any different than another politician (in general). They are all vote wh*res one way or another.

Answer 9

my mind is failing me ... I thought this was voted on by Congress.

Answer 10

i heart libs