🚀 go-pugleaf

A minor point about this "Congressmen knew what the President knew." That
isn't necessarily the case since Congressmen generally wouldn't be present
at the high-level meetings where the reports were generated under the
influence of Presidential/Vice-Presidential advisors and aides.

For instance, was the "Iraq tried to purchase 550 tons of uranium from
Niger" claim made in the info presented to Congress? We now know that that
claim was deemed implausible months before the State of the Union address or
even the Joint Authorization of Use of Force.

The fact that questionable, dubious or even outright bogus info was still
creeping into Presidential speeches months after the CIA and State
Department had expressed serious or even overwhelming doubts about certain
issues (Powell's famous alleged remark "This is bullsh--" comes to mind)
suggests that the same info was being given to Congress.

Leaving aside questions about whether or not the President knew that the
info had problems, *someone* in the Administration did. The fact that the
President's handlers allowed him to make speeches including questionable
data even after they'd been informed that the data was flawed, certainly
suggests that even less care would be made to ensure that questionable data
didn't reach Congress.

In other words, Congress may have been fooled too. The questions are: Should
Congress have known better? Did someone in the Bush Administration
manipulate the intelligence given to Congress? Should there be an
investigation of this whole process? If the President didn't knowingly lie
to Congress, can we hold Congress OR the President accountable? Should we?
Why or why not?





-- 
New definition of irony:

'Today's liberal Democrats are like the supporters of the Third Reich of the
'30's and '40's
- they absolutely trusted the government to "make things right". '
-Comment made on the internet by an ardent GW Bush supporter.

"alohacyberian" <alohacyberian@att.net> wrote in message
news:4ZOTa.70429$0v4.4699065@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
> "abracadabra" <abra@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:bfmk9n$ncm$1@slb6.atl.mindspring.net...
> > "T.Carr" <TCarr13397@aol.com> wrote in message
> > news:8c213b2e.0307221613.63f5b5a7@posting.google.com...
> > > "abracadabra" <abra@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> > news:<bfho67$ari$1@slb5.atl.mindspring.net>...
> > > > "alohacyberian" <alohacyberian@att.net> wrote in message
> > > > news:QoZSa.65596$3o3.4373807@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
> > > > > "Auld Chiel" <ac@keech.net> wrote in message
> > > > > news:114RP4nt50NF1r31219b@keech.net...
> >
> > A "lie of ommision" in a campaign advertisment is normal in the USA.
> > Certainly they never bothered you when Republicans have used them in
past
> > campaigns.
> > However to pretend that the Democrats are being particularly awful for
> using
> > this one is just plain silly.
> > And I'd bet that you'd agree (if nobody were watching) that using
Dubya's
> > quote (most of it at least) is a lot more honest then how Dubya and
company
> > sold the "war"
> >
>
> Uh, Both houses of Congress approved the war by an overwhelming majority.
If
> you're suggesting that the members of Congress, who had access to the
exact
> same intelligence reports the president had, were fooled and were too
stupid
> to make a rational decision, then your indictment should be of Congress,
not
> the president.  *Doh!*  The bill authorizing the allied invasion of Iraq
was
> authored by a Democrat who is presently running for the presidential
> nomination.  Double *Doh!*.  KM
> -- 
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>
>