headscratcher4 said:
IT seems to me, the more I reflect upon this, that a couple of issues emerge.
First, I actually don't blame the President to the extent that the inteligence was wrong or faulty. If the CIA tells the President something is a threat, the President must respond. I may disagree with the response -- but to the extent they had better information than I do, obviously they are better able to assess it an act in the national interest.
Ah,...life in a perfect world!
This is how it's supposed to work. I'm even willing to bet it works this way 90% of the time. The problem comes in when we have a failure. Failures get alot of notice. The successes aren't very news worthy. After all, this is the same CIA that mistook the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade for a command and control structure. The same CIA that told Clinton to bomb the Sudanese supply of asprin.
However, to the extent that the information is wrong and shown to be wrong, than the President owes it to the country to take action. One, admit it was wrong. Two, explain why it was wrong -- i.e. mistakes happen, it was done with the best intentions; the bums at the CIA mislead me.
Sounds reasonable,...Kennedy fired the CIA director and several deputy directors after the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Nowadays the military runs covert military ops, just like they should. I would support such a re-ordering of CIA,
if it made sense like the response to the Bay of Pigs failure. That's a big if though. I would never support reform if it's based on nothing more than some knee-jerk reaction to the WMD debacle. Besides, CIA isn't alone in this. We also should wonder what
No
Such
Agency was up to prior to the Iraq invasion. But don't hold your breath. Clinton never removed anyone over the Sudan mis-information. Also, if heads did roll @ CIA, would the replacement heads be more or less willing to give advice? It could have a chilling effect on information....the last thing we need right now.
This later one requires that people be fired. THat CIA information be considered in a new light, and that our intelegence gathering methods be re-assessed and potentially changed.
Agreed
However, if it is the CIA's fault, they left the Presiedent, Powell, Chaney, Rumsfeld, etc. as sitting ducks before global opinion, and they will never be trusted again (if they ever were...not to mention what it has done to our ally Tony BLair's credibilty). We will have a much harder time on the world stage now making our anti-terror case, if our inteligence is so faulty, and if no one pays a price for misleading the leadership.
Maybe. No doubt this bad intel was harmful to our credibility. If it could all be laid at the feet of CIA then our buddy Tony'd be off the hook. However, I doubt it was as simple as that. Saddam was considered WMD armed and dangerous by a large number of credible experts, Iraqi defectors, and a bipartisan majority of politicians. Saddam's constant harrassment and blockage of UNSCOM inspections seemed to bolster the WMD case.
On the other hand, if --and this seems more likely to me -- the Administration deliberately forced the inteligence to fit their own ends, silenced credible analysis that conflicted with their pre-conceived ideas and intentions -- the Bay of Pigs Group-think syndrom -- than they deserve to be booted from office.
Well, unless they demonstrablly broke the law, "booted from office" isn't an option. Except at the polls of course
It's possible they had a little bit of good old conformation bias going on,...but they're people. People will always make those kinds of mistakes.
Yes, Saddam is a bad man, but that isn't the reason we told the world we were invading...we told the world we had to go now because he posed an immenent threat. He didn't...save to his own people.
Maybe not, but I
feel better now that he's gone. I bet the Iraqi people do to, not to mention the Kurds, Israelis, Kuwaitis, Iranians, and Saudis.
My point is that 500+ American service men are now dead acting as part of a force used to forstall an attack on the US...an allegation premised on an error or worse a lie. Where is the accountability?
Well, I think we can all agree that getting rid of Saddam was a good thing. Therefore a good deed....and we all know that good deeds never go unpunished.
But what you are really saying here is more awful, that 512 soldiers, so far, have died in vain. If this were really true there'd be a groundswell of support for the removal of GWB. So far I don't see it. If this is how the Dems think they'll regain the White House, they're going to have to be a whole lot more convincing.
Who is going to be held responsible not for the mistake in the information, but for letting our President go before the Congress and the world in perpetuating a lie?
Good question. If such a person exists then they should be hung out to dry, however I doubt it's just one person. I also doubt that the hunt for a scapegoat will have any real meaning.
Methinks there is no honor left. Those who allowed this to happen should stop spinning about how Saddam is evil and trying to figure out new reasons that were sub-rosa but never really talked about -- and resign.
Or, the US people should throw the bums out.
Honor means different things to different people. The 9/11 hijackers and OBL are certainly honored by many in the Arab world. The conservatives honor Ollie North, liberals honor Jane Fonda....but are any of these people
really honorable?? There's plenty of honor left in the world, just depends on your perspective.
-z
PS: The Camelot rocked last night. You should've come out with us!
