However, key Congressional Democrats saw the same intelligence that the White House and Congressional Republicans did

Umm, no they didn't.

Therefore, in spite of the fact that the Select Committee on Intelligence found no evidence of deliberate manipulation of intelligence to support going to war

Yes, because they were specifically directed to not look for such evidence.

greg

Slightly off-topic, but: I don't think Hillary can run again - don't term limits preclude her from serving a third (or fourth) term? ;)

As I understand it, the same intelligence was potentially available to key Congressional Democrats if not actually seen by them. Bob Graham, one of those key Congressional Democrats wrote What I Knew Before the Invasion for the Washington Post. He was one of the key Congressional Democrats.

According to him (I've tried to edit out some of the unnecessary editorial commentary from the article, hence the brackets and ellipses):

At a meeting of the Senate intelligence committee on Sept. 5, 2002, CIA Director George Tenet was asked what the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) provided as the rationale for a preemptive war in Iraq. . . . Tenet said that no NIE had been requested by the White House and none had been prepared. . . . [The Senate requested preparation of an NIE], and three weeks later the community produced a classified NIE.
. . .
[The 90 page document was] slanted toward the conclusion that Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction stored or produced at 550 sites, it contained vigorous dissents on key parts of the information, especially by the departments of State and Energy. Particular skepticism was raised about aluminum tubes that were offered as evidence Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program. As to Hussein's will to use whatever weapons he might have, the estimate indicated he would not do so unless he was first attacked.

Under questioning, Tenet added that the information in the NIE had not been independently verified by an operative responsible to the United States. In fact, no such person was inside Iraq. Most of the alleged intelligence came from Iraqi exiles or third countries, all of which had an interest in the United States' removing Hussein, by force if necessary.

I requested that an unclassified, public version of the NIE be prepared. On Oct. 4, Tenet presented a 25-page document titled "Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs." It represented an unqualified case that Hussein possessed them, avoided a discussion of whether he had the will to use them and omitted the dissenting opinions contained in the classified version. Its conclusions, such as "If Baghdad acquired sufficient weapons-grade fissile material from abroad, it could make a nuclear weapon within a year," underscored the White House's claim that exactly such material was being provided from Africa to Iraq.

The Senate roll call vote is here. The Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee at the time were (I believe) and their votes:

Bob Graham, Florida - No.
Carl Levin, Michigan - No.
John D. Rockefeller, West Virginia - Yes.
Dianne Feinstein, California - Yes.
Ron Wyden, Oregon - No.
Richard J. Durbin, Illinois - No.
Evan Bayh, Indiana - Yes.
John Edwards, North Carolina - Yes.
Barbara Mikulski, Maryland - No.

So, the Senate Intelligence Committee Democrats who had access to the more classified levels of intelligence voted 5 - 4 against. And at least Bayh and Edwards, I regard as politically craven on this vote. I don't think they so much cared what the intelligence said as which way the wind was blowing.

I seem to have messed up the formatting on that prior post a bit. Everything up to "Africa to Iraq" was intended to be blockquoted.

Doug, FYI--the MT comment system automatically closes tags like bold, italic, and blockquote at the end of the paragraph to keep unclosed tags from screwing up the rest of the thread.

Interestingly, the vote breakdown among Senate Intelligence Committee Democrats was roughly the same as among Congressional Democrats at large (50:50). If the SIC Democrats saw information that indicated the White House was being misleading in making the case for war but did not make this known (even among their Congressional colleagues), they are complicit in the deed. (If they didn't even look at the intelligence, they were derelict in their duty, so take your pick.)

To me, the most likely explanation is that they saw what the White House had seen and half of them came to the conclusion that the evidence, along with Saddam's refusal to comply with weapons inspectors and other factors as cited in the resolution, made the use of force both justified and necessary.

Oh, and it goes without saying that if Iraq had been liberated and established as a stable, self-sufficient democracy by now (or, at least, if our presence there were no larger than our continued presence in Afghanistan), hardly anyone would care about the WMD blunder.

I can't prove it, of course, but I suspect a substantial number of the 50% of Democrats who voted for the war did so out of a spineless bit of political calculus. They figured that a vote against authorizing force if the President deemed it necessary, no matter how justified, would be used by political opponents to paint them as cowards. They further figured that they couldn't win the vote, so they might as well not even try.

That's what I figure, anyway.

If the SIC Democrats saw information that indicated the White House was being misleading in making the case for war but did not make this known (even among their Congressional colleagues), they are complicit in the deed. (If they didn't even look at the intelligence, they were derelict in their duty, so take your pick.)

Why should this apply only to the Senate Democrats?. If the information that the White House was cooking its case was obvious to the Democrats, it should have been obvious to the Republican Senators who saw the same information as well.

But none of that is relevant because neither the Senate Democrats or even, I suspect, the Senate Republicans saw everything that the White House saw. They weren't privvy to the daily national intelligence briefings, as was the president, the director of the CIA didn't work for them, as he did for the president, etc.

The Senate Democrats, and Republicans, saw the same information that the White House saw. But they didn't see everything the White House saw. There's a big difference. It's called biased selection.

It's also called lying by omission.

greg

And unless you have some documented evidence of intel kept from the Senate Intelligence Committee that proves Saddam had no WMD (or shed more doubt on that thesis than what was shared with the committee), then what you're doing is called rampant speculation.

that proves Saddam had no WMD

It's not possible to prove nonexistence. That's freshman logic.

greg

There's 1 more important thing to remember here...

George W. Bush did not go to Congress and have a vote on whether or not to have the war...unless you believed, as I did, that George W. Bush was lying through his teeth in late 2002 and the early months of 2003 when he said that he had not yet made the decision to go to war.

When he went to Congress, he went to get the authorization to use force if it became necessary to disarm Saddam.

Asking people to vote on whether or not to disarm Saddam when there were no inspectors in who could confirm the U.S.'s b.s. intelligence is completely different from asking people whether or not the use of force would have been authorized had Saddam been uncooperative with the investigations or truly was hiding WMD's.

If you asked me in October 2002 whether or not I would have voted for a resolution supporting a war with Iraq had Saddam not disarmed himself of WMD's, I would have voted yes, unless I truly believed that the President would misuse that authority by launching a war whether or not there were truly WMD's in Iraq. And I would have to have been one Cynical Congressperson at the time to be unwilling to take the Presideent at his word.

The only way that you can honestly look back at the votes on that resolution and say "These were votes in support of the war" is to admit that George W. Bush was lying when he said he hadn't made up his mind on whether or not to invade. The resolution addresses a different question than the one which is being discussed here, and I believe it's a very important difference.

The National Journal has just posted a piece claiming that on Sept. 21, 2001, Bush was given a PDB which basically said there was no connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda at all. Congress reportedly never saw this document, and the White House reportedly didn't even acknowledge its existence until 2004. This would also contradict the "Congress knew everything the White House knew" line, if true.

I think Bush made the decision to go to war with Iraq long before consulting Congress and intended to invade Iraq regardless of what Saddam did. I believe the "ultimatums" that Bush gave Saddam were absolutely phony.

The Bush administration has not really cooperated in any investigation to see whether Bush and company manipulated the intelligence.

The idea that Hillary's position is centrist reminds me of the "centrist" position of Richard Nixon on Vietnam, which got an additional 20,000 Americans killed without changing the result.

Finally, there is a real question about how serious the Bush administration is in training the Iraqi military to take over. It really seems to me that we are trying to find a reason to stay in the region as opposed to helping Iraq get on its own feet.

Without full-scale retreat from a vitally important battle, there are several operational strategies we can use to send a message to the Iraqi security forces that we won't be there forever. A whole-scale reorganization of the occupation is necessary if we want to defeat the insurgents.

(1) Pull back troops from all civilian areas to minimise the U.S. military footprint.

(2) Attach civilian and military observers to all government offices - it is a reduction in Iraq's "sovereign" status, but it is necessary to reduce the corruption of the nascent government we are rooting for.

(3) Total overhaul of the American system of enemy detention in Iraq. Proclaim an end to torture (pass the McCain amendment) and crack down on inhumane practices by the Iraqi government.

(4) Reform the politically distastrous means by which American money is distributed to reconstruction efforts. End all no-bid contracts, allow any company from anywhere in the world to compete for U.S. government contracts - whoever does the job best and with the least expense, gets the contract. Do more to encourage local entrepreneurs.

(5) Announce to the Iraqis a realistic timetable for the reduction of American forces from the country. I'm not talking complete pullout in six months, but partial reductions over the course of several years, leaving open the possibility of a small American presence in Iraq for decades to come. Spend more money on equiping and training a strong, professional Iraqi army. Pay recruits more - make soldiery one of the most lucrative jobs in Iraq, but make it competitive. In the meantime, offer the Iraqi government more troops if necessary. Take insurgent-controlled towns day-by-day, and leave the American presence there until local governments are formed which are committed to the new Iraqi project. Do not pull out American forces until Iraqis can replace them. Then move on to the next town.

(6) Empower the Sunnis - don't ask me how. Give them a bigger stake in the Iraqi life, if not exactly Iraqi government. Now that a majoritarian constituion has been written that all but denies the Sunnis a political role, this will be quite a challenge. Suggestions?

(7) For God's sake, fire Rumsfeld.