The National Journal's Murray Waas has a long article about Bush, the NIE and the aluminum tubes. Remember them? Guess it's nostalgia week in the MSM. One might think they have a plan--undermine Bush's big summit with Pakistan and India by rehashing Katrina and the pre-war intelligence. Or maybe it's just business as usual.
Waas details the dissent within State and DOE about the tubes, and makes a fresh effort to prove that Bush lied and people died. It's been tried before, but every time it's tried the pundits make the mistake of failing to understand that a president is a decision-maker. Whomever occupies the top spot must digest the intelligence along with the intangibles in order to make a complete judgment. Based on Saddam's past actions and the spectre of 9/11, Bush made his choice.
Waas even includes a statement from the administration describing that rationale:
Senior Bush administration officials say they had good reason to disbelieve the intelligence that was provided to them by the CIA, noting that the intelligence the agency had provided earlier regarding Iraq was flawed.Yes indeedy, quite a bit of it was flawed, as was evidenced throughout the 90s. This has all been rehashed over and over. Shall we bring up the Oil for Food Program as well? Bush chose to believe the worse case, which was presented to him in the NIE, rather than the dissenting view. But that's his job, to make the decisions he thinks will protect the American public. Covering butt is more of a bureaucratic sport.
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