How many of you actually took the time to read this - I mean completely read it? It quite probably does not matter to you, but for some of you, apparently, it should. If you are pressed you are pressed for time, the first conclusion appears on page 16, and the second not until page 29.

Up here, I get to read everything.

You know, before you decide on who are the liars and what is a lie, it sometimes helps if you raise the bar a bit in the pursuit of truth. That's asking a lot of you, I know. Prove my ingrained pessimism wrong.

That is a very interesting report. It appears to point to the intelligence community as the culprit here and not the policy makers. I would like to know more about who wrote this report and who were the committee chairmen. If this came through during the GOP rule, I have to doubt its veracity.

clear who wrote it. Please also note there is a minority report attached.

It's excellent. Good for you for mining this report, Camille.

It does go to the issue of how Cheney and Bush directly lied to us and used Powell to further shore up the lie that was the rationale for invading Iraq.

I never believed them. I always believed they trumped up the whole WMD thing. I listened to Scott Ritter and I never believed there were nukes there after 10 years of our sanctions fly over recons and weapons inspections.

I knew Bush was a liar back then.

But the damn democratic congress went along by and large..the main of the country was gung ho to support Bush back then and there we went.

I was always posting angry as hell about it all back then and endlessly posted asking about 'Where is Bin Laden'? And 'why is Bush taking his eyes off Osama'?

But so many just went along with Bush.

It was awful.

Now we know he lied as evidenced by this report and so many other reports.....that....

Yes..he is a liar..

What I want to know..is why?...what was his main plan for going in there?
The Oil?
The region?
I can only surmise he wanted to create a region fit for democracy over there and he saw taking out Saddam who really was a bad actor in the region as easy fodder and a means to begin that process.

But his methodology and his lying about WMD as a means to do it was unforgivable!

I also want to know why he back tracked from getting Osama Bin Laden.

There is so much we still don't know and these questions all need to be asked and investigated.

Don't count on this Congress under Pelosi to get much done..if her efforts thus far are any indicator, however.

Good find again Camille. thanks for that.

Between you and Wooley you've provided all the evidence needed for the thesis of the post, with regard to the state of affairs here at botf.

I do suggest you read it in full. It wasn't a "find." It is, now, old news.

If not TQM, then perhaps O-1-2?

Nah, O-1-2 wouldn't know about Claudette Colbert.

Here is my problem with leaders in charge of policy blaming others for their judgment errors. When you are a leader depending upon your staff in order to make huge decisions, it is your responsibility to make sure the information and advice provided to you is fully vetted and debated in an honest open forum. In this case, the atmosphere of this administration was that of war and how can the intelligence community support that presupposition. No mention was made of the dissenters within the intelligence community and the National Security Advisor should have double checked the CIA to make sure the advice she was given was accurate. It is one thing to say you are making this decision based upon the advice of staff. Its another to state with absolute certainty that staff recommends a policy when indeed, staff did not. This goes to judgment which is the basis for Obama's entire campaign and the beginning of Hillary's fall from grace.

You're welcome and I see you think there is more then to asess. I read about 7 pages of it..and skimmed the rest..the first 10 or more pages were Bush, Cheney and Powell's rationale for war..re: Nukes, and then bio logical weapons and then the conclusions and then, the later re-evaluations noting none of these weapons was found.

I will go back and look for the Minority Report, you noted, and try to ascertain what else you may be referencing here.

Yes, it is well known now as old news..sadly, no one is really doing anything or real import to take Bush to task for it as yet.

Thanks again.

Well, this Intelligence Report finds (around page 88 or so)that Bush/Cheney did not heed the advice of the Intelligence Community i.e. CIA etc..and instead ignored the Intel's admonitions and ambivelence about Saddam having WMDs.

But ,of course we all know that by now as well.

I agree that Bush trying to fob this off on the CIA would be passing the buck but indeed it appears he can not legitimately do that anyway as findings ,here show the Intelligence Community warned him well against the invasion.

It's long..if Camille has something more to add, regarding the Minority Opinion portion of the report.. I wish she would..because the minutia in an 172 page report is quite notable.

Its kind of shocking the news is not covering it and parsing it in detail.

Reading down to around page 100-120 in the Minority Response(GOP) following The Majority's reponse..i.e. Feinstien, Edwards, Schumer, et-al...the Minority(GOP)side tries to drive home a point by the that the Majority(Dems) are attempting to play partisan politics with their new findings and they claim the democrats are now blocking the Intel that would boost Bush/Cheney's claims of WMDs.

It just goes round and round and back and forth to the point where the very claims of partisanship could certainly be applied to the GOP who are claiming partisanship and their claims that the new majority democrats are blocking information at the investigative committees with regards to intel as they see it, to possible means of developing WMDs by Saddam..so that at the end of the day we are just back right where we started.

IOW's each side is cherry picking the Intel to suit their own partisan position.

Nothing new with that. and yes, it is a quite discouraging statement about the endeavors of both parties supposedly working for us in our own government.

Woolley:

Its kind of shocking the news is not covering it and parsing it in detail.

Why? There is nothing at all new here. They have reported this over and over..it's the exact same shit you see them say everyday..In this report you see, Republican Senator, Orin Hatch say just what he says in this report..i.e. "the information for WMDs was there and the dems are suppressing it now for public consumption in order to say Iraq was unecessary"(that's the GOP's line).

And in this same report the Dems, Feinstein, et al..say the "WMD claims were trumped up and Bush lied"

each side plays partisan politics to suit their position.

That's the entire same old line we've been getting right along.

The only thing it confirms is..we are being handed a line of crap from both sides.

The GOP's line of crap stinks to high heaven because we didn't find WMDs. So that pretty much confirms Bush and Cheney were lying and at least very very wrong about WMDs.

The Majority (democrat) line of crap has at least some basis of fact as evidenced by the fact that no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq.

Are they now using this for political momentum? Sure..because Saddam was a threat to the general region and his own neighbors and his people themselves..and he was sitting on a pile of Oil..I am sure that was the real impetus for war.

The entire thing is a blight on our reputation

Thanks to Bush/Cheney.

So now that you have agreed with us on the left, why are you voting for McCain who supported this policy and decision all along? He says he knows how to win a war and has all this experience. Oh, I know the answer. Obama is so bad, so horrible, so inept, so transparent that McCain is your only choice. You are either putting us all on and will vote against this cabal or you are seriously lacking in judgment.

Wool, McCain was intensely critical of Donald Rumsfeld he even called for his resignation.

McCain is a centrist and a good American.

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We are now where we are are in Iraq. McCain knows we have to pare down troops and continue to stabilze the mess Bush got us into.