Comments on Democrats Hijack Senate! Perhaps to Demand A Recount in Florida! LOL

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Tiel
Believe it or not....I understand the feeling.......at those moments, I prefer to watch discovery, history, or scifi channel to escape it!

posted by Corbin_Dallas on November 2, 2005 at 12:20 PM | link to this | reply

I am somewhat of a "news junkie". Love to listen to Talk Shows---both conservative and liberal to get both sides, as they say on Fox.  But, you know, the current political machinations lately are so blatant, the ploys so predictable and obvious, I find myself having emotional reactions to it all, and I have to take a break once in awhile.  Then the evening rolls around and I settle onto my couch to watch some TV, and there are all those so-called entertainment programs bombarding us with their personal politcal propganda and their personal agendas.  Well, it's making me crazy.  For example: I love Boston Legal.  Last night when the paralegal went to court to sue the government for killing her brother over in Iraq, I chickened out.  Didn't want to stick around and get angry.  Started flipping the dial, so to speak  I ended up watching some documentary about a train. 

posted by Tiel on November 2, 2005 at 11:52 AM | link to this | reply

Additional information.....

 

"We started on Phase Two in February of last year," Roberts said. "On May 17th, it was complete."

But when the committee was to begin examining statements by members of the Bush administration and Congress to determine whether the allegedly flawed intelligence had influenced their decisions, Roberts said Democrats balked.

"We tried to go down a list of over 500, 500 public officials - people in the Congress, people in the administration - we got nowhere. We didn't even get to first base," Roberts explained. "The answer was 'No, no, no, not now. We have other things that we would like to bring up, other things that we would like to state.'"

posted by Corbin_Dallas on November 2, 2005 at 7:26 AM | link to this | reply

fwmystic

For some reason your post conjures up a vision of a magpie sitting on a fence??????

posted by Corbin_Dallas on November 2, 2005 at 5:03 AM | link to this | reply

Wah! Wah ! Wah!
The Republican bleating on this subject makes me want to hurl. Your trot out findings that say there was all this terrorist activity and WMD, but you still refuse to recognize reality. The intelligence was subverted by the office of the VP, the run up to the war was led by the journalists on the White House payroll, and the results are increased terrorist activity in Iraq and the continuing loss of American and Iraqi lives.

No wonder George has started drinking again!

posted by fwmystic on November 2, 2005 at 4:57 AM | link to this | reply

Probably

when the Senate LIBDems were ready to bring their ball and bat back and resume the game.......

I might also ONCE AGAIN add the the Committee's bi-partisian report had already said:

Conclusion 83. The Committee did not find any evidence that Administration officials attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to change their judgments related to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities.

(U) Conclusion 84. The Committee found no evidence that the Vice President's visits to the Central Intelligence Agency were attempts to pressure analysts, were perceived as intended to pressure analysts by those who participated in the briefings on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs, or did pressure analysts to change their assessments.

posted by Corbin_Dallas on November 2, 2005 at 4:55 AM | link to this | reply

So, Prior...
...to this 'hijacking', when were the findings of Phase 2 going to be released?

D

posted by DamonLeigh on November 2, 2005 at 4:48 AM | link to this | reply

DamonLeigh

Now, the point as I see it is that this 'hijack' was actually to force the SIC into conducting a phase 2 investigation that they'd ALREADY AGREED TO CONDUCT BACK IN FEBRUARY 2004.

Perhaps you shouldn't have gone to democrat.com for your source........They have been conducting the investigation....but in May, LIBDems wanted to have all names of those giving testimony to be included in the report.

Now for a group that is so "hot and bothered" over an alleged "outing" of an operative....it seems to be rather disingenuous for them to expect every  intelligence analyst questioned to be "outed" at the same time.  The original report cited in my earlier comment had every name redacted to protect the sources

Perhaps the real question you should be asking here is - why did it take such a drastic step to get the SIC to finally agree to do something they promised to do nearly two years ago?


Perhaps the real question is why is it these guys are demanding  something that has already begun....when it's been going on for months already and the "hold" (forced in May)is a result of their political manuvering.

 

The "Phase-Two" portion has been going on for months....it hasn't been held up by the Senate GOPhers......

On the Senate floor, Roberts said the second phase of the investigation was also considering the activities of the Policy Counter Terrorism Evaluation Group and the Office of Special Plans within the Office of Undersecretary of Defense, formerly run by Douglas Feith who is no longer in the administration. The chairman said he wanted to determine whether that office's findings and information provided by the Iraqi National Congress and its head, Ahmad Chalabi, had undue influence on the administration's decision to go to war.

Roberts conceded that some delays may have been partly due to conflicts between Feith's office and the panel. He said the committee had asked the Defense Department's inspector general to report back after hairs were raised over possible illegal actions.

But even with that detail on hold, Republican Intelligence Committee staffers told FOX News that more than 250 intelligence analysts were interviewed by staff over the course of the two-part probe. Republican staffers were ready to go with their presentation of public statements made by administration officials in May, but Democrats on the committee objected to Roberts' decision not to attach officials' names to their comments and let the process be anonymous. That backed up the discussion, the committee's GOP staff director said.

Roberts said he wanted to present a truly impartial look at statements that were made and what intelligence was available to those officials at the time they made their assessments. The chairman said from what they know now, there is no "there there."

The analysts who were interviewed were specifically asked if they felt any political manipulation or pressure in making their pre-war assessments. According to bipartisan committee staff, all said "no." Roberts said he thinks that's good enough, but Democrats have said they want to know if administration officials then took those assessments and used them for political advantage and manipulated them to go to war.

Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond, R-Mo., a member of the Intelligence Committee, and other Republicans said if Democrats had wanted to take issue with Roberts about any delays in the probe, they could have just asked him.

"Sen. Reid made a number of charges about Sen. Roberts without giving him or me a chance to respond, and then went into closed session. ... It goes a long way to show the level to which politics is dominating procedure here," Bond said.

"If Sen. Reid had come to me and said, 'This is a problem,' which he never did, I would have said, 'Let's talk about it.' I would have said, 'Let's bring in the Intelligence Committee or the leaders, and let's talk about it in a civil, a dignified, a respectful way,'" Frist said.

Was Reid sitting there like a spoiled little child fuming over not getting his way?  This was grandstanding in the worst sense and it will backfire on them......

posted by Corbin_Dallas on November 2, 2005 at 4:47 AM | link to this | reply

I hope there will be hearings
As voters and taxpayers, we are entitled to the full, unvarnished truth. It's past time Congress fulfilled their duties in representing all of the citizenry, not just the war supporters and elite.

posted by Katray2 on November 2, 2005 at 4:21 AM | link to this | reply

I Think You're...
...missing the point - with respect.

"Democrats forced the Senate into an unusual closed session to discuss the Senate Intelligence Committee Chair's refusal to conduct the "phase 2" investigation into White House war lies that his committee agreed in February 2004 to conduct. Republicans howled in outrage at being outmaneuvered by the Democrats, but ultimately they capitulated and agreed to issue the long-promised report by November 14." Democrats.com

Now, the point as I see it is that this 'hijack' was actually to force the SIC into conducting a phase 2 investigation that they'd ALREADY AGREED TO CONDUCT BACK IN FEBRUARY 2004.

Perhaps the real question you should be asking here is - why did it take such a drastic step to get the SIC to finally agree to do something they promised to do nearly two years ago?

D

posted by DamonLeigh on November 2, 2005 at 3:59 AM | link to this | reply

YOU GO ON CORBIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

posted by Justi on November 1, 2005 at 5:55 PM | link to this | reply

Corbin

This is not a hijacking it is an old fashion take over as if in a third world country.

Do any of you Democrats really care about being lied to or is it who lied?

Corbin this is good. We are in the most disgusting of times. I just posted about this ploy to disrupt the government too. God help us. This country is going to be brought down by petty fighting.

posted by Justi on November 1, 2005 at 5:55 PM | link to this | reply

Investigate what?

We already have it....excerpts from:

Full text: Conclusions of Senate's Iraq report:  July 2004

Report on the prewar intelligence assessments

:

Conclusion 1. Most of the major key judgments in the Intelligence Community's October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), Iraq's Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction, either overstated, or were not supported by, the underlying intelligence reporting. A series of failures, particularly in analytic trade craft, led to the mischaracterization of the intelligence.

Conclusion 2. The Intelligence Community did not accurately or adequately explain to policymakers the uncertainties behind the judgments in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate.

Conclusion 3. The Intelligence Community (1C) suffered from a collective presumption that Iraq had an active and growing weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program. This "group think" dynamic led Intelligence Community analysts, collectors and managers to both interpret ambiguous evidence as conclusively indicative of a WMD program as well as ignore or minimize evidence that Iraq did not have active and expanding weapons of mass destruction programs. This presumption was so strong that formalized IC mechanisms established to challenge assumptions and group think were not utilized.

Conclusion 8. Intelligence Community analysts lack a consistent post-September 11 approach to analyzing and reporting on terrorist threats.

Conclusion 10. The Intelligence Community relies too heavily on foreign government services and third party reporting, thereby increasing the potential for manipulation of U.S. policy by foreign interests.

 

Conclusion 12. Until October 2002 when the Intelligence Community obtained the forged foreign language documents2 on the Iraq-Niger uranium deal, it was reasonable for analysts to assess that Iraq may have been seeking uranium from Africa based on Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reporting and other available intelligence.  2

Conclusion 83. The Committee did not find any evidence that Administration officials attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to change their judgments related to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities.

(U) Conclusion 84. The Committee found no evidence that the Vice President's visits to the Central Intelligence Agency were attempts to pressure analysts, were perceived as intended to pressure analysts by those who participated in the briefings on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs, or did pressure analysts to change their assessments.

The Al-Qaida -Iraq Connections:

IRAQI LINKS TO TERRORISM CONCLUSIONS

(U) Conclusion 90. The Central Intelligence Agency's assessment that Saddam Hussein was most likely to use his own intelligence service operatives to conduct attacks was reasonable, and turned out to be accurate.

(U) Conclusion 91. The Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) assessment that Iraq had maintained ties to several secular Palestinian terrorist groups and with the Mujahidin e-Khalq was supported by the intelligence. The CIA was also reasonable in judging that Iraq appeared to have been reaching out to more effective terrorist groups, such as Hizballah and Hamas, and might have intended to employ such surrogates in the event of war.

(U) Conclusion 92. The Central Intelligence Agency's examination of contacts, training, safehaven and operational cooperation as indicators of a possible Iraq-al-Qaida relationship was a reasonable and objective approach to the question.

(U) Conclusion 93. The Central Intelligence Agency reasonably assessed that there were likely several instances of contacts between Iraq and al-Qaida throughout the 1990s, but that these contacts did not add up to an established formal relationship.

(BLACKED OUT) Conclusion 94. The Central Intelligence Agency reasonably and objectively assessed in Iraqi Support/or Terrorism that the most problematic area of contact between Iraq and al-Qaida were the reports of training in the use of non-conventional weapons, specifically chemical and biological weapons.  BLACKED OUT

(U) Conclusion 95. The Central Intelligence Agency's assessment on safehaven - that al-Qaida or associated operatives were present in Baghdad and in northeastern Iraq in an area under Kurdish control - was reasonable.

(U) Conclusion 97. The Central Intelligence Agency's judgment that Saddam Hussein, if sufficiently desperate, might employ terrorists with a global reach - al-Qaida - to conduct terrorist attacks in the event of war, was reasonable. No information has emerged thus far to suggest that Saddam did try to employ al-Qaida in conducting terrorist attacks.

(U) Conclusion 98. The Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) assessments on Iraq's links to terrorism were widely disseminated, though an early version of a key CIA assessment was disseminated only to a limited list of cabinet members and some subcabinet officials in the Administration.

Which parts don't the left understand???

This is all because you anti-Bushies were getting orgasmic over the prospect of the Grand jury indicting Karl Rove and implicating Cheney with the intelligence failures in  pre-Iraq War time-frame.....It didn't happen because the Jury wasn't impaneled for that reason....

But heck...when has the rule of law stopped the Anti-Bushies....anything goes...Right?

posted by Corbin_Dallas on November 1, 2005 at 5:53 PM | link to this | reply

Harry is crazy but I to want the answers as to

what intelligence was used by President Bush to launch the war in Iraq? I really do believe we were lied to. So the only way to get the truth is bring it to a head. And I see on the news tonight a compromise was reached and a six man committee will investigate.

posted by scoop on November 1, 2005 at 4:19 PM | link to this | reply