Marc Perkel Rantz

Am I to understand that Kerry's only source of information, after 20 years in the Senate, is George Bush? They both got the information from the intelligence community that had its budget cut by Kerry. Based on those budget cuts, it is more Kerry's fault that Bush was lied to than the other way around.

Tomocious,

The last time I checked, the CIA was part of the executive brance of government, which President Bush is in charge of. So the reality is that there are on two conclusions that can be drawn from this failure to find weapons of mass destruction. Either Bush lied to the public about being certain that there were weapons of mass destruction Iraq, or Bush presided over the second biggest intelligence debacle in U.S. history (second only to 9/11, which also happened on Bush's watch). In either case, Bush has to be held accountable for this collasal failure. He can't just pass the buck.

I personally believe that the former conclusion is most likely correct, and I don't simply draw this conclusion out of thin air. We know for a fact that Bush cited to a forged document in his State of the Union address claiming that Saddam had attempted to buy uranium from Niger despite the fact that the forgery had been discovered months prior to Bush's delivery of that speech. Also consider the fact that Cheney continued to make erroneous claims about Iraq's nuclear capabilities after his previous claims had already been rebuffed by the IAEA. Additionally, the New York Times has recently reported that the Bush administration ignored the vast majority of evidence suggesting that Aluminum tubes possessed by Iraq were not for the purpose of carrying out a nuclear attack in favor of a highly suspect claim that these aluminum tubes were purchased for the purpose of being used as nuclear weapons. In fact, despite this conflicting evidence, the White House claimed that it had "irrefutable evidence" that the tubes were destined for clandestine Iraqi uranium centrifuges. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/03/international/middleeast/03tube.html?ei=5065&en=e62151c094b6c734&ex=1097380800&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print&position=

My personal opinion based largely upon the above stated facts is that NeoConservatives in the Bush administration wanted to invade Iraq because they have this absurd notion that we can literally use our military to force democracy on a nation like Iraq, and then democracy will simply magically spread like wild fire throughout the Middle EAst. However, they knew that they couldn't sell the idea to the American people on this absurd basis, so they went on a witch hunt seeking any intelligence that would support its plan for an invasion of Iraq and ignoring any conflicting intelligence. Now we are reaping the consequences of Bush's failed policies.

If the CIA is solely controlled by the Executive Branch, what's the point of the Senate Intelligence Oversight Committee? PWNT.