new iraq enquiry

davelerave

george bush has set up an enquiry into the 'iraq intelligence'.no more awkward questions until after the election for him

BattleBoar

Originally posted by davelerave
george bush has set up an enquiry into the 'iraq intelligence'.no more awkward questions until after the election for him

or maybe none at all if he loses. He's taking a pretty big risk here.

bonkey

Originally posted by BattleBoar
He's taking a pretty big risk here.

I don't think so.

Not only is an enquiry what his critics have been calling for, it is also an implicit admission that his insistnce on WMDs was wrong, it lends credibility to his (and his Administration's) assertion that he was never aware of the inaccuracy of the information, and - as has been pointed out - it can't come back to bite him unless he gets re-elected...at which point it will be mostly academic.

Best move for all concerned.

jc

shotamoose

From what the White House has been saying, their line is basically going to be "blame the CIA". Bush has been saying "why was the intelligence we received wrong?" like they were just repeating whatever the CIA told them, rather than setting up their own special units to cherry-pick only the intelligence that suited their pre-ordained policy. The White House will attempt a whitewash along the lines of Hutton - it'll be interesting to see whether they pull it off.

Shaque attack

Best move for all concerned.

except for the american public and the democrats

bonkey

Originally posted by Shaque attack
except for the american public and the democrats

The Democrats have been asking for an independant enquiry since this all started. I fail to see how it can be anything but the best thing for them when its what they've specifically been requesting.

According to an article in the Washington Post (first relevant link I came across on news.google.com) it is to be a bipartisan, independant enquiry. In other words, the best possible configuration to start with.

As for the public...exactly how would they be better served? By no enquiry? By an enquiry that was not bi-partisan?? By an enquiry that was not public???

Or maybe its the 2005 timeframe you object to. Would you prefer an enquiry that was compelled to produce findings in an unrealistically short time just in order to have uncertain findings presented before the next election? How honest a "best solution" would that be?

Bush has done the right thing here. Yes, there is plenty of scope for things to go wrong, but this is the right way to start. Anything less would have been insufficient, and I can't see what more could have been asked for.

jc

Akrasia

they were only asking for it cause they didnt think he'd say yes.
A bit like in the simpsons when Homer didnt want to go camping with bart so he tried some complex form of reverse psychology which of course backfired with hilarious consequences

Akrasia

We dont really need an enquiry.
I can predict exactly what the results will be right now

davelerave

someone on telly said that 'heads won't roll at the cia' because they know too much,it'd be too risky to have them on the outside.bush's first priority i'm sure is to transfer power, get the troops out and get re-elected before admitting any mistakes

shotamoose

Originally posted by Akrasia
We dont really need an enquiry.
I can predict exactly what the results will be right now

Go on then. Exactly, remember.

sovtek

Originally posted by shotamoose
From what the White House has been saying, their line is basically going to be "blame the CIA". Bush has been saying "why was the intelligence we received wrong?" like they were just repeating whatever the CIA told them, rather than setting up their own special units to cherry-pick only the intelligence that suited their pre-ordained policy. The White House will attempt a whitewash along the lines of Hutton - it'll be interesting to see whether they pull it off.

With the leaked notes of Rumsfeld right after Sept 11th, Paul O'Neill's admissions, the OSP and frequent visits to the CIA by Cheney... the "blame the CIA" track seems to be what they are going for. I'm all for an independent inquiry but I'm afraid it's conclusions are pre-ordained.
Look for "let's wait for the results of the inquiry" throughout the 2004 campaign, as well as any delayed/heavily dedacted info from the White House.

shotamoose

It's not independent at all, as it's composed of Democrat and Republican politicos. But even if the conclusions won't be out until after the elections, there will presumably have been sittings before voting day, so there may well be some fall-out.

davelerave

cherry-picking info isn't a hanging offence as against sexing up.the us enquiry looks like it will investigate intelligence failings in a general way and already george bush has distanced himself from the investigation saying the're going to "analyze where we stand, what we can do better as we fight this war against terror." .i wonder how the mooted british enquiry will go because heads rolled at the top of the bbc ,blair will have to step down if his government is shown to have done wrong

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

Hobbes

A few months after Bush came into power he signed into law a rule stating that any document a president declares secret can never be shown to the public unless..

1. The president says so
2. He gets the agreement from the president it relates to (or if they are dead).

So he's pretty much sorted from getting any blame whatsoever.

davelerave

who's going to be the escape goat this time

hallelujajordan

This inquiry is nothing more than an electioneering tactic on the part of Mr Bush and he is left it late enough to announce it such that nothing of consequence will be discovered until a long time after the american public have elected a new president . . . effectively, he has taken the issue off the agenda for the election campaign and as it is the one issue that has defined his current term in office, I think this stinks !

The real one to suffer here is going to be Tony Blair. . . . Following 9/11 the American public were always going to support the War in Iraq regardless of the WMD issue, in fact Bush as much as took it off the agenda before the war started (remember all the talk about regime change). . . However WMD was the critical issue to Mr Blair . . . . and its why he has hung on so long to his assertions . . . now, with Bush calling an inquiry Blair just looks stupid . . .

With regard to the potential findings of an inquiry . . . expect some relatively senior (but dispensable) intelligence officials to fall on their swords, when the relative inquiries find that the British and American intelligence agencies were found seriously lacking . . . or some such bullsh!t . . . We will be expected to believe that the combined intelligence services of the US, UK and Israel all got it wrong . . . Yeh right !

gurramok

Funnily enough, George Tenet of the CIA has said that Iraq never posed an imminent threat to America, contradicting what Bush has said throughout the run-up to the invasion of Iraq.
And now Geoff Hoon has indicated that the threat from Iraq was from 'battlefield' weapons and not missiles that could reach British bases in Cyprus nor Britain itself.
The finger is being pointed at Blair for mis-interpreting(exxagerating to you and me) the threat by Iraq.

The reason for war has gone from real WMD to WMD programs, to probable WMD programs to non-missile battlefield weapons. Whats next ??

Weapons of Mass Destruction were actually Weapons of Mass Deception

ie..a con-job.

So it looks like some of the intelligence agencies just 'might' hold their ground on this one.

Geromino

Originally posted by Hobbes
A few months after Bush came into power he signed into law a rule stating that any document a president declares secret can never be shown to the public unless..

1. The president says so
2. He gets the agreement from the president it relates to (or if they are dead).

So he's pretty much sorted from getting any blame whatsoever.

Every President has done this. Clinton did this when He came into the White House as well as Truman, Eisenhaur, JFK, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, and Bush Sr. It is to protect specific security issues relating to Presidential decisions. BTW: when a president signs an executive order to what you are referring to, it is normally given a time frame of at least 25 years. Can you say Presidential Library!

Geromino

Originally posted by hallelujajordan
This inquiry is nothing more than an electioneering tactic on the part of Mr Bush and he is left it late enough to announce it such that nothing of consequence will be discovered until a long time after the american public have elected a new president . . . effectively, he has taken the issue off the agenda for the election campaign and as it is the one issue that has defined his current term in office, I think this stinks !

So, by not having an intelligence inquiry as a election tool to get a particular person is more election engineering than what you are accusing President Bush of.

The real one to suffer here is going to be Tony Blair. . . . Following 9/11 the American public were always going to support the War in Iraq regardless of the WMD issue, in fact Bush as much as took it off the agenda before the war started (remember all the talk about regime change). . . However WMD was the critical issue to Mr Blair . . . . and its why he has hung on so long to his assertions . . . now, with Bush calling an inquiry Blair just looks stupid . . .[/QUOTET]

Blair has always taken the role as a bridge maker between the US and Europe. He may suffer politically, but I doubt it. The alternative is to have Saddam continue in power with French and German oil companies making profits with a brutal dictator. That will kill any hope of a united Europe under the EU paradigm.

With regard to the potential findings of an inquiry . . . expect some relatively senior (but dispensable) intelligence officials to fall on their swords, when the relative inquiries find that the British and American intelligence agencies were found seriously lacking . . . or some such bullsh!t . . . We will be expected to believe that the combined intelligence services of the US, UK and Israel all got it wrong . . . Yeh right !

Sadly, the only way for intelligence data to be proven is for the event to actually happen. However, you might want to read IISS book on Iraq WMD programs and Saddams assertions to be the next Nebuchadnezzar. If this were to happen, this would have been bad for both Europe and the US, not to mention the Arab Pennisula and the near Eastern countries. There was a lot of intelligence on Iraqs programs; however, there were no human intelligence except from defectors which could be hard to verify specific aspects. But then again, hindsight is always 20/20.

Hobbes

Originally posted by Geromino
Every President has done this.

No. As I said he he came into power he passed the law. The law basically reversed a law that was put in place after Nixons watergate (which was in place to stop such incidents from happening again).

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20011128/

Geromino

Originally posted by bonkey
The Democrats have been asking for an independant enquiry since this all started. I fail to see how it can be anything but the best thing for them when its what they've specifically been requesting.

According to an article in the Washington Post (first relevant link I came across on news.google.com) it is to be a bipartisan, independant enquiry. In other words, the best possible configuration to start with.

As for the public...exactly how would they be better served? By no enquiry? By an enquiry that was not bi-partisan?? By an enquiry that was not public???

Or maybe its the 2005 timeframe you object to. Would you prefer an enquiry that was compelled to produce findings in an unrealistically short time just in order to have uncertain findings presented before the next election? How honest a "best solution" would that be?

Bush has done the right thing here. Yes, there is plenty of scope for things to go wrong, but this is the right way to start. Anything less would have been insufficient, and I can't see what more could have been asked for.

jc

Circle the wagons folks, I agree fully with Bonkey except that it should have been started a little sooner.

gurramok

The Democrats have been asking for an independant enquiry since this all started. I fail to see how it can be anything but the best thing for them when its what they've specifically been requesting

Problem is that the inquiry panel is going to be full of Bush appointees with hardly any appointees from truely independent/democrat sources to give it real independence.

davelerave

at the end of the day an enquiry with limited scope that comes to the 'wrong' conclusions will not fool anybody. i don't think it matters either way.look at hutton.
using the enquriry as a delaying tactic might work against him because there's a lot of time before the elections and the media have got a grip on the story now over there