Post by MARIO on Apr 1, 2005 8:46:28 GMT -8
The press misses the point about WMDs and intelligence
Mona Charen
April 1, 2005
The President's Commission on (deep breath) Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction has issued its report, and true to predictions, it indicts the CIA and other intelligence agencies for giving the president and Congress information that was "dead wrong" and accompanying this intelligence with a promise that the agencies had 90 percent confidence in its accuracy. Here, at last, is the accounting that has been wanting since our forces scoured the Iraqi countryside and found not a single WMD.
Specialists at missing the point, some members of the White House press corps demanded of the commission co-chairmen, former Sen. Chuck Robb and Judge Larry Silberman, whether the Bush administration was not really at fault for "pressuring" the intelligence agencies to produce estimates consonant with the administration's preferred policies. There were references to Vice President Cheney's famous ride to Langley to discuss the Iraq situation -- a visit many antiwar types were convinced had the effect of strong-arming the agency to tailor its intelligence to the administration's pattern.
READ THE REST:
www.townhall.com/columnists/monacharen/printmc20050401.shtml
Mona Charen
April 1, 2005
The President's Commission on (deep breath) Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction has issued its report, and true to predictions, it indicts the CIA and other intelligence agencies for giving the president and Congress information that was "dead wrong" and accompanying this intelligence with a promise that the agencies had 90 percent confidence in its accuracy. Here, at last, is the accounting that has been wanting since our forces scoured the Iraqi countryside and found not a single WMD.
Specialists at missing the point, some members of the White House press corps demanded of the commission co-chairmen, former Sen. Chuck Robb and Judge Larry Silberman, whether the Bush administration was not really at fault for "pressuring" the intelligence agencies to produce estimates consonant with the administration's preferred policies. There were references to Vice President Cheney's famous ride to Langley to discuss the Iraq situation -- a visit many antiwar types were convinced had the effect of strong-arming the agency to tailor its intelligence to the administration's pattern.
READ THE REST:
www.townhall.com/columnists/monacharen/printmc20050401.shtml