Members of Congress Denied Access to Basic Information About NSA

[Lugal Zaggesi]

32. Yes, I have

Sounds like you never have - of course, that's your "business". Pretend the "national security" folks aren't as serious as a heart attack.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/06/bradley-manning-trial-seal-team-6

It has since become fashion for politicians who supported the war to blame the Iraq debacle on "bad intelligence." But as former CIA analyst Paul Pillar reminds us, the carefully cherry-picked "Intel" about Saddam Hussein's WMD program was really never the issue. After all, the CIA's classified intelligence estimate on Iraq argued that, even if that country's ruler Saddam Hussein did have weapons of mass destruction (which he didn't), he would never use them and was therefore not a threat.

Senator Bob Graham, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2003, was one of the few people with access to that CIA report who bothered to take the time to read it. Initially keen on the idea of invading Iraq, he changed his mind and voted against the invasion.

What if the entire nation had had access to that highly classified document? What if bloggers, veterans' groups, clergy, journalists, educators, and other opinion leaders had been able to see the full intelligence estimate, not just the morsels cherry-picked by Cheney and his mates? Even then, of course, there was enough information around to convince millions of people across the globe of the folly of such an invasion, but what if some insider had really laid out the whole truth, not just the cherry-picked pseudofacts in those months and the games being played by other insiders to fool Congress and the American people into a war of choice and design in the Middle East? As we now know, whatever potentially helpful information there was remained conveniently beyond our sight until a military and humanitarian disaster was unleashed.

Senator Bob Graham, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2003, was NOT allowed to share what he learned reading highly classified reports he had access to as the Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. You can pretend otherwise based on your reading of some "law" - that's your business.

But don't expect Congressmen to believe you.