Senate panel critiques prewar claims by White House

[tpsbmam]

Source: Los Angeles Times

But officials say the report reaches a mixed verdict on the key question of whether the White House misused intelligence to make the case for war.

The document criticizes White House officials for making assertions that failed to reflect disagreements or uncertainties in the underlying intelligence on Iraq, officials said. But the report acknowledges that many claims were consistent with intelligence assessments in circulation at the time.

Because of the nuanced nature of the conclusions, one congressional official familiar with the document said: "The left is not going to be happy. The right is not going to be happy. Nobody is going to be happy."

The report could also become political fodder for the presidential race, which has focused on the differing positions of the remaining candidates on the decision to invade Iraq.

Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee had initially pushed for the report to focus not only on the prewar claims of the Bush administration but also on statements made by members of Congress, including Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), who is vying for her party's presidential nomination.



Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-intel10mar10,0,5115595.story

[AlertLurker]

1. You KNOW that it has to be a steaming pile of BS when...

"...officials say the report reaches a mixed verdict on the key question of whether the White House misused intelligence to make the case for war."

Mixed Verdict? Shit. Why do people contine to elect these asshats? Duck/Cover/Duck/Cover/Duck/Cover is all they know - too many "emergency preparedness drills" back in the 1950s, I suppose.

"The statements report is clearly the most political of all the reports the committee has done," said a senior committee aide. "It's inherently problematic to try to climb inside the heads and know what they knew at the time."


Tom Sawyer would have heartily approved of the technique, too. Disgusting.