Okay, KC. This is what I could come up with on limited time. Battery has been changed and I was able to run my errands. Now I need to do stuff around the house.
I posted this website before, but here goes again. It is not common for a VP to be going to CIA headquarters as frequently as Cheney did.
There are articles which indicate that some CIA analysts described feeling pressured by the VP, Libby, and Wolfowitz. I know that the Intelligence Committee determined that Cheney and his cohorts did not pressure analysts, but nevertheless some analysts felt pressure.
Some Iraq Analysts Felt Pressure From Cheney Visits
by Walter Pincus and Dana Priest
Vice President Cheney and his most senior aide made multiple trips to the CIA over the past year to question analysts studying Iraq's weapons programs and alleged links to al Qaeda, creating an environment in which some analysts felt they were being pressured to make their assessments fit with the Bush administration's policy objectives, according to senior intelligence officials. . . .
While visits to CIA headquarters by a vice president are not unprecedented, they are unusual, according to intelligence officials. The exact number of trips by Cheney to the CIA could not be learned, but one agency official described them as "multiple." They were taken in addition to Cheney's regular attendance at President Bush's morning intelligence briefings and the special briefings the vice president receives when he is at an undisclosed location for security reasons.
Article is here:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0605-01.htm
Here's another article written in October 2002:
CIA Feels Heat on Iraq Data
By GREG MILLER and BOB DROGIN
TIMES STAFF WRITERS
October 11 2002
WASHINGTON -- Senior Bush administration officials are pressuring CIA analysts to tailor their assessments of the Iraqi threat to help build a case against Saddam Hussein, intelligence and congressional sources said.
In what sources described as an escalating "war," top officials at the Pentagon and elsewhere have bombarded CIA analysts with criticism and calls for revisions on such key questions as whether Iraq has ties to the Al Qaeda terrorist network, sources said.
The sources stressed that CIA analysts—who are supposed to be impartial—are fighting to resist the pressure. But they said analysts are increasingly resentful of what they perceive as efforts to contaminate the intelligence process.
"Analysts feel more politicized and more pushed than many of them can ever remember," said an intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"The guys at the Pentagon shriek on issues such as the link between Iraq and Al Qaeda. There has been a lot of pressure to write on this constantly, and to not let it drop."
http://www.howardlabs.com/analysis/Miller.htm
What I had mentioned previously was that I had watched a movie that addressed the prewar intelligence. It was called "Uncovered: The War on Iraq." Here's a description of the movie:
In his documentary feature, UNCOVERED: The War on Iraq, filmmaker Robert Greenwald chronicles the Bush Administration's determined quest to invade Iraq following the events of September 11, 2001. The film deconstructs the administration's case for war through interviews with U.S intelligence and defense officials, foreign service experts, and U.N. weapons inspectors -- including a former CIA director, a former ambassador to Saudi Arabia and even President Bush's Secretary of the Army. Their analyses and conclusions are sobering, and often disturbing, regardless of one's political affiliations.
http://www.truthuncovered.com/
Here is the list of the people he interviewed, which is 27. And dont' tell me that they are all Bush-haters. Some of them have been with the CIA for over 20 years. See website below.
http://www.truthuncovered.com/interviews.php#davidalbright
This brings you to a preview of the documentary. Please watch it. It is not long.
http://www.truthuncovered.com/trailer_high.php
Next is part of an article written by Seymour Hirsch addressing conflicts between the Bush Adminstration and intelligence officials. Here are two paragraphs:
A few months after George Bush took office, Greg Thielmann, an expert on disarmament with the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, or INR, was assigned to be the daily intelligence liaison to John Bolton, the Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control, who is a prominent conservative. Thielmann understood that his posting had been mandated by Secretary of State Colin Powell, who thought that every important State Department bureau should be assigned a daily intelligence officer. “Bolton was the guy with whom I had to do business,” Thielmann said. “We were going to provide him with all the information he was entitled to see. That’s what being a professional intelligence officer is all about.”
But, Thielmann told me, “Bolton seemed to be troubled because INR was not telling him what he wanted to hear.” Thielmann soon found himself shut out of Bolton’s early-morning staff meetings. “I was intercepted at the door of his office and told, ‘The Under-Secretary doesn’t need you to attend this meeting anymore.’ ” When Thielmann protested that he was there to provide intelligence input, the aide said, “The Under-Secretary wants to keep this in the family.”
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?031027fa_fact
We can discuss this more later. This is only part of the evidence that leads me to believe that the intelligence was created in a way to support what Bush wanted. I know that there is evidence against this as well, but I choose to believe the evidence that supports it. That's what my gut tells me.
I have someone coming to do work in my house in the next 15 minutes. I am not sure if I'll have time to check back here later today.
