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Full Version: Ackerman & Judis: Selling the Iraq War
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fantomas
Here is an excellent piece on the deception the administration used to get its war, which it decided upon in the fall of 2001!

New Republic: The First Casualty by Ackerman and Judis

QUOTE
Had the administration accurately depicted the consensus within the intelligence community in 2002--that Iraq's ties with Al Qaeda were inconsequential; that its nuclear weapons program was minimal at best; and that its chemical and biological weapons programs, which had yielded significant stocks of dangerous weapons in the past, may or may not have been ongoing--it would have had a very difficult time convincing Congress and the American public to support a war to disarm Saddam. But the Bush administration painted a very different, and far more frightening, picture. Representative Rush Holt, a New Jersey Democrat who ultimately voted against the war, says of his discussions with constituents, \"When someone spoke of the need to invade, [they] invariably brought up the example of what would happen if one of our cities was struck. They clearly were convinced by the administration that Saddam Hussein--either directly or through terrorist connections--could unleash massive destruction on an American city. And I presume that most of my colleagues heard the same thing back in their districts.\" One way the administration convinced the public was by badgering CIA Director Tenet into endorsing key elements of its case for war even when it required ignoring the classified findings of his and other intelligence agencies.
charliecstl
A State Department intelligence expert testified in the closed door committee investigatsions last week that he was clearly pressured to alter his intelligence findings. The administration made it clear to him that his report needed to support their position on Iraq and the issue of WMD.

To his credit, he did not bow to the pressure and published his findings without alteration. However, reports like his were clearly put on the bottom of the pile.

Intelligence Expert Pressed to Alter Intelligence Reports
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