Who are you going to believe...
...me, or your LYING EYES!
' Gotcha ' journalism stoops so low as to attack a geunine leftist, Bill ' we'll move LEFT' Kristol.
Bill Kristol, 11/14/2005: "After all, the bipartisan Silberman-Robb commission found no evidence of political manufacture and manipulation of intelligence."
Silberman-Robb Commission Report, 3/31/05: "[W]e were not authorized to investigate how policymakers used the intelligence assessments they received from the Intelligence Community. Accordingly, while we interviewed a host of current and former policymakers during the course of our investigation, the purpose of those interviews was to learn about how the Intelligence Community reached and communicated its judgments about Iraq's weapons programs--not to review how policymakers subsequently used that information."
Bill ... Bill, Bill, Bill ...
Late Update: On the basis of many TPM Reader emails it seems that this canard is now part of the official talking points being churned out at 'winger central command, with various folks spouting this line about the Robb-Silberman report on the airwaves over the last couple days. So, a couple requests. First, does anyone know of any reason not to take the report's own words at face value? That is, that they were simpy not authorized to examine potential political manipulation of intelligence, only mistakes within the IC itself? Secondly, if you've seen someone in print or on the airwaves spouting this line and you have a link or a transcript, let us know. Send it in to the comments email address and we'll put together a list.
-- Josh Marshall
More on the Silberman-Robb Report. As we noted below, the SR Report begins by stating that commissioners were not authorized to investigate the use which policy-makers made of Iraq WMD intelligence.
At other points, however, they say things that sound rather different. For instance, at any point in the report, the commissioners state that they "found no evidence of political pressure to influence the Intelligence Community's pre-war assessments of Iraq's weapons programs."
The issue here, I think, is an extremely finely cut distinction. The commissioners say they found no analysts who would tell them they faced any political pressure to alter their analyses. At the same time, the commissioners say they did not investigate what policy-makers did with those analyses.
A good illustration of this distinction, in practice, is the Niger canard. If you look closely at what the analyses were inside the Intelligence Community, they were at best mixed. Some were certain that the documents were forgeries and the earlier reports were fraudulent. Others didn't put much credence in the reports but weren't willing to rule them out completely either. When push came to shove in October 2002 and January 2003, the CIA fought strenuously to keep the president from publicizing the allegation.
What did the administration do? They tried to air the charge every chance they got and gave no indication whatsoever that there was any doubt about its credibility.
There's your distinction.
-- Josh Marshall
See! The lie gets around the world before the truth has time to put on their pants!
( Major left wing thinker Donald Rumsfeld manager of the worlds largest state bureaucracy )
All this looks like a veiled attack on leftist comrades ( or Commissars )who were trying hard, in a 'David and Goliath' struggle to expose the lunar right wing fascist CIA.
' Gotcha ' journalism stoops so low as to attack a geunine leftist, Bill ' we'll move LEFT' Kristol.
Bill Kristol, 11/14/2005: "After all, the bipartisan Silberman-Robb commission found no evidence of political manufacture and manipulation of intelligence."
Silberman-Robb Commission Report, 3/31/05: "[W]e were not authorized to investigate how policymakers used the intelligence assessments they received from the Intelligence Community. Accordingly, while we interviewed a host of current and former policymakers during the course of our investigation, the purpose of those interviews was to learn about how the Intelligence Community reached and communicated its judgments about Iraq's weapons programs--not to review how policymakers subsequently used that information."
Bill ... Bill, Bill, Bill ...
Late Update: On the basis of many TPM Reader emails it seems that this canard is now part of the official talking points being churned out at 'winger central command, with various folks spouting this line about the Robb-Silberman report on the airwaves over the last couple days. So, a couple requests. First, does anyone know of any reason not to take the report's own words at face value? That is, that they were simpy not authorized to examine potential political manipulation of intelligence, only mistakes within the IC itself? Secondly, if you've seen someone in print or on the airwaves spouting this line and you have a link or a transcript, let us know. Send it in to the comments email address and we'll put together a list.
-- Josh Marshall
More on the Silberman-Robb Report. As we noted below, the SR Report begins by stating that commissioners were not authorized to investigate the use which policy-makers made of Iraq WMD intelligence.
At other points, however, they say things that sound rather different. For instance, at any point in the report, the commissioners state that they "found no evidence of political pressure to influence the Intelligence Community's pre-war assessments of Iraq's weapons programs."
The issue here, I think, is an extremely finely cut distinction. The commissioners say they found no analysts who would tell them they faced any political pressure to alter their analyses. At the same time, the commissioners say they did not investigate what policy-makers did with those analyses.
A good illustration of this distinction, in practice, is the Niger canard. If you look closely at what the analyses were inside the Intelligence Community, they were at best mixed. Some were certain that the documents were forgeries and the earlier reports were fraudulent. Others didn't put much credence in the reports but weren't willing to rule them out completely either. When push came to shove in October 2002 and January 2003, the CIA fought strenuously to keep the president from publicizing the allegation.
What did the administration do? They tried to air the charge every chance they got and gave no indication whatsoever that there was any doubt about its credibility.
There's your distinction.
-- Josh Marshall
See! The lie gets around the world before the truth has time to put on their pants!
( Major left wing thinker Donald Rumsfeld manager of the worlds largest state bureaucracy )
All this looks like a veiled attack on leftist comrades ( or Commissars )who were trying hard, in a 'David and Goliath' struggle to expose the lunar right wing fascist CIA.
posted by professor rat at 10:12 PM
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