Here Iraqvet:
From
democrats.senate.gov/dpc/dpc-new.cfm?doc_name=sr-109-1-129 Myth: The Bush Administration Saw the Same Intelligence As Congress ► President Bush: “Leaders in my Administration and members of Congress from both parties looked at the same intelligence on Iraq – and reached the conclusion that Saddam Hussein was a threat.” (11/14/05)
► National Security Advisor Hadley: “It was the same intelligence that 77 members of the Senate relied upon in authorizing the use of military force in 2002.” (CNN Late Edition, 11/13/05)
► RNC Chairman Mehlman: “A whole series of Democrats, the majority of Democrats in the Senate, 80 Democrats in the House, looked at the exact same evidence the president looked at, leading up to the Iraq war and came to the exact same conclusion.” (Meet the Press, 11/13/05)
Fact: The Bush Administration saw significantly more intelligence information than Congress. A recent Washington Post extensively analyzed this claim, concluding that: “Bush and his aides had access to much more voluminous intelligence
information than did lawmakers, who were dependent on the
administration to provide the material…Bush does not share his most
sensitive intelligence, such as the President's Daily Brief, with lawmakers.
Also, the National Intelligence Estimate summarizing the intelligence community's views about the threat from Iraq was given to Congress just
days before the vote to authorize the use of force in that country. In
addition, there were doubts within the intelligence community not included
in the NIE. And even the doubts expressed in the NIE could not be used
publicly by members of Congress because the classified information had
not been cleared for release.” (Washington Post, 11/13/05)
Likewise, the New York Times has noted that “the Administration…had access to far more extensive intelligence than Congress did.” (11/17/05) The accounts in the Post and Times have been confirmed by Senator Rockefeller, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, who explained, “We not only don’t have, nor probably should we have, the Presidential Daily Brief, we don’t have the constant people who are working on intelligence who are very close to him...Not just the White House, but the CIA, DOD [Department of Defense], others – they control information. There’s a lot of intelligence that we don’t get that they have.” (Press Conference, 11/4/04)
Fact: The Bush Administration helped develop intelligence assessments before final intelligence analyses were provided to Congress. While the Bush Administration did see some of the final products from the Intelligence Community regarding Iraq’s WMD capabilities, such as the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, the Bush Administration was involved in examining and shaping raw intelligence before these products were completed. Congress only saw the end product. For example, Vice President Cheney reportedly made “multiple” trips to the Central Intelligence Agency and met individually with analysts working on assessments of Iraq, “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.” (Washington Post, 6/5/03) In addition, the Defense Department created its own office to analyze raw intelligence, called the Policy Counter Terrorism Evaluation Group, in which staff “spent their days reading raw intelligence reports, many from the Central Intelligence Agency, in the Pentagon’s classified computer system.” (New York Times, 4/28/04)
Finally, there is significant evidence that the Bush Administration actively engaged members of the intelligence community in disputes over analysts interpretation of raw intelligence, most notably by repetitively tasking analysts to reexamine conclusions with which the Administration did not agree. Richard Kerr, the former CIA Deputy Director charged with carrying out the agency’s internal review, found that “the White House, State, Defense, were raising questions, heavily on W.M.D. and the issue of terrorism. Why did you select this information rather than that? Why have you downplayed this particular thing?” Kerr concluded that “there was a lot of repetitive tasking. Some of the analysts felt this was unnecessary pressure.” (Vanity Fair, 5/04) Prior to the war, the Los Angeles Times reported that “intelligence sources say the pressure on CIA analysts has been unrelenting…CIA officials who brief Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz routinely return to the agency with a long list of complaints and demands for new analysis or shifts in emphasis.” (10/11/02)
Fact: While Democrats were willing to trust the President with an authorization for force, they repeatedly encouraged him to confront Saddam Hussein using diplomatic options before resorting to the use of force as a last resort. The President has tried to cover up his own failed policy by claiming that Democrats supported that policy when they voted to authorize the use of force against Iraq. The reality, however, is that Senate Democrats called for a different approach during the debate on the authorization of force. Senate Democrats argued that Saddam Hussein should be confronted by aggressive weapons inspections and other diplomatic efforts, with the use of force serving only as a last resort. They argued that any war against Iraq should only be undertaken if the President could guarantee that it would not disrupt the war on terrorism. And they argued that any military effort must be conducted with broad support from an international coalition so that U.S. military personnel and taxpayers would not bear the burden alone.
At the end of the day, many Senate Democrats voted to authorize the President to use force against Iraq because they trusted the President to carry out a responsible and effective policy in which questions about Saddam Hussein’s WMD capabilities would be resolved diplomatically if possible and militarily only if absolutely necessary. The vote was not about support for the President’s policies, it was about trusting the President to lead the nation in a responsible way:
* Senator Clinton: “I take the President at his word that he will try hard to pass a United Nations resolution and seek to avoid war, if possible. Because bipartisan support for this resolution makes success in the United Nations more likely and war less likely, and because a good faith effort by the United States, even if it fails, will bring more allies and legitimacy to our cause, I have concluded, after careful and serious consideration, that a vote for the resolution best serves the security of our nation.” (10/10/02)
* Senator Lincoln: “Today, I make a difficult choice. I choose to give our President the authority to take military action against Iraq if necessary because I believe him when he says he does not want to go to war. I take our President at his word that disarming Saddam Hussein peacefully is his first choice. I support the notion that a unified Congress sends a strong message to our allies and gives our Secretary of State more leverage as he negotiates a new and tougher U.N. resolution that mandates weapons inspections in Iraq with military consequences if Saddam resists.” (10/10/02)
* Senator Schumer: “Approving this resolution does not mean that military action is imminent or unavoidable. The resolution will tell the United Nations, and all nations, that America speaks with one voice and it is determined to make demands of the civilized world mean something. I will, therefore, take the President at his word and do my very best to hold him to it.” (10/10/02)
