Tony Blair: WMD? Feh.

By GottaLaff

If Boy Georgie and his poodle had come out and said, "We are going to bomb the hell out of Iraq no matter what, to hell with all of you, try and stop us", then the world might have-- Oh wait. They did:

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has said he would have found a justification for invading Iraq even without the now-discredited evidence that Saddam Hussein was trying to produce weapons of mass destruction.

Good thing they weren't arrogant. Oh wait. They were.

It was a startling admission from the onetime British leader, who was President Bush's staunchest ally in the decision to invade Iraq in 2003.

Blair's comments were immediately denounced by critics who accused him of using false pretenses to drag Britain into an unpopular war that has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of allied troops and tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians.

Well, at least the fraudulent invasion of a sovereign country that hadn't attacked us first produced all the positive results that Bush II and Bush III had promised. Oh wait. It hasn't.

Hans Blix, who led the United Nations team of inspectors looking into the claim, said that Blair's remarks gave "the strong impression of a lack of sincerity."

"The war was sold on the weapons of mass destruction [argument], and now you . . . hear that it was only a question of a 'deployment of arguments,' " Blix told the BBC.

"It sounds a bit like a fig leaf that was held up, and if the fig leaf had not been there, then they would have tried to put another fig leaf there."

What a relief that there will be justice done, and those responsible for this fiasco will be appropriately punished.

Oh wait. They won't.

45-minute WMD claim 'came from an Iraqi taxi driver'

By GottaLaff

Next time you're out on the street screaming, "Taxi!", consider this:

An Iraqi taxi driver may have been the source of the discredited claim that Saddam Hussein could unleash weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes, a Tory MP claimed today.

Gee, I hope he was at least licensed. But I digress:

Adam Holloway, a defence specialist, said MI6 obtained information indirectly from a taxi driver who had overheard two Iraqi military commanders talking about Saddam's weapons.

And then he divulged that one commander was in the middle of a messy affair and was leaving his wife. But MI6 didn't think he was credible on that score, so we never heard any of the juicy details.

Oh, but I kid the MI6.

After the war the dossier became hugely controversial when it became clear that some of the information it contained was not true. An inquiry headed by Lord Butler into the use of intelligence in the run-up to the war revealed that MI6 had subsequently accepted that some of its Iraqi sources were unreliable, but his report did not identify who they were.

That would have been too embarrassing. It's a good thing it didn't leak out. That wouldn't have ended well.

Oops.

Holloway, a former Grenadier Guardsman and television journalist who is now a member of the Commons defence committee, wrote:

"Under pressure from Downing Street to find anything to back up the WMD case, British intelligence was squeezing their agents in Iraq for information. One agent did come up with something: the '45 minutes' or something about missiles allegedly discussed in a high level Iraqi political meeting.

"But the provenance of this information was never questioned in detail until after the Iraq invasion, when it became apparent that something was wrong. In the end it turned out that the information was not credible, it had originated from an émigré taxi driver on the Iraqi-Jordanian border, who had remembered an overheard a conversation in the back of his cab a full two years earlier.

"Indeed, in the intelligence analyst's footnote to the report, it was flagged up that part of the report probably describing some missiles that the Iraqi government allegedly possessed was demonstrably untrue. They verifiably did not exist.

"The footnote said it in black and white ink. Despite this glaring factual inaccuracy, which under normal circumstances would have caused the reliability of the intelligence to be seriously questioned, the report was treated as reliable and went on to become one of the central planks of the dodgy dossier."

Bus drivers are so much more reliable. Had they been smart, they would have gotten more bang for their buck, er, pound, er, Euro, had they relied on public transportation.

There is much more here.

H/t: DCPlod

VIDEOS: Which president deserves to get slammed for joking? Bush or Obama? Hint: Bush

By GottaLaff

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

As promised, here is the Countdown clip of E.J. Dionne discussing those shocking, atrocious, gaffe-y hysterics that President Obama lapsed into, losing complete control and forever damaging his reputation and our very country!

Here's a brain-teaser for you-- Where were the media when the former president [sic] intentionally laughed right up in our faces about this:



Now go read this. It's a great analysis of the whole "punch drunk" circus.

Rep Pete Hoekstra vows ‘aggressive oversight’ of Obama

Oh go fug yourself Pete. Finally out of that self induced coma of 8 years? Why don't you busy yourself looking for those damn WMD's and get off PEBO's ass.

Rep. Pete Hoekstra (Mich.), the top Republican on the Intelligence Committee, said Thursday that the “relationship between Congress and the executive must change” to keep the country safe.

Hoekstra, who was reappointed this week as the ranking GOP lawmaker on the panel, stressed that “Republicans in Congress stand ready to work with President-elect Obama in a bipartisan manner to maintain and strengthen America’s intelligence capabilities.”

Ex-Agent Says CIA Ignored Iran Facts

By GottaLaff

This is the kind of report that makes me want to shout obscenities for so many reasons, not the least of which: Why don't we hear about this instead of that inane corporate media Swiftboating of Wes Clark? Please read, then weep, then scream, then comment:

A former CIA operative who says he tried to warn the agency about faulty intelligence on Iraqi weapons programs now contends that CIA officials also ignored evidence that Iran had suspended work on a nuclear bomb. [...]

The former operative alleged in a 2004 lawsuit that the CIA fired him after he repeatedly clashed with senior managers over his attempts to file reports that challenged the conventional wisdom about weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East. Key details of his claim have not been made public because they describe events the CIA deems secret.

The consensus view on Iran's nuclear program shifted dramatically last December with the release of a landmark intelligence report that concluded that Iran halted work on nuclear weapons design in 2003. The publication of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran undermined the CIA's rationale for censoring the former officer's lawsuit, said his attorney, Roy Krieger.

"On five occasions he was ordered to either falsify his reporting on WMD in the Near East, or not to file his reports at all," Krieger said in an interview.

In court documents and in statements by his attorney, the former officer contends that his 22-year CIA career collapsed after he questioned CIA doctrine about the nuclear programs of Iraq and Iran. [...]

The informant provided secret evidence that Tehran had halted its research into designing and building a nuclear weapon. Yet, when the operative sought to file reports on the findings, his attempts were "thwarted by CIA employees," according to court papers. Later he was told to "remove himself from any further handling" of the informant, the documents say. [...]

Krieger maintains that his client is being further punished by the agency's decision prohibiting him from fully regaining his identity. "He is not even allowed to attend court hearings about his own case," Krieger said.

They also tried to nail him on an improper sexual relationship charge that didn't stick.

This, after Sy Hersh's piece in the New Yorker. Back to weeping and screaming.

The Four Stages of "Good Grief!"

By GottaLaff

Froomkin lays out the contempt Bush has for his questioners or anyone who has the nerve to doubt him. Reading this put me through what I will call the Four Stages of "Good Grief!"...

When British Sky News reporter Adam Boulton today challenged Bush on his dedication to freedom, suggesting that Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib represented "the complete opposite of freedom," Bush accused Boulton of "slander[ing] America."

Stage 1, Defiance: I beg to differ. If anyone is "slandering America", it's Bush. He does that through his actions, his decrees, his lies, his secrets... you know the rest.

Evidently still smarting about the Supreme Court's rejection of his detainee policies last week, Bush noted defensively that the lower courts had agreed with him -- as if that mattered.

Stage 2, Hysteria: That's so laughable that I'm reduced to tears...okay, I'm sobbing. He's disgraceful.

While Americans increasingly blame him for record-high gas prices and the toll on their pocketbooks, Bush dismissively referred to domestic concerns about those high prices as "squawking." (Bush: "Well, in the meantime you've got a bunch of people squawking about the price of gasoline. And because we didn't try to find more oil and gas, we're in a pinch in America.")

Stage 3, Rage: Squawk this, George: !#%&*#!!

And in an interview on Friday with Ned Temko of Britain's Observer, Bush actually joked that he was "still looking" for the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction that were the main reason he gave to the public for going to war.

Stage 4, Impeachment.

Phase II: White House repeatedly misrepresented Iraq threat

By GottaLaff

Here are come excerpts from Phase II of the report on pre-Iraq War intel, via Huffington Post:

The two final sections of a long-delayed and much anticipated "Phase II"report on the Bush administration's use of prewar intelligence, released on Thursday morning, accuse senior White House officials of repeatedly misrepresenting the threat posed by Iraq. [...]

-- Statements and implications by the President and Secretary of State suggesting that Iraq and al-Qa'ida had a partnership, or that Iraq had provided al-Qa'ida with weapons training, were not substantiated by the intelligence.

-- Statements by the President and the Vice President indicating that Saddam Hussein was prepared to give weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups for attacks against the United States were contradicted by available intelligence information.

-- Statements by President Bush and Vice President Cheney regarding the postwar situation in Iraq, in terms of the political, security, and economic, did not reflect the concerns and uncertainties expressed in the intelligence products.

-- Statements by the President and Vice President prior to the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate regarding Iraq's chemical weapons production capability and activities did not reflect the intelligence community's uncertainties as to whether such production was ongoing.

-- The Secretary of Defense's statement that the Iraqi government operated underground WMD facilities that were not vulnerable to conventional airstrikes because they were underground and deeply buried was not substantiated by available intelligence information.

-- The Intelligence Community did not confirm that Muhammad Atta met an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in 2001 as the Vice President repeatedly claimed.

"It has been four years since the Committee began the second phase of its review," Sen. Dianne Feinstein wrote in her note attached to the report. "The results are now in. Even though the intelligence before the war supported inaccurate statements, this Administration distorted the intelligence in order to build its case to go to war. The Executive Branch released only those findings that supported the argument, did not relay uncertainties, and at times made statements beyond what the intelligence supported."

Is impeachment still off the table?