The Daily Sandwich

"We have to learn the lesson that intellectual honesty is fundamental for everything we cherish." -Sir Karl Popper

Name:
Location: Boston, Massachusetts, United States

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Saturday, November 12, 2005

How do I lie to thee? Let me count the ways.

It's good to see pieces like this one from the Washington Post. As I mentioned yesterday, Bush's Veteran's Day attack on critics of the Iraq war relied on the same tired talking points we've been hearing from day one. And they still aren't true. But unless the mainstream press is willing to actually point this out, the White House will continue feeding us the same bologna sandwich.

In the same speech, Bush asserted that "more than 100 Democrats in the House and the Senate, who had access to the same intelligence, voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power." Giving a preview of Bush's speech, Hadley had said that "we all looked at the same intelligence."

But 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. For example, the NIE view that Hussein would not use weapons of mass destruction against the United States or turn them over to terrorists unless backed into a corner was cleared for public use only a day before the Senate vote.