Congress DID NOT See the Same Intelligence Info As Bush

The Bush Administration is attempting to push the despicable line that the Congressional Democrats that supported the war in Iraq were seeing exactly the same intelligence data as Bush and Cheney. This lie is addressed in this morning's Washington Post. Not only does the Congress NOT see the most sensitive intel, it must rely on the White House to hand over any data considered relevant to the issue at hand. Further, the committee that investigated intel data manipulation did not say that Bush and Cheney gave the Congress the whole story. In short, both of Bush's major contentions in yesterday's attacks on the war's critics are falsehoods.

Again:

• Iraq did NOT have weapons of mass destruction.
• The intelligence data on this issue were manipulated by the Bush-Cheney crowd.
• The UN inspectors who said there were no weapons were right.
• Hans Blix was right.
• Scott Ritter was right.
• Bush, Cheney, and the NeoCon boys were looking for an excuse to invade Iraq from day one of the Administration in January 2001.
• The 9/11 attacks gave the Administration a perfect excuse to attack Iraq, on no evidence of Iraqi involvement in the attacks whatsoever.
• The planning for the aftermath of the Iraqi war was atrocious to the point of criminal negligence.

It is this set of issues, above all, which is hammering Bush's approval ratings down. Our country's involvement in Iraq is HIS FAULT. The lousy planning for the war is HIS FAULT. The mess we're involved in is HIS FAULT. His lies, his incompetence, his deception, and his moral bankruptcy have all led us here.

In an ideal world, the Democrats would capture big enough majorities in both houses of Congress in 2006 to throw him and Torture Master Cheney out the door.

Let's see if we can live our dream.