"Harry Krause" wrote in message
...
For years I have been maintaining that the Bush Administration did NOT let
members of Congress see the same intel it had during its buildup to the
war against Iraq.

Now comes an article in the Washington Post that validates my posit:

Asterisks Dot White House's Iraq Argument

By Dana Milbank and Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, November 12, 2005; A01

President Bush and his national security adviser have answered critics of
the Iraq war in recent days with a two-pronged argument: that Congress saw
the same intelligence the administration did before the war, and that
independent commissions have determined that the administration did not
misrepresent the intelligence.

Neither assertion is wholly accurate.

...

But 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. And the commissions cited by officials, though
concluding that the administration did not pressure intelligence analysts
to change their conclusions, were not authorized to determine whether the
administration exaggerated or distorted those conclusions.

National security adviser Stephen J. Hadley, briefing reporters Thursday,
countered "the notion that somehow this administration manipulated the
intelligence." He said that "those people who have looked at that issue,
some committees on the Hill in Congress, and also the Silberman-Robb
Commission, have concluded it did not happen."

But the only committee investigating the matter in Congress, the Senate
Select Committee on Intelligence, has not yet done its inquiry into
whether officials mischaracterized intelligence by omitting caveats and
dissenting opinions. And Judge Laurence H. Silberman, chairman of Bush's
commission on weapons of mass destruction, said in releasing his report on
March 31, 2005: "Our executive order did not direct us to deal with the
use of intelligence by policymakers, and all of us were agreed that that
was not part of our inquiry."

Bush, in Pennsylvania yesterday, was more precise, but he still implied
that it had been proved that the administration did not manipulate
intelligence, saying that those who suggest the administration
"manipulated the intelligence" are "fully aware that a bipartisan Senate
investigation found no evidence of political pressure to change the
intelligence community's judgments."

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.

Harry, the last paragraph says it all, "Saddam won't use the WMD unless
backed into a corner" That statement assumes quite strongly that he HAS
WMD!!!!! Further, history shows us that anyone who opposes him is a target
for WMD (Kurds, Iranians) or assassination (Bush I) so it means that he
fears our retaliation if he uses them against us. If you remember, our
troops, the Israelis and Kuwaitis were issued gas masks and there were air
raid sirens going on and people putting mask on during the nightly news
during the ramp up to the war. So we were expecting him to use some form of
gas attack.

NOT true (subject of this message)