On Mon, 19 Jan 2009 17:04:21 -0500, Kali wrote:

A crime is a crime and a POTUS should know better. Going to war with Iraq is
not a crime as it was santioned by an almost unanimous vote of Congress. A
vote, BTW, Democrats insisted upon having.

Congress did not vote to go to war, they voted to give Bush the
authority to use force, and only if necessary.

We'll see what the investigation reveals.

http://www.informationclearinghouse....ticle19903.htm
[
A Monumental Lie

In his first nationally televised address on the Iraqi crisis on October 7,
2002, six days after receiving the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), a
classified CIA report, President Bush told millions of Americans the exact
opposite of what the CIA was telling him -a monumental lie to the nation and the
world.

On the evening of October 7, 2002, the very latest CIA intelligence was that
Hussein was not an imminent threat to the U.S. This same information was
delivered to the Bush administration as early as October 1, 2002, in the NIE,
including input from the CIA and 15 other U.S. intelligence agencies. In
addition, CIA director George Tenet briefed Bush in the Oval Office on the
morning of October 7th.

According to the October 1, 2002 NIE, “Baghdad for now appears to be drawing a
line short of conducting terrorist attacks with conventional or CBW [chemical
and biological warfare] against the United States, fearing that exposure of
Iraqi involvement would provide Washington a stronger case for making war.” The
report concluded that Hussein was not planning to use any weapons of mass
destruction; further, Hussein would only use weapons of mass destruction he was
believed to have if he were first attacked, that is, he would only use them in
self-defense.

Preparing its declassified version of the NIE for Congress, which became known
as the White Paper, the Bush administration edited the classified NIE document
in ways that significantly changed its inference and meaning, making the threat
seem imminent and ominous.

In the original NIE report, members of the U.S. intelligence community
vigorously disagreed with the CIA’s bloated and inaccurate conclusions. All such
opposing commentary was eliminated from the declassified White Paper prepared
for Congress and the American people.
]

HTH
--
Cliff