Our politicians lie through their teeth and then when caught, make up other stories or lie once again. It is good to see that Washington and London are now taking heat for the WMD fiasco that was our stated objective with the invasion of Iraq. Now it appears that Dick Cheney was out to pressure some people in this regard.
WASHINGTON - "Multiple" visits to the CIA by Vice President Cheney and a top aide over the past year created an environment in which some analysts felt they were being pressured to make assessments of Iraq data fit the administration's policy objectives, The Washington Post reported on Thursday.
The report cited an unnamed senior CIA official as saying that the visits by Cheney and his chief of staff to question the analysts "sent signals, intended or otherwise that a certain output was desired from here." The disclosure comes amid growing concern that the administration exaggerated -- either deliberately or due to faulty intelligence -- the threat posed by Iraq's weapons.
The assertion by the Bush administration that Iraq possessed stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and had a program to develop nuclear weapons was a prime justification for the war but no such weapon has been found since President Saddam Hussein was toppled.
The Washington Post said it could not learn the exact number of visits by Cheney to the CIA but it reported that one agency official described them as "multiple."
The report cited intelligence officials as saying that visits to CIA headquarters by a vice president are unusual.
The newspaper reported that former and current intelligence officials said they felt a continual drumbeat not only from Cheney but also from Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and, to a lesser extent, CIA Director George Tenet, to find information or write reports in a way that would help the administration make the case that invading Iraq was urgent.
The Post said a spokeswoman for Cheney declined to discuss the matter on Wednesday. The newspaper quoted senior administration sources as saying that the visits allowed Cheney and his chief of staff, Lewis Libby, to have direct exchanges with analysts rather than ask questions of their daily briefers.
The paper quoted sources, which it described as sympathetic to the vice president's approach, as saying that their goal was to have a free flow of information and not to intimidate the analysts. The sources said that some analysts may well have misinterpreted questions as directives.
We so desparately need to get these clowns out of Washington and I also wish Tony Blair an early retirement also.
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