The question of political manipulation of intelligence data is really heating up. Despite some claims that the President's speech claiming that Iraq had purchased Nigerian uranium was vetted by the intelligence community before its delivery, it is increasingly obvious that the Bush Administration was well aware that the claim was false.
According to the BBC, the CIA warned that the documents was likely a forgery ten full months before the President's public claim. This contention was made by a CIA official who noted that a report into the documents from U.S. diplomat Joseph Wilson had been forwarded to the White House in March of 2002.
This is on the heels of claims that the White House made false claims of Iraq's ties to al-Qaeda, which were confirmed by both Iraqi and al-Qaeda prisoners, and that the President ordered that plans for an invasion of Iraq be updated immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
The whole thing smells a bit fishy, especially considering that no traces of WMD have been found since the end of the war. This has, of course, led to claims by the U.S. and Great Britain that the weapons were destroyed before or during the war. The problem with that idea is that there is, again, no evidence that weapons were destroyed, and that one of the reasons given for the invasion was to: get rid of Iraq's WMDs. If they were being detroyed, why invade?
It certainly wasn't to build democracy, or to save the world from Saddam. That leaves three possibilities: a wag-the-dog style political game, oil, or an ego-driven Presidential need to defeat Saddam. None of the reasons are worth the life of a single American soldier, much less the thousands or Iraqis killed in the conlict.
Posted by Chris at July 10, 2003 11:58 AM