FRONTLINE: Bush's War (Anybody catch part one?)
JectWon
(@_@) 1,654 Posts
Got'damn, I'm a sucker for these Frontline jawns. They showed part 1 of "Bush's War" last night and I'm loving it. Well, loving it might be the wrong term because the doc', pretty much, systematically recounts how Cheney/Rumsfeld got us into the shitpile we are throat deep in right now. What blew my mind was the territorial pissing that went on between the CIA and Rumsfeld during the Afghanistan invasion. And how George "Slam Dunk" Tenet and Colin Powell started out nobly defending the opinion to NOT invade Iraq, yet they folded under the pressure....I still don't know why though. At any rate, the doc is typical FRONTLINE bad'assery and this link: FRONTLINE SITE Is where you can watch tons of FRONTLINE docs in their entirety. I had no Frickin' clue that you can watch full Frontline episodes on their site. I'm sayin': (circa tonight at 9:00) Laptop + Bed + Liberally Packed Bowl = 
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On Al Qaeda, the White House basically picked up anything they could find and exaggerated it, which wasn't based upon U.S. intelligence. The CIA consistently said there were o real ties and the White House kept on pushing them to find some and the Pentagon even set up its own intelligence unit to try to find some evidence of it.
On WMD however, the CIA believed that Iraq had an active nuclear and WMD program, although there were pissing contests over side stories like the aluminum tubes and Niger and mobile labs. The general consensus amongst the intelligence community (not just the CIA) was that Iraq had WMD, had a program larger than before the 1991 Gulf War, and had a hidden stash left over from the Iran-Iraq war. There was basically nothing in the Frontline show that portrayed how much the CIA believed in this, the completely flimsy evidence it was based upon (The Senate Intelligence Committee in 2 reports basically said the CIA "believed" in this, and had no hard evidence to back it up), and how much they pushed it without any prodding from the White House. That didn't stop the administration from exaggerating the threat as well with comments like "mushroom clouds" and putting the Niger story into Bush's speech even though the CIA had told them twice to take it out.
are people simply bored of this tragic story of epic hubris and chaos?
That's interesting. See, when I watched FRONTLINE's part one last night it seemed to me that the CIA was saying Rumsfled was using his sources to produce all this prove, incorrectly, that Iraw had and wanted WMD and the CIA claimed their intelligence did not suggest that Iraq had or was working towards WMD. And, the CIA was challenging or (at least) confused about the yellow cake claims, the mobile labs claims and the exchange in Niger.
So you're saying that the CIA and Rumsfeld's sources both felt that iraw had WMD's, but they wanted to credit their sources for the proof?
Man, this shit is so crazy, I don't think I could keep it together in a crazy situation like that.
I will say, in 'Bush's War', I thought I noticed some bias in favor of the CIA during Frontline, however, I assume it's because all of the countering parties declined interview or comment. It was basically them saying, they fabricated or over-trusted bullshit evidence and not much counter points to that.
You probably could've left it at "people are simple." And you can put that on ma' momma. Exclamation point/quotation/comma...
It will soon drop off of Fox and start popping up on the other networks. The cease fires are coming to an end. The Sunni/US Army alliance is also coming to an end. The central government does not control the provinces and fighting for control of local governments will soon be the new battleground in Iraq.
Iraq has been falling off the headlines for the last 6 months or so. The last big surge of reporting was when Petraeus and Crocker testified to Congress. Since then it's been going down with the Iraq war anniversary being a short reprieve.
It's a long war, people lose interest. Also the presidential campaign has been pushing everything off the newspapers the last couple months. That coupled with the beginning of a recession pushes Iraq down the list of priority stories.
The general consensus amongst all the intelligence agencies in the U.S. was that Iraq had WMD. I think all but one agency believed that Saddam was working on his nukes. Depending upon the story you had different people behind it on the details. For example on the mobile labs and the guy it came from CURVEBALL, the WINPAC division of the CIA was strongly behind it although there were some questions about it. The Niger story was the only thing that was widely regarded as not reliable.
Frontline relied too heavily on CIA guys in their reporting on the lead-up to the war. As could be expected, none of them were willing to say they had their heads up their asses when it came to Iraq's WMD and nuke programs.
Basically they had photo intelligence of suspicious activities around facilities and a whole slew of stories from the Iraqi National Congress that were all made up. That was about it as far as "hard evidence." It didn't matter because their perceptions of Iraq were shaped by the years of U.N. inspections when Saddam tried to hide his stuff. They thought once the inspectors were gone Iraq would restart them automatically. It turns out the U.N. did wipe out Iraq's programs and what was left Saddam decided to destroy himself because he wanted the U.N. sanctions to end.
Thanks
Watched Part 1 last night, good solid stuff.
MCF
check otu the other shit on that site too. The Mormon doc is ill. Those fuckers are nuts....
Mormons, doctors, or Mormon doctors?
I want a president who can admit a wrong.
Ha'....Mormon (doc)umentary