Democratic intelligence, then and now
A friend writes:
Senator Durbin says Intelligence Committee Members were aware that the Iraq Intelligence didn’t support the case for war.Sen. Durbin, April 25, 2007 (full text on Congressional Record):
“I was a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee and I would read the headlines in the paper in the morning and I'd watch the television newscast and I'd shake my head....[T]he information we had in the Intelligence Committee was not the same information being given to the American people. I couldn't believe it.”
“You see, in the Intelligence Committee, we're sworn to secrecy. We can't walk outside the door and say, ‘The statement made yesterday by the White House is in direct contradiction to classified information that's being given to this Congress.’”
“And so in my frustration, I sat here on the floor of the Senate and listened to this heated debate about invading Iraq thinking the American people are being misled. They are not being told the truth.”
But here’s what Democratic Intelligence Committee members were saying about the intelligence they saw…Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) September, 2002): “[Saddam] has ignored the mandates of the United Nations, is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them.”
Sen. John Rockefeller (D-WV), October, 2002: “There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons. And will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years.”
Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN), March, 2003: “Bill, I support the president's efforts to disarm Saddam Hussein. I think he was right on in his speech tonight. The lessons we learned following September 11 were that we can't wait to be attacked again, particularly when it involves weapons of mass destruction. So regrettably, Saddam has not done the right thing, which is to disarm, and we're left with no alternative but to take action.”
And Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid…Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), September, 2002: “Saddam Hussein, in effect, has thumbed his nose at the world community. And I think that the President's approaching this in the right fashion.”
