Spence
05-18-2006, 10:31 AM
I don't know if anyone else saw it, but under questioning from Senator Carl Levin [D-MI], General Hayden just said that he was "uncomfortable" with the Iraq WMD intel being circulated in the Bush White House. He also used an analogy with his children, saying that if you were convinced his kids were bad kids BEFORE you began to investigate, you'd look at all info that seemed to confirm that bias and disregard info that contradicted your views. Therefore, you'd conclude that his kids were bad, when they are, in fact, not bad at all. That, said Hayden, was how Iraq WMD intel was being handled in the Bush admin.
I thought it was pretty stunning. Publicly, the Bush admin has continued to defend the Iraq intel even as they acknowledged it was wrong. Privately, of course, they've blamed the whole mess on the CIA. [So why did Bush give George Tenet a medal?] This is the first example I know of a senior and current member of the Bush admin trashing the way the Iraq intel was handled.
The Bush admin must have known Hayden would be asked about the intel. I wonder if they told him he could go ahead and trash the intel or if Hayden just decided he wasn't going to defend the indefensible and did it on his own. The specific question was about Douglas Feith [#3 at the Pentagon during the first term], who, under instruction from Cheney and Rumsfeld, set up the Office of Special Plans, which 'stovepiped' bad intel from the Pentagon to the rest of the government and then the media.
So far, I'd say this is the biggest story of the Hayden hearings.
I thought it was pretty stunning. Publicly, the Bush admin has continued to defend the Iraq intel even as they acknowledged it was wrong. Privately, of course, they've blamed the whole mess on the CIA. [So why did Bush give George Tenet a medal?] This is the first example I know of a senior and current member of the Bush admin trashing the way the Iraq intel was handled.
The Bush admin must have known Hayden would be asked about the intel. I wonder if they told him he could go ahead and trash the intel or if Hayden just decided he wasn't going to defend the indefensible and did it on his own. The specific question was about Douglas Feith [#3 at the Pentagon during the first term], who, under instruction from Cheney and Rumsfeld, set up the Office of Special Plans, which 'stovepiped' bad intel from the Pentagon to the rest of the government and then the media.
So far, I'd say this is the biggest story of the Hayden hearings.