Intelligence Matters: Senator Bob Graham

Here is an interview with the author of a book I happen to be reading right now. "Intellegence Matters" By Senator Bob Graham. Senator Graham was the Co-chair of the committee that investigated the Intelligengce failings that led to the attacks of
Sept. 11.
I will include some excerpts from the book below. I highly urge people to read this book. Whether you buy it, check it out of the library, get it as a gift, or borrow it from a friend. This book should be read by all Americans.

Ben

" I will also lay out evidence supporting what I believe to be a cover-up orchestrated by the White House to protect not only the agencies that had failed but also America's relationship with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
In sum, I will argue that the Bush administration's action and inaction—in protecting a foreign governemnt which played a central role in the loss of nearly 3,000 lives; in failing to alert government agencies of known tactics of terrorists; in diverting the nation from the real war on terrorism in Afghanistan to a falsely justified war in Iraq; and in politicizing and falsifying intelligence in order to build support for that war, and then in covering up these and other actions—constitute an indictment of President Bush's leadership so serious that it warrants his removal from office." p. xv-xvi.

and we're still in the introduction.

"Here, General Franks, a four-star general and the commander of CENTCOM, was laying out for me how he would fight a true war on terrorism. Instead, his men and resources were being moved to Iraq, where he felt that our intelligence was shoddy. This admission was coming almost fourteen months before the beginning of combat operations in Iraq, and only five months after the commencement of combat in Afghanistan. "p. 126

"The reality seemed at sharp variance with what the President had been saying publicly about rooting out terrorists wherever they exist, and with what Dr. Rice had claimed just days earlier. And though President Bush packaged action in Iraq as part of the war on terror, the truth was that not only was it not a part of the war on terror, it actively and demonstrably detracted from the war on terror." p. 126

"Although the President predicated his case for war on his claims about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, he also argued that there was a direct link between Iraq and the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks..

...These claimes were effective. At the time, a poll showed that 70 percent of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein was involved in or directly responsible for the attacks of September 11; rather than disabusing people of the notion, the President tried to solidify it. Instead of using his presidency to teach America about the real terrorist threats we faced, Bush was using it to mislead the country in order to build support for a war against an unrelated threat." p 193

"...I had no intention of supporting this Gulf War.
... Meanwhile, Republicans, led by President Bush,...were using the issue to bludgeon Democrats. For example, in Georgia, Max Cleland, a first-term senator, a Bronze and Silver star winner who lost three limbs to a grenade explosion in Vietnam, had his patriotism impugned in one television ad,...Tim Johnson in South Dakota..Paul Wellstone in Minnesota, and Jean Carnahan in Missouri were being subjected to similar attacks, and they were having an effect." p.199-200

Well, this is as far as I am in the book at the moment. I will try and ad more later. This, if anybody actually views my blog, will probably get some hate mail. C'est la vie (such is life). Funny how the truth always makes people angry. I wonder if it is not really the truth that makes them angry but the unrealised embarrasment of being deceived in the first place that makes them so angry? As well as the anger at having people like the President of the United States doing the lying that angers them. (Rightfully so) , but moreso the idea that this countries' leadership has slipped farther from truth than they had feared and that this too angers and frightens? (again, rightfully so) .

That's it for my little pop psychology.

In this case, people should be very angry, but not at me or Senator Graham or anybody else who speaks of the lies and deception (not trying to compare myself to the Senator or anyone else) but in all cases, the anger should be directed at the people doing the lying and decieving.

B