<<What the frell are you smoking Tee? When did I EVER talk about "purchase letters"? What I ALWAYS spoke about was the FACT that Saddam apparently DID try to purcahse Yellow Cake, but never aquired it, per the BRITISH intel, AND ironically, Wilson. More of that puposeful misrepresentation that's become the hallmark of those infliced with BDS. Or do you have some facts to refute what the British intel concluded?>>
I don't smoke anything, sirs. It's a wasteful and unhealthy habit.
Whether or not you actually talked about "purchase letters" is beside the point. The point was made in the thread that Bush relied on fake documents (which, as it happens, were forged purchase letters, whether you knew it or not) and YOUR response to that was that in fact Saddam DID try to buy yellowcake. In other words, regardless of the falsification of the documentary proof, the fact that the faked document would have established was nevertheless true.
Which is more or less the identical argument that Ami is accusing me of making here - - even if the CBS memos were fake, Bush was still guilty in fact of what the fake memos were trying to prove.
And BTW, sirs, I don't think you or I will ever know what British intel concluded. The most you could ever hope to know is what British intel told others about their conclusions. British intel works for the government of Great Britain, which has its own interests and its own agenda. It does not work for the Bush administration and it is not beyond the realm of possibility that they, like others, will from time to time find it advantageous to mislead or dupe the Bush administration into acting in ways that are seen as beneficial to Her Majesty's government.
George Bush had his OWN intelligence services, whose job was to collect intelligence, inform the "President" and keep it all as neutral as they could. Part of their job was to glean information from other intelligence agencies, evaluate it and pass it on as evaluated. George Bush's job as chief executive of the U.S.A. was (1) to stay out of the intelligence gathering process and not direct them towards the conclusions that he needed to put certain preconceived policies into practice and (2) to ask questions, evaluate and determine the validity of the intelligence he was getting. In his arrogance, he failed at both: not only did he direct the intelligence-gathering and evalutating process, but because he was instrumental in producing the result that he wanted, he did not need to ask questions or determine its validity - - he KNEW it was all a crock because it was he himself, and his cronies, who had MADE it a crock. Who had TOLD the people doing the work to cook the books.
The other thing you seem to forget is the principle of executive responsibility - - IF the intel had been merely "bad intel" as you seem to still believe (rather than cooked intel, as it actually was) then the responsibility for the bad intel lies with the head of the agency (whom Bush decorated with the Medal of Freedom) and further up with the Chief Executive who picked the man for the office and continued him in office. That's what Harry Truman meant when he said "The buck stops here." BUSH is ultimately responsible for the alleged failure of intelligence (if that were what it really was, which it's not) and - - the failure having cost thousands of U.S. lives, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives and hundreds of billions of U.S. dollars) - - Bush should either resign in disgrace or be impeached for the high crime and misdemeanour of starting a war of aggression against an unoffending state, in flagrant violation of the Charter of the United Nations.
