I'm interested in hearing Bush supporters' take on the newly-released intelligence reports concluding Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program and Bush has in fact known this for several months.

Media coverage appears to be overwhelmingly and universally negative toward the President in light of these findings, as well it should be. No longer can Bush supporters blame specific news groups for skewing their reports or "liberal-bashing". Across-the-board comments range from disturbed and suspicious to angry criticism over Bush's credibility.

But in the midst of all this seriousness Bush still never fails to let us down with his complete inability to focus and speak rationally like a President should. During yesterday's news conference Mark Silva (Chicago Tribune) told Bush he seemed "dispirited", to which Bush replied "This is like, all of a sudden, it's like Psychology 101, you know?"

Uh…no, I don't know. Do y'all?

-nab

NAB, I swore I would not get drawn into this particular debate; but, against my better judgment.......

We have a friend who works for the IAEA (the official global "watch dog" for all nuclear active countries). The IAEA has been telling the Bush administration, ever since they embarked on their "anti-Iran" campaign, that Iran is no where near breaching their nuclear non-proliferation agreement. I have the letter they sent the Bush government condemning them for twisting words to suit their own agenda and misleading the American public (FYI, this letter is no great secret and available to the public that can be bothered to access it on the IAEA website).

They also consistently told the Bush administration that Iraq did not have WMD's prior to their invasion; a fact the government admitted three years later when it was too late and they were firmly entrenched in the Middle East. So, you tell me why the Bush government ignored their warnings each time.

Doesn't look good for Bush does it...

Doesn't look good for Bush does it... Wayne225

Nope.

So, Iran stopped its nuclear weapons program over four years ago. Bush says he was given new information in August. During this briefing, Director McConnell and other National Intelligence people told Bush to "stand down" on Iranian threats but of course Bush in his infinite wisdom chose to ignore those instructions and made several threats about "World War III".

Now caught in his own lie, Bush actually stated that McConnell didn't tell him what the information was! Is there a one of us who believes that?

(snip) Joe Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, spoke for many when he called that explanation “unbelievable.”

“Are you telling me a president that’s briefed every single morning, who’s fixated on Iran, is not told back in August that the tentative conclusion of 16 intelligence agencies in the U.S. government said they had abandoned their effort for a nuclear weapon in ‘03?” Biden asked in a conference call with reporters.

“I refuse to believe that,” he added. “If that’s true, he has the most incompetent staff in modern American history, and he’s one of the most incompetent presidents in modern American history.”

On MSNBC this morning, Joe Scarborough was even more blunt: “We are left with only two options here. Either the President of the United States is lying to the American people about what happened during that meeting, or the President of the United States is stupid.” (I wouldn’t be too quick to characterize this as an either/or proposition.) (snip)

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/12/04/bush.iran/index.html
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/12/05/scarborough-bush-nie/

-nab

I like Bush. Always have for the most part. Been willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on a couple of occasions. But as has been pointed by Biden, Scarborough and others this is just too much.

My first real doubts about Bush began sometime after our invasion of Iraqi. It had been more than a year and no WMD's had been found. No evidence of WMD's programs had been found. Our intelligence was ultimately to blame according to Bush.

I told my wife one evening that I understood why Bush oredered our troops into Iraqi, but I didn't really agree with his actions for the following reason.

If my next door neighbor continually badgers and threatens me and my family with harm and I one day go over to his house and shoot him dead, what would the law do to me? I would go to prison right? Isn't that what President Bush did to Saddam and to the Taliban in Afghanistan?

So yes I've had my doubts about Bush'es reasons for doing what he's doing. But now that his credibility has been totally destroyed, I don't think he's going to be doing anything more to further his plans; whatever they were.

Wayne, I completely understand how you can over time change how you feel about someone you once respected and believed. I did exactly the same thing.

As I've mentioned before, I voted for Bush the first time. I was a staunch supporter during the aftermath of 911. In fact I'd guess it was just about the same time you say you began having doubts yourself that I did as well.

It's so disheartening to have faith in someone and have it shattered.

It's a well-known fact that there are some people who simply can't handle power. It changes them from who they were before (or who we thought they were before). When that person happens to be the president of the United States we're all in deep doo-doo.

-nab

The past few mornings before going to work I've been to the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) web site looking through their various news releases and published reports. Looking for any sign that this latest release was an aberration. My thought was that perhaps this latest release was a drastic change. I couldn't find anything that would suggest that they have changed their view of Iran over the past few years. So they seem to be pretty consistent over the long view.

I've been listening to Rush Limbaugh going on about the political motives behind the report and the motives of the people that put this report together and for a day or two considered that idea as well. Once again I visited the DNI site. At first I was struck by the fact that there were not regular publishing's of similar reports about Iran. At first I thought this strange and it sorta supported Rushes claim that this particular report was aimed at discrediting Bush. But then again...

Lets look for a moment at the agency itself. It has been around since 1955 but not in the form we see today. It has undergone many permutations in that time and it wasn't until the the attacks that occurred on 9/11 that the department was shaped into the form we see today. A much higher profile office that has the ability to get the cooperation of all the intelligence agencies in sharing information and thoughts about what was going on in the world. The President nominates the proposed Director and congress approves or dis-approves the nomination.

Now, Rush L. is claiming that the DNI is out to get the President for political reasons. Folks... The President nominated the Director for that department. Is it likely that the Presidents nominee is going to betray him? You know that before the NIE was released it went through his hands. It's reasonable to assume that the director is an intelligent man and knew what the response to the report would be and how it would affect the credibility of the President. Yet he allowed it to be published.

What that tells me is is a couple of things. It was time to let the American people know what the Intelligence community thought about Iran and that the President wasn't being as forthright with the American people as he should have been. The DNI director also thought it important enough to put his office on the line; and to totally destroy the credibility of the U.S. President with the peoples and Governments of the world. Because in effect that is exactly what has happened.

Some will say the report shouldn't have been made public. That it should have stayed in-house within the intelligence community. So why was it published? Because, just like the 90 pages of classified items in that report that we haven't seen, there is something the intelligence community is aware of that they are heading off. That they believe to be so important that they are willing to embarrass a sitting President to stop. What can it be? An attack on Iran? President Bush has been threatening it long enough, perhaps he made some move showing that he intends to do it.

This story is not over by a long shot. What this agency has done has ramifications that will be felt far and wide on several levels.

From what I have seen, things like this are used to draw our attention away from something else that is going on. You know the old "LOOK! THERES A DISTRACTION!"