Marv....as to your first three "facts", the evidence, particularly from the recent Phase II of the Senate Intelligence report, says otherwise. No reason to play that game with you.
Among the conclusions of the Senate report:
…Saddam Hussein was distrustful of al-Qa’ida and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from al Qa’ida to provide material or operational support…Saddam issued a general order that Iraq should not deal with al Qa’ida. No postwar information suggests that the Iraqi regime attempted to facilitate a relationship with bin Ladin.
Its unfortunate that Bush is continuing to pressure the Sen Intel Committee from releasing the full report.
Feel free to believe what Cheney tells you to justify their actions.. I would just say "You can put wings on a pig, but you don't make it an eagle." (credit to BIll Clinton)
My fear is that it will be deja vu all over again with Iran,with the Adminstration creating or maniupuating intelligence to meet its objective. The Senate, showing its wisdom in a bi-paratisan way, passed a bill introduced by Harry Reid and Joe Biden, to at least put some safeguards in place to prevent a reoccurence of the "Iraq intelligence folly" (there I go again with "folly").
The Iran Intelligence Oversight Act will:
-- Require an updated national intelligence estimate on Iran with an unclassified summary available to inform debate by Congress and the American people
-- Require the President to report to Congress on his objectives regarding Iran and his strategy for achieving them
-- Require the Director of National Intelligence to report to Congress on the current policies and practices for vetting and clearing statements of senior Administration officials that are drawn from intelligence; how significant misstatements of intelligence in public statements of senior public officials are identified, brought to the attention of any such officials, and corrected; and recommend any process improvements.
http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=67761
The bill was included in the Senate version of the '07 Defense Appropriations bill, but it is highly unlikely that Bush's buddies in the House will accept it in conference.
Instead, the House will release reports with faulty intelligence as noted in #16 above. Not that it matters because Bush continues to threaten to veto the Defense Approp. bill unless it has the prisoner interrogation language that he so desperately wants in order to continue to vioalte the Geneva Convention.
BTW, I was only being half serious about requirement family members of Congress to be "volunteered."
We will have enough problems with many of the new volunteers. Someone mentioned in another thread about the number of people volunteering for the military. One reason is the number of waivers that are now being given, including dropping the requirement for a HS diploma, allowing a criminal record or a mental illness, accepting know skinhead aryan nation types and urban gang members, etc....but that is the subject for another thread.