The CIA, Rumsfeld and Bremer All Betrayed Bush Yesterday

Sucks to be Bush.

It all started with Rumself saying that

There were differences in the intelligence community as to what the relationship was [between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda]. To my knowledge, I have not seen any strong, hard evidence that links the two.

The media interpreted that as meaning he was skeptical of the connection, which I think was a sensible interpretation, but this morning Rumsfeld claimed that he had been misunderstood by the media and that, in fact, the CIA had shown him solid evidence. Its unclear to me how Rumsfeld can claim he was misunderstood -- his words are pretty clear. On the other hand, Rumsfeld may very well have misspoke, although if John Kerry had done the same the Bush campaign would have used a different term that we've heard all too often recently.

Meanwhile, the source of the evidence cited by Clarified Rumsfeld -- the CIA -- released a report saying that there was no evidence of Bush's assertion that the Iraqi government harbored, or even met, Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi or members of his group. That supposed connection has been central to Bush's claim that there was an operational relationship between Hussein and al-Qaeda. This CIA conclusion matches the well publicized conclusion of the 9/11 Commission: that there was no strong link between Iraq and al-Qaeda.

Finally, one time administrator of newly liberated Iraq, Paul Bremer, said that the United States went in with too many troops, and said that

he frequently raised the issue within the administration and "should have been even more insistent" when his advice was spurned because the situation in Iraq might be different today. "The single most important change -- the one thing that would have improved the situation -- would have been having more troops in Iraq at the beginning and throughout" the occupation

Pulling a Rumsfeld, Bremer later clarified his words to say he wasn't talking about the present, but his quote speaks for itself: "at the beginning and throughout". His words also confirm that the Bush administration was repeatedly warned -- by assorted senior officials -- that the planning for the Iraq War was seriously flawed, and that a scarcity of troops would lead to chaos in Iraq.

All in all, it wasn't the best day for Bush. With friends like this, who needs enemies? Still, the pressure on Bush will probably ease up because of Cheney's likely defeat of Edwards in tonight's Vice Presidential Debate.

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The funny bit is that Bush will in all likelyhood still win! lol

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