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# Posted 3:26 AM by Taylor Owen

"THREE WORDS, THE VICE PRESIDENT": Other highlights: On the OSP report on Iraq-al Qaeda links, "It looked like an unsorted pile of junk". "It wasn't that they did not do the work, it was that the policy makers didn't like the answer. The very well documented answer than there wasn't a link..."

h/t: AS

No matter what one's past positions on Iraq, surely we must be able to agree on the lessons of the intelligence failures, notably, on the now clear cherry-picking of intelligence to push a particular policy position. As carriers move into the Gulf and the rhetoric against Iran intensifies, it is worth remembering how wrong this selected intelligence was, and how dangerous this mistake turned out to be. It is also worth keeping in mind the following exchange:

At a farewell reception at Blair House for the retiring chief of protocol, Don Ensenat, who was President Bush's Yale roommate, the president shook hands with Washington Life Magazine's Soroush Shehabi. A grandson of one of the late Shah's ministers, Soroush said, "Mr. President, I simply want to say one U.S. bomb on Iran and the regime will remain in power for another 20 or 30 years and 70 million Iranians will become radicalized."

"I know," President Bush answered.

"But does Vice President Cheney know?" asked Soroush.

The president chuckled and walked away.

h/t: KD

UPDATE: Here is a link to the video if the embed isn't working

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Comments:

"The president chuckled and walked away." That was pretty Clinton's approach to al-Q, wasn't it?

# posted by

dearieme : 9:41 AM

Dearest

tell that to Omar Abdel-Rahman. Perhaps you thought Pathway to 9/11 was a documentary, no?

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