From the "NIE was Politicized" to a Secret Cabal Forged those Uranium Documents to the Latest "They Dishonestly Presented the Intelligence," the Dems 2006 Election Strategy Moves On

Let's see. First, the cry of many anti-Bush liberals was that Bush officials "pressured" intelligence analysts to reach the judgments made in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate. When that line of attack was torpedoed by two bi-partisan reports--

Silberman/Robb Commission : The Commission has found no evidence of "politicization" of the Intelligence Community's assessments concerning Iraq's reported WMD programs. No analytical judgments were changed in response to political pressure to reach a particular conclusion.

Senate Intelligence Committee: The Committee did not find any evidence that Administration officials attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to change their judgments related to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities.

-- they descended into cuckoo-clock land with another conspiracy in which a secret cabal forged those Niger uranium documents to push the U.S. into war. That fizzled the other day when the FBI weighed-in. The latest is that Bush officials presented the intelligence to the American people in a dishonest campaign to rush us into war.

Republicans should welcome a debate on all aspects of the decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power. For example, John Kerry now says he'd have left Saddam in power. Let's debate the implications of his new position in light of the UN inspection reports and the findings of David Kay and Charles Duelfer. Let's debate the Clinton administration's use of intelligence in the lead-up to the December, 1998 Desert Fox bombing campaign -- an attack that some worried would compel Saddam to launch wmd-filled Scuds against his neighbors. Let's debate why Clinton officials were so worried about a "strategic crime" where Islamic radicals would hit US targets using Iraq-supplied wmd. To kick things off, Congress should appropriate funds to send every American household a copy of the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate--a document that was not "politicized" and represents the collective judgment of six U.S. intelligence agencies. Let the debate begin.