Hillary Didn't Read Intel Report Before Voting for War
By AmandaBCarpenter Posted in Democrats — Comments (34) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
In November 2005 I interviewed a number of U.S. senators to see if they had read the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, a document put together by the intelligence community that President Bush used to justify the war in Iraq.
The Washington Post had reported earlier that only six senators had read the document before voting to authorize the President to use force in Iraq in October 2002. Among those who I found had not read the NIE were then-Minority Leader Sen. Harry Reid. (D.-Nev.).
Now, we find out that Hillary Clinton didn't read it either. At a campaign stop in Hampton, New Hamphsire Clinton was asked by if she had read the report.
Hillary did not say she did. Instead, she said she was "briefed." This is similar to what Sen. John Kerry (D.-Mass.) told me. He had not read the report either, but told me he was briefed by Pentagon officials.
The news report about this from ABC news said the woman who asked Clinton if she had read it repeated her question, "Did you read it?" about three times. Each time, Hillary would only saw she had been briefed.
On the campaign trail for the Democrat nomination for president Hillary has said that President Bush has "misused her vote" and that if she had been president in 2002 she would not have gone to war.
Terry Jeffrey has a great story explaining the importance of the 2002 NIE here.
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Ordinary citizens did NOT read this. They listened to what Bush and others said. They did NOT tell the story of this report.
Fact is that early in the war, a majority of Americans believed that Saddam was behind 9-11, there were WMD all over Iraq and that we would be greeted as liberators by a grateful population ready to embrace democracy.
I don't believe Bush lied. I DO believe Bush is well-meaning and incompetent.
Don't bother answering if you're not going to provide historical examples for your baseline, by the way. But if you don't bother answering, don't use this particular argument again on this blog, either.
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC.
You saw what competent diplomacy and foreign policy was in action last week in Damascus.
Take notes.
Oh yes, we took notes. We took notes and broke out the highlighters. And then we got those little plastic tabs to mark our places.
We're going to reference that little exercise, believe you me.
:)
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC.
Or something like that. Wasn't it that Wino guy who so aptly noted that? Or maybe the TruthtoPower guy. Whoever.
____
Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don't.
How disappointing; I mean, if it weren't for B. Fred I'd be certain that I was completely laboring in obscurity.
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC.
Not much activity for all the work you've been doing lately...
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Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don't.
I don't think Harriet Meirs was the best legal mind available in the US.
I think AGAG is over his head.
I think Rumsfield was allowed to fail too long - should have been replaced way earlier.
I think way too much pork was passed.
I think the buck does stop with Bush on WMD's and Saddam.
I don't think Brownie did a "heckova" job.
I don't think the insurgency is in its last throes.
I don't think Sunni's and Shiite are ready for democracy.
I do think loyalty in valued more than competency in this admin
leaving Saddam in power and continuing to believe, as he wished, that he possessed a large arsenal of WMD's would have had us in a situation today where Iran and Iraq would have their WMD's aimed at both Israel and each other. Bush wouldn't have been held in any greater esteem in this scenario. Bad as it seems, we're better off in our present reality.
1) Would you expect that ordinary citizens would read such a document?
2) Don't you think citizens have a right to expect that their elected representatives (which includes Senators) would read it, prior to casting such a critical vote?
3) Don't you think elected representatives should take responsibility for their votes, rather than trying to pass the buck to others?
4) Regarding intelligence, do you think the president and legislators ought to ignore what the Director of Central Intelligence tells them about such things as WMDs?
As for the "greeted as liberators" thing, I think we largely have been. The problem, of course, is that there are several groups that have no particular interest in this kind of Iraqi government taking hold. And they've pulled out all the stops to prevent it from doing so.
Understandably, the populace at large is hesitant to cast their lot with a government that may well not stand....remembering what the last ruler did with those who had opposed him.
When Iraqis registered and voted as they did, in the numbers that they did, I'm not sure there could be a better popular endorsement of the liberation.
If they'd have stayed home, I'd be inclined to agree with you that we did something the Iraqi populace had no interest in being done.
They dont read budgets, why should they read intel reports?
Im not actually sure if most of them can read at all.
read the report?
If so, tell me, if the CIA had been correct, and Saddam had pursued and acquired what they said he was after....wouldn't you be calling GWB incompetent for allowing that to happen?
What ever happened to political courage? What ever happened to politicians taking responsibility for their actions, decisions, and votes?
This goes for Republicans, Democrats, and everybody in between.
The WSJ had a great editorial recently about John McCain that reverberated through the blogosphere. It called right now his finest moment. And it may well be -- even as his presidential hopes are frittering away. It's his finest moment because he's the only Senator in the presidential sweepstakes who is standing by his vote in the 2002 Iraq War Resolution vote -- and, not only standing by it, but taking responsibility for it.
Of the others who were there and voted and who have either declared or may declare a run for the presidency, you have varying degrees of running away from their votes. HRC, Biden, Hagel, Edwards, Dodd, Kerry....all of them voted in favor of the resolution. Each of them, to a man, has distanced themselves from it to one degree or another and tried to paint George W. Bush as the sacrificial lamb for their own vote.
It's utterly disgraceful -- and the epitome of political cowardice.
I recently read an op-ed written in the days following the vote and leading up to the engagement. It read, in part:
The most challenging phase will likely be the day after -- or, more accurately, the decade after -- Saddam Hussein.Once he is gone, expectations are high that coalition forces will remain in large numbers to stabilize Iraq and support a civilian administration. That presence will be necessary for several years, given the vacuum there, which a divided Iraqi opposition will have trouble filling and which some new Iraqi military strongman must not fill.
Americans are largely unprepared for such an undertaking. President Bush must make clear to the American people the scale of the commitment.
It sounds to me like he needed to first prepare the authors of this piece -- Sens. Joe Biden and Chuck Hagel -- for it.
What happened to "the commitment", Joe and Chuck? What happened to seeing to completion the "challenging phase" you were trying to prepare the rest of us for?
Because I'm one of the "American people" that you said wasn't prepared for it. And I'm not the one trying to pull the rug out from underneath something I was, in just a small way, responsible for. You two, on the other hand, were largely responsible for it.
I'm not going to be voting for John McCain in the Republican primary. But I admire the hell out of him for standing his ground and taking responsibility for the things he supported.
That is what leadership is all about. Hillary, Edwards, Biden, Hagel, Dodd, Kerry....they're all poseurs.
That is one heckuva posting LibertarianHawk - kudos to you!
What's the old saying?....."Success has many Fathers and Failure(insert 'Challenge' here) is a b______d (edited)"
From the article:
"The Washington Post had reported earlier that only six senators had read the document before voting to authorize the President to use force in Iraq in October 2002. Among those who I found had not read the NIE were then-Minority Leader Sen. Harry Reid. (D.-Nev.)."
Wasn't Dachale still Majority Leader in October of 2002 as the next Congress wasn't seated untill 2003?
Amanda wrote her article - and asked her question - in November of 2005. At both times the Senate Minority Leader was Harry Reid.
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC.
At a seldomly-updated blog of mine, I posted the following in January:
http://anybodybuthillary.blogspot.com/2007/01/senator-clintons-shifting-...
Senator Clinton loves to claim that she was misled by President Bush and him alone. However, in the video posted at my blog, we see the following statement from her:
Now, compare Hillary's comments there regarding her research into the war (8:52-9:20) - stating that she voted as she did "after carefully reviewing the information and intelligence I had available, people whose opinions I trusted" with the current statements. This flies pretty squarely in the face against what the Senator is telling us today - that she was misled by one man and one man alone!
So, I assume that the NIE was not part of the "carefully reviewed" material since she now says she was only "briefed" on it. Wow, I guess we've caught her in another lie in the video from 2003 that I posted.
Chris Whisonant
http://anybodybuthillary.blogspot.com
we should ask why she considers the 17 or so UNSC resolutions that form the legal basis of intervention in Iraq to be irrelevant to good US policy.
Can anyone tell me what the final Senate vote was for the bill giving President Bush the authority to take action against Iraq? The actual count of Yays versus Nays? Thanks!
Here were the yays:
* Wayne Allard (R-CO)
* George Allen (R-VA)
* Max Baucus (D-MT)
* Evan Bayh (D-IN)
* Bob Bennett (R-UT)
* Joe Biden (D-DE)
* Kit Bond (R-MO)
* John Breaux (D-LA)
* Sam Brownback (R-KS)
* Jim Bunning (R-KY)
* Conrad Burns (R-MT)
* Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-CO)
* Maria Cantwell (D-WA)
* Jean Carnahan (D-MO)
* Tom Carper (D-DE)
* Max Cleland (D-GA)
* Hillary Clinton (D-NY)
* Thad Cochran (R-MS)
* Susan Collins (R-ME)
* Larry Craig (R-ID)
* Mike Crapo (R-ID)
* Tom Daschle (D-SD)
* Mike DeWine (R-OH)
* Christopher Dodd (D-CT)
* Pete Domenici (R-NM)
* Byron Dorgan (D-ND)
* John Edwards (D-NC)
* John Ensign (R-NV)
* Mike Enzi (R-WY)
* Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)
* Peter Fitzgerald (R-IL)
* Bill Frist (R-TN)
* Phil Gramm (R-TX)
* Chuck Grassley (R-IA)
* Judd Gregg (R-NH)
* Chuck Hagel (R-NE)
* Tom Harkin (D-IA)
* Orrin Hatch (R-UT)
* Jesse Helms (R-NC)
* Fritz Hollings (D-SC)
* Tim Hutchinson (R-AR)
* Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX)
* James Inhofe (R-OK)
* Tim Johnson(D-SD)
* John Kerry (D-MA)
* Herb Kohl (D-WI)
* Jon Kyl (R-AZ)
* Mary Landrieu (D-LA)
* Joe Lieberman (D-CT)
* Blanche Lincoln (D-AR)
* Trent Lott (R-MS)
* Richard Lugar (R-IN)
* John McCain (R-AZ)
* Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
* Zell Miller (D-GA)
* Frank Murkowski (R-AK)
* Bill Nelson (D-FL)
* Ben Nelson (D-NE)
* Don Nickles (R-OK)
* Harry Reid (D-NV)
* Pat Roberts (R-KS)
* Jay Rockefeller (D-WV)
* Rick Santorum (R-PA)
* Chuck Schumer (D-NY)
* Jeff Sessions (R-AL)
* Richard Shelby (R-AL)
* Robert Smith (R-NH)
* Gordon Smith (R-OR)
* Olympia Snowe (R-ME)
* Arlen Specter (R-PA)
* Ted Stevens (R-AK)
* Craig Thomas (R-WY)
* Fred Thompson (R-TN)
* Strom Thurmond (R-SC)
* Robert Torricelli (D-NJ)
* George Voinovich (R-OH)
* John Warner (R-VA)
The nays...
* Daniel Akaka (D-HI)
* Jeff Bingaman (D-NM)
* Barbara Boxer (D-CA)
* Robert Byrd (D-WV)
* Lincoln Chafee (R-RI)
* Jon Corzine (D-NJ)
* Kent Conrad (D-ND)
* Mark Dayton (D-MN)
* Dick Durbin (D-IL)
* Russ Feingold (D-WI)
* Bob Graham (D-FL)
* Daniel Inouye (D-HI)
* Jim Jeffords (I-VT)
* Ted Kennedy (D-MA)
* Patrick Leahy (D-VT)
* Carl Levin (D-MI)
* Barbara Mikulski (D-MD)
* Patty Murray (D-WA)
* Jack Reed (D-RI)
* Paul Sarbanes (D-MD)
* Debbie Stabenow (D-MI)
* Paul Wellstone (D-MN)
* Ron Wyden (D-OR)
In the House, the vote was 296-133.
Also stated in the referenced article above “...Clinton also said she believed she was giving the President the authority to send U.N. inspectors to Iraq."
I find this statement to be more aggresses then not reading the report. Does Mrs. Clinton understand that the votes she does cast in the Senate can have life and death consequences? It would appear not.
EliTheBean
Why was it that this vote didn't merit more than a "briefing"?
lobbing a handful of missiles and bombing from 35,000 feet.
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Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don't.
If my government representative has a staffer that reads this stuff in detail, is a veritable expert on the subject matter, and can extract all of the relevant information such that my representative can make informed decisions, then I'm ok with a "briefing". In fact I think it is a good use of his/her time.
Unfortunately "briefing" can also mean his/her secretary skimmed it and didn't think anything was worth mentioning. It all depends...
on matters of lesser importance, or with documents of far greater length, but in the case of something like this NIE, it was just too important an issue to be simply briefed on.
I do think that if she had read the document, she would have come to the same conclusion, but not reading it just opens her up to criticism.
The total report is 91 pages..and the key judgements are even shorter.
going to war. It's not a budgetary line item you can futz with later if you change your mind.
Oh wait...
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Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don't.
to read the supporting documents and listen to arguments pro and con on any given piece of proposed legislation, are we really a Representative Government? Or have we merely become pawns of the unlected beauracrats with the window dressing of a popular vote?
I've always thought the best and most necessary brake on government expansion is that if our elected representative hasn't had time to read and consider the proposed legislation, it should die; whether in committee or on the floor doesn't much matter to me. But if you don't actually know enough about from direct examination, you ought not be approving it as the law of the land.
is the smoking gun that proves GWB did not lie about anything....but most people ignore it and refuse to accept what was included in the report.
I had a discussion with a family member this weekend, and when I brought up the report they dismissed it out of hand, and stated flatly that GWB was determined regardless of all else to invade Iraq. She hadn't read the report, but she knew that it's contents were unimportant.
If you really want to see a member of the "Bush Lied" group glaze over, ask them about the 2004 SSCOI report.