HoyaBill Posted October 5, 2004 Share Posted October 5, 2004 Perhaps, unlike what President Bush suggested, Sen. Kerry did NOT read the same intelligence reports he read. It appears he was unaware of the internal debate about the use of the aluminum tubes Iraq had ordered: "At the Democratic convention in Boston this summer, Senator John Kerry pledged that should he be elected president, "I will ask hard questions and demand hard evidence." But in October 2002, when the Senate voted on Iraq, Mr. Kerry had not read the National Intelligence Estimate, but instead had relied on a briefing from Mr. Tenet, a spokeswoman said. "According to the C.I.A.'s report, all U.S. intelligence experts agree that Iraq is seeking nuclear weapons," Mr. Kerry said then, explaining his vote. "There is little question that Saddam Hussein wants to develop nuclear weapons."" NY Times Of course, to excuse him entirely for his vote, you'd have to assume it wasn't politicaly related, which I'm not about to do. A pretty interesting read, this article also makes me shift my opinion - some might say 'flip-flop' - on the National Intelligence Director. It seems Tenet was only exposed to his own analysts' opinions, and not those from Energy. In theory, it seems a NID could have been able to pool reports from the different agencies better than DCI. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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