George W. Bush Quotes
The CIA is just guessing about the progress of the Iraq War
It is noteworthy that a U. S. President had such a harsh evaluation of our major intelligence agency. Even more important in this case is that this President justified his 2003 decision to invade Iraq and start the war on the intelligence he claimed was provided to him by the CIA that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. This quotation and the President’s view was not public at the time. I all fairness to the CIA staff, many of them had provided a number of caveats and warnings about the unreliability of the information. However, the CIA Director, George Tenant, advised Bush in a way that the caveats were sublimated. See {633093} for more detail.
George W. Bush, 43rd President of the United States, Excoriating the CIA’s intelligence performance, 2004
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
The President started the Iraq War claiming this intelligence was the main reason. Tenet has maintained however that the “slam dunk” expression was intended to convey that his assessment was that this reason for the start of a war would certainly be accepted by the American public, not that the evidence was very certain.
Kay was chasing around Iraq trying to find the weapons that the George W. Bush administration had said definitely existed. Based on the weapons existence, the United States went to War in Iraq. No weapons were ever found.
Agree resigned from the CIA in protest to its political positions.
The CIA intelligence had been shared with key world leaders to gain support for the George W, Bush administration invasion of Iraq. Blix was bothered by the fact that although the intelligence was so certain why were not any of the locations known. The answer, of course, was that there was no such development and the intelligence was faulty, but at the time, only he seemed to be bothered by this point. See also {588115}.
This was meant as a criticism of Webster, but must people saw it as a compliment. What Clarridge and other old hands at the CIA could never get straight was that they were supposed to break the other countries’ laws but not the laws of the United States. They were supposed to lie to other countries, but not to our President and Congress. This has been a constant problem for United States intelligence agencies. Some scholars of espionage believe that a good spy or spy master lies so often that it is part of his nature to do so as well as break laws. Psychologically it is difficult for them not to lie to anyone and they have little respect for laws. Webster fired Clarridge when Webster reformed the CIA but in the process he alienated most of the “veterans”.
The attack on the World Trade Towers and our military reaction to that could not fairly be blamed on Bush. However, the Iraq War was certainly a policy choice he made. And he also made the decision to cut taxes (mostly for the rich) on the assumption that this would stimulate the economy and produce even more taxes. It did not. And also on Bush’s policy responsibility was his decision not to raise taxes to pay for a war. This had never been done in American history. And Bush was fighting two wars. In addition when he took office Bill Clinton had balanced the budget and left a substantial surplus. Instead of using the surplus to pay for his other policy decisions, he spent it.
- Born: July 6, 1946
- Nationality: American
- Profession: Former President of the U.S., Former Governor of Texas, Politician, Attorney
George Walker Bush is an American politician and businessman who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush previously served as the 46th governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000. He was born into the Bush family; his father, George H. W. Bush, was the 41st president of the United States from 1989 to 1993.
