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Mr. Bush crossed the line when he started attacking American citizens who want to see a change of course in Iraq and new leadership in Washington. His resolve and finish the job rhetoric do nothing to win the Peace in Iraq.
On Veterans Day, George Bush could have honored our men and women in uniform by admitting that he had made a mistake and by outlining a clear success strategy for our men and women currently serving in Iraq.
Instead, Bush blamed the intelligence community, claiming that Democrats in Congress had access to the same intelligence that he did. As a former intelligence analyst who served in the Middle East for most of his military career, I am offended at the way this administration continues to blame the intelligence community for this war.
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The American people need to know that information and Intelligence are two different things. Information is one piece of the puzzle and intelligence is several pieces of information put together to create an intelligence picture.
Pre-war presentations made to the United States public and the United Nations can not be considered intelligence because most of it was based on single-source information from questionable Iraqi sources.
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Intelligence analysts do not typically brief single-source information unless it is deemed 100% credible or it outlines an immediate threat to the United States or her allies. Single-source information is almost always considered unreliable. Never have I heard single-source information presented in such strong language as Dick Cheney used on Meet the Press when he said, We know [Saddam is] out trying once again to produce nuclear weapons.
The biggest problem with Bushs State of the Union speech is that the nuclear puzzle piece from Niger did not fit next to the puzzle piece in Iraq.
People should be very concerned that Powells speech was written by Dick Cheneys right hand man, Scooter Libby. Consider that Libbys single-source of information was Ahamed Chalabi, the leader of the Iraqi National Congress (INC). The INC is an insurgent coalition that operates in Northern Iraq and is largely funded by the United States.
The question that all of America should be asking is why did we use single-source information from Dick Cheneys friend, Ahamed Chalabi and ignore good intelligence from the CIA?
Finally, George Bush has no business criticizing those Americans who want to see real leadership and a plan to win the peace and bring our troops home.
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In Bushs Veterans Day speech, he said that a withdraw from Iraq would allow insurgents to "use the vacuum created by an American retreat to gain control of a country. I dont think that George Bush is in any position to be telling the American people what will or will not happen if America executes an honorable withdraw from Iraq.
There will be no fixing Iraq until we set a timetable to withdraw our troops. This is going to take new leadership and a Congress who has an understanding of the region. It is clear that we need people with military experience in Washington.
John Laesh john@john06.com is a candidate who is running against Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert.
His website is www.john06.com
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