Senator Jay Rockefeller

[mreye]

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/benn...00511141541.asp

 

 

Rockefeller’s Confession

What was the West Virginia Democrat doing as a freelancing prewar diplomat?

 

By William J. Bennett

 

Yesterday, on Fox News Sunday, the following exchange took place between Chris Wallace and U.S. Senator Jay Rockefeller, vice chairman of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence:

 

 

WALLACE: Now, the President never said that Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat. As you saw, you did say that. If anyone hyped the intelligence, isn't it Jay Rockefeller?

 

SEN. ROCKEFELLER: No. The — I mean, this question is asked a thousand times and I'll be happy to answer it a thousand times. I took a trip by myself in January of 2002 to Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria, and I told each of the heads of state that it was my view that George Bush had already made up his mind to go to war against Iraq — that that was a predetermined set course which had taken shape shortly after 9/11.

 

 

While Democrats in Washington are berating the White House for having prewar intelligence wrong, a high-profile U.S. senator, member of the Select Committee on Intelligence, who has a name more internationally recognizable than Richard Cheney's, tells two putative allies (Saudi Arabia and Jordan) and an enemy who is allied with Saddam Hussein (Syria) that the United States was going to war with Iraq. This is not a prewar intelligence mistake, it is a prewar intelligence giveaway.

 

Syria is not only on the list of state sponsors of terrorism and the country many speculate is where Hussein has secreted weapons, it is also the country from which terrorists are flowing into Iraq to fight our troops and allies. Jordan and Saudi Arabia have had, over the years, conflicted loyalties. What was Senator Rockefeller doing? What was he thinking? And all this before President Bush even made a public speech about Iraq — to the U.N. or anyone else.

 

We can have our umpteenth investigation into what the White House knew and when it knew it about Iraqi weapons — we will find the same answer: It knew what President Clinton, Sandy Berger, Madeline Albright, and William Cohen knew when they made speeches about the dangers of Iraq in the late 1990s and when President Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act. How about an investigation, now, into what exactly Senator Jay Rockefeller told Syria and just what Syria might have done with the information made available to them presumably before it was made available to the U.N., the Senate, or the American people.

 

Senators and congressmen don't have to agree with their president's policies, and they should make the president robustly defend his policies — but they should not be acting as if they are the president or secretary of state; they should not be tipping off sometimes friends and definitive enemies about war plans that not even the president has yet made as policy. This is the true mockery of prewar intelligence, and Senator Rockefeller should fully explain his actions.

 

If Syria — or elements in Saudi Arabia — began acting on this information before we even went to war in Iraq (more than a year later), then Senator Rockefeller may have seriously harmed, impeded, and hindered our war efforts, our troops, and the entire operation in the Middle East. This should be investigated immediately; and perhaps Senator Rockefeller should step down from the Intelligence Committee until an investigation is complete.

[kapkomet]

BUT THIS IS DIFFERENT! He was SPOON FED the "HYPED" intelligence by the Bush White House. Come on, dammit, mreye. You should know that.

[mreye]

BUT THIS IS DIFFERENT!  He was SPOON FED the "HYPED" intelligence by the Bush White House.  Come on, dammit, mreye.  You should know that.

This post has 25 views and you're the first reply. I think that's funny. If this was a Republican it would have 3 pages by now and some of those replies would be SS2K5 and yourself calling for his head. I guess we can't all be "party blind."

[kapkomet]

I am serious with this point. The entire government is so full of s*** on Iraq, their eyeballs are floating.

[Rex Kickass]

If stating your opinion is giving away intelligence, then this whole board oughta get waterboarded.

 

That saying Rockefeller is an asshat for doing what he did. It's not his place.

[SleepyWhiteSox]

Apparenty not a jay-z thread...my bad...

[kapkomet]

You do have to be careful with words. "IT'S MY OPINION that George W. Bush will go to war with Iraq" is far different then "shhh, but George has already committed to it..."

[bmags]

you guys were having far too much fun with eachother for anyone else to join

[Rex Kickass]

You do have to be careful with words.  "IT'S MY OPINION that George W. Bush will go to war with Iraq" is far different then "shhh, but George has already committed to it..."

 

Something tells me that Rockefeller didn't have that access to the Bush administration in 2002. And if he did, then he ought to be fired for not exposing an administration's lie to the public to pursue peaceful means to end that issue.

[kapkomet]

Something tells me that Rockefeller didn't have that access to the Bush administration in 2002. And if he did, then he ought to be fired for not exposing an administration's lie to the public to pursue peaceful means to end that issue.

OMG? Are you serious?

[Rex Kickass]

Yeah, I am. I don't think a Democrat senator from WV gets in depth access to the future war plans of this Republican president months before he announces it to anyone or even leaks it to the media.

 

If he does and if he did, then he's as liable as anyone else who helped facilitate the blatant lies we were spoonfed to put us in this situation.

[KipWellsFan]

    "It is ridiculous to suggest that any sensitive information was revealed during my January 2002 Middle East trip. Every aspect of this trip was sanctioned by and coordinated with the State Department and the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. I was accompanied in each country by either our U.S. Ambassador or our Deputy Chief of Mission, and each of our U.S. officials specifically praised my meetings and the message I delivered. I conveyed my belief that President Bush was very serious about taking action in Iraq. I had no knowledge of specific Bush Administration plans to invade Iraq, and I certainly never suggested that I did. I raised this issue on Sunday to make the point that while I hadn’t made up my mind until October of 2002, I believe the president had decided to go to war long before, and continued down that path into 2003 – even as some of the intelligence was being called into question. Once again, it appears that Republican defenders of the president are trying to distract from the real issue – whether the president was straight with the American people about the war in Iraq."

 

Senator Rockefeller's press release rewrites his original assertion to mitigate its inculpatory aspects. President Bush's "predetermined set course" of invasion has become "conveyed my belief that President Bush was very serious about taking action in Iraq." He appears to be saying that it was wrong to take his statement to Wallace too seriously; he was merely making a rhetorical point regarding his "Bush lied" lie. I get it.

 

Nevertheless, Senator Rockefeller's press release leaves a few questions open:

 

1. While Senator Rockefeller stated on Sunday that he took his trip to Syria "by myself," he now claims that it was "sanctioned and coordinated" by the State Department, as well as the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Intelligence Committees. Which was it? Did he act alone or did he act with approval and coordination of his committee and the Department of State? If the latter, who approved the trip?

 

2. Senator Rockefeller now claims each of the public officials involved "specifically praised my meetings and the message I delivered." Really? To whom? And if this is true, is Senator Rockefeller saying that it was State Department policy to allow and approve of individual Senators to visit with certified state sponsors of terror (who in this case were allied with Saddam) in order to convey the message to Saddam's ally that we were going to war with Saddam -- all before Bush made any public case at all? If so, we should know that too. The State Department should confirm or deny this.

 

3. To repeat the facts as we know them: Syria is and was a state sponsor of terror, on the Department of State's list as being so; Syria was an ally of Iraq; Syria is a place now contemplated by serious people as a haven for Iraq's WMDs; and a known place from whence terrorists travel into Iraq. Just why would a respected United States Senator tell a sponsor of terrorism and an ally of the regime we were to liberate something they otherwise had not heard, something the President had not said? And just what might that ally of the Iraqi regime have done with that information? In sum, what business of Senator Rockefeller's was it to speculate openly to the head of an enemy regime, and a sponsor of terror (when we were at war with terror), that the President was to go to war with that enemy's ally?

http://powerlineblog.com/archives/012292.php

some more at link

 

It's probably really not that big of a deal, just like the leak of Plame's name in and of itself probably wasn't that damaging to American security. I think I'd be more worried about Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, and Hadley meeting with Chalabi who's also suspected of leaking secret information to Iran as recent as 2004.

[kapkomet]

Let's ALL take a step back and ask ourselves this question. Why or how is every single intelligence agency in the world is this wrong? Do you think that Iraq really had the weapons and they just got moved?

 

Naaaaaah. Couldn't be. BUSH f***ING LIED. HANG HIS ASS.

[Soxy]

Let's ALL take a step back and ask ourselves this question.  Why or how is every single intelligence agency in the world is this wrong?  Do you think that Iraq really had the weapons and they just got moved?

 

Naaaaaah.  Couldn't be.  BUSH f***ING LIED.  HANG HIS ASS.

So wait, are you saying that at the time of our invasion of Iraq that they had wmd?

 

I'm just trying to understand here.

[kapkomet]

So wait, are you saying that at the time of our invasion of Iraq that they had wmd?

 

I'm just trying to understand here.

No, I'm saying that the run-up to the war, he moved them, most likely to Syria.

 

That's why all of a sudden, right at the end, he was so willing to let the inspectors back in.

 

Sometimes, asking yourself logical questions instead of getting caught up in every political blog that supports ONLY your own position makes sense.

 

I'm not saying that *IS* what happened, but it has to be a good possibility. Especially since there were communications intercepts of the supposed movement.

 

But I suppose that's been debunked 6,343,474 ways from Sunday in xxxxx.com's liberal blog too.

[KipWellsFan]

You probably didn't notice I posted a conservative blog then.

[YASNY]

You what's really ironic about all of this? Bush had all the justification he needed to go to war with Iraq without any mention of WMD's. If you recall, we had our fighter jets over there patrolling the UN mandated No Fly Zones. Iraq attempted on several occasions to shoot them from the sky.

 

As far as I'm concerned, that's more than enough.

[Rex Kickass]

No, I'm saying that the run-up to the war, he moved them, most likely to Syria.

 

That's why all of a sudden, right at the end, he was so willing to let the inspectors back in. 

 

Sometimes, asking yourself logical questions instead of getting caught up in every political blog that supports ONLY your own position makes sense.

 

I'm not saying that *IS* what happened, but it has to be a good possibility.  Especially since there were communications intercepts of the supposed movement.

 

But I suppose that's been debunked 6,343,474 ways from Sunday in xxxxx.com's liberal blog too.

 

Or maybe he figured out the end game. You honestly think that Saddam Hussein thought he'd beat the US this time? Maybe he realized his only shot at a peaceful end to this is by offering the President what he wanted. Knowing that's what the President didn't really want. The only war Hussein could have won was the war of public opinion and I wager he knew that.

 

And I remember there was significant debate in the intelligence community, especially ours, about the reality of those claims. From what I understand, we didn't just find a lack of WMD. We found a lack of WMD infrastructure.

[Steff]

You what's really ironic about all of this?  Bush had all the justification he needed to go to war with Iraq without any mention of WMD's.  If you recall, we had our fighter jets over there patrolling the UN mandated No Fly Zones.  Iraq attempted on several occasions to shoot them from the sky. 

 

As far as I'm concerned, that's more than enough.

 

 

Then just say that was the reason. I have a problem with the lying.

[mreye]

Or maybe he figured out the end game. You honestly think that Saddam Hussein thought he'd beat the US this time? Maybe he realized his only shot at a peaceful end to this is by offering the President what he wanted. Knowing that's what the President didn't really want. The only war Hussein could have won was the war of public opinion and I wager he knew that.

 

And I remember there was significant debate in the intelligence community, especially ours, about the reality of those claims. From what I understand, we didn't just find a lack of WMD. We found a lack of WMD infrastructure.

 

He probably didn't think Bush was serious. He'd been used to being threatened and nothing happening, save a few bombs from a ship in the Persian Gulf, for the past 8+ years.

[mreye]

Then just say that was the reason. I have a problem with the lying.

 

I said from the start that there were plenty of other reasons to go to war in Iraq (shooting at our planes in the no-fly zone, mass crimes against humanity, violations of numerous UN resolutions.) I said then that it is/was a gross miscalculation by the Bush administration to hark on the WMD so hard.

[kapkomet]

I said from the start that there were plenty of other reasons to go to war in Iraq (shooting at our planes in the no-fly zone, mass crimes against humanity, violations of numerous UN resolutions.) I said then that it is/was a gross miscalculation by the Bush administration to hark on the WMD so hard.

I will agree with everyone here that the administration painted themselves into a corner on making that the cornerstone issue.

[kapkomet]

You know another thing that I am sitting here thinking about? As much as I criticize the media about being biased, etc., THE MEDIA was clamouring for war just as much as the president if not moreso. My gosh, that's all they have talked about for years was when were we going to go to war with Iraq?

 

I don't care what political party you are/were involved with, it was inevitable. The only hit that stuck to the wall at the time was the WMD claim, and that's what they chose to run with (both the media and the administration). Turns out, both were wrong.

 

But by entire stance on this whole issue is everyone is so quick to blame SOLELY the Bush administration. And that's pure baloney IMO. The GOVERNMENT was a collosal failure as a whole on this deal, and yes, now the Democrats are politicizing the s*** out of it. For a year or more, Bush has said nothing, and now when he defends himself against the criticism, the "lashing out" and the "attacking" has begun, according to the same pawn media. How quaint.

[mreye]

I will agree with everyone here that the administration painted themselves into a corner on making that the cornerstone issue.

For me, personally, this isn't a Republican / Democrat thing. I wanted Clinton to go further with Iraq. He never did. I'm glad Bush went for it and I'm glad he's willing to finish it. I only hope we elect someone in 2008 that will agree and not just pull out for the sake of poll numbers.

[Steff]

I only hope we elect someone in 2008 that will agree and not just pull out for the sake of poll numbers.

 

 

 

Death toll #'s...?