Blame Clinton for Iraq...
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| quote: | GOP Blames Clinton for Iraq Intel Lapse
Thu Feb 12,12:39 PM ET Add Politics - U. S. Congress to My Yahoo!
WASHINGTON - In a sign of how Republicans may try to quell criticism of prewar intelligence in Iraq (news - web sites), the head of the House Intelligence Committee tried Wednesday to direct blame to the Clinton administration.
Rep. Porter J. Goss, R-Fla., said he heard a 1998 speech in which then-President Clinton (news - web sites) warned that something must be done about Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) and his weapons of mass destruction.
"Unfortunately, he did not complete that task before his term expired," Goss said at a Capitol Hill press conference.
Goss said the Clinton administration gutted intelligence assets in the 1990s and today's intelligence analysts "did the best they could with what they had."
Goss also said Clinton rarely, if ever, met with intelligence officials and that top officials in the administration were not "particularly engaged" on the subject.
Goss said an effort at political correctness prompted intelligence agencies to stop using "distasteful people" for human intelligence, meaning America lost people who served as its eyes and ears around the world.
Calls to Clinton's office were not immediately returned Wednesday. But a former Clinton aide on security disputed Goss' statement.
"I respect Porter Goss and his service to the CIA (news - web sites), but I think he's part of the administration's attempt to redirect attention from what's really going on here, which is their distortion of the evidence" against Saddam, said Robert Boorstin, who was Clinton's national security speechwriter.
The Bush administration has come under severe criticism for saying it was going to war to disarm Iraq and then failing to find alleged banned weapons.
Critics want a review of why the intelligence was bad and whether Bush and others in his administration purposely exaggerated the intelligence to justify war and oust Saddam.
"Nobody would disagree that the guy had to go," said Boorstin. "But the question is do you distort the evidence ... do you deliberately mislead the American people and the world."
Now a senior vice president for national security at the Center for American Progress, Boorstin also said it was actually Bush's father who was first to cut intelligence spending after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
When intelligence spending was increased in 1993, Goss complimented the Clinton administration "for going into this and seeing our true need," Boorstin quoted Goss as saying at the time. |
Last edited by razmataz on Feb-13-2004 at 04:52
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