Here is an explosive subject on which Democrats should hold high-profile hearings during the Republican convention. A new book by Ron Suskind has two CIA officers on record claiming that the Bush administration willfully fabricated intelligence to build the case for war:
Suskind says he spoke on the record with U.S. intelligence officials who stated that Bush was informed unequivocally in January 2003 that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction.
Suskind reports that the head of Iraqi intelligence, Tahir Jalil Habbush, met secretly with British intelligence in Jordan in the early days of 2003. In weekly meetings with Michael Shipster, the British director of Iraqi operations, Habbush conveyed that Iraq had no active nuclear, chemical or biological weapons programs and no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction.(...)
"The White House had concocted a fake letter from Habbush to Saddam, backdated to July 1, 2001. It said that 9/11 ringleader Mohammed Atta had actually trained for his mission in Iraq - thus showing, finally, that there was an operation link between Saddam and al-Qaeda, something the Vice President's office had been pressing CIA to prove since 9/11 as a justification to invade."
He continues: "A handwritten letter, with Habbush's name on it, would be fashioned by CIA and then hand-carried by a CIA agent to Baghdad for dissemination."
CIA officers Richer and John Maguire, who oversaw the Iraq Operations Group, are both on the record in Suskind's book confirming the existence of the fake Habbush letter.
From 1996-2004, Republicans frequently used their control of Congress to try and make Democratic candidates look bad during the final two weeks of an election season. From forcing election season votes on welfare reform to the border fence, they have held what they believe to be winning issues in reserve until the final weeks of the campaign. This is a clear circumstance where Democrats should do something similar, but different in that it is of far greater importance to the country. Hold hearing to determine if the Bush administration willfully fabricated fake intelligence in order to build their case for war in Iraq.
While this would be similar to hearings that were held in the past, in this case there are at least two CIA officers, who have been named, that have gone on the record claiming that intelligence was indeed fabricated. That seems pretty damning off-hand, and would make Republicans look terrible during the first two weeks of September.
Holding an investigation doesn't mean that you accept these charges at face value, which might be dangerous if they turn out to be false. It does mean that you air some pretty damning stuff about Republicans and John McCain's pet project: the Iraq war. Not demanding, and then holding, an immediate congressional investigation into this matter would be the clearest sign possible that Democrats are just not willing to attack hard enough in this election season.
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