No Intel Inside!

On a recent episode of Hardball, guest Kit Bond (R-MO) made a comment that seems to be the new Republican line now that George Bush has admitted that intelligence used to justify the war in Iraq was bad. He said that “the information on which the president went into war was intelligence which was not adequate because our intelligence system had been substantially downgraded in the 1990‘s” - the good old “blame it on Clinton” strategy!

So how bad was the intelligence Bush was provided right after he took office, as Richard Clarke immediately told him Al Qaeda was the biggest threat to the country? After taking over the White House from Bill Clinton, Bush basically ignored the good intelligence that was being provided to him, and the result was the death of nearly 3000 people on 9/11!

Then he blindly followed the admittedly bad intelligence into a war that killed an additional 2000 U.S. troops, and over 30,000 Iraqis. Of course shortly afterward, when everyone else was already questioning the intelligence, Bush was giving speeches in which he insisted that he had “darn good intelligence!”

Apparently, Bush had “darn good intelligence” the same way that Brownie was doing “a heck of a job” during Hurricane Katrina – and it had more to do with genetics (and the likely aid of some substance abuse) than with anything Bill Clinton ever did!