International Herald Tribune:
George Tenet, the former director of central intelligence, has lashed out against Vice President Dick Cheney and other Bush administration officials in a new book, saying they pushed the country to war in Iraq without ever conducting a "serious debate" about whether Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat to the United States.
[...]
By turns accusatory, defensive and modestly self-critical, it is the first detailed account by a member of the president's inner circle of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the decision to invade Iraq and the failure to find the unconventional weapons that were a major justification for the war.
"There was never a serious debate that I know of within the administration about the imminence of the Iraqi threat," Tenet writes in a devastating judgment that is likely to be debated for many years.
Nor, he adds, "was there ever a significant discussion" about the possibility of containing Iraq without an invasion.
Of course, this put the White House in double urgent bullshit creation mode.
Associated Press:
"The president did wrestle with those very serious questions [regarding invasion]," White House Counselor Dan Bartlett said.
Asked about Tenet's upcoming book, excerpts of which were reported Friday in The New York Times, Bartlett called the former CIA chief a "true patriot" but suggested he might have been unaware of the breadth of the prewar debate that led Bush to dismiss other options, such as diplomatic means, for reining in Saddam Hussein.
"I've seen meetings, I've listened to the president, both in conversations with other world leaders like (British Prime Minister) Tony Blair as well as internally, where the president did wrestle with those very questions," Bartlett said on NBC's "Today" show. "This president weighed all the various proposals, weighed all the various consequences before he did make a decision."
So, having Bush weigh all the options and come to the absolute worst possible conclusion is better how?
