Guest blogged by David Edwards of Veredictum.com
Video in Streaming Flash format…
Video in Windows Media format…
Audio in MP3 format…
Today after giving another Iraq/War-on-Terror PR speech at Johns Hopkins International Studies School, President Bush took questions from students in the audience. When compared with recent Q&A sessions, the President appeared to be relaxed to the point of laughing off the some of the tougher questions.
Bush may have offered a little bit more information about his role in using the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) for political retribution. He was asked how future intelligence employees could trust the Executive Office in light of the Plame Wilson case. Bush responded that he had declassified the NIE “for a reason” but refused to say much more.
This video has about 8 minutes of clips from The President’s Q&A session.
Bush: ‘I Declassified The NIE For A Reason’
Me: Yeah, because you are goddamn criminal.
It is not enough for only tinpot dictators to be subject to trials and punishment for crimes against humanity. It is time people in our own country demand the same scrutiny and punishment of our own corrupt leaders: Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, et al, and in Britain, Tony Blair.
Forgive me but what does releasing a intelligence estimate have to do with the outing of Plame?
Maybe this will help, Martin..
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/uspoliticsintelligence)
"Two employees of the Niger embassy in Rome allegedly forged documents that were later used to justify the US-led invasion of Iraq, a British newspaper claimed.
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Citing unnamed sources at the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), the Sunday Times said the embassy officials faked papers to show that former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was seeking uranium ore from the west African nation.
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According to the newspaper, the papers were forged for money by the Niger consul and his assistant at the embassy in Rome as western intelligence agencies sought evidence about reports that Iraq was attempting to buy uranium ore.
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Former US ambassador Joseph Wilson travelled to Niger and found the claims about Iraq obtaining uranium to be without substance. He publicly attacked the White House’s assertions on the matter in a critical newspaper commentary in mid-2003.
But that led to government officials briefing journalists that Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, was a Central Intelligence Agency operative. Naming an undercover agent is illegal in the United States.
Last week, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, a former aide to US Vice-President Dick Cheney, told an inquiry into the leak that it was Cheney who ordered the briefings and that President George W. Bush had authorised them."
In other words, the declassified portions of the NIE were to bolster BushCo’s case for war; when Wilson told the truth, BushCo retaliated. That is how the illegal leaking of her name is tied to the NIE — as purely political play to exact revenge, by destryoing her career.
To exact revenge, destroy Valerie Plame’s career, and to serve as a warning to anyone else who dared tell the truth about the Bush administration.
The fact that Bush can say, "I declassified the NIE for a reason," but not give the reason, shows what a complete jerk he is. By the way, when Scottie McClellan told the press the information had already been declassified, it hadn’t been…that happened ten days later. But what’s ten days between crooks?
Now that GWB is taking unscripted questions, it has become more evident that he does not have a clue. This empty suit is being used to divert attention from the persistent criminal activities of a small group of psychopaths.
Unless the Dems find ways to get votes counted in 2006, we are sentenced to one thousand more days of this charade.
Man, that doubly offends me. First that he continues to spew out this nonsense, and secondly that he does it at the International Studies school at John Hopkins where my Dad studied many years ago!
See Greg Palast’s great article about this ("GANGSTER GOVERNMENT: A LEAKY PRESIDENT RUNS AFOUL OF ‘LITTLE RICO’") here
Why does everyone in government seem to believe that it’s better to go with their own convictions than to listen to the will of the people? We’ve been calling, emailing, faxing, marching, demonstrating, advertizing, commenting, petitioning our brains out, and NONE of these people are representing us. Since voting is so iffy, and so far off, do we try grabbing them by the lapels and shaking? Good swift kicks? Smacking them upside the head? What form of "petition" will produce RESULTS? And, WHAT are we waiting for?
Ah, yes. "I did it for a reason." Well, of course you did, Georgie! Little spoiled brats cover their tails at the expense of anything and everyone else – especially when being egged on and encouraged by the gang’s powerful leaders.
Great Palast article. I printed it out for others’ perusal last night.
So why didn’t Bush admit this two years ago? If he thought he had the right to do it?
Or did it take two years for Gonzalez to find an excuse when the truth came out.
I have yet to see any news or opinion that points out the two distinct leaks of classified information in this case.
1. The leak involving the national security assessment is probably not prosecutable in that Bush declassified it prior to it’s disclosure. Embarassing sure, in that it revealed that the white house was more interested in playing "Let’s smear Joe" than protecting our national security but not prosecutable.
2. Leaking the name of an undercover CIA agent. I’m sure that the declassified NSE did not identify Valerie Plame and who she worked for. Therefore revealing her identity (along with exposing Brewster Jennings and all of it’s other employees) should definately be prosecutable unless Bush or Cheney also declassified Plame’s status prior to it being revealed.
"relaxed to the point of laughing…" — I guess they upped his prescription. I heard him on bbc yesterday, he sounded drunk or blasted on downers, for sure.
Wonderbred #11
No one can prosecute the president. The House can Impeach him for any of several things he has done.
But the House is a republican rubber stamp, the relevant impeachment committees being controlled by republican chairmen and majority votes.
Likewise the Senate could convict the dictatorial republican president following a House Impeachment.
But same problem there, all the relevant committees are chaired by republicans and they have the majority vote in each committee.
Not gonna happen unless and until the November elections put democrats in the majority.
That will bring on what is needed.
I didn’t realize, but probably should have, that this stuffed-shirt-for-a-president we are stuck with these days chortles like a nervous prostitute about to take on a fraternity of sex starved football studs. He is such an ass! As he nervously chuckles away, in his pathetic attempt to reduce any tension encirlcing him, he is watching the clock and praying that he doesn’t run into a good bitch-slapping like he got last week by the gentleman who got the chance to him his 2-cents worth.
He doesn’t have a clue. My feeling is he has been used like a monkey by Cheney, Rumsfield, and all the other sharks that know "a dummy" when they see one.
I just hope we can survive this SOB for the rest of his term. I love it when they talk about Clinton telling a lie to congress regarding his relationship with Monica. How does what this little jackass lied about compare?
If the leak was legal ( because of declassification) then why did a reporter go to jail? Why was the declassification a secret? The Judge that put the reporter in jail should have seen it was declassified. Anyone know? This whole leak cost the American citizens millions in waisted money. The leak to me was a scam to take attention away from the war.
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So why didn’t Bush admit this two years ago? If he thought he had the right to do it?
Or did it take two years for Gonzalez to find an excuse when the truth came out.
TEXASLADY:
Great question! The Whitehouse has been very very careful to make it "appear" that the president declassified portions of the NIE. But, in the last 3 years — NEVER did they specifically state that the president declassified it.
This reeks of desperation.
My hunch is that the president is LYING once again. He did NOT declassify this information before the leak. If anyone did, it was Cheney. He has stated publicly that he has the authority to do so (during the Brit Hume interview).
Now, the question is — does Cheney actually have the authority to do so under executive order 13292 (established March 25, 2003)?
My guess is that he doesn’t.
That is why there was a delay.
Any constitutional lawyers out there?
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Stop George #16
Your analysis is the most believable, and that the other posters generally agree, only lends creedence.
This regime has consistently engaged in revisionist history making. That is, going back and re-writing history after the fact.
It is borne of the utmost insecurity in a regime that must now resort to lies as the fundamental conduit of their rhetoric.
That they are consistently able to fool only the fools is the legacy of this republican dictatorship.
There’s also the thought running around that it was done specifcally to kill the work Plame and Brewster Jennings were doing in order to set the path for an attack on Iran.
OT: A Letter from Cindy Sheehan
Stop George :
Thank you for turning a light on my question. I wonder if the whole bunch thought they could make it go away and when it didn’t, had to come up with something. Also, doesn’t some kind of paperwork have to go through when info is de classified?
But paperwork can be back dated whatever am I thinking that this deplorable crew would do anything honest.
Cheney said in December that "Presidential powers have eroded since the Nixon days and need to be reinstated." If we aren’t in a dictarship right now I don’t know what to call it. When the leaders can lie about lies and never be held accountable.
This A.M. Fox news were blasting Ben Affleck’s comment about this case, on Bill Maher.
It must be hitting close to home if Bush is getting Fox to slime Affleck.
"I did it for a reason." Yes? Hello? We’re waiting, Mr. President.
Move on to the next question. Laughter. Giggling. Crisis passed for the moment. Next question. A tough one about American mercenaries murdering people in Iraq, outside the reach of the law.
"I’ll have to ask the Secretary of Defense about that. That’s how I work, you know."
Bush is the northern end of a southbound horse.
RLM #20
That reminds me of the ancient arab curse:
"May the south end of a north bound camel breathe upon you my son."