…who happens to be President.

First line from a NY Times article today:

WASHINGTON, July 5 — The Central Intelligence Agency was told by relatives of Iraqi scientists before the war that Baghdad’s programs to develop unconventional weapons had been abandoned, but the C.I.A. failed to give that information to President Bush, even as he publicly warned of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s illicit weapons, according to government officials.

The fact is the CIA was tasked by the White House with finding a reason to go to war with Iraq. Is it really a surprise that intelligence that would have stemmed the rush to war was ignored? Are we really still in surprise mode with this shit?

James Bamford spoke to CIA analysts who were told by their supervisors to find a reason to go to war with Iraq- specifically they were directed to find something nuclear. Days later Cheney made the rounds within the CIA, slapping folks on the back, encouraging them to come up with something the administration could use. Bamford describes the analysts’ shocked reactions to these directives- after all, the CIA’s mission is to provide cold, hard, unbiased intelligence, not manufacture intelligence to fit a President’s agenda. Unfortunately under the direction of George Tenet, the CIA became the president’s personal propaganda machine.

The White House claiming victimhood is the ultimate irony- The C.I.A. isn’t innocent in all this, but there’s no denying that these directives came straight from the White House.