ÿþ<html> <head> <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1"> <title>OnlineColumnist®.com: Putin Punishes Georgia</title> <meta name="generator" content="Adobe GoLive 4"> <style type="text/css"> .style2 { font-size: large; font-weight: bold; font-family: Arial; } .style3 { height: 69px; } .MsoNormal { text-align: left; } .style4 { font-size: x-large; font-weight: bold; } </style> </head> <body bgcolor="white" vlink="black"> <center> <table cool width="624" height="2719" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" gridx="16" showgridx gridy="16" showgridy> <tr height="79"> <td width="133" height="118" rowspan="2" valign="top" align="left" xpos="0"><a href="aboutdiscobolos.html"><img height="110" width="62" src="images/discobolos.logo.transp.gif" border="0"></a></td> <td width="7" height="118" rowspan="2"></td> <td width="482" height="79" colspan="2" valign="top" align="left" xpos="140"><img height="75" width="450" src="images/banner.GIF"></td> <td width="1" height="118" rowspan="2"></td> <td width="1" height="79"><spacer type="block" width="1" height="79"></td> </tr> <tr height="39"> <td width="182" height="39"></td> <td width="300" height="39" valign="top" align="left" xpos="322"><a href="aboutdiscobolos.html"><img height="14" width="267" src="images/divisionofNEW.GIF" border="0"></a></td> <td width="1" height="39"><spacer type="block" width="1" height="39"></td> </tr> <tr> <td width="624" colspan="6" valign="top" align="left" xpos="0" class="style3"> <table border="0" width="100%" bgcolor="black" cellspacing="0"> <tr> <td> <table border="0" width="100%" bgcolor="#99ffcc" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="4"> <tr> <td align="center"> <div align="left"> <a href="index.html"><font face="Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular" size="2"><strong> HOME</strong></font></a><font face="Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular" size="2"><strong> &#8226; <a href="articlesindex.html">ARTICLES</a> &#8226; <a href="books.html">BOOKS</a> &#8226; <a href="teflon.html"> THE </a><a href="teflon.html">TEFLON</a><a href="teflon.html"> REPORT</a> &#8226; <a href="mailto:letters@onlinecolumnist.com"> REACTIONS</a> &#8226; <a href="aboutdiscobolos.html">ABOUT DISCOBOLOS</a></strong></font></div> </td> </tr> </table> </td> </tr> </table> </td> </tr> <tr height="2"> <td width="133" height="2">&nbsp;</td> <td width="489" height="2576" colspan="3" rowspan="2" align="left" xpos="133" content valign="top" csheight="2573"> <p class="style2">Bush&#39;s &quot;Biggest Regret&quot;</p> <p><b><font face="Arial,Geneva,Helvetica">by John M. Curtis</font></b><font face="Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular"><b><a href="books.html"><br> </a></b></font><font face="Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular"><b> (310) 204-8700</b></font></p> <p><font size="2" face="Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular"><i>Copyright December 2, 2008<br>All Rights Reserved. </i></font>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="style4">&nbsp;S</span>peaking in an interview with ABC News, President George W. Bush admitted he was  unprepared for war and his  biggest regret was faulty intelligence about Saddam Hussein s weapons of mass destruction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>Sept. 11 was both a blessing and a curse for Bush, whose administration was only nine months old when Osama bin Laden attacked New York s World Trade Center and the Pentagon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>Bush won a bitterly contested, controversial election in the Supreme Court, already taking his approval ratings down well-below 50%.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>After Sept. 11, his approval ratings shot up to 90%, related to his post-Sept. 11 management of the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp;</span>While Bush has <br />  big regrets about bad intelligence, his administration argued vociferously that WMD was not the primary reason for waging war in Iraq.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>Bush lobbied hard to pass House Joint Resolution 114.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <![if !supportEmptyParas]>&nbsp;<![endif]><span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp;</span><span style="mso-tab-count:1">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>Bush s lobbying efforts paid off passing House Joint Resolution 114 Oct.11, 2002 in the U.S. Senate, authorizing him to go to war in Iraq.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>Despite the best efforts of Dr. Hans Blix and his team of U.N. weapons inspectors, Bush had Secretary of State Colin L. Powell present the administration s best evidence against Saddam in the U.N. Security Council Feb. 5, 2003 only one week after Bush s State of the Union address, certifying that Saddam tried to buy Yellowcake uranium from Niger.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>Powell s convincing case about Saddam s mobile germ labs turned out to be fake, forged by a mentally unstable Iraqi defector living in Bavaria called  Curveball. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>Powell knew at the time of his U.N. presentation that the CIA or any other reputable intelligence agency couldn t verify  Curveball s claims, leaving his case about Saddam&#39;s WMD to the U.N. Security gravely in doubt. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <![if !supportEmptyParas]>&nbsp;<![endif]><span style="mso-tab-count:1">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>Bush now says his  biggest regret was faulty intelligence about Iraq s alleged WMD program.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>Yet Bush refused to say whether, knowing then what he knows now, he would not have gone ahead with the Iraq invasion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney relied heavily on defense intelligence generated at the Pentagon s Office of Special Plans where Douglas Feith Jr., now a professor at Georgetown, concocted the phony stories about Iraq s nuclear and biological weapons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>When Blix was proven correct after the invasion, the White House refused to take responsibility for bringing the nation to war without a compelling national security threat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>White House officials switched gears, citing the 2004 Charles Duelfer Report from the bipartisan Iraq Study Group that indicated Saddam would reconstitute his WMD program if given the chance,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>the excuse for preemptive war.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <![if !supportEmptyParas]>&nbsp;<![endif]><span style="mso-tab-count:1">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>Seeking to revise history, Bush continues to blow smoke, telling ABC News he regrets the intelligence failure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span> The biggest regret of all the presidency has to be the intelligence failure in Iraq, continuing the myth that he was given faulty intelligence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>Bush chose to ignore the best evidence given to him by Blix and instead relied on Feith s fable about mobile germ weapons labs, despite having the CIA, German Intelligence and Briton s MI6 tell him the intelligence was not reliable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>Bush knew at his Jan. 26, 2003 State of the Union that the CIA couldn t verify reports about Saddam trying to buy Yellowcake from a West African country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>One week later, Powell pitched  Curveball s case to the U.N. Security Council, despite warnings from German Intelligence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>Powell lives today with his own regrets, pitching the White House case Feb. 5, 2003, knowing it could not be verified any reputable source.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <![if !supportEmptyParas]>&nbsp;<![endif]><span style="mso-tab-count:1">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>When Barack announced his new national security team in Chicago today, featuring designees Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Atty. Gen. Eric Holder, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, National Security Advisor former Marine Gen. James Jones and Homeland Security Secretary Ariz. Gov. Janet Napolitano, he doesn t want to make the same mistakes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>Bush s mistake didn t involve faulty intelligence, it involved Vice President Dick Cheney ordering Feith s office to cherry pick intelligence at the Pentagon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>Barack s biggest threat to accurate intelligence stems from the shaky barrier between civilian and military intelligence with former Director of National Intelligence Michael V. Haden.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>Unlike Bush, Obama must keep a wall between civilian and military intelligence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>Bush got the intelligence he asked for to justify the Iraq invasion.</p> <p align="center" class="MsoNormal"> <![if !supportEmptyParas]>&nbsp;<![endif]><span style="mso-tab-count: 1; text-align: left;">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span>Bush s abysmal approval ratings at around 25% stemmed from a spin overdose during the last eight years, contributing to Sen. John McCain s shellacking on Election Day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>As his presidency ends, Bush continues to revise history, insisting he was misled by faulty intelligence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>Whether admitted to or not, Bush knew he and Cheney ordered the Pentagon s Office of Special Plans to manufacture intelligence to justify the Iraq War.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>He and his White House spin machine spent the last six years concocting more excuses than ExxonMobil for raising gas prices.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>Voters spoke loudly on Nov. 4, rejecting Bush s tired excuses about Iraq and the deteriorated U.S. economy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>Even today, he talks about  dishonoring the dead and not throwing the white flag.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>Bush colossal miscalculation in Iraq cost over 4,200 lives, thousands of disabilities and pushed the country into recession.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">&nbsp; </span>He needs to apologize, not make more excuses.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <bAbout the Author</u>John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news.&nbsp; He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of <i><a href="books.html">Dodging The Bullet/a> </i>and <i><a href="books.html"> Operation Charisma</a></i>.</p> </td> <td width="1" height="2576" rowspan="2"></td> <td width="1" height="2"><spacer type="block" width="1" height="2"></td> </tr> <tr height="2574"> <td width="133" height="2574" valign="top" align="left" xpos="0"><img height="172" width="111" src="images/johninframe3.jpg"></td> <td width="1" height="2574"><spacer type="block" width="1" height="2574"></td> </tr> <tr height="1" cntrlrow> <td width="133" height="1"><spacer type="block" width="133" height="1"></td> <td width="7" height="1"><spacer type="block" width="7" height="1"></td> <td width="182" height="1"><spacer type="block" width="182" height="1"></td> <td width="300" height="1"><spacer type="block" width="300" height="1"></td> <td width="1" height="1"><spacer type="block" width="1" height="1"></td> <td width="1" height="1"></td> </tr> </table> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="2" width="597"> <tr> <td><font size="1" face="Arial,Geneva,Helvetica"> <hr noshade size="1"> </font><a href="index.html"><font face="Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular" size="2"><strong> Home</strong></font></a><font face="Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular" size="2"><strong> || <a href="articlesindex.html">Articles</a> || <a href="books.html">Books</a> || <a href="teflon.html">The Teflon Report</a> || <a href="mailto:letters@onlinecolumnist.com"> Reactions</a> || <a href="aboutdiscobolos.html">About Discobolos</a></strong></font> <div align="left"> <p><font size="1" face="Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular">This site designed, developed and hosted by the experts at</font><font size="2" face="Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular"> <a href="http://www.cmeonline.net" target="_blank"><img height="30" width="138" src="images/cmelogoANIM.gif" border="0" align="absmiddle"></a></font></p> </div> <p><font size="2" face="Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular">©1999-2005 <a href="aboutdiscobolos.html"> Discobolos Consulting Services, Inc.</a><br> (310) 204-8300<br> All Rights Reserved. </font></td> </tr> </table> </center> </body> </html>