Rockefeller Lied

Contrary to Senator John D. Rockefeller's statement, "In making the case for war, the administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when it was unsubstantiated, contradicted or even nonexistent," people who have looked at the Senate Intelligence Committee's Phase II Report on pre-war intelligence have concluded the opposite.

Fred Hiatt at the Washington Post finds that nearly all of the Bush administration's claims about Iraq were "substantiated by intelligence information." Hiatt even thought he had the wrong report:

As you read through the report, you begin to think maybe you've mistakenly picked up the minority dissent. But, no, this is the Rockefeller indictment.

Hiatt also includes a rather damning statement from Rockefeller himself:

"There has been some debate over how 'imminent' a threat Iraq poses. I do believe Iraq poses an imminent threat. I also believe after September 11, that question is increasingly outdated. . . . To insist on further evidence could put some of our fellow Americans at risk. Can we afford to take that chance? I do not think we can."

Was that a Democratic senator, in the lead up to war, saying the time for providing evidence is over? Why yes, I think it was.

Power Line thinks Rockefeller, with his report, has gone beyond just another example of Democrats playing politics with national security into the realm of fraud, and adds:

It's easy to understand why Chairman Rockefeller and other Senate Dems want to see the history of the prewar debate rewritten in order (a) to perpetuate the phony "Bush lied" mantra and (b) air-brush themselves out of the picture. And it's easy to see why the Committee Democrats were frustrated by their inability to support the anti-Bush mantra except through specious reliance on the kind of statements they themselves made in spades. But frustration isn't a defense to fraud.

Senator Kit Bond, Vice-Chair, adds this special and unique snowflake:

“It is ironic that the Democrats would knowingly distort and misrepresent the Committee’s findings and the intelligence in an effort to prove that the Administration distorted and mischaracterized the intelligence."

Of course, there is no chance the heavy-breathers will ever admit they were wrong. And Rockefeller's refusal to simply admit the obvious is all the proof we need that the Dems have no plan to choose national security and honesty over partisan politics any time soon. But it is interesting to note that the MSM, in reading the report, no longer feels comfortable carrying the Democratic Party's water.

Most of the aspects of the report have been out there for anyone to see for years. It's just too bad the people who are supposed to find the truth were so uninterested in doing so years ago, when it might have made a difference.