(-4.75, -6.46) on
The Political Compass




Places of Interest
Archives
<< current
The 18½ Minute Gap
Check to have links open new windows.
Monday, July 14, 2003
Honor and Dignity Watch
"I will bring honor to the process and honor to the office I seek. I will remind Al Gore that Americans do not want a White House where there is 'no controlling legal authority.' I will repair the broken bonds of trust between Americans and their government."
-- George W. Bush, March 7, 2000

When one looks at Bush's appointments for senior positions, it's increasingly difficult to read that quote with a straight face. Today's example: Condi Rice.

In a conversation with NPR's Steve Inskeep, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) -- the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee -- says the White House unfairly made CIA director George Tenet the scapegoat for faulty intelligence on Iraq.

Rockefeller also told Inskeep that National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice "had to have known" a year before Bush's 2003 State of the Union address that intelligence claiming Iraqi agents were attempting to purchase uranium from African officials was bogus.

Referring to recent White House and CIA statements meant to defuse the controversy, Rockefeller said, "I think it raises more questions than it settles, and I think it's far from over.

"I cannot believe that Condi Rice... directly, from Africa, pointed the finger at George Tenet, when she had known -- had to have known -- a year before the State of the Union." "The entire intelligence community has been very skeptical about this from the very beginning," Rockefeller says. "And she has her own director of intelligence, she has her own Iraq and Africa specialists, and it's just beyond me that she didn't know about this, and that she has decided to make George Tenet the fall person. I think it's dishonorable."

This page is powered by Blogger.