PBS Documentary "The Dark Side" Provides Startling Evidence That Bush and Cheney Manufactured a War
Timothy Sexton
January 31, 2007
If you missed the PBS Frontline documentary "The Dark Side" you can catch catch it either on PBS.org or, even better, you can Netflix it. “The Dark Side” features interviews with several top level intelligence officials that go a long way toward proving that Dick Cheney was the driving force behind creating the evidence used to justify war with Iraq. According to a host of CIA agents, Vice President Dick Cheney and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld put almost daily pressure on the agency to transform their conclusion that no evidence existed to show Saddam had WMDs into what George Tenant would later describe to the President as a "slam dunk."
That response by Tenet was a reply to Bush's immediate response to the CIA report on Saddam: "Is this all we've got?" Even at that late date, Pres. Bush knew there wasn't enough evidence to get public support for the war. Rather than facing up to the President, however, CIA Director Tenant caved in to the unspoken pressure that Bush was implying. Thus, his basketball analogy. For those convinced that Condi Rice would be a great President and not just a carbon copy (pardon the pun) of Bush, consider that she was in the office at the time and as National Security Advisor it was actually her responsibility to turn to Tenet at that point and confirm that it was NOT a slam dunk and that he needed to go back and do more analysis.
In addition, “The Dark Side” also includes a number of interviews that point to an overwhelming climate of pressure on individual CIA analysts to put together a definitive report on Iraq WMDs. Normally, this kind of report—the most top level report the CIA puts out—takes anywhere from a few months to a couple of years to compile. This report, the one which was used by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and Powell to justfy the invasion, was compiled in a sickening two weeks, however. A copy of the classified version was left in a locked room in the Senate for Senators to read before they cast their vote. Hardly any of them read it.
Dick Cheney's mission, apparently, was to rebuild the power of the Presidency that he saw as being stripped away following Watergate. A singular component of this mission was to transform the intelligence agency away from the separate and independent entity it is at the CIA and place most of its authority under the Defense Department, which of course is a Cabinet department under the President's jurisdiction. A primary goal of Dick Cheney was to remove CIA Director George Tenet and replace him with a much weaker (if possible) CIA Director who was even more eager to give up power. As it stands now, much of the intelligence gathering power that used to be held by the CIA is firmly in the hands of Dept. of Defense, which means that for most of the Bush this millennium it was under the less than awe-inspiring direction of Donald Rumsfeld. If you’re still looking for an answer as to why the situation in Iraq seems to have been a never-ending series of disasters, there’s your answer.
I cannot urge you strongly enough to add “The Dark Side” to your Netflix or go to PBS.org and watch it online, especially those of you still stubbornly clinging to the idea that George Bush and Dick Cheney sent Americans off to die as a result of bad intellligence. The blood of every single American who has died in Iraq or been wounded in Iraq is on the hands of the men in the White House. They had good intelligence in their hands; they just chose to lie to you about it.
That response by Tenet was a reply to Bush's immediate response to the CIA report on Saddam: "Is this all we've got?" Even at that late date, Pres. Bush knew there wasn't enough evidence to get public support for the war. Rather than facing up to the President, however, CIA Director Tenant caved in to the unspoken pressure that Bush was implying. Thus, his basketball analogy. For those convinced that Condi Rice would be a great President and not just a carbon copy (pardon the pun) of Bush, consider that she was in the office at the time and as National Security Advisor it was actually her responsibility to turn to Tenet at that point and confirm that it was NOT a slam dunk and that he needed to go back and do more analysis.
In addition, “The Dark Side” also includes a number of interviews that point to an overwhelming climate of pressure on individual CIA analysts to put together a definitive report on Iraq WMDs. Normally, this kind of report—the most top level report the CIA puts out—takes anywhere from a few months to a couple of years to compile. This report, the one which was used by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and Powell to justfy the invasion, was compiled in a sickening two weeks, however. A copy of the classified version was left in a locked room in the Senate for Senators to read before they cast their vote. Hardly any of them read it.
Dick Cheney's mission, apparently, was to rebuild the power of the Presidency that he saw as being stripped away following Watergate. A singular component of this mission was to transform the intelligence agency away from the separate and independent entity it is at the CIA and place most of its authority under the Defense Department, which of course is a Cabinet department under the President's jurisdiction. A primary goal of Dick Cheney was to remove CIA Director George Tenet and replace him with a much weaker (if possible) CIA Director who was even more eager to give up power. As it stands now, much of the intelligence gathering power that used to be held by the CIA is firmly in the hands of Dept. of Defense, which means that for most of the Bush this millennium it was under the less than awe-inspiring direction of Donald Rumsfeld. If you’re still looking for an answer as to why the situation in Iraq seems to have been a never-ending series of disasters, there’s your answer.
I cannot urge you strongly enough to add “The Dark Side” to your Netflix or go to PBS.org and watch it online, especially those of you still stubbornly clinging to the idea that George Bush and Dick Cheney sent Americans off to die as a result of bad intellligence. The blood of every single American who has died in Iraq or been wounded in Iraq is on the hands of the men in the White House. They had good intelligence in their hands; they just chose to lie to you about it.