... This, of course, brings up the question as to whether those doubts actually existed at the time -- or more accurately, whether any evidence had developed counter to the existing intelligence before the invasion at all. ...

White House 'never told' of WMD doubts THE US administration was never told of doubts about the secret intelligence used to justify war with Iraq, former secretary of state Colin Powell told the BBC in an interview to be broadcast

OK how about this.

The president should have asked if there were any doubts about the validity of the intel.

Going to war without seeking contrarian viewpoints is the sign of someone who just wants to go to war.

There should have been a contrarian task force in the White House.

Would it be to hard for the President to ask, "Are we damn sure that we are right about this"? before he sent American boys to die?

Guess so...

You think they went to the papers first? B.s.

I'm sure many or most of these "senior CIA officials," etc. tried to blow the whistle ... & got frozen out. Unless there was such a climate of fear that they didn't dare. (I don't think Cheney's boys learned hardball on the Plame case.)

So you think the President should "make sure he had ALL the information available in front of him?" That is a completly unrealistic expectation: I can't imagine how many pages of information a day was generated regarding Iraq in just 2002. One of the functions of the intelligence community is to analyze, interpert and summarize all the relevent data and present it to the President in a digestable format. They are supposed to have the experience and skill to do that; the President's mission is to create policy not conduct analysis.

Your name Lee, Is that the same as the Lee that waved the white flag and surrendered?

You guys are all alike, One track minds and a white flag. That seems to be your banner.

Courtesy of http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/Outside the Beltway:
By James Joyner
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell has told the BBC’s David Frost that the intelligence community never communicated their doubts about Iraqi WMD to the admi...

That said, if Powell _is_ correct, and the intel communitiy's doubts _didn't_ filter up to the President, the coercive (and corrosive) influence of Cheney, backed up by Tenet's sycophancy, seem the most probable reasons...

Get real, Herb.

Whta will they do when it turns out that "They are Wrong".

One might be "pursuing" but totally contained, or one might be "pursuing" and making great progress.

Land war in Iraq is really only justified by the latter, but a great number of tv pundits treat the two meanings as interchangable.

The BBC has excerpts from a David Frost interview with Coin Powell (Powell raps Europe on CIA flights) in which several interesting statements are made.
For one thing, there is direct confirmation from Powell about his disagreements with Cheney and R...