Still manipulating the intelligence

One group will be absent from this year's assessment. The LA Times reports, "The State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research was not invited by Republican leaders to testify at the annual threat hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee being held Tuesday, even though the bureau has participated in the hearing every year since it began in the early 1990s." Not coincidentally, this intelligence agency was the same one who most vehemently warned the Administration that its pre-war Iraq nuclear claims were weak. Specifically, the agency was "more skeptical that Baghdad was rebuilding its nuclear program, a claim the Bush administration made in making the case for war," calling the evidence behind the claim "inadequate to support such a judgment." The agency also "differed with other agencies on the purpose of aluminum tubes Iraq was attempting to obtain." As one congressional staffer put it, "At the very time when I & R seems to have been right and everyone else wrong, it's at least unusual that this year for the first time they're not invited."

There is more here from the Progress Report, including information on Chalabi's bogus information (and his current stance that it doesn't matter), on the information being sent directly to certain Washington officials, instead of going through U.S. intelligence channels, and what George Tenet will be telling the SIC.

Further:

Roll Call now reports that wealthy Iraqis have descended on Washington to launch a massive lobbying campaign in an attempt to exercise influence over the Bush administration and Congress. "The group of Iraqis, which includes three members of the U.S.-created Iraqi Governing Council, are spending as much as $100,000 per month on lobbying firms and public relations agents to press U.S. officials to create a modern, democratic government that is not dominated by Islamic conservatives." Cognizant of the success Ahmed Chalabi has had with his close ties to officials in Vice President Dick Cheney's office, the new wave of Iraqis hopes to influence the shape of the emerging Iraqi government, hopefully creating central roles for themselves.

Of course, that's the way we do business here in the U.S., but how interesting....they are simply admitting that the U.S. is creating their government for them.

Oh, Great White Master, hear my case.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.