Manipulating Intelligence And/Or the Public

National security adviser Stephen Hadley, Sunday, November 13, speaking on CNN's "Late Edition": "Allegations now that the president somehow manipulated intelligence, somehow misled the American people, are flat wrong."

Really?

Perhaps Hadley could review some of the statements made by the Bush administration before and just after the war, and explain, given the intelligence we now know was available to it at the time, and point-by-point, exactly how they are not misleading:

"[Iraq] possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons... And surveillance photos reveal that the regime is rebuilding facilities that it had used to produce chemical and biological weapons." -President Bush on October 7, 2002 in Cincinnati

"Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons... Iraq has made several attempts to buy high-strength aluminum tubes used to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon." -President Bush on September 12, 2002 to the UN General Assembly

"Well, there is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical particularly...all this will be made clear in the course of the operation, for whatever duration it takes." -White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer on March 21, 2003 in his daily press briefing

"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction...What he wants is time, and more time to husband his resources to invest in his ongoing chemical and biological weapons program, and to gain possession of nuclear weapons." -Vice President Cheney on August 26, 2002

"We believe [Saddam Hussein] has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons. I think Mr. El Baradei frankly is wrong." -Vice President Cheney on March 16, 2003 on "Meet The Press"

"There is no doubt in my mind but that they currently have chemical and biological weapons." -Secretary Rumsfeld on January 7, 2003 at a press briefing

"We know where [weapons of mass destruction] are, they are in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad." -Secretary Rumsfeld on March 30, 2003 on ABC's "This Week"

"We've also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas. We're concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVS for missions targeting the United States." -President Bush on October 7, 2002 in Cincinnati

"Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons." -President Bush on October 7, 2002 in Cincinnati

"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." -President Bush on January 20, 2003 in his State Of the Union address

"We know he has been absolutely trying to acquire nuclear weapons and we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." -Vice-President Dick Cheney on March 16, 2003

"If there's a problem with intelligence it doesn't mean that anybody misled anybody. It means that intelligence is an art and not a science." -Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz on June 18, 2003

"I think the intelligence was correct in general." -Secretary Rumsfeld on June 19, 2003

"This revisionist notion that somehow this is now the core of why we went to war, a central issue in why we went to war, a fundamental underpinning of the president's decisions, is a bunch of bull." -Ari Fleischer, 2003-Jul-14

"Those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons are wrong. We found them." -President Bush, Krakow, Poland on May 30, 2003