Sen. Durbin’s Super Secret Intelligence

Sen. Dick Durbin, always good for a good belly laugh.  Of course we’re all laughing at him instead of with him:

I was a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee and I would read the headlines in the paper in the morning and I’d watch the television newscast and I’d shake my head. …[T]he information we had in the Intelligence Committee was not the same information being given to the American people. I couldn’t believe it.

[…]You see, in the Intelligence Committee, we’re sworn to secrecy. We can’t walk outside the door and say, ‘The statement made yesterday by the White House is in direct contradiction to classified information that’s being given to this Congress.’”

[…]And so in my frustration, I sat here on the floor of the Senate and listened to this heated debate about invading Iraq thinking the American people are being misled. They are not being told the truth.

Dickey said this on the floor of the Senate today. 

So Senator Durbin KNEW that the President was lying to the American people but just sat on it.  Who in their right minds really believes this kind of crap?

Of course there were a few other lefty Senators around at the time who made a few remarks:

• SEN. CARL LEVIN (D-MI): “[Saddam] has ignored the mandates of the United Nations, is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them.” (Committee On Armed Services, U.S. Senate, Hearing, 09/19/02)

• SEN. JOHN ROCKFELLER (D-WV):  “There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons. And will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years.” (Sen. John Rockefeller, Congressional Record, 10/10/02, p.S10306)

• SEN. EVAN BAYH (D-IN): “Bill, I support the president’s efforts to disarm Saddam Hussein. I think he was right on in his speech tonight. The lessons we learned following September 11 were that we can’t wait to be attacked again, particularly when it involves weapons of mass destruction. So regrettably, Saddam has not done the right thing, which is to disarm, and we’re left with no alternative but to take action.” (Fox News’ "The O’Reilly Factor," 03/17/03)

• SEN. HARRY REID (D-NV): “Saddam Hussein, in effect, has thumbed his nose at the world community. And I think that the President’s approaching this in the right fashion.” (CNN’s "Inside Politics," 09/18/02)

Maybe Dick’s tinfoil hat was receiving rogue frequencies from the mothership during these intelligence meetings?

Would explain a lot.

Steven Spruiell writes that Dick has been this loony for a long time:

Actually, Sen. Durbin’s been saying stuff like this for a few years now. When pressed to name what specifically Durbin saw in classified intel briefings that differed from what the administration was telling the country, a spokesman for Durbin cites one of the key judgments from the Oct. 2002 NIE (declassified on July 18, 2003):

Most agencies believe that Saddam’s personal interest in and Iraq’s aggressive attempts to obtain high-strength aluminum tubes for centrifuge rotors—as well as Iraq’s attempts to acquire magnets, high-speed balancing machines, and machine tools—provide compelling evidence that Saddam is reconstituting a uranium enrichment effort for Baghdad’s nuclear weapons program. ([The Department of Energy] agrees that reconstitution of the nuclear program is underway but assesses that the tubes probably are not part of the program.)

Durbin’s spokesman argues that the administration, while "factually correct" when it told the press that most agencies believed the tubes were part of a reconstituted nuclear program, was not being totally honest because it omitted the "greater expertise" of the Department of Energy.

I asked if there were other examples, and Durbin’s spokesmen said that there were, but that if Durbin told me he’d have to kill me.

Just kidding! But he did say that the other examples of intelligence Durbin saw that contradicted what the administration was telling the public remain classified and can’t be shared — except, I guess, in the vague "Bush lied, people died" sort of way Durbin shared them today.

Of course when pressed about the other Senators statements he tells Steven that they could speak for themselves, he knows what he heard and it sounded vaguely like "bend over, we will probe you now earthling"

Curt

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