"It is true that much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong.” Bush uncharacteristically admitted in the last of his recent Iraq War speeches. Well here is something else that is equally true Mr. President. It is true that much of the intelligence turned out to be true. For example, DITSUM No. 044-02, a 10/2002 Defense Intel Agency document that debunked the case of an Al-Qaeda/Iraq link.

Unfortunately, it didn’t support your vision though did it?

Much more than that was sanitized. For instance, there was the boat load of intelligence from Iraqi informants "Curveball" and Ahmad Chalabi, who were fingered as known liars, a piece of info few outside the neo-club had. And let’s not forget how your inner circle got all in a bunch over the infamous “What I Didn’t Find” article, written by Joseph Wilson, in which he revealed his briefing back in March of 2002 (eight months before your “Invade Iraq” speech) to the CIA regarding the unlikelihood of “yellow cake” getting in the hands of Saddam from Niger. And that is stuff we know about. It probably is fair to say there is a whole lot more.

So what is it you do to contrary opinions that might become a situation for your vision? I can only guess one of three possibilities occurs: 1) the handful of people comprising your inner circle screen the problem documents or trouble makers from you, 2) you skeptically receive them and promptly discard them yourself, or 3) you skeptically receive them but don’t understand them, thus discard them as a byproduct of your mental intelligence, albeit limited. I suspect it is the first scenario since I think you are bright enough to understand the complications of the second scenario and certainly smarter than the bonehead that the cheap joke in number three suggests you to be.

You went on in that speech to say, “As president I am responsible for the decision to go into Iraq. And I'm also responsible for fixing what went wrong by reforming our intelligence capabilities." Now when you say that part about “fixing what went wrong”, what do you mean by that? It seems to me what went wrong was your dismissal of the right intelligence. But I’m not so sure that is what you think went wrong. I don’t know, maybe I’m just naïve, but if I had conflicting intelligence about something as important as building a case to invade a country, I might hold off putting our troops in harms way until I figured out which set of “facts” were true. It seems to me you did just the opposite. You scampered to war, while the knuckleheads in the Senate and House were sifting through mountains of wrong intel. Gee, I’d sure like to think that wasn’t the case, you know with it involving other people's lives and all. I mean I know from your heartfelt speech that the decision was a heavy one, probably as heavy as it must of felt when that big ole fatso Dick Cheney lay on top of you until you said “uncle”, huh?

And while I’m at it, you have to stop with this notion that Democrats and Republicans in the House and the Senate had access to the “same intelligence”. Yeah, we know all about that cleverly true claim. But Mr. President, “same intelligence” ain’t “all intelligence” is it now? Did they have access to DITSUM No. 044-02? Did they have knowledge of the Wilson briefings? Were they made aware of the dubious nature of sources “Curveball” and Chalibi?

I don’t think so.

I’ll tell you what though. To your credit, I don’t think you do lie because that would put you at odds with your Supreme Advisor—that’s with a capital S, capital A. Get it? Wink. Wink. By the way, if I were you, the next time you two talk at bedtime, I’d get on his case a little. I mean after all, if he is such a smarty pants, why didn’t he kind of give you a little hint about what was going on? He could have whispered something like, “ya know that DITSUM document, you might want to read it again. It’s pretty, pretty good. And that Wilson fellow might be a royal pain in robes but he’s got a point.” Actually, come to think about, ask him for the coordinates of Osama’s location while you’re at it too. Anyway, so if you don’t lie, what do you do? You just don’t tell “all the truth”, kind of like you don’t share “all the intelligence”. Am I right? Come on, you know I’m right.

The fact is you’re slicker than slop through a pig and let me tell you that’s slicker than slick Willie ever was. If only you could have advised him though his little intern indiscretion, he’d have us crooning “the world is a better place without Monica, even though she blew me like a harmonica”.

Yes-sir-ree Bob, when it comes to a little nuisance, you know like facts, you find a little nuance, you know like not-all-the-facts. Yup, you sure are smarter than old Willie boy when it comes to parsing the English language. Unfortunately, it comes at a higher cost: countless innocent lives and new generations of remorseless hate.

That's the part that bothers me, Dub. How about dem apples?

This opinion piece is just one of many Humorist Robert Crane spews out after placing his head in a vice. If you like it, you can find a lot more at his popular website:

http://www.cranelegs.com

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