There is a shaft of light breaking through the crack
between the Bush cabal and the CIA. Hopefully, that
crack and the shaft of light that is penetrating it
will widen in the days and weeks ahead...There is
still hope for our country...It resides in not only in
the US Electorate itself, but in the US military, the
US foreign policy establishment AND the US
intelligence community...."Let us not talk falsely
now, the hour is getting late."
Edwin Chen and Greg Miller, LA Times: President Bush
said Monday that his administration was investigating
possible links between Iran and the Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks, a statement that distanced the president from
acting CIA Director John McLaughlin, who had
downplayed a possible connection a day earlier.
In a second sign of a potential rift between the White
House and the intelligence agency, White House Press
Secretary Scott McClellan told reporters that
McLaughlin was not speaking for the president when he
said it was unnecessary to create a new, more powerful
intelligence czar, despite faulty information before
the Iraq war.
Repudiate the 9/11 Cover-Up and the Iraq War Lies,
Show Up for Democracy in 2004: Defeat Bush (again!)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/072104A.shtml
Bush, CIA at Odds on Iran
By Edwin Chen and Greg Miller
Los Angeles Times
Tuesday 20 July 2004
The president's interest in a possible 9/11 link goes
against the agency leader's assessment. They also
disagree over intelligence reforms.
Washington - President Bush said Monday that his
administration was investigating possible links
between Iran and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a
statement that distanced the president from acting CIA
Director John McLaughlin, who had downplayed a
possible connection a day earlier.
"As to direct connections with Sept. 11, we're
digging into the facts to determine if there was one,"
Bush said of Iran.
In a second sign of a potential rift between the
White House and the intelligence agency, White House
Press Secretary Scott McClellan told reporters that
McLaughlin was not speaking for the president when he
said it was unnecessary to create a new, more powerful
intelligence czar, despite faulty information before
the Iraq war.
"The president is very much open to ideas that
build upon the reforms that we're already
implementing," McClellan said. "I think [McLaughlin]
was expressing his view."
McClellan's comments indicated that the White
House was receptive to the idea of fundamental reform
in the intelligence community, rather than the "modest
changes" McLaughlin had endorsed in an appearance on a
Sunday talk show.
The White House-CIA differences emerged as the
independent Sept. 11 commission prepared to release
its final report Thursday on the 2001 terrorist
attacks. The report is expected to contain
recommendations that could touch off a contentious
drive toward reforming the nation's
intelligence-gathering bureaucracy.
The independent commission is widely expected to
report that some of the Sept. 11 hijackers had
traveled freely between Iran and Afghanistan during
2000 and 2001. Last month, the panel's chairman,
former New Jersey Gov. Thomas H. Kean, said in a
television interview that Al Qaeda had "a lot more
active contacts, frankly, with Iran and with Pakistan
than there were with Iraq."
Iran's emerging prominence in the Sept. 11
investigations looms as a potentially difficult issue
for the White House, because it could raise new
questions about why Bush led a war against Iraq but so
far has taken a distinctly less bellicose stance
toward Iran.
McClellan argued that the United States indeed had
been "confronting" the threat from Iran, which Bush in
2002 listed, along with Iraq and North Korea, as part
of an "axis of evil." He added, however, that Iraq was
"a unique situation" because it had invaded its
neighbors and had possessed and used weapons of mass
destruction.
McClellan also said the White House was eager to
learn what the Sept. 11 commission knew about any
connections between the hijackers and Iran.
"Apparently it's something that's evolved over time,"
he said.
The Iranian government has denied knowledge or
involvement in the Sept. 11 plot.
McLaughlin had said Sunday that although "about
eight" of the Sept. 11 hijackers may have passed
through Iran before their mission, the CIA had "no
evidence that there is some sort of official
connection between Iran and 9/11."
Bush on Monday noted McLaughlin's comments, but
said: "We will continue to look and see if the
Iranians were involved."
The president also renewed his accusation that
Iran's rulers were "harboring Al Qaeda leadership,"
and urged Tehran anew to dismantle its nuclear weapons
program. The United States has asked Iran to turn over
Al Qaeda members to their respective countries.
The president's spokesman dismissed weekend media
reports that Bush may delay naming a new CIA director
until after the Nov. 2 election as having "no basis in
fact."
In brief remarks to reporters after meeting with
Chilean President Ricardo Lagos, Bush said that he was
"still taking a good, hard look" at potential
successors to George J. Tenet as CIA director. Tenet
left the agency July 11.
As for the reforming the intelligence-gathering
apparatus, the president said he was looking forward
to seeing the Sept. 11 commission's recommendations.
"They share the same desires I share, which is to
make sure that the president and the Congress get the
best possible intelligence," Bush said.
"Some of the reforms, I think, are necessary: more
human intelligence, better ability to listen or to see
things, and better coordination amongst the variety of
intelligence-gathering services," he said. "And so
we'll look at all their recommendations, and I will
comment upon that, having studied what they say."
The commission is expected to recommend the
creation of a single Cabinet-level position overseeing
the 15 agencies that make up the nation's
intelligence-gathering community.
McLaughlin acknowledged on "Fox News Sunday" that
"a good argument" could be made for such
consolidation, but added that it was unnecessary
because the CIA already had taken steps toward reform
since Sept. 11 and because a restructuring would
impose additional bureaucracy on the system.
White House officials have described McLaughlin as
a capable leader, but have also indicated that they do
not see him as a permanent replacement.
That may be in part because McLaughlin was in a
senior position at the agency during a stretch that
included the failure to prevent the Sept. 11 attacks
and the erroneous assessments that Iraq had stockpiles
of biological and chemical weapons and had restarted
its nuclear weapons program.
But it also appears that the professorial
McLaughlin, who came up through the analytical side of
the CIA, doesn't have the sort of rapport with Bush
that the backslapping, gregarious Tenet did.
An anecdote in a recent book by Washington Post
reporter Bob Woodward describes McLaughlin giving a
key briefing to Bush and other senior White House
officials on the evidence against Iraq before the war.
Bush was unimpressed by the presentation and
complained that the evidence was weak, prompting Tenet
to call the case against Iraq a "slam dunk."
McClellan said Monday that McLaughlin was "someone
who is very capable and is doing a good job at the
CIA."
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