Asymmetrical Information

"Prior to the report's publication, a person who had read it told UPI that it showed U.S. intelligence agencies had no evidence linking Iraq to the 9-11 attacks or to al-Qaida. In fact, the issue is not addressed in the declassified sections of the report."

In other words either the report shows no evidence linking Iraq to the 9-11 attacks or al-Qaida or such information indicating that US intelligence agencies had no such evidence was classified.
I'm not sure what the embarrassment(sp) is supposed to be about.

The rest of the excerpt says that it's not addressed in the classified section either. Other reports indicate that the classified section is almost all about the Saudi connection.

But Jane, I'm slow today. I didn't quite get the point of your last paragraph. Can you elaborate?

And by the way, do we ever get to hear anything about your new job? Inquiring minds want to know....

I'm guessing that someone who was suspected of leaking to this reporter, probably someone on the periphery or who isn't supposed to be looking at this stuff, was shown a report with some incendiary accusations in order to see if it got leaked. When it did, they knew who the leak was.

But perhaps I'm just paranoid. . .

somebody's getting fired!!!!

hehehe

always make multiple versions of secret reports... distribute them around (with 1 version per person) and you can always nail the leakers

just like how maps always have errors in them. one map company created two towns in michigan, called go and blu.. when a competitor mapped them as well... they nailed them for copyright violations (massive at a corporate level)

im just shocked when people are upset about leak hunts... "top administration" officials can leak... but if you're not a key cabinet secretary or political aide, you only leak what you're told to leak. otherwise admin can't function... but since they feed the media, they get protection

Remember when the video of Clinton's testimony for the grand jury came out and it was leaked that it was going to make him look bad. That there were times when he lost his cool and appeared uncomfortable. Then the video was released and he look pretty darn collected and composed.

Bush and Rove learned from the best.

As if "The Administration knew that there was no link" isn't effectively the same as "The Administration knew of no link". Pure sophistry.

Bush, Cheney, Rice et. al. were implying a link in nearly all of their speaches about the Iraq war before the war, and yet they never came right out and said that there was a link.

Now we have a report that could be counted on to contain information about a link if one existed, and is silent on the subject. (Not redacted, since the report tells us what isn't in the redacted bits as well in this regard)

All this does is confirm (by omission) what anyone paying attention already knew. There is simply no other explanation for the fact that the administration constantly implied a link but never came right out and said that there was one.

They knew if they said that there was a link that they would be lying, and possibly caught at it so they never said so. But, they also knew that if the people didn't believe in a link they wouldn't get their war, so they tied the two together rhetorically at every opportunity. But always in ways that never actually said that there was a link. Deliberately misleading, but not outright lying. So it's ok with you, right?

Is misleading congress really less of a crime than lying? Or are your morals so flexible only when it's not a Democrat doing the mislieading?

“Bush, Cheney, Rice et. al. were implying a link in nearly all of their speaches about the Iraq war before the war, and yet they never came right out and said that there was a link.”

The reasons to invade Iraq transcend any possible connection between Osama bin Ladin and Saddam Hussein. It is sufficient that the Iraqi dictator continued to play games with the UN inspectors--and fostered terrorism throughout the world. The evidence, for instance, is overwhelming that Saddam’s thugs attempted to assassinate George Bush I. I am also utterly convinced that Saddam would have persisted in trying to harm us. That’s enough for me and most of the American people. The rest of you are essentially being silly and regret not being governed by an Old European country. Johnny Depp is just more honest with himself. Ann Coulter is guilty of pushing her argument a bit too far. Still, a very good case can be made that the far left of the Democrat Party are traitors.

My personal opinion is that the word "traitor" has recently been abused so much that it's now essentially meaningless.

Bones - I just don't follow your argument. My recollection is that the Administration was very careful to state (what has turned out to be true) that Iraq had contacts with and supported al Qaeda. Several times, on the Sunday morning talk shows and elsewhere, representatives of the Administration said that there was no evidence that Iraq was involved with 9/11. Is your argument that the Administration "mislead" because it did not stress strongly enough that Saddam was not directly involved with planning the 9/11 crimes? Doesn't Congress and the public have SOME responsibility to pay attention to what is ACTUALLY being said?

As if "The Administration knew that there was no link" isn't effectively the same as "The Administration knew of no link". Pure sophistry.

I'm afraid that's completely wrong. The actual scenarios are "this report was going to prove that the administration knew there was no link" (the rumor) and "this report doesn't even address whether the intelligence services thought there was a link or not" (the reality).

What more needs to be said?:

“His (Uday Huessein) final words to me were: 'This time I think the Americans are serious. Bush is not like Clinton. I think this is the end.' "

http://www.washtimes.com/world/20030727-122655-7094r.htm

So just who is it that uses UPI as a key newssource, anyway? (Other than folks who believe what the Washington Times prints ...)

“(Other than folks who believe what the Washington Times prints ...)”

I see no reason whatsoever to question the veracity of the Washington Times. Where is your evidence to back up your slanderous suggestion? On the other hand, there is the New York Times!

one map company created two towns in michigan, called go and blu

Actually, it was Goblu and Beatosu (as in "Beat OSU"), and they didn't actually create the towns for the map; they just wrote the words in tiny lower case next to the real towns of Bono and Elmira, Ohio, respectively. Read the whole story here: http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a4_165.html

You can see closeups of the map here: http://groups.msn.com/MICHIGANFAMILYTRAVELS/map.msnw?albumlist=2

When I lived in Durham, North Carolina, I stumbled on an entry in the Durham phone book for Ben and Eileen Dover. I always figured that this was some phone company directory fiction to detect whether other directory publishers were stealing the phone company's copyrighted materials. As I understand it, the courts have since held that phone companies don't have any copyright in telephone directories. But the entry still remains. See for yourself:

http://directory.superpages.com/wp/results.jsp?SRC=&PS=15&PI=1&STYPE=WS&WF=Ben+&WL=Dover&T=Durham&S=NC&search=Find

http://directory.superpages.com/wp/results.jsp?SRC=&PS=15&PI=1&STYPE=WS&WF=Eileen&WL=Dover&T=Durham&S=NC&search=Find

Either that, or there is a couple with a very funny name living at 112 W. Trinity Ave.

Thomas Bros., a famous map book company(at least here in CA.) is infamous for putting false information in their work so that if anyone decides to copy it without verifying the geography, they have a good case for copyright violation.

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