In the midst of the Repub full-court-press on Iraq intelligence (Bush's speaches in
Pennsylvania and
Alaska, the
RNC Video) Dems need to keep thier wits about them. One thing the Repubs have done repeatedly is boil the issue down nice chewey easy-to-swallow soundbites. The tendency to launch into a long verbose detailed arguement to refute their claims simply isn't good enough. It's clear from watching Hannity go against Dennis Kucinich last night that you need laser-like precision to cut through thier B.S. We have the factual upper-hand, we need to press it. We need to go for the jugular, one or two sentences, quick points, killing strokes, each and every time.
Politics has become exactly like advertizing - it's all about the catch phrase.
On the flip I have a few suggested phrases to start things off, and I hope we can seriously begin developing more - clearly we have the brain power.
Cross posted on Vyanblog.
Continued...
- Congress does not receive copies of the "Presidential Daily Briefing", so how could they have the "Same Intelligence" information?
- The Senate and House Intelligence Chairmen and Commitee members receive information that is not available to the full House and Senate. Again, not the same.
- Neither the Senate Intelligence Report or the Robb-Silbermann report analyzed how intelligence information was used and possibly distorted by the Administration. That analysis was postponed until "Phase II" of the investigation which has not even occured yet.
- The National Intelligence Estimate that was eventually given to Congress just days prior to the Iraq War vote was not voluantarily provided by the Administration and only occured as a result of pressure from Senators Graham and Durbin.
- All indications of connections between Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein came from a single source, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, who was exposed as a fabricator by the Defense Intelligence Service in Feburary of 2002. Why wasn't Congress told this in October?
- All indications of continued Iraq WMD developement programs came from a single informant code=named "Curveball", a source who both German Inteligence and the DIA consider to be "not reliable". Why wasn't Congress informed that he couldn't be trusted?
- Both the Senate Intelligence Report and the IAEA found that the Niger-Uranium purchase documents were most likely "A forgery", and the matter was referred to the FBI for Investiation.
- The National Intelligence Estimate included a rebuttal by the State Department INR analyst to claims that Saddam was attempting to reconstitute his Nuclear program as "inadaquate to support such a judgement". We know now from the Dulfer Report that the INR assesment was exactly correct. Why didn't anyone listen?
- Inspectors on the ground in Iraq during late 2002-2003 claimed that U.S. Intelligence on Iraqi WMD's was "garbage" right until Feb of 2003, one Month before the War began.
- Why did Bush choose to launch the attack in March of 2003 when Saddam hadn't hindered the UN inspectors in any way?
- Many countries did not agree with the Bush Analysis, including Britain who said "the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran." in the Downing Street Minutes - while France, Russia and Germany all voted against increasing pressure on Saddam prior to the War.
Vyan
