That poor poor man plowed through the SSCI report so I don't have to.

He even read "the appendices called "Additional Notes", where commissioners express their personal opinions on the subject and conclusions of the report."

I particularly liked the poor man's shorter Senator Warner

5. Warner (R) - The committee did a super job, and we shouldn’t come down too hard on the intelligence community, because they’re pretty super, too, and it’s just a few bad apples.

Howver, his summary with quotations, edited down, seems to reveal an alarming truth

1. Roberts, Bond, Hatch (R) - [snip]

Not only did we find no such "pressure," we found quite the opposite. Intelligence officials across the Community told Members and staff that their assessments were solely the product of their own analyses and judgments. They related to Committee staff in interview after interview their strong belief that the only "pressure" they felt was to get it right. …

[snip]

3. Chambliss, Hatch, Lott, Hagel, Bond (R) -

The Ombudsman stated that he interviewed a number of analysts during an inquiry subsequent to a complaint about the production of a specific intelligence report. During his inquiry, the issue of pressure came up. Several of the analysts he interviewed mentioned "pressure from the Administration" and implied that it was in the form of repeated questioning. Some of these analysts felt that the questioning was unreasonable, while others stated that they felt it was not unreasonable. The Ombudsman also interviewed members of the CIA's Policy Support Staff as part of his inquiry, and they explained that the CIA's initial answers to the Administration's questions were unsatisfactory, and therefore merited the repeated questions.

I'm afraid that we can only conclude that Senators Bond and Hatch are psychotic. There was no "pressure" although there was "pressure".


Given that Hatch and Bond don't seem to have read their own assertions, it is not surprising that they didn't notice that their lies are exposed by by Durbin

8. Durbin (D) - ... an analyst is quoted saying that Administration rhetoric informed the analyses that went into the NIE:

I would also say that this NIE was written -- the going-in assumption was we were going to war, so this NIE was to be written with that in mind.