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Author Topic:   Half the country in favor of Bush impeachement... *if* he lied about Iraq
LibraSparkle
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posted October 12, 2005 01:47 PM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
New Poll: Growing Popular Demand for Truth about Iraq War
By Joel Wendland

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Related stories: antiwar 10-12-05, 9:30 am

As President Bush's approval rating sinks to around 37 percent, another poll number related to his job performance is up. This number is not good news for the White House, however.

A recent survey commissioned by the AfterDowningStreet.org coalition revealed this week that at least half of Americans agree that Bush should be impeached if he is found to have not told the truth about the reasons to go to war with Iraq.

Conducted by a survey and public opinion outfit that provides similar surveys for the Associated Press, this poll shows an eight-point increase since a June poll done by Zogby that asked a similar question about impeachment.

The new poll found that 50 percent agreed with the following statement:

"If President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should consider holding him accountable by impeaching him."

Only 44 percent disagreed, representing a six-point drop since the Zogby survey.

"The results of this poll are truly astonishing," said AfterDowningStreet.org co-founder Bob Fertik. "Bush's record-low approval ratings tell just half of the story, which is how much Americans oppose Bush's policies on Iraq and other issues. But this poll tells the other half of the story – that a solid plurality of Americans want Congress to consider removing Bush from the White House."

Those who responded to the survey and identified themselves as Democrats favored impeachment if Bush is discovered to have lied by nearly a 4-to-1 margin over those who identified as Republican. Independents favored impeachment over Republicans by close to 3-to-1.

Support for impeachment was strongest in the West, the Northeast, and the South.

The results of this survey come on the heels of a June 23-26 ABC/Washington Post poll that found 52 percent of Americans believe the Bush administration "deliberately misled the public before the war," and 57 percent say the Bush administration "intentionally exaggerated its evidence that pre-war Iraq possessed nuclear, chemical or biological weapons."

Meanwhile, support for the continued occupation of Iraq has crept downward with some polls suggesting that as many as 60 percent of Americans want a withdrawal plan as soon as possible or immediately. Nearly as many have indicated that they regard the Iraq war as "not worth it."

Popular sentiment against the war and growing concern about continued occupation took public stage on the weekend of September 24th when up to 300,000 peace marchers filled the streets of Washington, DC, calling for troop withdrawal immediately.

"We will, no doubt, see an increase in activism following this poll," said David Swanson, co-founder of AfterDowningStreet.org.

But Swanson is less sure that the media is much interested in covering such a major story. According to Swanson, three major public opinion shaping institutions – the media, political leaders in Congress, and public opinion polls themselves – have dropped the ball.

"The media are waiting for action in Congress. Apparently it's easier to find and interview one of the 535 members of Congress than it is to locate a representative of the half of the country that wants the President impeached if he lied about the war," says Swanson.

According to AfterDowningStreet.org’s press statement, efforts to build momentum for an official investigation of whether or not the White House misled the public on the reasons for war has met with a Catch-22.

Though the media already accepts that Bush did lie about the war, telling peace activists who wanted more stories about the Downing Street Memo that it was "old news," many editors and publishers say they would consider focusing on the story only if public opinion is stirred up in favor of impeachment.

Public opinion monitors like the Gallup organization told AfterDowningStreet.org, which asked the polling firm to include questions about impeachment in their surveys, that they would do so only if the media and political leaders made it a major issue.

And we know political leaders only move when poll numbers suggest they might benefit from doing so.

The solution? The peace movement will have to sidestep the leading institutions and publicize existing popular sentiments against the war and in favor of an official investigation of the White House’s role in using intelligence to start the war. It will have to continue to pressure the media and political leaders that public opinion supports decisive action for accountability.

AfterDowningStreet.org is a coalition of peace organizations, veterans groups, media, and other organizations that formed in order to pressure Congress to investigate what the Bush administration knew about the Downing Street Memo and related documents.

These documents, which can be downloaded at AfterDowningStreet.org are British government memos and minutes of meetings that record the opinions of several high-level British officials that the Bush administration manipulated intelligence about Iraq in order to support its cause for going to war with that country.


--Reach Joel Wendland at jwendland@politicalaffairs.net.
http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/2003/1/124/

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Mystic Gemini
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posted October 12, 2005 02:24 PM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Him lying about Iraq is old news.


------------------
Gemini sun, Cancer rising, mercury in Gemini, moon in Taurus *29, venus in Taurus, mars in Libra

*´¨)
¸.·´¸.·*´¨) ¸.·*¨)
(¸.·´ (¸.·´ * Lost in the peace of serenity
Blind my eyes I cannot see
Lost my soul but found my heart
Again a time, when I shall start

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Rainbow~
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posted October 12, 2005 02:48 PM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Mystic, Hon....the issue here is not about the "old news" on Iraq (we ALL know it's old news that he lied about reasons for going into Iraq).....

What's so exciting about Libra's post, is the GREAT, GOOD, AND WONDERFUL news that our psuedo-president might finally get his comeuppance....kicked out of the high office he illegally holds...and has misused time and time again...*sigh*

I hope Cheney goes with him, because the thought of that creature being our next president may even be creepier than georgie holding that office....

But - THE WHOLE CROOKED CREW may be out of there when Patrick Fitzgerald gets thru with them!!!

Love,
Rainbow

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Rainbow~
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posted October 12, 2005 05:12 PM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I continue on this thread...(leading with my chin...) for I fully expect to get flack for posting this article (judging from past experiece)...

George Bush in Hell

By David Michael Green

You would not want to be George W. Bush right now.

Not that you ever would anyhow, but especially not now. Indeed, there are indications that not even George W. Bush wants to be George W. Bush right now.

That second term in office, the one that just a year or two ago seemed so precious that he was willing to launch a war just to obtain it, now feels like a life sentence. Plans for four years spending political capital now look a lot more like endless months of capital punishment.

The Bush Administration has nowhere to go but down, and that is precisely where it is headed.

Poll data show that even members of his solid-to-the-point-of-twelve-step-eligibility base are now deserting him as his job approval ratings plunge like so much Enron stock, lately crashing southward through the forty percent threshold. With almost his entire second term still in front of him, Bush is poised to set new records for presidential unpopularity. That scraping noise you hear? It's the sound of sheepish voters creeping out to the garage late at night, furtively removing "Bush-Cheney 2004" bumperstickers from the back of their SUVs when no one is looking.

(to be continued)

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Rainbow~
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posted October 12, 2005 05:35 PM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
GEORGE BUSH IN HELL

By David Michael Green

(continued)


Meanwhile, as the scales fall from the eyes of the hoi polloi, even the one constituency which could plausibly make the claim that Bush has been good for America (read: their wallets), is speaking the unspeakable as well. Robert Novak, of all people, wrote a column last week chronicling his experience watching rich Republicans at an Aspen retreat bash the idiocy of Bush administration policies on Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, stem-cell research and more. Perhaps these folks realized when they saw Trent Lott's house go under that Mother Nature doesn't care whether you're rich and well-connected any more than does al Qaeda. You may be on Karl Rove's Rolodex, but now Bush is taking you down and your yacht too, not just forgotten kids from the ghetto who enlisted in the Army as the only alternative to a life of poverty.

Even conservative columnists like David Brooks (though not Novak) are writing articles nowadays accurately describing the changed mood of the American public. Where those powerful currents are heading is unclear, but given the radical right experiment of the present as their point of departure, there would seem to be only two choices. We can either go completely off the deep-end and finally constitute the Fascist Republic of Cheney, or we can turn to the left, toward some semblance of rational policymaking. The latter seems far more likely, especially as America increasingly regains its senses after a long bout of temporary insanity. These are bad bits of news for poor George, but worse yet is that they are only the first signs of the coming apocalypse.

The real fun stuff is just around the corner. I'll confess to more than a little schadenfreude as I contemplate the ugly situation staring Republicans officeholders in the face right now. They are tethered to a sinking ship, and have only two lousy options to choose from as November 2006 approaches. One is to stay the course and drown. The other is to start renouncing Bush and his policies, appear to voters as the complete hypocrites and political prostitutes such a fate, with the possible exception of Democrats like Hillary Clinton and John Kerry who have been even more hypocritical yet in facilitating many of the president's disastrous policies.

(more coming)

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AcousticGod
Knowflake

Posts: 4415
From: Pleasanton, CA
Registered: Apr 2009

posted October 12, 2005 05:38 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for AcousticGod     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Ah yes, this is fun to see poll after poll batter him.

I thought Global Unity was dead, though. No one to argue with. I keep seeing articles that would be great.

I doubt he'll get impeached honestly, even though just this morning I heard a story about how the CIA (I believe it was) predicted this insurgency prior to starting the war.

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Rainbow~
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posted October 12, 2005 05:52 PM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
AG....he may not get impeached.....but Patrick Fitzgerald may have some surprises in store for him....

...like how can you impeach an illegal president....if he's not our rightful president, he can't be impeached....

His illegal status may actually come to the fore, for the whole world to see, thereby sending him to prison...rather than impeached....

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Rainbow~
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posted October 12, 2005 05:58 PM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
George Bush in Hell

By David Michael Green

(continued)


Watching these GOP opportunists jump ship will certainly be fun, but the greatest fun awaits the president himself. Bush has now lost everything that once sustained him. That includes 9/11, now safely in the rearview mirror for most Americans. That includes his wartime rally-around-the-flag free pass, as he has failed to capture America's real enemy, while lying about bogus ones to justify an invasion pinning our defense forces down in an endless quagmire. That includes, post-Katrina, the ridiculous frame of Bush as competent leader, and the former reality of the press as frightened presidential waterboys.

And that's the good news for W. The bad news is all the chickens coming home to roost. The economy is anemic and fragile, and yet Bush has played the one card in his deck ostensibly (but never really) intended to remedy the country's economic woes. (Remember during the 2000 campaign when times were flush and tax cuts were the prescription? Remember in 2001 when the economy was in a recession and tax cuts were still the prescription?). In any case, Bush's one-note economic symphony has succeeded in producing precisely the cacophony of disaster that progressive commentators have predicted all along: massive deficits, little or no economic boost, a hemorrhaging of jobs overseas, and a vastly more polarized America of rich, poor and a disappearing middle class.

Another angry chicken, of course, is coming home in the form of devastating storms and a grossly incompetent administration to deal with them. Bush is not entirely responsible for Hurricanes Katrina or Rita, of course, but he is partially responsible for them by his willful

ignorance of the global warming

And he is more than a little responsible for the carnage and damage done, because of his budget-slashing on preventative structural projects, because of his deployment of needed-at-home Guard forces to Iraq, because of his staffing of the government with completely incompetent crony hacks, and because of his and their astonishingly lame performance in responding to a known crisis. Where I come from, a president who remains on vacation during possibly the worst natural disaster to hit this country, praises his FEMA chief for doing a "heckuva job" when the guy doesn't know what any American with a TV set has known for 24 hours about New Orleans, and then later fires him for poor performance, is a president who should be impeached for those reasons alone.

The other demons awaiting George W. Bush just around the bend are multiple and grim.



One of these days (right?), Patrick Fitzgerald is actually going to move on the Treasongate story, and signs suggest that multiple heads will roll within the White House. The political damage will be even worse than the legal, though, as Bush's clean and patriotic image will be smashed beyond repair, as no one will believe that he himself didn't know all along who committed treason by outing an American spy, and as he will likely lose the key magicians who have kept him afloat for five years and more. Oh well. W's loss will be Leavenworth's gain.

(to be continued...)

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Rainbow~
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posted October 12, 2005 06:38 PM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
GEORGE BUSH IN HELL

By David Michael Green

(continued...)

And there is more. The Jack Abramoff investigation has now been tied to the White House. There are also presumably an infinite number of other scandals waiting to explode (can you say 'Halliburton'?) should the Democrats capture either branch of Congress next year, not least of which being those concerning the Downing Street Memo revelations. Gas prices are off the charts and home heating bills are supposed to soar this winter. Jobs are disappearing, along with pensions and healthcare coverage, inflation is likely to rise, and voters are surly already.

But, of course, the biggest cross for Bush to bear is the one he built for himself, and thus the most richly deserved. In Iraq, simply put, there are no good options.

(That number is now more than 2000 dead and counting)

None for America, that is, but even fewer for George W. Bush.

What can he do?

He can't win. America (or, more accurately, America's oligarchy) is clearly losing the war as it is. It is a fantasy to imagine that, at this late date, more troops could pacify the resistance. But even if that were so the political consequences to Bush, especially given his promise of no draft on his watch, would be devastating and rapid. American public opinion has already turned decisively against the war. Imagine if there were a draft and all the bumper-sticker patriots across the land had to actually make a sacrifice for their president's transparent lies. All hell would break loose, and the Republican Party would be dead for a generation.

He can't lose. The major downside to wrapping yourself in the flag, landing on aircraft carriers, labeling yourself a "war president", and being marketed in an election campaign as the reliable national security choice is that you had better deliver. Egged on by the likes of Cheney, Wolfowitz and Perle, Bush no doubt thought Iraq would be a fine little walk in the park from which he would benefit politically for the rest of his presidency. (Nor, assuming this president possesses anything resembling a conscience, need he have concerned himself with resulting deaths, since he told Pat Robertson "we're not going to have any casualties", and he may have even believed it.) Unfortunately for all concerned - most especially the Iraqis and American soldiers - Bush's presidency would be one very real casualty indeed should he decide to pick up his marbles and leave the arena, and so he will not, no matter the carnage or the futility. Doing so would be effectively admitting that there was no legitimate reason for the war in the first place. Everyone now knows that, of course, but were Bush ever to even hint at it, he would be committing instant political suicide. He can't draw. One option is to find some - any - kind of stability, declare victory and go home, saying we got Saddam, we brought democracy, yada, yada, yada.

But how many Americans are now going to be fooled by calling an Iraq ruled by militants of one stripe or another a victory, after all the hooey about fighting for democracy in the Middle East? How many think replacing Saddam with a brutal dictator of another name is worth the price of 2,000 American troops and two or three hundred billion dollars? How many will be convinced that Iraqi women having fewer rights than they did under Saddam Hussein, of all regimes, represents a win for the home team? How many will still be unschooled enough to look at a Iranian-dominated theocracy in Iraq and call that a triumph? Moreover, even these total disasters presume a stability of some sort which may be little short of fantasy at this point. When the Saudi foreign minister goes public with his concerns that Iraq is careening toward civil war, you know you're in deep, and no amount inanities sanctimoniously uttered by Scotty McClellan can keep the truth at bay.

He can't get help. Now there's a good one. Maybe the French have finally seen the light and realized what a mistake they made by not bringing something to the party in 2003, eh? No doubt there's a long queue of countries behind them wanting to commit forces to the farces that are decomposing in the Cradle of Civilization. Luckily for George Bush you can still thumb your nose at the rest of the world and have them come to your rescue afterwards. Just think of what a pickle he would be in if that weren't the case...

He can't divert attention. Time was, a government in trouble at home could throw a little war in some hell-hole abroad and divert public attention away from their domestic or other foreign failures. Kinda like Reagan in Grenada, or the Argentinians in the Malvinas, or Thatcher in the Falklands. Yet, while the American public has managed to massively and repeatedly disappoint still sane observers in recent years, it doesn't appear to be in any mood for more of Mr. Bush's Fun With Foreign Policy antics. Not that the country any longer has the available military force to pull it off anyhow, but it hardly seems that an invasion of Iran right now would have much effect diverting attention from Iraq, even if it could somehow successfully be done, another fantasy in its own right.

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Rainbow~
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posted October 12, 2005 07:00 PM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
GEORGE BUSH IN HELL!!!!

By David Michael Green

(continued...)

In short, George W. Bush is toast,

as is the whole regressive conservative movement of which he is but the most egregious exemplar.

Not even another 9/11 would be likely to help him, as the security president who fails to provide security is the nothing (but simply failed) president. The demise of the right is now likely be true even if Democrats continue hurtling down their current path toward breaking all world records for political cowardice by a major party. Indeed, the worst of the Democrats may now also be in trouble amongst the base - as well they should be - for their cozy associations with the right, enabling its destructive march to the sea these last years.

It is thus too bad, as we emerge from the nightmare of the last quarter-century, that so many of us lefties are atheists, agnostics or otherwise debauched secular humanists. Not only have we had to suffer the reign of Bad King George here on Earth, we can't even have the satisfaction of knowing that he'll be spending the rest of eternity rotting in Hell.

The good news, though, is that he's already there, and the flames are only beginning to warm him up. Perhaps that is why Time describes the dry heaves of a young staffer who had to breach the fantasy bubble and tell this "cold and snappish" president the unhappy truth about an issue, or the National Enquirer's report that Bush, who according to a family member is "falling apart", is back to drinking.

Thus does a new possible ending to the Bush administration suddenly emerge as a real possibility. Previously, I had assumed that our long national nightmare would be over in one of three ways, either with Bush somehow managing to finish his term, with him being impeached, convicted and run out of Washington, or with him being impeached, convicted and then refusing to leave, precipitating a constitutional crisis and even, possibly, a civil war. Now I see a fourth very real possibility.

It was all fun and games when everybody loved him. When the guy who had failed at everything in life except having the right last name all of a sudden was showing those elitist snobs who was tops, after all...

When the man with a Texas size inferiority complex got to be adored by millions as if he were some kind of religious icon.

But what if that all changes? What if Diminutive George, just like LBJ before him, can't leave the completely scripted bubble his staff manufactures, just as such set-pieces become increasingly difficult to sustain? What if the Peevish President can't escape - even by going to Crawford or Camp David - the mothers of dead children, the baby-killer taunts, the stinging-because-they're-so-accurate chickenhawk accusations, the calls for his own daughters to go to Iraq, the possibility that everyone was right about him all along when they dismissed him as the family clown?

What if all of a sudden, it sucks being president?

Why bother, then?

It is clear now that one way the Bush administration might end would be with the president's resignation, in order for him to duck into more tranquil quarters. Who knows, maybe he could spend his days getting tanked in Crawford, not writing another book, or going into exile, perhaps in the south of France.

Of course, a pardon deal would have to be prearranged with Cheney, if they haven't convicted him yet, or with Hastert if they have. And, equally certainly, the resignation would be put down to "the president wanting to spend more time with his family", or some such ludicrous McClellanism, no more or less plausible than the rest of his daily fare. But the truth would be plain for all to see. The frat-boy party-time president who condemns kids less than half his age to the hell of futile battle in support of his lies would himself be deserting as commander-in-chief when the fun part ended. Kinda like he did last time he wore a uniform.

History, it would seem, all too rarely delivers justice. The privileged few go out of this life richer than they came into it, while the poor often leave even poorer, not to mention sooner. Those who commit unspeakable crimes sometimes become presidents or prime ministers, while those who dare speak truthfully of those deeds are crushed owing to the threat posed by their honesty.

Even more rare yet are the cases in which history delivers justice with a deliciously deserved irony. But George Bush has provided us with just such a case. And the very delicious irony is that he is now being undone by a cynical choice he himself made to go to war in Iraq with other people's blood and other people's treasure, for the purpose of enhancing his tenuous self-esteem and the power of his presidency.

Goodbye, George. May you know precisely the rest and precisely the peace someone who would do such a thing deserves.




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Rainbow~
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posted October 12, 2005 07:12 PM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
The above (posted piece by piece) article was written by David Michael Green....

...added graphics by Rainbow....

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AcousticGod
Knowflake

Posts: 4415
From: Pleasanton, CA
Registered: Apr 2009

posted October 12, 2005 07:49 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for AcousticGod     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Nice graphics!

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AcousticGod
Knowflake

Posts: 4415
From: Pleasanton, CA
Registered: Apr 2009

posted October 13, 2005 11:41 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for AcousticGod     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Oh yes, here it is:

US ignored forecasts of Iraqi ethnic turmoil-CIA

By David Morgan
Wed Oct 12, 5:18 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration paid scant attention to prewar U.S. intelligence on Iraq predicting the ethnic and tribal turmoil that now threatens the future of the country, a newly released 2004 CIA report said.

The report said U.S. policymakers instead concentrated more on the agency's assessments of Iraq's weapons program, which helped them make the case for the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq but which turned out to be flawed and misleading.

"Intelligence assessments on post-Saddam issues were particularly insightful," said the report.

But it added: "In an ironic twist, the policy community was receptive to technical intelligence (the weapons program) where the analysis was wrong, but apparently paid little attention to intelligence on cultural and political issues (post-Saddam Iraq), where the analysis was right."

Administration officials justified the 2003 invasion in part on assertions that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was a threat to the region and the United States. No such weapons have been found and investigations have blamed the CIA for huge lapses in its prewar intelligence.

The report, published in the current issue of the quarterly CIA magazine, "Studies in Intelligence," was commissioned by former CIA Director George Tenet. He resigned last year after fierce criticism over the faulty Iraqi weapons assessments.

The report said the agency was largely correct in its estimate of cultural and political postwar issues and "accurately forecast the reactions of the ethnic and tribal factions in Iraq."

The Bush administration suggested early in the Iraq war that American forces would be greeted as liberators by a grateful Iraqi people. President George W. Bush initially took a cavalier approach to the insurgency, suggesting it would be no threat to U.S. forces there and declaring: "Bring 'em on!"

But more than two years later the country is gripped by a deadly Sunni Arab insurgency against the Shi'ite and Kurdish-led government and U.S. troops and nearly 2,000 U.S. troops have been killed.

Presented in July 2004, the report said prewar Iraq intelligence also concluded accurately that Saddam had no operational or collaborative ties with al Qaeda and calculated the war's impact on oil markets.

The CIA report, produced by a team led by former CIA Deputy Director Richard Kerr, was issued as the last in a series of three reports on Iraq intelligence. It is unclassified but has not been released publicly until now. The two earlier reports remain classified.

U.S. involvement in Iraq also came under fire on Wednesday from former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who said the CIA's faulty WMD intelligence only provided the pretext for a long-standing U.S. policy of regime change.

"We had two policies in Iraq. A publicly stated policy of containment through the maintenance of economic sanctions linked to disarmament, and ... regime change. Regime change was the dominant policy," he said during an event to promote his new book, "Iraq Confidential" (Nation Books).

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