As for the how (this one comes strait from my personal playbook of dirty tricks) You identify the target (in this case the decision-maker), then you wait for a bad day at the office, or you create one, then you sneak it in under a ton other info that this person has to sign off on QED you got what the hell you wanted…not saying that’s how it was actually done only saying that’s what i would do….

And i agree just another day at the office, never underestimate the power of dignety or the fact that the biggest “peacemovement” is a “pro” in uniform or a has been in uniform for that matter.

So the official excuse was probably we whant the iranian to look and act accordingly (aka play ball in negotiations) second is home politicos aka House and senate and the design also served to keep the b. team in line…

Gotta luv this design don’t you

weren’t we told,

years after the fact, of course,

that cia estimates of soviet military and, particularly, nuclear capacity

routinely conveyed to white house bosses,

and routinely leaked to a slavering opinion press (e.g., the alsop brothers),

were egregiously in error in the “oh my god” direction, aka, the “the russians are coming” direction.

but what the f**k;

somebody’s got to write/say something;

the presses can’t just stop printing,

teevee “news” can’t declare a “no significant news today” holiday,

now can they?

the media millwheel turns and grinds,

turns and grinds.

But I find the discussion of Bush fascinating. The premise is that Bush leaked the NIE as a way to stop Cheney from lobbying to bomb Iran into the stone age. Some are intrigued. Some think he wasn’t up to it [smart enough or 'man' enough]. But it sounds like business as usual to me. Cheney was as uncontrolled then as he is now. Bully Boy was running out of time. Condi, Hadley, Rove – who knows which – saying it was the only way to stop Cheney sounds like the style any or all of them. George says “Why not? We’ve leaked the NIE before. Hee, Hee, Hee. Serves him right. Hee, hee, hee.” Then off to the ranch to clear some brush and cycle. Check and mate on Bully Boy. “And I ain’t pardoning Libby either. Hee, Hee, Hee.”

Revenge of the Nerds…

I wonder who those bureaucratic protectors of the president were.

I’ll bet one of them was Steve Hadley.

Bob in AZ

clark and members of the cia told us Iraq was not a threat, clark was dumbfounded anyone wanted to attack Iraq and said so

the nie was gamed if it indicated we needed to attack Iraq and it was gamed by those who wanted to attack Iraq

Small soldiers are trying too keep up with your speed but needs a lot more coffee

one or two points

1. The interesting thing here is not the workerbee cya writting thats SOP
2. Nor is it interresting that we care about things like gas and abortion and a shit load of other things, the simpel answer in a fast moving world anything that the “politicos” potentialy can drop the ball on that could evolve in to a shooting game, just to mention a few of the resent years subjekts over here is cartoones, gaslines, police abuse, Banking just to name a few. thge reasson being that we do wanna know the signs so that we can warn the “politicos”

and if we se smart moves, we adobt them and use them in other places i think a very famous german tactician wrote something along the lines of war being politics just with other means.

This is a game of perception..if the “politicos” whan’t it to be a problem on our desk, then it is.

Before you go headbanging the keyboard, i personaly dropped the ball on the cartoon thing writting it of as national politics…boy was i wrong on that one……

The thing is that we see (to put it in the words of your potus) a united states or any othe country for that matte as a whole. It Dosent matter what uniform or country we serve…..thats also what among other things bind us together in a sort of brotherhood of arms and certain codes of conducts…thats why when the “politicos” start to blend in with us…the system gets all fubar

3. On climate change the simple answer is for one theres gonna be a shit load of new playingfields as with all new games and players everybody got the gitters and that i my line of work smell’s like small workerbees end up dead.

I take that you agree with me that there’s stil a window of opertunity diplomatic wise on the Iran thing, but closing fast

Just my five cents worth

I wonder who those bureaucratic protectors of the president were.

What a great question. LabDancer’s answer…

Once one half of the Cheney-Rumsfeld double-team was sat down, all that additional autonomy Bush tolerated in his Secretary of Defense worked to isolate Cheney to using his own brand of Boltonian diplomacy.

Is as close as we may get without further revelations.

There may be an intrigue regarding the GS angle if, somehow, it was known that the plan to manipulate oil futures could go against Cheney. Bolten was a GS guy so he may have throttled things in a way that isolated the Cheneybots.

GS and Cheney had parallel objectives to begin with, though Cheney’s long position in oil may not have ultimately squared with the trader’s view — buy low, sell high. When the bubble burst, the selling would have been like anti-matter to Cheney-doms material wealth. This aggravation may have been foreseen since Yosh was pretty astute about the nature of the business cycle.

As boom led to bust, the oil barons could no longer prevail against the ferocious economic implosion. Conversely, Goldman was hedged six ways to Sunday. I suspect that is an extreme irritant to the Oilogopilists who’s dollar denominated soul was left to dangle in the winds of change.

Bolten may have been the GS proxy in the WH at the time, but his lineage may have warned him against the machinations of Cheney.

He explained: “We live in a world of finite resources and somebody has to say no.”

Jane Harman is another possibility, as DHS Intell Subcommittee head.

Moreover, except when acting out of temporary pique – when he fantasized that he was keeping Cheney in his place via derogatory locker room put downs – and then at the end of his administration when he no longer cared at all, Bush demonstrated little ability and less willingness to say no to his nominal subordinate. The exception is where agreeing with Cheney about pardoning Scooter Libby might have exposed Bush himself to liability.

I agree that Bush would not have initiated a policy to order leaks that contradicted the Cheney playbook. He might have acquiesced in a proposal brought to him by others, one explained primarily by motivations other than to recover the power he had negligently delegated to Cheney. That doing so was the better policy, in Bush’s mind, probably never entered the equation.

Limiting Rumsfeld’s power could have been a motivation. There seems to have been no love lost between them, and comparable levels of talent. But I don’t think Bush would have accomplished that by knowingly letting it be done by his father’s network. If anything was a constant for Shrub more than acquiescing to Cheney’s direction, it was not acquiescing to his father’s.