Bush's War Part1 (59 of 71)

Bush's War

If we know Saddam Hussein has dangerous weapons today, does it make any sense for the worid to wait? Top intelligence officials say And George Tenet was about to join the chorus.
The occasion was a December meeting in the Oval Office, where the president was evaluating the case against Saddam Hussein.
The president had said, "Is this all we got?" And the answer should have been, "Yes, sir.
Unfortunately, that's all we got." His instincts were right.
He saw that there wasn't a lot there.
But I guarantee you, that's everything we had.
We gave him our best shot, and the president said, "I don't-is that all you got?" And what did Tenet say? "Slam dunk." That was the slam dunk conversation.

He certainly knew it wasn't a slam dunk.
He knew and would have had to know that the data was not of a character that one could describe, even in a loose manner, and certainly not in the Oval Office of the president, who has expressed doubt about the presentation he's just heard, "Don't worry, Mr.President, that's a slam dunk." The data was not that solid.
Then they said, "Well, if that's true, George, if this is right, and this is- we're going to have to say it differently.
You're going to have to come up with different ways of saying this because a normal person is going to look at this and say, `Is that all you got?' " Quite frankly, the thing that I find hardest to understand in this entire story- where was the national security adviser, Condi Rice? She should immediately have said to the- any DCI, not just George Tenet, anyone who did that in the Oval Office, "No, you go back and you come back with a better case.
Here are the doubts the president's expressed.
Let's see what's there." But it was allowed to slide.
Rice, like many others in the war cabinet, had already made up her mind.