I would like to know how to get ahold of the list of ones who bothered to read it, and I would like to hear some excuses from ones who didn't. Are they too busy for that? Why is the log classified? I don't see any reason for that.

Did shrub read it/ Can he read? Did one shot Chinney read it? Chit it would be good to lock them in a secure room together for EVER. But alas 2 more sick heads would be put in their place.

Most of them didn't read an intelligence assessment that clearly pointed out the civil war that would follow an invasion, then voted for the war? Treason. Our form a goverment is failing, our "leaders" are self-serving traitors.

BUSH AND THE 2000 NIE.....

What does this do to the claim Bush shaped the intelligence congress was given? If they didn't read it how do they know it was shaped? It does add legitimacy to the claim that they didn't receive the same intelligence Bush had. Yep they didn't even bother to read it.

The reason for not reading it? I'd guess its the same reasons none of them read the legislation they vote on. 1) Its written by government folks, meaning its overly wordy and poorly organized, and 2) they simply don't care enough to actually wade through all that. Regarding the second point, I'd also guess that most (from both parties) really like the prestige of being in the House or Senate, but few actually like doing the work.

No matter how it is framed this is bush/cheney quagmire, true others are complicite but bottom line bush/chenmey quagmire.

Bravo! Bravo! Bravo! to all those who voted no and followed the will of the people. Glad to know a few did what they were elected to do.

I guess Hillary was too busy getting Bill out of his problems. I guess now she no creditbilty as far as talking about the war in Iraq if she never even read this report. God help her in the debates, she is going to need to answer for this one.

Dave, most of the folks on the Hill read the executive summary, which was only a few pages. That's where the "shaping" comment arises, I believe. Whoever wrote the executive summary decided what from the report to emphasis and what not to. And its in that emphasis where you are likely to find the results of any badgering from White House officials.

BUSH AND THE 2002 NIE.....

Quite so.This puts yet another dent in the armour of the ''Bush Lied'' critics.To make even plainer and more every day,you are about to purchase a home but know nothing of its structural history.Enter the building inspectors report which you as a responsible home purchaser have a duty to closely scrutinize in order to see what problems exist with the roof,foundation or plumbing and act upon these problems.So here.Now we find that a five-year old NIE has been sitting in a vault collecting dust while nearly no-one, apparently,has taken the time to take a close look at the document[s] in order to make plain concerns that should have been vocalized back in Ought-Two.Not now.Thus,not only Hillary,but perhaps Biden,Edwards,Obama and others have failed an important responsibilty with only Obama getting wiggle room as he is a junior member of Congress.Hillary,however,has no excuses whatever and neither does Edwards,if he did not read the report itself.Laziness gets you a war that you belatedly regret,or a leaky roof,which is what these people get for not sticking to the jobs they were elected for and going off to begin the earliest presidental campaign in American history.

Having in my misspent youth worked for a beltway bandit, I know the pain of reading this stuff. It is written (at least it was then - I understand that this improved somewhat during the paperwork reduction act in the last decent administration) in a different language. If I understand this entry on the blog, the Senators themselves had to get this document to read it and, perhaps, ??? were required to read it in that special room????? If so, there is NO way that all of them could have read it in its entirety. Even the Suprement Court Justices have staff read and write position papers on cases before they go into them and the volume of paperwork they receive, even though very heavy, doesn't compare to what elected officials have to wade through. That being said, however, voting on information that is later proved to be incomplete or fraudlently compiled wouldn't have affected this result anyway, right? Did I misunderstand this whole thing? BTW - I am not a Clinton supporter and would like to know where all the candidates stand on this.

Actually, this reinforces the conclusion that bush and them lied during the pre-war build up. They had this intelligence and ignored it and worse yet continued to spout the opposite. This is just like the CIA report that predicted insurgency and guerilla warfare following invasion and regime change. In spite of that, bush and them continued to spout the crap about being greeted as liberators. Having said all that, I have no sympathy or respect for anyone's admission that they failed to read the report when they could have.

Apparently most of them didn't do the job they were elected to do. How can you cast a vote on such a serious matter without getting all the information that is available? It does show that many Congressmen and Senators on both sides evidently cast a political vote, not an informed one. Any politician who cast a vote but did not research it as to the best of their ability with the information that was available shoud be sent packing when they are up for re-election. Every one. Republican and Democrat alike. There is no excuse in a matter as serious as going to war. I have even less faith in my government today, if my confidence drops much more it'll be less than zero.

"Quite so.This puts yet another dent in the armour of the ''Bush Lied'' critics." The hell it does. It just proves that the entire COngress voted for war on Bush's word, which is akin to the word of a snake. Lazy, usless traitors? Yup. Head traitor: Bush. Unnamed co-conspirator: you.

What Congress was briefed on by the Bushies and what was in the NIE were two different things. The briefing were cleansed of any dissent and the NIE, if read showed dissent among the intelligence community. Kudos to Sen Graham who was the first to read it and was outraged over how they were essentially lied to in the briefing and he was on the intelligence committee. Read Hubris and see how we were shucked and jived into this war. If you are not outraged, you do not understand the situation.

How do these people get by in their jobs? If you or I were to make decisions in our jobs without reading the information we needed to make an informed decision, we'd be tossed out on our rears, with a healthy "good riddance!" following us out the door. Pathetic. Unconscionable. Lazy. Inept. Anyone else care to come up with some other adjectives?

Here is a link to the original Washington post story http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A44837-2004Apr26?language=printer

One quick question about this, how much time did the people have to read this before the bill was to be voted on? The Republicans were in the majority and it would not be surprising to find out that there was not enough time allotted. Afterall, these same people wouldn't allow the Dems to hold meetings except in the basement.

I'm still not convinced that BUsh lied, and further, that this proves it. I believe he was more inclined to believe the intelligence that implicated and less so to believe the opposite. To believe he lied you would have to believe that the intelligence agencies and leaders of Germany, France, Russia, and other nations also knowingly lied. Quite a stretch. If Bush erred, it was on the side of caution, and in the post 9/11 atmosphere, that is understandable. However, had Hillarity and other members of Congress read the NIE report, they would have had the all of the information that Bush had, and the excuse that Bush lied, or handpicked intelligence would not exist. A more informed decision could've, and should've been made by all concerned. Sadaams behavior led many to believe he still had WMD at his disposal. The games he played with inspectors, his rhetoric, and his defiance all implied his guilt. He wanted to show the Arab world that he would not back down from "The Great Satan". That was more his mistake than that of our president. When people continue to say Bush lied, it is a comment on Bush, yes. But also it is a reflection of our nation as a whole, and fuels the hatred of America in the Middle East. They don't look at it as a Bush issue, or a Republican/Democrat issue. They see it as the actions of America. Bush made glaring mistakes. Bush woefully miscalclated in many areas. Bush ignored the advice of people that he should've more closely heeded. Lied? Maybe, but not likely in my opinion. In the post 9/11 climate Bush became, like many of us, a reactionary. I believe, again like many of us, he was angry, he wanted vengeance. He quite likely was blinded by this thirst for the blood of those who would attack our nation, or supply the means to do so. A president should have the ability to remain objective, even in the face of such horrible circumstances. But presidents, like all of us, are only human. There were those who never supported the invasion of Iraq, but at the time they were a minority. Most American did indeed support it. No because they were lied to, but for more patriotic reasons, or so we thought. Maybe in a generation or two, the complete truth will come out, but likely we will never have all of the answers. The best we can hope for now is a conclusion to the Iraq war as quickly as possible, and for the division and bitterness that has swept our nation to end. It is time for us to all agree that what has happened has happened, and to find a way to work togehter to chart a new course.

WRONG DON The democrats had control of the Senate back then.

The same intelligence was good enough for Clinton to bomb the hell out of Baghdad in 98 so maybe the democrats that claim they were lied to didn't need to read it again. I'm just trying to help them with a new excuse.

Ok, for 2 periods of time since 94 the Dems held the majority. Once for 17 days in Jan of 01 and then from 6/01 to 01/03. I stand corrected. Still, when the Republicans were in power they treated the Dems like crap. That still doesn't answer my question...how much time did the Bush administration (Rove) allow anyone to read these papers?

Why do they insist on making the bills hundreds and thousands of pages long? Shouldn't they be short, and then ammendments added later before the final vote? Our legislators are so busy going to fundraisers, they don't have time to read long bills. Maybe they could make audio discs and they could listen to them before they vote.

Darren, you had me nodding in agreement on your first post but not on the second post. Bush either lied or was willfully ignorant -- take your pick. Anyone who was paying attention or should have been paying attention knew the real score from just keeping up with the news -- no special intelligence reports needed. And yes I include many Democratic leaders in that category -- who made a shameful political decision to vote for war when they knew better thinking that Bush will get the blame when it goes wrong and they would get the "soft on terrorism" blame for stopping him.

Bob Woodward wrote about this intelligence being available to all members of Congress before the vote in October, 2002, to authorize Bush to use military force in Iraq, in "State of Denial." I've been trying to find out which members of Congress went to the SCIF (secured room) without any success. Why is the list classified?

Hang on, everyone, please! Paris has "people" read things for her, you know, like summons to court, that sort of thing. Couldn't Hillary have had her "people" read that pesky NIE before she voted to commit the nation to war? Same thing, right. Hillary: a real leader.

Scott: Provide the exact text and date of the alleged ''liberator''comments made by President Bush.[for the record,Bush said no such thing,but it will be useful to have something from ''TRUTHOUT'' or another leftist rag weblog tossed our way,which purports to have the inside deal on the utterances of GW Bush.Usually they play the game this way.Administration official says something.[or,in the case immediately following,the ''official''is invented,usually preceded by ''anonymous'' or ''former''a la Sy Hershs BS[NEW YORKER] that we would be at war with Iran by LAST September].Although official is not Bush,comments are attributed to him and thus find their way into leftwinged folklore,much like the ''Constitution is just a goddamned piece of paper''which was a crafty lie implanted into the lefty blogosphere by the viruantly anti-Bush reporter Doug Thompson at CAPITOL HILL BLUE newspaper in 2005.It is as dishonest to attach such comments to Bush as it was for the right to crank out the ''Love Story/I Invented the Internet''garbage falsely attributed to then presidential candidate Al Gore.[also see:The Urban Legends Reference Pages at www.snopes.com-''Political Comments''].Bush actually said this,on November 16,2002,regarding Iraq[REUTERS/ASSOCIATED PRESS]:''We will confront an enemy capable of irrational miscalculation and capable of terrible deeds''.Sounds about right,as events proved.

Cut the piffle pffft.When you are done regaling us with the Marx Brothers schick,you can be reminded that as far back as 1998,Democrats including every single damned frontrunner for the presidency save Obama,who wasen't even there were buying into the same ''intelligence''when Bush was still a state governor.You wanna blame somebody?Start with Hillary.Work your way to Edwards and stop with Biden.Then vote ''None of the Above for 08''.See how easy that was?The ploy to excise the Democrats from their responsibility in this war is even dumber than playing Russian roulette with six loaded chambers.Anti-Bush partisans with even a scintilla of conscience will thus steer clear of these guys and go with either Obama,Gravel or Kucinich,none of whom are going to win this election.Back to Square One.

"you can be reminded that as far back as 1998" blah blah blah. You need look no further than 1998. Your brand of pseudo-intellectualism makes the Marx brothers look like Nobel laureates. Say it with me, apologist: "IT'S CLINTON"S FAULT!" wah whah

Good thing Hillary didn't read the report. Rumors got it that her copy had Anthrax sprinkled on page 666.

No-one is blaming Clinton here.Yet you dismiss the actual speeches and comments of those Democrats from 1998[the year of the ''Iraq Liberation Act'']onward including those by presidential candidates attempting to re-invent Democrat culpability into a ''Bush Lied''deal and it doesnt wash.[of course,when confronted with the comments of the Hillarys,Schumers,Reids,Bidens,Edwards,Rockefellers,Kennedys,Durbins,Dodds,and others,they are juvenilely dismissed as ''blah,blah,blah''].So much for brevity and erudition on the portion of the administrations critics.

Jane--I like your idea of audio discs for legislators so they can hear everything on a bill that's hundreds of pages long. Or, how about video discs? Of course, they'd have to be rated "R," the way some members of Congress have been talking lately. :)

Flawless logic. If the Congress didn't read the NIE, it's proof that Bush didn't lie. Why shouldn't that sort of disengenous blather be dismissed with "blah blah blah"?

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