Dem's hypocrites in intelligence

Max Boot reminds that Democrats had no problem with Clinton's attack on a Sudan asprin factory which was based on faulty intelligence.

"...The evidence that the Sudanese plant was actually making nerve gas for Osama bin Laden — as Clinton claimed — was subsequently discredited. Yet Democrats rushed to his defense. 'We believe the president acted correctly and responsibly,' House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt and Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle said in a joint statement."

"...Politically opportunistic Democrats are invoking preposterous comparisons with Watergate because of the president's statement that "the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." Democrats smell blood because the administration has admitted that its own findings about Iraqi attempts to acquire uranium in Niger were based on forged documents. But it's quite a leap to go from faulty information to charges that the president deliberately lied. The real problem is that intelligence seldom provides certainty; it can only offer hints or clues that policymakers have to interpret as best they can.

"That's precisely what Bill Clinton and his national security advisors did in 1998. In August, after Al Qaeda bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, they launched preemptive attacks on Sudan and Afghanistan because they didn't want to risk having poison gas released in the New York City subway. Even though the evidence was hardly conclusive that the Sudanese plant was working for Bin Laden, they decided to err on the side of safety. Based on the same precautionary principle, the administration bombed Iraq a few months later, even though there was no hard proof that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction."

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