William G. Horter – 9/20/06

This page was last updated on September 21, 2006.

Failures of intelligence; William G. Horter; Beaver County Times; September 20, 2006.

The last we heard from Mr. Horter back in December, he was giving us anything but “The straight facts on Iraq.”

Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.

“I agree that the reason this country is in Iraq was a huge intelligence failure. That has been George Bush’s explanation for the mistake.

“But as I see it, the intelligence failure was not at the CIA or any other agency; it was between the ears of our leaders like the aforementioned Bush, Dick Cheney, Melissa Hart, our two U.S. senators (Arlen Specter and Rick Santorum), other people like Hilary [sic] Clinton and John Kerry, all those well-informed who voted to give Bush the authority to invade Iraq.

“If an old ridge runner like me, with only my local newspaper, TV, radio and dial-up computer link, could see there was no real reason for this war, why couldn’t these ‘intelligent’ folks?

“Not nearly enough has been said about the reports of Hans Blix and his inspectors leading into the war, where those inspectors repeatedly said they had found nothing as far as WMDs.”

[RWC] While Blix’s opinion was that Iraq was not a threat, he also admitted Iraqi WMD documentation was fraudulent.

“In addition, no heed was given to the former inspectors’ warnings that Saddam had nothing left.”

[RWC] Not true.

When David Kay, the first head of the Iraq Survey Group, testified before Congress in 2004, he said, “All I can say is if you read the total body of intelligence in the last 12 to 15 years that flowed on Iraq, I quite frankly think it would be hard to come to a conclusion other than Iraq was a gathering, serious threat to the world with regard to WMD. I have said I actually think this may be one of those cases where it was even more dangerous than we thought.”

“A recent editorial brought out that far too many people still believe, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, that Saddam had something to do with 9/11. Still another ‘intelligence’ failure.”

[RWC] Given Mr. Horter doesn’t appear to be interested in accuracy, I can understand why he treated an editorial as a data source.

“C’mon, people, wake up. Our leaders have been found to be pretty dumb, so I think all of us have to pull together to right this ship. To me, that would start with voting out all these so-called leaders pronto.”

[RWC] Does this “old ridge runner” realize President Bush and VP Cheney can’t run for reelection?

I wonder if it’s only a coincidence the only Democrats Mr. Horter mentioned are not on Pennsylvania ballots. <g>

“And this old skeptical ridge runner has noticed the lower cost of gasoline, too. Two months before the election? I remember that our president and vice president are one-time oil guys? Do you feel that the prices have maybe been manipulated? I do.”

[RWC] As I noted in a previous critique, conspiracy theorists make the world more interesting and humorous.