More warnings

While we're on the subject of warnings that Bush received, it seems he was warned of civil war in Iraq back in 2003. The article I'm linking here is entitled, "Knight Ridder: White House Warned of Civil War in Iraq in 2003". Here's how it gets started:

NEW YORK In an article distributed by Knight Ridder’s Washington bureau late Tuesday, Warren Strobel and Jonathan Landay report that U.S. intelligence agencies repeatedly warned the White House, starting in 2003, “that the insurgency in Iraq had deep local roots, was likely to worsen and could lead to civil war, according to former senior intelligence officials who helped craft the reports.”

Among the warnings was a National Intelligence Estimate completed in October 2003 that concluded the insurgency was fueled by local conditions - not foreign terrorists- and drew strength from deep grievances, including the presence of U.S. troops. Its existence had not been previously disclosed to a wide public audience.

“The reports received a cool reception from Bush administration policymakers at the White House and the office of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, according to the former officials, who discussed them publicly for the first time,” Landay and Strobel relate.“

President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld and others continued to describe the insurgency as a containable threat, posed mainly by former supporters of Saddam Hussein, criminals and non-Iraqi terrorists - even as the U.S. intelligence community was warning otherwise.”

So, he doesn't listen to his own intelligence people. He thinks it's just fine to make up his own facts.