Bush vs. The CIA

[The_Tracker]

For President Bush to publicly write off a CIA paper as just guessing is without precedent. For the agency to go semi-public is not only unprecedented but shocking.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/...ush/index.html

[vulturesrow]

As was mentioned in your posted article, Bush apologized for using the word guess. However, that is essentially what an intelligence estimate is. A well-educated guess, but a guess nonetheless. As has been pointed out elsewhere, the purpose of an intelligence estimate is to assess a range of possibilities from best to worst case scenarios. As the article also said, the civil war possibilty was the worst case outcome.

I do agree that the fact that this guy made these remarks in public is pretty huge.