Bill Bennett: “the constant drumbeat in the press goes on. We find it highlighted in this week's national news magazines: a constant…”

“the constant drumbeat in the press goes on. We find it highlighted in this week's national news magazines: a constant attack on the credibility of George W. Bush; a constant drumbeat calling him a liar, at the very least an exaggerator who did it deliberately to mislead the American people and to take us to war. Those in the media who get involved need to be reminded just a little bit of their responsibility. It is their responsibility to react not just to the flavor of the moment, in terms of political issues, but to give us a little bit of institutional memory. Since they seem to lack that memory, I will do my best to supply it here this afternoon. I remember as a Member of this body some intelligence lapses that occurred and decisions that were made on the basis of those lapses. Let me give you some. I remember when the United States bombed a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan because the intelligence said it was a place where biological weapons were being created. This was not a trivial matter. I went to the room here in the Capitol that is reserved for secret briefings. I refer to it as the secret room where secret people tell us secret things, and I had no less than the Secretary of Defense absolutely insist that the intelligence was rock solid that biological weapons were being produced at this plant in Sudan. We now know the intelligence was wrong. The plant was not involved in the production of biological or chemical weapons.”