There ... it's done!
The Iraq invasion was *not* justified and did not make America or the World
any safer, as so oft spouted by Herr Bush.
And in other news, "Bin Laden Is Said to Be Organizing for a U.S. Attack"
http://nytimes.com/2004/07/09/politics/09home.html?hp . Three years later
the mastermind of 9-11 is ready to launch another attack on the U.S. prior
to the next election. Bush and Bin Laden are each others greatest asset.
Without one, the other could not exist.
I wonder if the elections will be postponed / cancelled if another attack
succeeds almost perfectly like 9-11?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
July 9, 2004
Report Says Key Assertions Leading to War Were Wrong
By DAVID STOUT
ASHINGTON, July 9 ¡X The Central Intelligence Agency greatly overestimated
the danger presented by deadly unconventional weapons in Iraq because of
runaway assumptions that were never sufficiently challenged, the Senate
Intelligence Committee said today.
In a long-awaited report that goes to the heart of President Bush's
rationale for going to war and is certain to intensify political debate on
Iraq, the committee said that prewar assessments of Saddam Hussein's
supposed arsenal of chemical and biological weapons, and his desire to have
nuclear weapons, were wildly off the mark.
"Today, we know these assessments were wrong, and as our inquiry will show,
they were also unreasonable and largely unsupported by the available
intelligence," Senator Pat Roberts, the Kansas Republican who heads the
panel, said at a briefing on the 511-page report.
The report zeroed in on the crucial October 2002 national intelligence
estimate in which analysts concluded that Iraq already had chemical and
biological weapons and was reconstituting its nuclear program.
"Now, these are very emphatic statements," Mr. Roberts said. "Simply put,
they were not supported by the intelligence which the community supplied to
the committee."
Mr. Roberts said the committee had found no evidence that intelligence
analysts were subjected to overt political pressure to tailor their
findings ¡X a conclusion that was not embraced totally by committee
Democrats, who put out their own statements asserting that that issue had
not been satisfactory resolved.
Mr. Roberts praised the men and women in the intelligence field as "true
and dedicated professionals." But he said the committee's investigation of
many months had also concluded that intelligence analysis and conclusions
about Iraq's weapons had been warped by "a collective group-think" that
caused ambiguous evidence to be elevated to the level of conclusive
evidence.
"It is clear that this group-think also extended to our allies and to the
United Nations and several other nations as well, all of whom did believe
that Saddam Hussein had active W.M.D. programs," Mr. Roberts said, using
the abbreviation for weapons of mass destruction. "This was a global
intelligence failure."
The chairman said the committee concluded that an "intelligence assumption
train," in which uncertain early judgments became the foundation for later,
more definite conclusions, had contributed to the failure. The report
itself said: "The presumption that Iraq had active W.M.D. programs affected
intelligence collectors as well. None of the guidance given to human
intelligence collectors suggested that collection be focused on whether
Iraq had W.M.D."
On one important point, the committee found the C.I.A.'s conclusions
reasonable ¡X that there had been no significant ties between Mr. Hussein
and Al Qaeda terrorists.
Mr. Roberts said the report was harshly critical of the C.I.A., asserting
that it had "abused its unique position" by failing to share information
with other agencies. Such sharing, Mr. Roberts seemed to suggest, might
have subjected some overblown C.I.A. findings to a probing analysis.
President Bush called the committee document a "useful report" about
intelligence lapses. "We need to know," Mr. Bush said on a campaign stop in
Kutztown, Pa., according to The Associated Press. "I want to know. I want
to know how to make the agencies better." Mr. Bush has yet to nominate a
replacement for George J. Tenet, the Director of Central Intelligence, who
has just stepped down.
At the C.I.A. itself, Deputy Director John McLaughlin both defended the
agency and acknowledged the criticism. "We get it," said Mr. McLaughlin,
who is about to become acting director. "Although we think the judgments
were not unreasonable when they were made nearly two years ago, we
understand with all we have learned since then, that we could have done
better."
Mr. Roberts said the problems with the C.I.A. will not be fixed just by
adding more money and more people. The nature of the necessary reforms is
not entirely clear, he said, although his remarks implicitly urged a deep
cultural change.
Indeed, a written summary of the report points to "a broken corporate
culture and poor management" in the intelligence community. The C.I.A. is
perhaps the best-known intelligence agency, and its director heads the
overall intelligence-gathering effort, to which many lesser-known agencies
contribute.
Whatever changes are eventually adopted, Mr. Roberts said, must be based on
sound judgment rather than "expediency or media-generated momentum."
The committee's ranking Democrat, Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West
Virginia, said one idea that had been advanced in intelligence circles is
fixing a set term for the C.I.A. chief ¡X say, five or six years ¡X to
insulate him from political influences.
Mr. Roberts and Mr. Rockefeller praised each other's energy and dedication.
But even a cursory examination of Mr. Rockefeller's remarks made it clear
that the report will be hotly debated during the presidential campaign.
"There is simply no question that mistakes leading up to the war in Iraq
rank among the most devastating losses and intelligence failures in the
history of the nation," Mr. Rockefeller said. "The fact is that the
administration at all levels, and to some extent us, used bad information
to bolster its case for war. And we in Congress would not have authorized
that war ¡X we would NOT have authorized that war ¡X with 75 votes if we knew
what we know now."
The West Virginian went so far as to assert that in some ways the
intelligence failures leading up to the war in Iraq were worse than those
that preceded the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. "Leading up to Sept. 11, our
government didn't connect the dots," he said. "In Iraq, we are even more
culpable because the dots themselves never existed."
Mr. Rockefeller went on to challenge one of the Bush administration's basic
positions: that the war to topple Mr. Hussein had made the United States,
the Middle East and the world safer, notwithstanding the failure so far to
find deadly unconventional weapons that the administration had said were a
growing danger.
"Tragically, the intelligence failure set forth in this report will affect
our national security for generations to come," Mr. Rockefeller said. "Our
credibility is diminished. Our standing in the world has never been lower.
We have fostered a deep hatred of Americans in the Muslim world, and that
will grow. As a direct consequence, our nation is more vulnerable today
than ever before."
That assertion is sure to be debated at length, as is the committee's
finding that intelligence analysts were not subjected to political
pressure. It is known, for instance, that Vice President ***** Cheney has
been a frequent visitor to C.I.A. headquarters in Langley, Va.
Although the report summary found no evidence that Mr. Cheney's visits had
been intended to exert pressure, Mr. Rockefeller signaled that the question
of who, if anyone, might have brought pressure to bear has not been
answered to his satisfaction.
"I felt the definition of `pressure' was very narrowly drawn in the final
report," Mr. Rockefeller said, noting that the C.I.A.'s ombudsman, who
hears employees' complaints, had found more "hammering on analysts" than
ever before in his 32 years at the C.I.A.
Mr. Rockefeller said the report issued today, coupled with indications that
terrorists may be planning an attack in the United States in an attempt to
disrupt the nation's political process, convey a disturbing message: "All
of this simply is a way of saying time has run out."
.
|
