Pre-War Intelligence Failures

[Crossbow]

It sure has taken a while, but finally there has been at some degree of a rational assement of just what the Iraq threat was before the war and the quality of the intelligence regarding that threat.

Inquiry Faults Intelligence on Iraq
Threat From Saddam Hussein Was Overstated, Senate Committee Report Finds

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9230-2003Oct23.html

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is preparing a blistering report on prewar intelligence on Iraq that is critical of CIA Director George J. Tenet and other intelligence officials for overstating the weapons and terrorism case against Saddam Hussein, according to congressional officials.

{u}The committee staff was surprised by the amount of circumstantial evidence and single-source or disputed information used to write key intelligence documents[/U] -- in particular the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate -- summarizing Iraq's capabilities and intentions, according to Republican and Democratic sources. Staff members interviewed more than 100 people who collected and analyzed the intelligence used to back up statements about Iraq's chemical, biological and nuclear weapons capabilities, and its possible links to terrorist groups.

...

Intelligence Report for Iraq War Was 'Hastily Done'

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8830-2003Oct23.html

At the center of the political debate over the intelligence preceding the war in Iraq is the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) -- the 100-page, top secret document that hurriedly pulled together judgments from across the U.S. intelligence community about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein and the potential dangers involved in an invasion.

...

"The NIE was hastily done in three weeks," one senior intelligence expert said. "It was a cut-and-paste job, with agencies and officials given only one day to review the draft final product when they usually take months. . . . Today they still disagree on the meaning of what came out."

...

[patnray]

I think the war in Iraq has highlighted just how abysmally bad our intellegence is, yet the story has been mostly ignored. There was much hand wringing and finger pointing about the lack of intelligence before 9/11. Yet even before the bullets started flying in Iraq the UN arms inspectors complained that virtually all the intelligence supplied by the US was usless and they had wasted weeks by relying on it. Since then it has become clear that we had no clue about the true state of Saddam's WMD programs (most of which I believe were destroyed during the first Gulf War). Just last week I read an article about how completely surprised the US forces and intelligence agencies were by the enormous amount of conventional weapons that Saddam had stockpiled.

That all adds up to the sad conclusion that we had no clue about what was there and what we thought we knew was completely wrong. That is a frightening failure, but neither the press nor Congress seems concerned about it. Why aren't heads rolling over this?

[a_unique_person]

I don't see it as a failure of intelligence. The Australian Government has refined the art of Plausible Denial too. Make sure you only get the information you want to receive and you can't be held responsible for anything.

What it means is that if the Sh*t hits the fan, you can point the finger at the guys who didn't send you the stuff you didn't want them to send in the first place.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/10/26/1067103268280.html



Iraq had no bomb project: expert

Australia's top expert on Iraq's weapons has said prewar coalition claims that Iraq was importing the components of a nuclear weapons program - including aluminium tubes for use in centrifuges - were wrong.

Brigadier-General Stephen Meekin, who commands a 500-strong unit with primary responsibility for collecting Iraq's illicit military technology, made the revelations to The Washington Post.

Based on documents and interviews with arms investigators from the United States, Britain and Australia, the Washington Post investigation found that the central assertions of the Bush Administration's prewar nuclear case against Saddam Hussein were insubstantial or untrue.

Although Saddam did not relinquish his nuclear ambitions or technical records, investigators said, it was now clear he had no active program to build a weapon, produce its key materials or obtain the technology he needed for either.

Among the closely held internal judgements of the Iraq Survey Group, overseen by David Kay as special representative of CIA director George Tenet, are that Iraq's nuclear weapons scientists did no significant arms-related work after 1991, that facilities with suspicious new construction proved benign, and that equipment of potential use to a nuclear program remained under seal or in civilian industrial use.

Most notably, investigators have judged the aluminum tubes to be "innocuous", according to Brigadier Meekin, who commands the Joint Captured Enemy Materiel Exploitation Centre, the largest of half a dozen units that report to Dr Kay.

The Bush Administration built its case for war against Iraq on the claim that Iraq aimed to use those tubes as centrifuge rotors to enrich uranium for the core of a nuclear warhead. US Secretary of State Colin Powell, among many others, scorned Baghdad's explanation that it sought the tubes as artillery rocket casings.

By August, news accounts made clear that the US Government's top nuclear centrifuge experts dissented strongly from the claim that the tubes were meant for uranium enrichment.

[Ion]

I agree with this:
Originally posted by a_unique_person
I don't see it as a failure of intelligence.
...
Make sure you only get the information you want to receive and you can't be held responsible for anything.
...

What a-unique-person's link shows in the case of U.S., is what was established before, which is to say that Bush and Bush's administration, they lied because of their hidden reasons.

[Zep]

Here's the result we want, make up the facts to fit AND QUICK, you guys!