Part II (The findings on terrorism can be found at my initial post.)
Consider for a moment that a Republican controlled Senate Intelligence
Committee released the reports today that are so damning to the lies Bush
and Cheney repeated ad nauseum for the last three and a half years. What
the hell is in the three additional reports that they don’t want to release
until after the November elections? It is difficult to imagine the truths
still to be told.
These reports make clear that the case for war in Iraq was manufactured by
ignoring the intelligence. However, this is not only an indictment of
Republicans; it is an indictment of every Democrat who voted for going to
war. Can’t these people read? If the National Intelligence Estimate
reflected a clear, unanimous opinion, then the Democrats could argue, “we
were mislead by the intelligence”. Hell bells, folks, the NIE consistently
had dissenting opinions. That means there was NO AGREEMENT among
intelligence analysts. Shame on every Republican and Democrat who were too
goddamn lazy to read the NIE!
The first report, Postwar Findings about Iraq’s WMD Programs and Links to
Terrorism and How they Compare with Prewar Assessments destroys every lie
advanced by Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld to advance their case for starting a
war in Iraq. These findings also show how bankrupt are the claims of Laurie
Mylroie (who argued vociferously that Mohamad Atta met Iraqi agents in
Prague), Stephen Hayes (who insists that Al Qa’ida and Saddam were in
cahoots), and Christoper Hitchens. They are wrong.
The first section deals with the WMD issues. Here are the conclusions from
the report:
1. Postwar findings do not support the 2002 National Intelligence
Estimate (NIE) judgment that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons
program. Information obtained after the war supports the State Department’s
Bureau of Intelligence and Research’s (INR) assessment in the NIE that the
Intelligence Community lacked persuasive evidence that Baghdad had launched
a coherent effort to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program.
2. Postwar findings do not support the 2002 National Intelligence
Estimate (NIE) assessment that Iraq’s acquisiton of high-strength aluminum
tubes was intended for an Iraqi nuclear program. The findings do spport the
assessments in the NIE of the Department of energy’s Office of Intelligence
and the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) that
the aluminum tubes were likely intended for a conventional rocket program.
3. Postwar findings do not support the 2002 National Intelligence
Estimate (NIE) assessment that Iraq was “vigorously trying to procure
uranium ore and yellowcake” from Africa. Postwar findings support the
assessment in the NIE of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and
Research (INR) that claims of Iraqi pursuit of natural uranium in Africa are
“highly dubious”.
4. Postwar findings do not support the 2002 National Intelligence
Estimate (NIE) assessment that “Iraq has biological weapons” and that “all
key aspects of Iraq’s offensive biological weapons (BW) program are larger
and more advanced than before the Gulf War.”
5. Postwar findings do not support the 2002 National Intelligence
Estimate (NIE) assessment that Iraq possessed, or ever developed, mobile
facilites for producing biological warfare (BW) agents.
6. Concerns existed within the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA)
Directorate of Operations (DO) prior to the war about the credibility of the
mobile biological weapons program source code-named CURVE BALL. . . .
7. Postwar findings do not support the 2002 National Intelligence
Estimate (NIE) assessments that Iraq “has chemical weapons” or “is expanding
its chemical industry to support chemical weapons (CW) production.”
8. Postwar findings support the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE)
assessment that Iraq had missiles which exceeded United Nations (UN) range
limits. The findings do not support the assessment that Iraq likely
retained a covert force of SCUD variant short range ballistic missiles
(SRBMS).
9. Postwar findings do not support the 2002 National Intelligence
Estimate (NIE) assessments that Iraq had a developmental program for an
Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) “probably intended to deliver biological
agents: or that an effort to procure U.S. mapping software “strongly
suggests that Iraq is investigating the use of these UAVs for missions
targeting the United States.” Postwar findings support the view of the Air
Force, joined by DIA and the Army, in an NIE published in January 2003, that
Iraq’s UAVs were primarily intended for reconnaissance.
It is important that the average American understand the meaning of
intelligence judgments in an NIE. If the community agrees on an issue it is
very important. If there is no agreement, then other agencies dissent and
present their views. If you are a policymaker or legislator the presence of
dissent is the ultimate FLASHING YELLOW LIGHT.
Now we know that on almost all critical judgments concerning Iraq’s weapons
of mass destruction there were key dissents. The CIA drafters at the
National Intelligence Council almost always were wrong. The failure at the
CIA was confined primarily to the National Intelligence Council. However,
the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) was always
right. Any policymaker or politician who tries to argue that they were
acting on the intelligence is either a liar or a lazy incompetent. Despite
the view of the CIA, there were sufficient dissenting views in the NIE to
give any member of Congress reason to question the case for going to war.
The dissents expressed by INR, the DIA, and the Department of Energy were
sufficient warnings of potential problems to anyone interested in probing
what the intelligence actually said.
It is astonishing at this juncture that there has not been a major shake up
at the National Intelligence Council (NIC). In fact, those responsible for
the sections with the most errors are still on the job and, in one instance,
given more authority. The principal drafters of the October 2002 NIE were
Robert Walpole, National Intelligence Officer for Weapons of Mass
Destruction and Proliferation; Lawrence K. Gershwin, the National
Intelligence Officer for Science and Technology; retired Army Maj. Gen. John
R. Landry, National Intelligence Officer for Conventional Military Issues,
and Paul R. Pillar, NIO for the Near East and South Asia. Walpole oversaw
the entire effort but had specific responsibility for nuclear issues.
Gershwin handled issues related to biological weapons, Gordon focused on
chemical weapons, and Pillar dealt with the issues pertaining to
international terrorism. Only Pillar got it right.
Although Christopher Hitchens has insisted that Wissam al-Zahawie was proof
that Joe Wilson, who reported that there was no evidence that Iraq was
trying to acquire uranium, was wrong, the Senate report concludes (see page
54):
The purpose of a visit to Niger by the Iraqi ambassador to the Vatican,
Wissam al-Zahawie, was to invite the president of Niger to visit Iraq.
No uranium. Chris, I suggest you spend less time drinking and more time
getting your facts right. Joe Wilson is no liar. You are. Joe Wilson
correctly noted in his 2003 July op-ed that the claim that Iraq was trying
to buy uranium from Niger was bogus. Now, a Republican Intelligence
Committee confirms that finding.
The findings of the Senate Intelligence Committee are clear– the Bush
Administration shopped for intelligence to support its case to go to war and
ignored volumes of intelligence that undermined their argument. In the
coming days enterprising bloggers will cull through the public statements of
Bush officials and clearly demonstrate that they chose to ignore
intelligence. This was picking and choosing. They seized on conclusions
that supported their pre-determined views and ignored dissents expressed by
other intelligence officials.
Our sons and daughters who went to war in Iraq based on the lie that Iraq
was tied, somehow, to the attacks on 9-11, were betrayed by George Bush and
his government. The truth is there for all willing to see.
