BlueStar
07-09-2004, 11:51 AM
Senate report cites CIA for ‘failures’ on Iraq
'Mischaracterization' of data on weapons of mass destruction
NBC, MSNBC and news services
Updated: 12:33 p.m. ET July 09, 2004
WASHINGTON - The CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies fell victim to false “group think” when assessing Iraq’s weapons capabilities and produced overstated or incorrect conclusions that led the Bush administration to justify the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, according to a scathing Senate Intelligence Committee report released Friday.
A "series of failures ... led to the mischaracterization of the intelligence” on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, the bipartisan report said.
Sen. Pat Roberts, a Kansas Republican who heads the committee, told reporters that assessments that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons and could make a nuclear weapon by the end of the decade were wrong.
“As the report will show, they were also unreasonable and largely unsupported by the available intelligence,” he said. “This was a global intelligence failure.”
Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the senior Democrat on the committee, said some lawmakers, himself *******d, "would not have authorized that war ... if we had known then what we know now."
Roberts did not go that far, but said the war would have had to have been justified by some other reason, such as a humanitarian crisis.
The committee said it found no evidence that administration officials pressured agencies to change their judgments on Iraq weapons programs.
“The committee did not find any evidence that administration officials attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to change their judgments related to Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction capabilities,” the 511-page report said.
It specifically cleared Vice President Dick Cheney, a leading advocate of the war, of accusations that he tried to bend the evidence to fit his agenda.
“The committee found no evidence that the vice president’s visits to the Central Intelligence Agency were attempts to pressure analysts, were perceived as intended to pressure analysts by those who participated in the briefings on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs, or did pressure analysts to change their assessments,” the report said.
Tenet blasted
The report repeatedly blasts departing CIA Director George Tenet, accusing him of skewing advice to top policymakers with the CIA’s view and elbowing out dissenting views from other intelligence agencies overseen by the State or Defense Departments. It faulted Tenet for not personally reviewing President Bush’s 2003 State of the Union address, which contained since-discredited references to an Iraqi attempt to purchase uranium in Africa.
Tenet, who leaves office this week after resigning for what he called personal reasons, "should have taken the time to read the State of the Union speech and fact check it himself," the report said.
The CIA, the report says, "in several significant instances, abused its unique position in the intelligence community" by not sharing information on Iraq's weapons.
Many factors contributing to those failures are ongoing problems within the U.S. intelligence community that cannot be fixed with more money alone, the report added.
President Bush’s chief spokesman, Scott McClellan, said the committee’s report essentially “agrees with what we have said, which is we need to take steps to continue strengthening and reforming our intelligence capabilities so we are prepared to meet the new threats that we face in this day and age.”
Wrong assumptions cited
The report concluded that intelligence analysts worked from the assumption that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons and was seeking to make more, as well as trying to revive a nuclear weapons program. Instead, investigations after the Iraq invasion have shown that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had no nuclear weapons program and no biological weapons and only small amounts of chemical weapons have been found.
Analysts ignored or discounted conflicting information because of their assumptions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, the report said.
“This ’group think’ dynamic led Intelligence Community analysts, collectors and managers to both interpret ambiguous evidence as conclusively indicative of a WMD program as well as ignore or minimize evidence that Iraq did not have active and expanding weapons of mass destruction programs,” the report concluded.
Such assumptions also led analysts to inflate snippets of questionable information into broad declarations that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons, the report said.
For example, speculation that the presence of one specialized truck could mean an effort to transfer chemical weapons was puffed up into a conclusion that Iraq was actively making chemical weapons, the report said.
Analysts also concluded that Iraq had a mobile biological weapons program based mainly on the since-discredited claims of one Iraqi defector code-named “Curve Ball,” it said. American agents did not have direct access to Curve Ball or his debriefers, but the source’s information was expanded into the conclusion that Iraq had an advanced and active biological weapons program, the report said.
Chemical weapons
Before: Iraq was believed to have stocked up to 500 metric tons of chemical warfare agents. It was also said to have concealed equipment and other items needed for continuing chemical weapons production.
After: No chemical weapons have been found. Some sources say Iraq was conducting experiments to develop chemical weapons, but no physical evidence has been found. More time is needed to investigate.
Biological weapons
Before: Intelligence agencies believed Iraq had biological weapons and facilities to develop more of them. Among the weapons believed to be in Iraq was anthrax, a deadly germ which could be quickly produced and delivered by bombs, missiles, aerial sprayers or covert operatives. Mobile laboratories were believed to be used for developing biological weapons.
After: No weapons have been found and Secretary of State Colin Powell said in a May 16, 2004 interview with 'Meet the Press" that the prewar intelligence on the existence of mobile biological weapons labs was based on sourcing that was "inaccurate and wrong and, in some cases, deliberately misleading." Powell originally introduced the threat of mobile labs during a February 2003 speech in front of the United Nations. Former chief weapons inspector David Kay and other U.S. officials have said that one of the main sources of the mobile labs evidence was an Iraqi defector code-named "Curveball." The defector was later identified as a brother of one of the top aides of Ahmad Chalabi, the Iraqi exile who was an important advocate for the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Nuclear weapons
Before: There was no evidence Iraq had ever abandoned its nuclear program. Saddam was trying to get fissile material to produce a bomb. He also made repeated attempts to acquire high-specification aluminum tubes that could be used as centrifuges. Iraq was unlikely to build a nuclear weapon until the end of the decade, but it could produce one within a year if it acquired weapons-grade fissile material abroad.
After: Iraqi scientists and senior government officials have made clear that Saddam still wanted to acquire nuclear weapons. It’s not surprising that no evidence had been found of uranium enrichment facilities because no agency thought such a facility had been built. It is unclear whether the aluminum tubes were intended for nuclear or conventional weapons.
Missiles
Before: Iraq had a ballistic missile capability that exceeded the 150-kilometer limit set by the United Nations.
After: Iraq had advanced design work for a liquid propellant missile with a range of 1,000 kilometers. Inspectors have also confirmed that Iraq was working on prohibited solid-propellant missiles and that Iraq was secretly negotiating with North Korea to obtain missile technology.
Unmanned aerial vehicles
Before: Iraq has been trying to modify the MiG-21 and the L-29 jet trainer aircraft into unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that could be used for chemical or biological weapons. Iraq said in its Dec. 7 declaration that its UAVs have a range of only 80 kilometers. But one was detected that went 500 kilometers.
After: Although Iraq revealed some details of its UAV program in a declaration to the United Nations in 2002, important design elements were never revealed. A senior Iraqi official has now admitted that the UAVs were intended for the delivery of biological weapons.
Prague connection discounted
Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said in a statement Thursday that the committee’s report “is an accurate, hard-hitting and well-deserved critique of the CIA,” but charged that it avoids the critical question of the administration’s possible pre-war exaggerations regarding an al-Qaida link to the Iraqi government.
As an example of the sort of information he said was not *******d in the report, Levin cited a CIA statement he received this week saying that there is no credible information that Sept. 11 hijacker Mohammed Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence officer in the Czech Republic in April 2001. In fact, the report concludes, CIA analysts “are increasingly skeptical that such a meeting occurred.”
“(The finding) demonstrates that it was the administration, not the CIA, that exaggerated the relations between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida," Levin said at a news conference.
Intelligence suggesting such a meeting was cited repeatedly by administration officials, including Cheney, as supporting the assertion of such a link.
Cheney most recently said in a June 17 interview with CNBC that the meeting between Atta and the Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague “couldn’t be ruled out.”
But Levin pointed to published reports that the CIA had doubts that the meeting took place as early as December 2001. He also cited a report by the independent Sept. 11 commission stating that information gathered by the FBI placed Atta in the United States during the week of the alleged meeting.
The administration had no immediate response to Levin’s charge.
100 conclusions
The report, which features more than 100 conclusions on the quality and quantity of the intelligence community’s Iraq assessments, follows a yearlong review by the Senate committee.
The Senate report is among other investigations under way into the intelligence community’s recent performance. Bush named two commissions to investigate the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and U.S. intelligence capabilities regarding weapons of mass destruction.
A joint congressional inquiry already delved into the Sept. 11 attacks, finding numerous mistakes that prevented authorities from stopping al-Qaida. The House Intelligence Committee is also looking into the Iraq weapons estimates, among still other independent reviews.
The Senate report is the first part of a two-phase review, which at times polarized the usually bipartisan Intelligence Committee.
full text of the Senate report: www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5403731
'Mischaracterization' of data on weapons of mass destruction
NBC, MSNBC and news services
Updated: 12:33 p.m. ET July 09, 2004
WASHINGTON - The CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies fell victim to false “group think” when assessing Iraq’s weapons capabilities and produced overstated or incorrect conclusions that led the Bush administration to justify the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, according to a scathing Senate Intelligence Committee report released Friday.
A "series of failures ... led to the mischaracterization of the intelligence” on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, the bipartisan report said.
Sen. Pat Roberts, a Kansas Republican who heads the committee, told reporters that assessments that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons and could make a nuclear weapon by the end of the decade were wrong.
“As the report will show, they were also unreasonable and largely unsupported by the available intelligence,” he said. “This was a global intelligence failure.”
Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the senior Democrat on the committee, said some lawmakers, himself *******d, "would not have authorized that war ... if we had known then what we know now."
Roberts did not go that far, but said the war would have had to have been justified by some other reason, such as a humanitarian crisis.
The committee said it found no evidence that administration officials pressured agencies to change their judgments on Iraq weapons programs.
“The committee did not find any evidence that administration officials attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to change their judgments related to Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction capabilities,” the 511-page report said.
It specifically cleared Vice President Dick Cheney, a leading advocate of the war, of accusations that he tried to bend the evidence to fit his agenda.
“The committee found no evidence that the vice president’s visits to the Central Intelligence Agency were attempts to pressure analysts, were perceived as intended to pressure analysts by those who participated in the briefings on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs, or did pressure analysts to change their assessments,” the report said.
Tenet blasted
The report repeatedly blasts departing CIA Director George Tenet, accusing him of skewing advice to top policymakers with the CIA’s view and elbowing out dissenting views from other intelligence agencies overseen by the State or Defense Departments. It faulted Tenet for not personally reviewing President Bush’s 2003 State of the Union address, which contained since-discredited references to an Iraqi attempt to purchase uranium in Africa.
Tenet, who leaves office this week after resigning for what he called personal reasons, "should have taken the time to read the State of the Union speech and fact check it himself," the report said.
The CIA, the report says, "in several significant instances, abused its unique position in the intelligence community" by not sharing information on Iraq's weapons.
Many factors contributing to those failures are ongoing problems within the U.S. intelligence community that cannot be fixed with more money alone, the report added.
President Bush’s chief spokesman, Scott McClellan, said the committee’s report essentially “agrees with what we have said, which is we need to take steps to continue strengthening and reforming our intelligence capabilities so we are prepared to meet the new threats that we face in this day and age.”
Wrong assumptions cited
The report concluded that intelligence analysts worked from the assumption that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons and was seeking to make more, as well as trying to revive a nuclear weapons program. Instead, investigations after the Iraq invasion have shown that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had no nuclear weapons program and no biological weapons and only small amounts of chemical weapons have been found.
Analysts ignored or discounted conflicting information because of their assumptions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, the report said.
“This ’group think’ dynamic led Intelligence Community analysts, collectors and managers to both interpret ambiguous evidence as conclusively indicative of a WMD program as well as ignore or minimize evidence that Iraq did not have active and expanding weapons of mass destruction programs,” the report concluded.
Such assumptions also led analysts to inflate snippets of questionable information into broad declarations that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons, the report said.
For example, speculation that the presence of one specialized truck could mean an effort to transfer chemical weapons was puffed up into a conclusion that Iraq was actively making chemical weapons, the report said.
Analysts also concluded that Iraq had a mobile biological weapons program based mainly on the since-discredited claims of one Iraqi defector code-named “Curve Ball,” it said. American agents did not have direct access to Curve Ball or his debriefers, but the source’s information was expanded into the conclusion that Iraq had an advanced and active biological weapons program, the report said.
Chemical weapons
Before: Iraq was believed to have stocked up to 500 metric tons of chemical warfare agents. It was also said to have concealed equipment and other items needed for continuing chemical weapons production.
After: No chemical weapons have been found. Some sources say Iraq was conducting experiments to develop chemical weapons, but no physical evidence has been found. More time is needed to investigate.
Biological weapons
Before: Intelligence agencies believed Iraq had biological weapons and facilities to develop more of them. Among the weapons believed to be in Iraq was anthrax, a deadly germ which could be quickly produced and delivered by bombs, missiles, aerial sprayers or covert operatives. Mobile laboratories were believed to be used for developing biological weapons.
After: No weapons have been found and Secretary of State Colin Powell said in a May 16, 2004 interview with 'Meet the Press" that the prewar intelligence on the existence of mobile biological weapons labs was based on sourcing that was "inaccurate and wrong and, in some cases, deliberately misleading." Powell originally introduced the threat of mobile labs during a February 2003 speech in front of the United Nations. Former chief weapons inspector David Kay and other U.S. officials have said that one of the main sources of the mobile labs evidence was an Iraqi defector code-named "Curveball." The defector was later identified as a brother of one of the top aides of Ahmad Chalabi, the Iraqi exile who was an important advocate for the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Nuclear weapons
Before: There was no evidence Iraq had ever abandoned its nuclear program. Saddam was trying to get fissile material to produce a bomb. He also made repeated attempts to acquire high-specification aluminum tubes that could be used as centrifuges. Iraq was unlikely to build a nuclear weapon until the end of the decade, but it could produce one within a year if it acquired weapons-grade fissile material abroad.
After: Iraqi scientists and senior government officials have made clear that Saddam still wanted to acquire nuclear weapons. It’s not surprising that no evidence had been found of uranium enrichment facilities because no agency thought such a facility had been built. It is unclear whether the aluminum tubes were intended for nuclear or conventional weapons.
Missiles
Before: Iraq had a ballistic missile capability that exceeded the 150-kilometer limit set by the United Nations.
After: Iraq had advanced design work for a liquid propellant missile with a range of 1,000 kilometers. Inspectors have also confirmed that Iraq was working on prohibited solid-propellant missiles and that Iraq was secretly negotiating with North Korea to obtain missile technology.
Unmanned aerial vehicles
Before: Iraq has been trying to modify the MiG-21 and the L-29 jet trainer aircraft into unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that could be used for chemical or biological weapons. Iraq said in its Dec. 7 declaration that its UAVs have a range of only 80 kilometers. But one was detected that went 500 kilometers.
After: Although Iraq revealed some details of its UAV program in a declaration to the United Nations in 2002, important design elements were never revealed. A senior Iraqi official has now admitted that the UAVs were intended for the delivery of biological weapons.
Prague connection discounted
Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said in a statement Thursday that the committee’s report “is an accurate, hard-hitting and well-deserved critique of the CIA,” but charged that it avoids the critical question of the administration’s possible pre-war exaggerations regarding an al-Qaida link to the Iraqi government.
As an example of the sort of information he said was not *******d in the report, Levin cited a CIA statement he received this week saying that there is no credible information that Sept. 11 hijacker Mohammed Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence officer in the Czech Republic in April 2001. In fact, the report concludes, CIA analysts “are increasingly skeptical that such a meeting occurred.”
“(The finding) demonstrates that it was the administration, not the CIA, that exaggerated the relations between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida," Levin said at a news conference.
Intelligence suggesting such a meeting was cited repeatedly by administration officials, including Cheney, as supporting the assertion of such a link.
Cheney most recently said in a June 17 interview with CNBC that the meeting between Atta and the Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague “couldn’t be ruled out.”
But Levin pointed to published reports that the CIA had doubts that the meeting took place as early as December 2001. He also cited a report by the independent Sept. 11 commission stating that information gathered by the FBI placed Atta in the United States during the week of the alleged meeting.
The administration had no immediate response to Levin’s charge.
100 conclusions
The report, which features more than 100 conclusions on the quality and quantity of the intelligence community’s Iraq assessments, follows a yearlong review by the Senate committee.
The Senate report is among other investigations under way into the intelligence community’s recent performance. Bush named two commissions to investigate the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and U.S. intelligence capabilities regarding weapons of mass destruction.
A joint congressional inquiry already delved into the Sept. 11 attacks, finding numerous mistakes that prevented authorities from stopping al-Qaida. The House Intelligence Committee is also looking into the Iraq weapons estimates, among still other independent reviews.
The Senate report is the first part of a two-phase review, which at times polarized the usually bipartisan Intelligence Committee.
full text of the Senate report: www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5403731