Dubious Intelligence CIA Enraged by Cynical White House End-Run Around Its Sources
by Eric Margolis
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- For the Bush administration, which has wrapped itself in faux
patriotism, accusations that it revealed the identity of a serving CIA agent are a huge
political embarrassment and another blow to its sinking credibility.
Last July, former ambassador Joseph Wilson IV contradicted President George Bush's
assertions that Iraq had imported uranium ore from Niger.
Wilson said his investigations in Niger found the whole story was a fake, based on forged
documents.
Bush nevertheless suggested Iraq was importing uranium in his keynote state of the union
address.
Wilson's patriotic act ruined his career and made him the target of a vicious smear
campaign.
At least six journalists were told by administration sources that Wilson's wife was an active
CIA officer. Journalist Robert Novak cited her name in his column.
Revealing names of CIA agents is a federal crime. There is speculation that the source of
the story came from within the office of Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's powerful
chief of staff.
(Bush's press secretary has said "absolutely nothing brought to our attention suggests any
White House involvement and that includes the vice-president's office." Scott McClellan
added that if it turns out any administration officials were involved in the leak, they'll be
fired.)
In any event, Libby and Pentagon civilian allies, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz,
Douglas Feith and Richard Perle, all played key roles in the buildup to the war with Iraq.
They brought intensive pressure on the CIA to produce proof of hidden weapons and links
between Iraq and al-Qaida.
Behind the scandal over identifying Wilson's wife as a CIA agent, a far more important
battle is raging.
The Bush administration plans to spend $1 billion in the fruitless search for unconventional
weapons in Iraq.
The non-existence of these weapons, which were the main excuse for the invasion, has
badly damaged the White House; eroded the power of Cheney's men Wolfowitz, Feith and
Perle -- who jestingly called themselves "the cabal" -- and humiliated the hapless Secretary
of State Colin Powell.
Now "the cabal" and some politicians blame the CIA for the failure to find Iraq's non-existent
weapons and alleged links to al-Qaida.
But the CIA is fighting back through leaks, accusing the administration of distorting,
corrupting and politicizing the conduct of national security.
The CIA does deserve sharp criticism over Iraq. It had a shocking lack of reliable human
intelligence there, forcing the agency to rely heavily on dubious defectors and foreign
intelligence, rather than its own resources.
Ironically, France had excellent intelligence in Iraq and rightly warned Bush his war would
lead to disaster. Bush was too busy listening to the neo-conservatives' hyped intelligence
to heed France's excellent and reliable advice.
So far, CIA chief George Tenet has refused public comment over the attacks, but agency
sources report him furious with the White House and its neo-conservative Pentagon allies.
CIA staffers are waiting for Tenet to go public and take on the neo-cons who are trying to
blame the agency for the fiasco they created.
When White House hawks such as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Cheney and the
Pentagon cabal found the CIA was not providing damning evidence on Iraq they needed to
promote war, they created a special intelligence unit.
It cherry-picked bits and pieces of negative data about Iraq, trumpeted lurid claims by Iraqi
defectors, then passed them on to the White House.
Iraqi exiles were used as a primary conduit for the disinformation, and were provided with
funding and political support. The New York Times repeatedly parroted the Iraqi defectors'
distortions.
This special intelligence office reportedly sought to link with Israel's Mossad intelligence
agency in the anti-Iraq campaign. But the Mossad was too professional to have anything to
do with this ad hoc operation. However, members of Israeli PM Ariel Sharon's government
reportedly provided the neo-cons' special intel unit with a stream of negative stories about
Iraq.
The CIA's professionals were enraged by this end-run, and appalled that defectors' wild
tales and self-serving material were being used to formulate U.S. national security policy.
Before the war on Iraq, CIA director Tenet took the unprecedented step of publicly warning
many of the claims about Iraq were not justified by facts.
But he was ignored in Bush's rush to war and did not repeat his caution. Warnings by
ranking CIA officers that their country was being stampeded into war by neo-cons with a
hidden agenda were also ignored.
The Wilson affair has exploded at a time when the extent that America's professional
intelligence cadre was circumvented, or bullied and intimidated into silence by the Bush
administration has become a major public issue.
Such politically motivated pressure on the nation's intelligence establishment by men with
little American flags on their lapels is totally unacceptable and gravely endangers U.S.
national security.
Real patriots do not start wars to win elections while diverting attention from financial
scandals.
CIA chief Tenet ought to come out and denounce those who led the U.S. into an
unnecessary war that has become a bloody and unimaginably expensive mess.
But CIA officers are trained to remain silent and obey the chain of command.
So it's up to Congress to demand a full investigation of the corruption of national security,
and of the extremist ideologists who misled America into a war that should never have been
waged.
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