The White House raps the Washington Post.
Setting the Record Straight:
The Washington Post On Pre-War Intelligence
The Washington Post Implies That The Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) Was Superior To The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) Given To Congress.
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"But Bush does not share his most sensitive intelligence, such as the President's Daily Brief, with lawmakers. Also, the National Intelligence Estimate summarizing the intelligence community's views about the threat from Iraq was given to Congress just days before the vote to authorize the use of force in that country." (Dana Milbank And Walter Pincus, "Asterisks Dot White House's Iraq Argument," The Washington Post, 11/12/05)
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But The PDB Was The Focus Of Intelligence Reform And Was More "Problematic" Than The NIE Given To Congress.
The Robb-Silberman Commission Found The PDB To Contain Similar Intelligence In "More Alarmist" And "Less Nuanced" Language.
"As problematic as the October 2002 NIE was, it was not
the Community's biggest analytic failure on Iraq. Even
more misleading was the river of intelligence that flowed
from the CIA to top policymakers over long periods of
time--in the President's Daily Brief (PDB) and in its
more widely distributed companion, the Senior Executive
Intelligence Brief (SEIB). These daily reports were, if
anything, more alarmist and less nuanced than the NIE."
(Charles S. Robb And Laurence H. Silberman, The Commission On The Intelligence Capabilities Of The United States Regarding Weapons Of Mass Destruction, 3/31/05, Pg. 14)
The Robb-Silberman Commission Reported That The Intelligence In The PDB Was Not "Markedly Different" Than The Intelligence Given To Congress In The NIE.
"It was not that the intelligence was markedly different.
Rather, it was that the PDBs and SEIBs, with their
attention-grabbing headlines and drumbeat of repetition,
left an impression of many corroborating reports where in
fact there were very few sources. And in other instances,
intelligence suggesting the existence of weapons programs
was conveyed to senior policymakers, but later
information casting doubt upon the validity of that
intelligence was not."
(Charles S. Robb And Laurence H. Silberman, The Commission On The Intelligence Capabilities Of The United States Regarding Weapons Of Mass Destruction, 3/31/05, Pg. 14)
The Washington Post Implies That There Have Been No Findings On The Use Of Intelligence.
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"But the only committee investigating the matter in Congress, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has not yet done its inquiry into whether officials mischaracterized intelligence by omitting caveats and dissenting opinions. And Judge Laurence H. Silberman, chairman of Bush's commission on weapons of mass destruction, said in releasing his report on March 31, 2005: 'Our executive order did not direct us to deal with the use of intelligence by policymakers, and all of us were agreed that that was not part of our inquiry.'" (Dana Milbank And Walter Pincus, "Asterisks Dot White House's Iraq Argument," The Washington Post, 11/12/05)
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But Congressional And Independent Committees Have Repeatedly Reported No Distortion Of Intelligence
The Bipartisan Senate Select Committee On Intelligence Report "Did Not Find Any Evidence" Of Attempts To Influence Analysts To Change Intelligence.
"Conclusion 83. 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.
Conclusion 84. 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."
("Report On The U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments On Iraq," U.S. Senate Select Committee On Intelligence, 7/7/04, Pg. 284-285)
The Robb-Silberman Commission Finds "No Evidence Of Political Pressure."
"These are errors serious errors. But these errors stem
from poor tradecraft and poor management. The Commission
found no evidence of political pressure to influence the
Intelligence Community's pre-war assessments of Iraq's
weapons programs. As we discuss in detail in the body of
our report, analysts universally asserted that in no
instance did political pressure cause them to skew or
alter any of their analytical judgments. We conclude that
it was the paucity of intelligence and poor analytical
tradecraft, rather than political pressure, that produced
the inaccurate pre-war intelligence assessments."
(Charles S. Robb And Laurence H. Silberman, The Commission On The Intelligence Capabilities Of The United States Regarding Weapons Of Mass Destruction, 3/31/05, Pg. 50-51)
The British Butler Report Finds "No Evidence" Of Intelligence Distortion.
"In general, we found that the original intelligence
material was correctly reported in [Joint Intelligence
Committee] assessments. An exception was the '45 minute'
report. But this sort of example was rare in the several
hundred JIC assessments we read on Iraq. In general, we
also found that the reliability of the original intelligence
reports was fairly represented by the use of accompanying
qualifcations. We should record in particular that we
have found no evidence of deliberate distortion or of
culpable negligence. We examined JIC assessments to see
whether there was evidence that the judgements inside
them were systematically distorted by non-intelligence
factors, in particular the in uence of the policy positions
of departments. We found no evidence of JIC assessments
and the judgements inside them being pulled in any
particular direction to meet the policy concerns of
senior of cials on the JIC." ("Review Of Intelligence On
Weapons Of Mass Destruction,"
Report Of A Committee Of Privy Counsellors, 7/14/04, Pg. 110)
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