Sully -
Thanks for those links.
Here are some excerpts from the "Report on the U.S. INTELLIGENCE Community's Prewar INTELLIGENCE Assessments on Iraq" [inexplicable caps yours].
From the section about WMD:
"3. Overall Conclusions - Weapons of Mass Destruction
"(U) Conclusion 1. Most of the major key judgments in the Intelligence Community's October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), Iraq's Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction, either overstated, or were not supported by, the underlying intelligence reporting. A series of failures, particularly in analytic trade craft, led to the mischaracterization of the intelligence.
"(U) The major key judgments in the NIE, particularly that Iraq "is reconstituting its nuclear program," "has chemical and biological weapons," was developing an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) "probably intended to deliver biological warfare agents," and that "all key aspects - research & development (R&D), production, and weaponization - of Iraq's offensive biological weapons (BW) program are active and that most elements are larger and more advanced than they were before the Gulf War," either overstated, or were not supported by, the underlying intelligence reporting provided to the Committee. The assessments regarding Iraq's continued development of prohibited ballistic missiles were reasonable, and did accurately describe the underlying intelligence.
"(U) The assessment that Iraq "is reconstituting its nuclear program" was not supported by the intelligence provided to the Committee. The intelligence reporting did show that Iraq was procuring dual-use equipment that had potential nuclear applications, but all of the equipment had conventional military or industrial applications. In addition, none of the intelligence reporting indicated that the equipment was being procured for suspect nuclear facilities. Intelligence reporting also showed that former Iraqi nuclear scientists continued to work at former nuclear facilities and organizations, but the reporting did not show that this cadre of nuclear personnel had recently been regrouped or enhanced, as stated in the NIE, nor did it suggest that they were engaged in work related to a nuclear weapons program."
Just a few paragraphs later, this set of conclusions continues, ending thusly:
"(U) The failure of the IC to accurately analyze and describe the intelligence in the NIE was the result of a combination of systemic weaknesses, primarily in analytic trade craft, compounded by a lack of information sharing, poor management, and inadequate intelligence collection. Many of these weaknesses, which are described in detail below, have not yet been fully addressed, despite having been identified previously by other inquiry panels, including the Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2002 (2002) [sic], The Intelligence Community's Performance on the Indian Nuclear Tests (The Jeremiah Report, 1998), and the Report of the Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States (The Rumsfeld Commission, 1998). The Committee found no evidence that the IC's mischaracterization or exaggeration of the intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) capabilities was the result of political pressure."
That last sentence, at least, has given the Bush Administration the out that they didn't really know the intelligence was bad, so they didn't lie. It's amazing, though, in the light of the fact that Rumsfeld himself had headed a commission which identified systemic weaknesses in the IC's ability to provide credible analysis, weaknesses that the 2004 commission says remained unaddressed at that time, that he didn't object to George Tenet receiving the Medal of Freedom.
Also, even knowing what he obviously knew already about the poor quality of intelligence reporting, he either didn't look past the NIE into some of the raw intelligence data, nor did he question any of the NIE's conclusions.
I'm sorry, Sully, weren't you trying to prove that there actually were WMD's? Wasn't that why you posted the link to this document? Oh, no. This was just about the yellowcake.
Well I'm tired now. I'll have to get back to you about the yellowcake.
- Allen |
