js7a's Journal: Cooked Intelligence -- the CIA actually got it right

Wednesday John McCain joined calls from David Kay and Democrats in saying, "We need an independent commission to investigate ... why it is that we have so badly missed the mark [on Iraq intelligence.]" So today, Condoleezza Rice went on three network TV morning news shows insisting that remaining Survey Group work and internal investigations are all that is needed (so relax, everyone, we're already on top of it.)

David Kay testified, "I actually think the intelligence community owes the president [an apology], rather than the president owing the American people." But in fact the intelligence agencies got most everything fairly correct. It was the top-level officials that contradicted their reports when they said Iraq was a threat. In particular, here are some excerpts from this compilation:

• "In CIA Director George Tenet's January 2002 review of global weapons-technology proliferation, he did not even mention a nuclear threat from Iraq, though he did warn of one from North Korea." --The New Republic, 6/30/03
• "The Central Intelligence Agency has no evidence that Iraq has engaged in terrorist operations against the United States in nearly a decade, and the agency is also convinced that President Saddam Hussein has not provided chemical or biological weapons to Al Qaeda or related terrorist groups, according to several American intelligence officials." --NY Times, 2/6/02
• "In the late summer of 2002, Sen. Graham had requested a CIA analysis of the Iraqi threat. He received a 25-page classified response--noting, for example, that evidence of an Iraqi nuclear program or a link to Al Qaeda was inconclusive. Early that September, the committee also received the DIA's classified analysis, which reflected the same cautious assessments. But committee members became worried when, midway through the month, they received a new CIA analysis of the threat that highlighted the Bush administration's claims and consigned skepticism to footnotes." --The New Republic, 6/30/03
• An unclassified excerpt of a 2002 Defense Intelligence Agency study on Iraq's chemical warfare program stated that, "there is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons, or ... has - or will - establish its chemical warfare agent production facilities." --DIA report, 2002
• "The CIA sent two memos to the White House in October voicing strong doubts about a claim President Bush made three months later in the State of the Union address that Iraq was trying to buy nuclear materials in Africa." --Washington Post, 7/23/03
• The State Department's Intelligence and Research Department dissented from the conclusion in the National Intelligence Estimate that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. "The activities we have detected do not ... add up to a compelling case that Iraq is currently pursuing ... an integrated and comprehensive approach to acquiring nuclear weapons." INR accepted the judgment by Energy Department technical experts that the aluminum tubes Iraq was seeking to acquire, which was the central basis for the conclusion that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program, were ill-suited to build centrifuges for enriching uranium. --Declassified Iraq NIE released 7/2003
• "The government organization most knowledgeable about the United States' UAV program -- the Air Force's National Air and Space Intelligence Center -- had sharply disputed the notion that Iraq's UAVs were being designed as attack weapons - a WMD claim President Bush used in his October 7 speech on Iraqi WMD, just three days before the congressional vote authorizing the president to use force." --Washington Post, 9/26/03
• "Dick Cheney's repeated trips to CIA headquarters in the run-up to the war [were] for unusual, face-to-face sessions with intelligence analysts poring over Iraqi data. The pressure on the intelligence community to document the administration's claims that the Iraqi regime had ties to al-Qaida and was pursuing a nuclear weapons capacity was 'unremitting,' said former CIA counterterrorism chief Vince Cannistraro, echoing several other intelligence veterans interviewed." Additionally, CIA officials "charged that the hard-liners in the Defense Department and vice president's office had 'pressured' agency analysts to paint a dire picture of Saddam's capabilities and intentions." --Dallas Morning News, 7/28/03; Newsweek, 7/28/03
• "The Bureau of Intelligence and Research ... reiterated to Colin Powell during the preparation of his February 2003 speech that its analysts were not persuaded that the aluminum tubes the Administration was citing could be used in centrifuges to enrich uranium." --Financial Times, 7/30/03
• "In their third progress report since U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441 was passed in November, inspectors told the council they had not found any weapons of mass destruction." Weapons inspector Hans Blix told the U.N. Security Council they had been unable to find any WMD in Iraq and that more time was needed for inspections. --CNN, 2/14/03
• The head of the IAEA said in February 2003, "We have found no evidence of ongoing prohibited nuclear or nuclear-related activities in Iraq." The IAEA examined "2,000 pages of documents seized Jan. 16 from an Iraqi scientist's home -- evidence, the Americans said, that the Iraqi regime was hiding government documents in private homes. The documents, including some marked classified, appear to be the scientist's personal files." However, "the documents, which contained information about the use of laser technology to enrich uranium, refer to activities and sites known to the IAEA and do not change the agency's conclusions about Iraq's laser enrichment program." [Source: Wash. Post, 2/15/03]
• "A CIA report on proliferation released this week says the intelligence community has no direct evidence that Iraq has succeeded in reconstituting its biological, chemical, nuclear or long-range missile programs in the two years since U.N. weapons inspectors left and U.S. planes bombed Iraqi facilities." --NBC News, 2/24/03
• IAEA Director Mohamed ElBaradei said nuclear experts have found "no indication" that Iraq has tried to import high-strength aluminum tubes or specialized ring magnets for centrifuge enrichment of uranium. For months, American officials had "cited Iraq's importation of these tubes as evidence that Mr. Hussein's scientists have been seeking to develop a nuclear capability," ElBaradei said. He also noted, "the IAEA has concluded, with the concurrence of outside experts, that documents which formed the basis for the [President Bush's assertion] of recent uranium transactions between Iraq and Niger are in fact not authentic." When questioned about this on Meet the Press, Vice President Dick Cheney simply said "Mr. ElBaradei is, frankly, wrong." --NY Times, 3/7/03; Meet the Press, 3/16/03
• "A growing number of U.S. national security professionals are accusing the Bush administration of slanting the facts to justify its rush to war in Iraq. A four-person Pentagon team reviewed material gathered by other intelligence outfits for any missed bits that might have tied Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to banned weapons or terrorist groups. "They cherry-picked the intelligence stream in a bid to portray Iraq as an imminent threat," said Patrick Lang, a official at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). The DIA was "exploited and abused and bypassed in the process of making the case for war in Iraq based on the presence of WMD," he said. Greg Thielmann, an intelligence official in the State Department, said it appeared to him that intelligence had been shaped 'from the top down.'" --Reuters, 5/30/03
• "The CIA bowed to Bush administration pressure to hype the threat of Saddam Hussein's weapons programs ahead of the U.S.-led war in Iraq , a leading national security historian concluded in a detailed study of the spy agency's public pronouncements." --Reuters, 6/6/03

So who owes who an apology, again?