July 15, 2004
Phone: 202.224.6221
The Intelligence Community Was Only Half the Problem
The recent report by the Senate Intelligence Committee on U.S. intelligence on Iraq paints an alarming picture of the Central Intelligence Agency’s failures in producing accurate intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and links to terrorist organizations.
The report is an accurate, hard-hitting and well-deserved critique of the CIA, yet it is only half of the picture. The central issue of how intelligence on Iraq was misused or exaggerated by Bush administration officials was not part of the Committee's report.
Instead, that subject was delayed to a so-called “second phase” of the Committee's investigation. As a result, the report fails to fully explain the environment of intense pressure in which Intelligence Community officials were asked to render judgments on matters relating to Iraq, and it fails to analyze the exaggerations of Bush administration officials that went beyond the intelligence they were provided.
During the late summer and fall of 2002, senior officials in the Bush administration were forcefully and repeatedly making definitive statements about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. In August 2002, Vice President Cheney said, “We know that Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons.” In September 2002, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld asserted, “[Saddam Hussein] has said, in no uncertain terms, that he would use weapons of mass destruction against the United States. He has, at this moment, stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and is pursuing nuclear weapons.” As the Bush administration prepared for war against Iraq in the fall of 2002 and made those public statements, the Intelligence Community judgments on Iraq shifted significantly from their earlier, more cautious assessments. The Committee's report demonstrates how many of the key judgments of the CIA’s October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate were stretched and manipulated to suggest that Iraq's mass destruction programs were stockpiled and weaponized.
During a crucial period of debate on whether a pre-emptive invasion of Iraq was necessary, U.S. policymakers were presented with an exaggerated picture of the threat posed by Iraqi weapons programs. Top Bush administration officials then went further and brushed aside the caveats that the Intelligence Community had placed on Iraq's links to terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.
By the time American troops were poised to attack Iraq, the CIA itself was making public statements that conveyed a level of conviction and certainty that was not supported by the underlying intelligence.
The charge levied in the President's State of the Union Address in late January 2003 that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa demonstrates how the Intelligence Community allowed the administration to cite a British intelligence report as the proof although the CIA considered that report “weak” and “not credible.”
As invasion plans of Iraq were finalized, the administration had succeeded in painting a stark and alarming picture of an imminent threat to American security based on erroneous intelligence and overheated rhetoric.
Vice President Cheney told a nationwide television audience that Iraq not only had a nuclear weapons development program but had “in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.” President Bush spoke of a “mushroom cloud” and “massive and sudden horror,” while top administration officials continued to link Iraq and al-Qaeda terrorism in vivid terms that went well beyond the intelligence community's assessments.
It is no wonder that by the time the military campaign to overthrow Saddam Hussein's regime began in March of 2003, a majority of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda.
By selectively releasing and mischaracterizing intelligence information that supported an Iraq B al-Qaeda collaboration, while continuing to keep information classified and out of the public realm that did not, the administration distorted intelligence to persuade Americans into believing the actions of al-Qaeda and Iraq were indistinguishable.
The thorough evaluation of pre-war intelligence set forth in the Intelligence Committee's report makes a compelling case for reform. There is a rare opportunity to forge a bipartisan consensus in Congress on reforms that will strengthen the intelligence community, improve accountability, and foster cooperation and the sharing of intelligence information among agencies. But while the Congress begins considering reform legislation, it is important that the Intelligence Committee complete its work by examining the extent to which intelligence was misused or exaggerated by Bush administration officials to make the case for war.
Legislative reforms that improve collection, analysis and sharing of intelligence will not prevent intelligence from being slanted or exaggerated in support of policy objectives. In the year and a half preceding the Iraq war, Bush administration officials ignored the long-standing independence of objective intelligence from administration policy.
Restoring the Intelligence Community’s damaged credibility requires us to confront and acknowledge this unpleasant reality in order to prevent it from happening again.