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U.S. Intelligence Agencies Turned Vague Prewar Iraq Information Into Firm Threats, Senate Inquiry Finds
The U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s inquiry into prewar intelligence on Iraq has determined that U.S. agencies converted vague information into firm warnings about Iraq’s WMD threat, USA Today reported today (see GSN, March 12). While the committee’s report is still being prepared for public release, there is bipartisan agreement over the committee’s conclusions, senators and Senate staff members said. “The picture in regards to intelligence is not very flattering,” committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) said. The report states that poor coordination led to various intelligence agencies distributing different assessments among senior officials, resulting in public statements that were not always supported by most intelligence agencies, according to USA Today. In addition, the report criticizes CIA Director George Tenet and his agency for constantly highlighting the worst-case scenario of the Iraq threat (John Diamond, USA Today, March 15). Meanwhile, senior Bush administration officials yesterday defended the decision to invade Iraq. During an interview with ABC’s This Week, Secretary of State Colin Powell said the Bush administration acted on the best intelligence available concerning prewar Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction. “We may not find the stockpiles. They may not exist any longer, but let’s not suggest that somehow we knew this,” Powell said. “We went to the United Nations, we went to the world, with the best information we had. Nothing that was cooked,” he said. Powell also said the invasion of Iraq was justified even if weapons of mass destruction are ultimately not found. “I don’t think this takes away from the rightness of this, to remove this dictator, make sure that there would be no weapons of mass destruction in the future,” he said (Associated Press/USA Today, March 14). In an interview yesterday on CBS’ Face the Nation, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld noted that the Iraq Survey Group, conducting the search for evidence of prewar Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction, has not yet completed its work. “I think it’s perfectly proper to reserve final judgment until we’ve been able to go through that process, run down those leads and see what actually took place,” Rumsfeld said (Ken Guggenheim, Associated Press/Boston Globe, March 15).
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