Bush Says He Would Invade Iraq Again, Despite Absence of Weapons of Mass Destruction

By Mike Nartker
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — U.S. President George W. Bush said Friday that he would choose again to invade Iraq because of the threat posed by former President Saddam Hussein, despite a Senate committee report that says the CIA’s assumptions on prewar Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction were either overstated or not supported by available intelligence (see GSN, July 9).

During a re-election campaign stop in Lancaster, Pa., Bush said he “welcomed” the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report on prewar Iraq intelligence.

“It’s important for a president and the Congress to get the best intelligence possible in this war against these terrorists. One of the key components of finding out who is going to hurt us is good intelligence,” he said.

On Friday, the Senate intelligence panel released a report detailing the results of its yearlong inquiry into the CIA’s 2002 National Intelligence Estimate entitled Iraq’s Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction. According to the committee, “most of the major key judgments” included in the estimate, such as prewar Iraq’s efforts to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program, its possession of biological and chemical weapons, its efforts to develop unmanned aerial vehicles for use in biological attacks and that its biological weapons research program was active and larger than prior to the 1991 Gulf War, were either “overstated, or were not supported by, the underlying intelligence.”

The report’s 117 conclusions also include:

*         the U.S. intelligence community “did not accurately or adequately explain to policy-makers” the uncertainties behind the assessments made in the estimate;

*         the intelligence community suffered from a “group-think dynamic” that prewar Iraq had an active WMD program, which led analysts to interpret ambiguous information as positive evidence of such an effort and ignore or minimize intelligence that Iraq did not have an active WMD program;

*         intelligence officials did not adequately supervise analysts and failed to encourage them to challenge assumptions or to fully consider alternative arguments;

*         there were “significant shortcomings in almost every aspect” of human intelligence activities against Iraq’s WMD efforts, with many of the problems resulting from “a broken corporate culture and poor management”;

*         the CIA failed to fully share information with other intelligence agencies and, in some instances, failed to consider information provided by analysts from other agencies; and

*         intelligence analysts were not influenced by “political pressure” to reach certain conclusions.

“Tragically, the intelligence failure set forth in this report will affect our national security for generations to come. Our credibility is diminished.  Our standing in the world has never been lower,” Senator Jay Rockefeller (W.Va.), the top Democrat on the Senate intelligence panel, said Friday during a press conference to release the report.

On Friday, however, Bush defended his decision to invade Iraq, which the White House said at the time was based largely on the threat posed by Iraq’s alleged WMD efforts. In his remarks Friday, Bush said that along with the administration, both houses of the U.S. Congress and the United Nations believed that Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. While no such weapon stockpiles have been found in Iraq, Hussein still posed a threat to the United States that necessitated his removal from power, Bush said. The president added that he would still make the decision today to invade.

“I just want you to remember, that the man had the capacity to make weapons. He had the ability to make weapons.  He had the intent and the capability, which is why I say I would have done it again, because he’s a dangerous person,” Bush said.

Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.), who is set to challenge Bush in the 2004 presidential election, accused the president Friday of making “misleading statements” about Iraq to build support for war.

“He certainly misled America about nuclear involvement. And he misled America about the types of weapons that were there, and he misled America about how he would go about using the authority he was given. ‘Going to war as a last resort’ means something to me. The president did not go to war as a last resort, period,” Kerry said in an interview with the New York Times.

Rockefeller said Friday that Congress would probably not have supported the invasion of Iraq if members knew of all the errors in the prewar intelligence.

“The fact is that the administration at all levels, and to some extent us, used bad information to bolster its case for war. And we in Congress would not have authorized that war … with 75 votes if we knew what we know now,” he said.

Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) said Friday, though, that lacking the information on prewar Iraq’s WMD efforts, the rationale for war might have been based more on humanitarian reasons. He added that he was unsure as to how much support there would have been for an invasion on such grounds.

“I don’t know how many more resolutions the U.N. would have to pass in regards to a humanitarian intervention or whether or not that kind of military intervention that we conducted would have been conducted,” he said.

The CIA on Friday acknowledged the long list of flaws included in the Senate report.

“We get it. Although we think the judgments were not unreasonable when they were made nearly two years ago, we understand with all that we have learned since then that we could have done better,” acting CIA Director John McLaughlin said.

The CIA has taken steps to improve its processes for preparing National Intelligence Estimates, McLaughlin said. Among such steps are plans to include caveats in a document’s summary, improved efforts to validate sources, the subjection of every estimate to “double analysis” and increasing other agencies’ access to CIA intelligence.

McLaughlin rejected a claim made by Roberts that the CIA was part of an “assumption train” that prewar Iraq had active WMD efforts.

“If it was an assumption train, we were not the engine. I’m not even sure we were the coal car. I don’t know where we were on it, but people all around the world made the assumption that this country had weapons,” he said.

In addition, McLaughlin noted that the CIA had accomplished a number of successes regarding the WMD efforts of other rogue states, such as Iran, Libya and North Korea.

“It is wrong to exaggerate the flaws or leap to the judgment that our challenges with prewar Iraq weapons intelligence are evidence of sweeping problems across the broad spectrum of issues with which the intelligence community must deal,” he said.

While the Senate report has prompted calls from lawmakers for intelligence reform, including a proposal to establish a national director of intelligence, McLaughlin on Friday warned against sweeping changes (see related GSN story, today).

“If people are contemplating reform of the community, be careful not to destroy the advances we’ve made. There’s this impression out there that somehow the community has stood still over the last seven years. In fact we have transformed ourselves dramatically in ways that are not well understood,” he said.

According to Senate intelligence panel members, the committee is now set to examine whether Bush administration officials misused prewar intelligence on Iraq to bolster the case for war. The committee previously decided, to the frustration of some Democratic members, to divide the investigation into a two-stage approach, with the initial focus being on the intelligence community’s performance. 

Roberts said yesterday that he was unsure if the committee would finish its investigation of possible misuse of intelligence before the presidential election, scheduled to be held in November.

“It is more important to get it right,” he said, denying that White House pressure had led to the division of duties.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Roberts asked committee members to submit claims made by administration officials prior to the war to be examined to determine if they were exaggerated or unsupported. 

Rockefeller said yesterday that more needs to be done to fully address whether Bush administration officials pressured intelligence analysts. While the Senate report, which was unanimously approved by the committee, denied that such pressure occurred, Rockefeller said that numerous public statements by administration officials on the threat posed by Iraq might also have influenced intelligence analysts.

“I think there was pressure. I think there was pressure primarily because of the nonstop barrage of statements that were coming out of the administration saying that, you know, that the horror, mushroom clouds, grave and growing danger, all that kind of thing,” he said on Fox News Sunday.

Roberts, though, continued to stand by the assessment made in the Senate report.

“I don’t know how many times I have tried to say this in committee and in public — if anybody has any evidence of their analytical product being changed or coerced or manipulated or intimidated, please come forward. We had some people come forward, but it was all hearsay, and it didn’t amount to anything in terms of any direct evidence. We had one individual raise his hand, but it was about Cuba,” he said on Fox News Sunday.

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